3 Simple Ways to Change Your Behavior and Take Control of Your Life

The French philosopher, Henri Bergson, once said that, "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."

Change is unavoidable, continuous, and is occurring all the time. 

Our country changes, our city changes, our neighborhood changes, our family changes, and we as individuals change. Sometimes it may not be perceptible by someone on the outside.

But, we know ourselves better than anyone else when we have changed. 

Our political views may have changed, our attitudes may have changed, our appearances may have changed, and even our faculties may have changed.

The term change itself has an even deeper significant when it is in reference to a change in behavior that represents coming to a fork in the road and having to choose one direction or another. If you're dissatisfied with your present state and want to change, that is significant. 

If you are dissatisfied with your career; if you're dissatisfied with your marriage or other important relationships; if you're dissatisfied with your lifestyle; or if you're dissatisfied with your career; a major change may be necessary. A desire to change and a willingness to do so is essential. No one can change you or your situation. It has to begin with you. It has to begin inside.

1. Some people continue to change jobs, mate, and friends, but never think of changing themselves. Don't become that person. If you feel that you are stuck in a rut and is seriously desirous of making a change in your life, don't hesitate to seek professional help. 

If you don't have a close friend who has your best interest at heart, then find a therapist that you can trust and establish a good working relationship with that particular person. 

2. Be willing to take your therapist's recommendations seriously. Just talking about your problem will not bring about the change you need. You must be willing to do homework between the sessions and talk about your efforts and experiences when you return to the session. Most people do not change because willingness to make the effort is lacking.

3. Think about change as taking control your life. Get off of the roller coaster ride where you are allowing others to affect your emotional level by what they say or do. It is about making the decision to become that person you want to be, to begin taking the necessary steps in that direction, and to resolve to continue to grow the rest of your life

 
You may also like Take Control of Your Life with Lifestyle Changes. Let me know your thoughts. Leave your comments below.

Connection Between Spirituality and Mental Health

Spirituality has been defined as the belief and practices that develop based on personal values and ideology of the meaning and purpose of life as part of a larger scheme.

It refers to the belief that there is a power outside of one's own that transcends understanding.

For many individuals, identifying with a religion and having religious beliefs influence their spirituality. However, spirituality is not confined to those who belonged to an organized religion or have religious beliefs.

People can develop spirituality without practicing a particular religion or believing in the powers of a supreme being. 

However, whatever is the nature of their spirituality, many individuals achieve a sense of inner peace and harmony as well as emotional fulfillment by believing that life has a purpose.

In my view spirituality and religiosity are interrelated with religiosity focusing on the external expressions of spirituality or faith. In other words religious practices can foster spirituality while spiritual practices could involve aspects of religious participation.

Nevertheless, a breakdown in spirituality can have a negative impact on one's mental well-being.

The key issue here is that whether changing their lives to improve their mental health or dealing with the recovery from a health problem, people with strong spiritual beliefs benefit from the foundation of confidence and purpose that their beliefs provide.

Now let's look at the three dimensions of spirituality. They are:
a. making personal meaning out of situations
b. coming to an understanding of self
c. appreciating the importance of connection with others.

Spirituality then may be considered a mechanism of social support, positive coping, and decision-making, avoidance of substance abuse, and help in times of stress.


What are your thoughts about spirituality? Leave your comments below.

10 No Nonsense Strategies to Easily Manage Your Time Effectively

When you manage something, you direct or control the use of it. Although you cannot direct time, you can certainly control your use of it.

All of us have the same amount of time, but how we use it, has a significant effect on the success we experience in life.

Time management does not involve any secret principles.

Rather, it involves setting priorities, organizing your life according to those priorities, making a commitment to keeping them, and enjoying the journey along the way with less stress and more accomplishments.

Here are the 10 simple and easy time management strategies.

1. Do it immediately. If a task can be completed in less than a minute, do it on the spot. So instead of putting the glasses and dishes in the sink and walking away, Wash them right away. Get it over with.

2. Organize your documents. Learn how to organize your documents and photos on your home or work computer. Consider the many free photo organizing applications and the organizing features in your word processing applications and use one or more of them.

