My Essay Blog

More often than I care to admit, I bump into a problem that shakes the very core of my being and challenges the heart of my belief system. At such times, I feel the world closing in around me and a tendency toward desperation begins to raise its ugly head. My first impulse is to fight back, to attack the attacker, to react by either running from or toward the problem.

But I do not follow my first impulse any longer. I now stand back and look at the problem for a while. I observe it from different points of view, all the while realizing that I am not the problem but that the problem is just an indication of a small adjustment I have to make in my thinking.

No problem is bigger and more powerful than we are. We are all children of the Infinite. The Universe is biased on our side. We have within us untapped strength and wisdom to deal with all challenges that come our way.

All problems have within them the seeds of their solution. We must learn to listen to the Silence, to hear the instructions from within and to follow the “still small voice.” Life whispers to us all the time. It tells us to go this way or that, to take this road or the other. When we are frightened by what appears to be major problems, we block the “still, small voice” from our consciousness and only hear the howling winds and the thunder of the storm.

Find a quiet spot in the middle of the turbulence. Go to a quiet place within your soul and stay there for a short while. Do not rant and rave at the problem. Just go to this spot and let your fears be calmed, even for a moment. Don’t listen to the call of the problem but, rather, listen for a few seconds to the song of your soul.

I often say that it’s not what’s happening around you that causes anxiety, but what you think about what’s happening around you. Remove your thoughts from the problem for a short while. Don’t try NOT to think about the problem. That doesn’t work. Just remove your focus from the problem and think of something else. With a little practice, it becomes second nature.

Know that you’re bigger and stronger than anything that seems to annoy you. Look away, for a short while, from your problem and know that its solution is coming to you. Trust the force that created you and placed you in this part of the universe. Trust the process that has sustained you until now. Let go of the problem. Remember that it is not the problem that’s holding on to you, but that it’s you who are holding on to it.

Let it go. Don’t be like the man who was frantically rowing away from shore while his boat was firmly tied to the dock. If you want to get to the other side of the problem, you must cut the rope that’s holding you to the dock.

Soon you’ll begin to see signs that you’re on your way to success. Don’t stop what you’re doing and look around all day for such signs. You WILL see them. Ideas will come to you. You’ll have strange urges to take action by calling someone, writing a letter, sending an email. This is the “still, small voice” speaking to you.

Your problems are not more powerful than you are. You have the key to success. It is your birthright. No one can ever take it away from you. Be still and know who you are. Be calm and feel the countless tides of the centuries running through your mind. Know that you’re unique and that there is not another human being on this earth that has the combination of talents and abilities you have. You are as valid as the sun and the stars.

As Commander Spock would say…”Live long and prosper.”

What is LONELINESS? It is not about being on your own. Many people enjoy being on their own and would choose this for themselves for at lest part of the time. They enjoy having their own space. They do not feel the need to have other people around all of the time to validate them or make them feel more comfortable.

If someone experiences feelings of LONELINESS; it is usually not influenced solely by where they are or whether other people are around. It is possible to be in a room full of people and still feel very much ALONE. You can be part of a social gathering and feel LONELY as you are on the periphery and not fully involved with what is going on.

This suggests that LONELINESS is a state of mind. It is tied up with how you feel about yourself.When we have a low self esteem, we have a choice about whether to change this or not. The prospect of change can be daunting.The challenge of embracing this is however very worthwhile, with rewards not only in terms of how you feel bout yourself but also in the quality of your life.

The first task in changing our self esteem is to alter the way in which we view ourselves.

1.Instead of bombarding ourselves with an onslaught of negative comments, try to focus on the more positive aspects about yourself.This could include, PHYSICAL, PRACTICAL, PERSONAL, EMOTIONAL, ATTRIBUTES or things you are good at, PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS..

2.Try asking members of your family, colleagues, friends, how they would describe you. This may reveal a number of POSITIVE statements about you which are surprising and / or uplifting. (Note of caution, choose wisely!)

3.Write down POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS about yourself (Please see article re POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS.)

4.Pay more attention to your thoughts and feelings. When you are aware of these being critical, try challenging them or using THOUGHT STOPPING TECHNIQUES. (Please see article re THOUGHT STOPPING TECHNIQUES.)

5.Practise seeing yourself in particular situations when you feel CONFIDENT and good about who you are and the circumstances you are in. you are feeling comfortable. Feedback from others is POSITIVE. People are paying attention to you. You are maintaining good eye contact .Feed as much information into this exercise as possible. Pay attention to your body language and how you converse. Make sure you CHOOSE clothes to make the most of your physical attributes and feel CONFIDENT in them. Do you feel better wearing make up and perfume? (A question for the girls!) Remember how it feels to have a stronger sense of SELF WORTH, to get POSITIVE FEEDBACK from others and from your own reaction.

6.You can proceed to use the lessons learnt from this exercise to go into the situation for real. You can enter it from a more CONFIDENT and less threatened stance.

7.Try not to leave a situation because of feelings of discomfort or anxiety.This will only increase your fear of a situation at a higher level and give yourself negative feedback.

This can be difficult to do.

It may be helpful to remember that if you suffer from any symptoms of anxiety these are only an exaggerated form of how we all feel from time to time.They cause discomfort but are not life threatening. Placed in a difficult situation, your symptoms any increase but it will reach a peak and come down again. Try not to be afraid of this feeling and run away from the situation. If you need to, use BREATHING exercises to take control of the situation. (Please see article re BREATHING RETRAINING TECHNIQUES.)If you manage your situation effectively in this way, you will get POSITIVE feedback from the experience resulting in you being less fearful in the future.

Alternatively, PLAN ahead.

Think of what would make you feel more comfortable by REHEARSING the situation in your head.This may alert you to any possible difficulties. It is then your task to generate ways of overcoming these difficulties.

It can be useful to decide beforehand that you are only going to stay somewhere for an hour. Giving yourself a time limit may make it easier for you to relax and stay in a situation .Even if you are enjoying yourself, it still makes sense to leave at the time you promised yourself and when things are going well. This will ensure you achieve POSITIVE feedback.

8.Remember how you felt when you last heard a friend say something POSITIVE about you or when they did something which made you feel appreciated and liked.

Spend less time concentrating on negative thoughts about you. Instead be more focussed on others.

Do or say things to others which will make them feel good. You will in turn get POSITIVE feedback from this boosting your SELF ESTEEM.

Try bringing in your neighbours wheelie bin, buying someone flowers, pay someone a compliment, invite someone to lunch, simply say thank you more often!

9.Put more FUN into your life.eg.

Share a joke .Try recalling something which has made you LAUGH heartily.Watch a good comedy. Get out some old photographs. It is even better if you can share the experience with a friend. Share the LAUGHTER!

10.Get involved in some type of activity which will raise your CONFIDENCE. People often resist the suggestion to attend a confidence building class. There is a place for them but it is perhaps not the best or the healthiest option, to put people together with others who have the same difficulty.

Instead, try one of the following:

Join a drama, music, art, singing or art class, take up a contact sport, challenge yourself by commencing, rock climbing, canoeing, diving, etc.

You will benefit from having set yourself a GOAL or CHALLENGE and by the opportunity to express yourself in a different way.

You will definitely have something new and interesting to talk about.

If you have a family, you may choose an ACTIVITY which you can do together such as cycling.Dance has the added benefit of being good FUN and brings you into contact with other people. SKIPPING can help increase bone density so is great for all of us over 40.Beware you are more likely to do this on your own. You could however go for a really nice walk somewhere and have your ropes in your pocket.

If you find it difficult to fit EXERCISE into your day:

Try WALKING instead of using transport .If you must drive, park a little way from your place of work. If you take a bus, get off a few stops from where you need to. Use stairs not the lift.

If you have a sedentary job, make a point of getting out of your chair regularly and take a WALK in the building.Have a brisk twenty minute WALK at lunch time. Try to get others ROPED in too!

This will offer opportunity to make a new group of friends.You will have a new shared interest and a sense of camaraderie. You may need to trust and be trusted by others.You will have the opportunity to give and receive POSITIVE feedback and have

FUN!!!

11.Exercise is useful in enhancing SELF ESTEEM and will also benefit you by lowering your state of arousal. This means that more stress will be required for you to be affected by it. Increased muscle tone can help you feel more confident with how you look. Pick an exercise to meet your specific needs.

12.Stop comparing yourself with others. You will only come out of this disfavourably.

13.Stop judging others. More importantly-Stop judging yourself!

The best way to quit smoking is through your will power. You may say, easier said, than done! The only person in this world, who will not fail you, is ‘thy own self’. If that rule is applied here, you shall have your last puff, when you decide about it.

Why this highest taxed commodity, attracts highest numbers of people? It is such a strong personalized habit, no cut and dry formulas can be put forth, to quit smoking. How deep is your cigarette trench? Are you consuming the cigarettes or the cigarettes consume you?

Who will be the victor in the emerging battle?

If you are a marginal case, if your day is done with a few cigarettes, cold turkey may well suit you. To what degree you are addicted to nicotine? This is the deciding factor. But if you require 5 packets of cigarettes per day (50 cigarettes), you will have tough time in negotiating the quit-boat! This path has led to the smoking-salvation, for about 5% of the people, who opted thus.

Let’s take it that you are not a compulsive smoker, and you go for a cigarette, when you are under stress. You need something in your mouth for psychological relief. And your option is cigarette. In that case, think of any other alternative. You need to try the chewing gum. But eventually don’t cultivate the habit of both- chewing gum as well as the cigarette!

If you are not sure about your will power, do believe in the will power of someone else, to control your will power. That is possible by hypnotherapy. In this method, your subconscious mind is targeted in your artificially articulated unconscious state, and certain vibrations against your smoking habit, are transmitted to you. But, you will carry the feeling throughout your life that someone else is responsible for your quitting the smoking habit. Doesn’t matter, a friend in need is a friend indeed!

Price factor has not deterred you from smoking, but you need to constantly give the auto-suggestion to your mind, that you can save lots of money, by quitting smoking. Even if it has a marginal effect on reducing your smoking, this point is worth a serious consideration.

Use combinations of quitting methods to get rid of smoking forever. You need to find a suitable nicotine replacement alternative and half the battle is won. Join group counseling sessions, where you are told and retold many a damaging effects of the smoking habit. This will definitely have profound effects as for your relations with the cigarette habit.

Can the anti-smoking drug zyban, drag you from the hard influence of cigarette? When nothing else works, try that option as well!

Why get a coach? The answer was obvious to me after my eight years as a self employed creator of wearable art. I learned in those years that it was nearly impossible to simultaneously hold a vision, map out a path, walk that path and measure my own progress. I was so often distracted by the apparently conflicting demands of the marketplace and of my heart. Even my body seemed to throw obstacles in my path as tendonitis or other ills appeared to contradict my vision of right livelihood.

As I thought about the kinds of problems I faced I came to understand and accept that it would always be difficult to have both an overarching view of my long term goals, a cogent undersanding of my near term strategies, and a confident and simple approach to walking my daily path. Once I thought about it the reason was obvious: each of these activities requires that I adopt a different perspective. And guess what, it’s hard to be in more than one place at a time, so often I would be conducting one activity from the perspective of another. No wonder I felt confused and overwhelmed.

Coaching offers a solution by providing objective recognition, validation and reinforcement. A coach helps you to clarify your goals, test your plans against your resources and your intentions, and measure your progress. A coach asks you to live up to standards you set together while reminding you to enjoy the grace of being a human being and not a ‘droid. Coaching deals with the human condition: it’s not about being or even becoming perfect.

I think of the kind of business coaching and personal growth coaching which I practice as motivating, instructing, focusing, correcting and encouraging my clients to find solutions to their problems and to achieve a fundamental way of being in the world that flows organically and authentically from who they really are.

It’s easy to see that successful coaching requires a good match between coach and client. If you are interested in getting a coach, start by asking yourself these questions:

- What are my goals and expectations around hiring a coach?

- What’s my time frame for achieving them?

- What’s my learning style? What kind of person is likely to support that style?

- How much can I afford to invest in coaching?

Find at least three coaches to interview. The International Coach Federation has extensive listings of its members coaches. Another resource is The Coaches Training Institute. Ask around among your professional colleagues, inquire at the local Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Administration or business schools.

Select two or three coaches to interview. In addition to the following sample questions, ask any that reflect your personal priorities and concerns. It’s a good idea to write out your questions in advance.

1. Ask about their experience coaching people who have goals and challenges similar to your own.

2. Do they work by phone, in person, by email? How long are the sessions? How frequent?

3. What do they charge? When is payment due?

4. What support do they offer between sessions?

5. Are you required to buy any support materials (books, workbooks, etc.)?

6. What kind of commitment do they require? Many coaches ask that you commit to a preliminary two or three month period after which you decide whether or not to continue working together.

7. Ask for a couple of references and follow up by calling them.

Coaching can introduce you to the self you were meant to be. The time you invest in choosing your coach will be amply repaid by his or her greater ability to recognize, nurture and evoke that self.

For the Law of Attraction, as presented in the video, “The Secret,” to work optimally, one needs to exercise mental control over both the conscious and sub-conscious mind. While many would say they can’t be held accountable for what they dream, much evidence would suggest that not only does one have control over their dreams, but that it may be a key component in mastering your intent upon what may the most important level.

The practice of realizing one is dreaming and exercising control over those dreams has been known as lucid dreaming since named thus around 1910 by Frederik Van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist who studied dreams after the initial discoveries made in the 19th century by Frenchman, Hervey Saint-Denys. However, the experience of these remarkable dreams has been recounted in literature as far back as the 5th century dreams of Gennadius, as told to St. Augustine.

Often associated with the experience of the divine, all the major religions of the world have, at some point in their development, accepted lucid dreaming as a sign of piety or ability. Since the 8th century, the ability to exercising dram control has been an absolute requirement of Buddhist monks on their way to enlightenment. Though a cornerstone of early Christianity, it became somewhat suspect in the Dark Ages throughout medieval Europe.

Whether the dreams are visitations of the gods or not, the ability to interact in a meaningful way with ones own sub-conscious mind with their conscious faculties intact is a powerful tool that allows you to really get a good idea as to the vast resources of memory and imagination that one is working with. By achieving dream control, one is able to confront negativity and turn it around into a hope for the future. Just as the waking mind can be trained, so can the world of dreams.

Practically, many people accidentally find themselves able to awake from a bad dream they don’t like, or are capable of realizing they’re not in any danger from a nightmare, realizing it’s, “just a dream.” It is a much smaller proportion of people who realize they can creatively control how the dream is played out. Nonetheless, anyone is capable of lucid dreaming. Like learning to banish negative thought from your own intentions to avoid attracting more, it can be done with a great deal of practice.

Of course, if one doesn’t actually remember their dreams, that’s the first start. The first step to remembering dreams is to stop taking medications to sleep or wake. A great many medications interfere with the normal action of your mind. Consult with a physician before going off any psychoactive medications, but these are often a barrier to exploring the world of your sub-conscious mind.

The next step is to give yourself a command to remember your dreams when you’re drifting off to sleep every night. The act of giving yourself a command and making that the last thing you think about every day will very soon &ndash often within a week or two (though sometime up to a month may pass in some individuals) &ndash yield results. Concentrating upon your dreaming state is very much akin to the Power of Attraction. You are literally calling your dreams to you just as you might “call” a new car or better house into your life.

This is very often accompanied by keeping a journal of what you dream. The exercise not only keeps a record of your progress, but also assists with recall so you can reliably get through he whole dream when you wake up since you’ve been training your self to do so.

Once you’re having and remembering dreams, the next step is to learn to realize you’re dreaming while doing so. Carlos Castanada was very famously told to focus on his hands and use that single image as the trigger to alert his conscious mind that is was in the dreaming “world.” This simple technique is effective since one almost always has their hands and con recognize them. With a few months of practice, many people are able to make their dream selves look at their hands.

When just starting out, when people realize they’ve looked at their own hands and that they’re dreaming, often they wake themselves up with all the excitement of having done it. If one is able to stay asleep and continue on with the dream, they will now have complete control over it, or as complete control as they are willing to accept.

Upon this realization, dreams tend to become far more vivid, and often are filled with much more richness than is typical. Colours are brighter, sounds are sweeter and you can remember the smell and taste of everything in a hyper-realistic way. It is often easier to reach states of meditation or prayer when one is able to exercise control over the sub-conscious mind.

All of this makes it far easier to control those negative thoughts and keep the mind focused upon constructive goals that you’ve identified as important. It may also help you refine those goals into things that really do make you happy. Becoming a lucid dreamer may be the most pleasant way of practising the sort of mind control that is the very heart of the Law of Attraction.

YuShan2007

When it comes to developing your own personal development plan, there are certain things you will need. Creating a plan for yourself is often a great way to reach goals and to develop skills you once thought were impossible. A plan makes everything seem less overwhelming and terrifying. It also allows you to be more focused on your tasks and goals when you create a timeline of sorts within your plan. Take a look at these important personal development plan components you will need to remember as you begin to create your personal development plan.

Your Coach

First, unless you are a perfect self-motivator, you will need a coach! Coaching is one of the modern methods of creating improvement. In addition to helping you improve, a personal development coach can help you learn new things, reach goals, manage your life, change your life and become successful. Whether your plan is geared toward your personal life or your business life, a coach can be someone to trust. Someone who is always on your side!

Patience

When you begin to draw out your personal development plan, you must have patience. Remember, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. If you do begin to feel overwhelmed, you will likely give up. However, if you are careful with yourself and allow yourself time to adjust and perform, you will have a better chance of following through. Make short term and long term goals but be sure you stay realistic within your time frame. Sure, all dreams can be realized, if given enough time and energy.

Flexibility

Another thing your plan must have is flexibility. Your plan must be able to be reactive to things that will naturally occur as you begin to follow it. Your coach can help you with this aspect and can enable you to draw out your talents in a non-judgmental manner. As you go on your journey of self-fulfillment and self-discovery you will need to be aware that things will not likely go exactly according to your plan. Part of the process is to learn to adapt and grow!

A personal development plan is one that is best created with the help of a professional life or personal development coach. They are trained in the art of helping people make their lives bigger and better that they ever thought was possible. They can help you get on the right path to your individual goals and find the right methods of achieving them. Unlike a therapist, a personal development coach is ready to look toward your future instead of digging into your past.

Why see a hypnotist?

Why does change, at times, seem so difficult? Why can’t we just make up our minds to change patterns of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions and have it happen that quickly? The ‘Holy Grail’ of change work, whether it be self-help, or through utilizing a coach or therapist, is the instant ‘quick fix’ change can rectify years of habitual behavior patterns in a few short moments. Oh, and while we’re at it let’s make those moments comfortable and relaxing.

Let us look for a moment at a possible reason why change doesn’t always occur that easily (in fact rarely) and why hypnosis might be a possible candidate for that Grail.

Your entire magnificent body/mind system sails through life performing an astronomical number of simultaneous tasks. Barring emergencies, your heart never stops beating, your lungs never stop operating, you metabolize the food you eat, and maintain a body temperature of 98.6 regardless of your environment. And, that is just a tip of the physiological iceberg of ongoing vital functions. Yet you only become aware of these processes if there is a problem. Otherwise they thankfully require no attention. These processes are part of your vast ‘unconscious’.

Included in this ever ongoing party of physiological processes beneath your awareness, or consciousness, are all of your brain’s functions, including language, proprioception (sense of your body and it’s position), emotional responses, etc., etc. There is, of course, no clear dividing line between physical and mental processes, and we are blissfully unaware of the overwhelmingly vast majority of them.

Now, specifically regarding behaviors. Most of our behaviors seem to be picked up unconsciously from our environment. Perhaps we are born with the tendency toward some behaviors, the jury is still out on that regard, but whether nature or nurture, the acquisition of behavior is predominantly unconscious. How many times, as we mature, do we marvel at how much our behaviors (particularly speech patterns) resemble our parent’s patterns, often in spite of our best efforts. These are behaviors we unconsciously picked up from our environment as we developed.

What then, is our conscious mind, and what is it’s scope? What’s left?

Research has repeatedly shown that we can generally only be aware of, or conscious of, seven plus or minus two pieces of information at any one time. As glorious as our conscious mind is, it is so severely limited in the volume of information it can handle, that, in most cases, it is unable to have much of an effect on our overall behavior. Our conscious mind can manage momentary adjustments of behavior at best. In fact, I suggest that the main purpose of the conscious mind is to handle the necessary small bits of information we receive just until we can process them into our much more able ‘unconscious mind’.

In fact, think about how we learn new things. Take riding a bike, for example. At first, when we climb on that wobbly two wheeled device, we have more things to attend to than we could possibly consciously handle&ndashbalance, speed, avoiding oncoming obstacles, and so on. We end up falling down a lot. However, we keep at it, and one day, success! We can climb on the bike and ride, virtually without a conscious thought about balance, speed, avoiding obstacles, and all of those other innumerable matters connected with bike riding. We say we’ve learned to ride a bike. What we mean is, riding a bike is now an unconscious behavior, and our conscious mind is free to think of other things while we ride.

Once we learn something, once it becomes accepted as an unconscious behavior, it usually stays with us for life. That’s a wonderful thing for habits like bike riding and learning to read. It sometimes becomes a bit of a problem when we have learned behaviors like smoking or phobic responses. It seems as though, once a behavior is learned, we unconsciously assign a value to it (we did, after all, work hard to learn to smoke for whatever reason we had at the time). To later try to change that learned habit challenges those initial reasons and values, and seems to violate the integrity of the unconscious. Trying to consciously change a habit, like smoking, is like trying to swim upstream against an overwhelming current. With smoking, in my experience, the habit is much more difficult to break than the chemical addiction.

Hypnosis to the rescue.

There is one method of interpersonal communication that does allow access to the normally unavailable unconscious processes, and that method is hypnosis. Hypnosis simply creates a doorway to the unconscious part of our mind. A qualified hypnotist can establish communication with the part of your unconscious mind that maintains the habitual behavior you want to change. Sometimes through simple suggestion (new information) and sometimes through a more complex conversation with that unconscious part of your mind/body that controls the problematic habit, a hypnotist can literally change the course of that mighty unconscious river. Once that occurs, change results as easily as floating downstream on a sun-drenched inner tube.

Hypnosis is that “Holy Grail” of personal change.

Another helpful article from Richard Lefever, hypnotherapist, and the mind weavers at .quitsmokingoregon.com.

People go through this thing that we call life and while some are incredibly successful, there are others who just “get by” until the final curtain is drawn.

Determining your level of actual involvement in your life &ndash and thus, your level of success &ndash can be broken down into 3 categories: Desire, Duty, or Dereliction.

Desire

Following the path of desire is simply doing what you choose to do with your life. From a standpoint of health, wealth, and happiness, the person who follows their desires is fueled by one thing, and one thing only &ndash their own desires.

Duty

A life filled with a dedication to duty is one where even though you keep your own desires in mind, your primary focus always seems to be on the welfare of others. Whether you are talking about a dedication to your children or your family, or if you have a very high work ethic, the person motivated by duty always has plenty of things to focus on.

Dereliction

Dereliction is a pretty strong term, but it needs to be because this type of person doesn’t care about much of anything. They aren’t necessarily “evil” as most people would consider the meaning of that term, but this person isn’t concerned about very much. Whether considering what happens with their own life, or considering the needs of others or the world at large, this person is pretty much just floating through life without any real sense of duty or desire.

So now the question becomes which one of those personality types is most likely to succeed? Each of those people will achieve massive success on their chosen path because they are doing exactly what they feel they are supposed to be doing, and so they will continue to attract that type of lifestyle.

The person who is completely driven by their own desires and refuses to do anything that doesn’t match that direction will rarely be found engaging in any activity that is not centered around whatever it is that they want to be doing at that moment.

The duty-bound individual will continually find new ways to be duty-bound. When one commitment is handled, they will attract or create a new commitment for themselves, often without even realizing that they are doing it.

For the person who is practicing the opposite of duty &ndash dereliction &ndash their entire focus is on not focusing on much of anything. By not having any real direction for their life, and by not really caring one way or the other about what happens with other people, this person will continue to manifest that lifestyle. Their circumstances will require them to have as little input or responsibility as possible. For a more clear definition of this individual, think one word: Teenagers.

So who is right? Which one of these people is going to have the most happiness in their life?

If you define happiness as being “successful,” then each of them will be just as happy. They will each attract into their lives the people and the circumstances that will allow them to continue to successfully be exactly the type of person that they are choosing to be.

The key to determining which one of them will be the most successful does not rely on “standard” markers such as financial success, career satisfaction, personal life, etc., because those methods of measuring success only matter to the person who cares about those types of measurements.

The “starving artist” doesn’t care about financial success, at least not initially. Your average painter, illustrator, sculptor, or musician would probably do what they do for free, as long as they still had a roof over their head and enough resources to survive.

A family-focused mother or father will gladly give of their time and their financial resources, usually to the point of putting their own health, retirement, and even their sanity on the line. Yet they continue to honor what they believe to be their commitment to their children, regardless of the consequences.

The person who doesn’t much care one way or the other will happily float through life without a real financial plan, without any solid family or friendship commitments, and without even knowing what their own life is going to hold in store for them. However, they are choosing that life for themselves, so does that make them wrong?

The answer to all of these questions is that none of these people are “right” and none of them are “wrong”. They are only seen in a positive or a negative light by the person who is observing them, and they are being judged by the observing person’s belief system.

The fact of the matter is that the concepts of “right” or “wrong” don’t really exist. All that exist are the belief systems of individuals, and it is neither appropriate nor even in our power to judge others based on what we believe to be true.

The “secret of success” is that each of these individuals is 100% successful because they are doing exactly what they choose to be doing with their lives. In fact, failure itself does not even exist, as it is just another example of one person’s beliefs about what is good or what is bad.

Desire, duty, and dereliction will all bring success to the individuals who live their lives from that point of view. Not because that point of view is right or wrong, but simply because that is what that person wants to do. What greater success is there than that?

Organizing the content of your life based on your needs is a best practice for managing your time, resources and money and is an essential first step if you are to fully achieve your potential in life. The reasons for this are simple. An organized clear mind leads to clear and objective goals, which in turn leads to you being able to achieve what you set out to do.

A critical first step then in staying organized is to set up a system of resource planning and clerical needs that allows you to plan out your time effectively, and allocate where you are going to spend it. In short this means such steps as getting a day planner so that you can plan ahead. Getting appropriate stationary systems and office space in place, and also getting yourself a filing cabinet, or at the very least some kind of filing system!

It would certainly be true to say that staying organized then is not something that lots of people do naturally! At first it can even seem slightly stifling, especially if you are used to totally going with the flow of what each day brings. In truth this is ok. It IS good to be spontaneous on occasions, but in general it is vital to plan out what you need to do in a particular time frame, because otherwise it is all to easy to simply become distracted! (For help with Goal Setting you can visit .goalsettingnews.com)

All of us know this to be true if we think about it from the viewpoint of our own lives. For example, when we surf the web we find ourselves flitting between sites, and before you know it a couple of hours have past! Now, don’t get me wrong. That is one of the joys of the internet, and of life in General. But it is

nevertheless a time stealer that staying focused and staying organised could have helped to negate.

So then am I saying that Staying Organized should mean robbing you of the juice of life? Robbing you of the spontaneity? NO! No! NO! For me the exact opposite is true. Staying organized is about finishing the day’s tasks and having crammed far more good stuff in! In short it is the exact opposite of a spoil sport!

You should know your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to this area (clue… Staying organized means doing more of the things you like!) and communicate them to yourself regularly to analyze that your wants and needs are being met effectively. Then organize your time based on that feedback.

Keep with the program. Stay Organized, and Organize YOUR Life For Success!

In the busy world of today, it is more and more important that individuals learn how to properly manage their times in order to maintain a healthy balance between work, personal lives, and family. It is beginning to feel as though there are just not enough hours in any day for all of the required jobs to get done, let alone the time to unwind for the sake of personal health. Fortunately, there are a lot of books and resources that have been developed in order to assist a person in handling their time accordingly. Here are some classes and resources I found while doing some research on the Internet, and what they offer in terms of time management hints.

The Seven Habit of Highly Effective People, a book by Stephen Covey. In this book, Covey offers some time management strategies as well as categorizing the different strategies available today. In another book, he also proposes a new category of fourth generation time management, which a difference in the matter of urgency and the importance of planning. The first generation is classified as go with the flow, and individuals practicing this method keep lists which are used as reminders, and any unaccomplished items are added to the list of the next day. The second generation plans and prepares for their needs, using appointment books, calendars, electronic devices. IT is about goal setting and preparation. The third generation spends time in prioritizing and preparing for different areas of time management.

Software: There are several software programs developed to keep track of time management that can be vital assistants to the small business owner and the large business employee alike. Track-It Light Time Tracking Software is available through Dovico. It is not expensive, and allows a variety of time entry, the ability to keep track of multiple projects, and does not take up a lot of your computer’s resources because of its light format. Responsive Time Logger Time Tracking Software has an interface which allows a user to jump from project to project and also allows you to manage your time from a Palm device.

Courses: There are hundreds of courses available to help train people to manage their time better, and they are available both online and through educational institutes as well as through government programs as might be found at an employment agency or retraining office. Many businesses will also offer their employees training sessions on utilizing time efficiently. These courses are a great opportunity to lessen the stress in your life and harmonize your experiences by helping you to more effectively balance the different areas of your life.

There are several different ways in which the individual can learn to better manage his or her time. For some, reading a book might be enough to set them on a stress free path where deadlines are always met and personal lives are perfectly balanced. It may be better for most individuals, however, to take advantage of as many different resources as possible.