3. Purge your email of all unnecessary messages. Get serious about it.

4. Organize your bookmarks. Determine the categories that are important to you and set them up.

5. Count to ten when you feel snowed under by clutter and general disorder, Just putting things back in their rightful place including the trash can. And always have a bag ready for thrift store donations.

6. Organize and file your junk email. Establish at least two new email accounts. Use one for all the retail and internet, promotions you want to receive, and for your shopping. The other email account should be for your relatives, friends, and urgent emails. Visited these accounts twice a day and dispatch everything you don’t want to save into the recycle bin.

7. Cook more rice than you need for your today’s meal. Use leftovers for spanish rice, fried rice, red beans and rice, or other good rice recipes.

8. Organize your bookshelves. You may find a favorite book that you just totally forgot to read or that you can benefit from rereading. Others you may just decide to donate.

9. Recycle instantly. Keep waste baskets in strategic spots around your home, and deposit junk mail, and unwanted catalogs in them. Buy a shredder and remember to shred anything with sensitive information.

10. And, finally, start your day smart. Begin your day with a healthy and delicious breakfast. Consider oatmeal, fruit, and raisin toast, an omelet, grits, and wheat toast, a raisin toast sandwich of your choice of jam and cream cheese and a piece of fruit. Or if you prefer something even lighter, how about raisin toast, and cottage cheese with fruit. Reduce or eliminate the amount of meat you eat for breakfast. You’ll then be more alert and have more energy.


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3 Quick Tips to Get Motivated and Stop Fooling Around

Motivation is the force that leads people to take action. When you’re motivated, you do something. And that’s something that you do are tied to the pursuit of your goals.

The goals that you choose and adopt reflect your feelings or emotional involvement with current circumstances and the hope that you can make things better.

Motivation comes from action that reflects your inner needs. You are motivated when you are dissatisfied and want to improve your situation.

Now, here are the 3 Quick Tips to Get Motivated 

1. Mapping Out Your Destination
On close examination, motivation flows through you in three phases. Consider the first phase as your goals.  Define your goals and your route plans – – your trip to your final destination. You need to evaluate and juggle information.

Sift through all the would-be objectives to determine which are the most beneficial. Weigh all the potential risks. And, calculate all the possible outcomes until you lock in on the best goal under the circumstances.

2. Get Revved Up

Once you fix upon your goals or goal, you need to get revved up. You need to turn on the key, adjust the mirrors, and, hit the gas pedal. With the route map in hand and a full tank of gas, you need to hit the road.

3. Start Driving
Now, you will not be driving around aimlessly, you will be moving in a very specific, goal oriented direction. Moreover, when you form new goals, you begin a motivational cycle all over again. This can happen in a matter of seconds, over a long period of time, or anywhere in between. 

This mapping, revving up, and driving is the sequence that you have to go through no matter what goal you pursue and is fundamental for helping you to overcome setbacks.

You may want to think seriously about Goal Setting and if you need some motivational thoughts, go to Success Sayings.

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6 Ways to Keep Your Attitude Positive and Control Your Destiny

The dictionary defines attitude as a state of 
mind or feeling with regard to some matter, 
a disposition. 

Here I am suggesting that your consistent 
state of mind should be positive. 

The philosopher and psychologist, William 
James once said that "the greatest discovery 
of my generation is that man can alter his 
life simply by altering his attitude of mind." 

With this in thought mind, here are 6 Ways 
      to Keep Your Attitude Positive:

1. Stretch your feeling capacity. Feelings are at the heart of life. Yet most of us lack the vocabulary to distinguish and describe the subtle nuances of our experiences.

Shades of love include affection, tenderness, admiration, liking, attraction, caring. We may hate, despise, dislike, or feel indifferent. Attraction may take the form of desire, longing, craving, or coveting.  

Hope leads us to anticipate, trust, rely, feel confident. Despair may take the form of desperation, despondency, doubt, suspicion, discouragement, disappointment, defeat, helplessness. Feel good about yourself. Value what you are and what you have.

2.  Next time you feel frightened, try to pinpoint the exact color and intensity of your emotion. Are you Anxious? Apprehensive? Panicky? Scared stiff? Terrified? Aroused? Exhilarated? Worried? Troubled? Disquieted? Uneasy? Appalled? Timid? Alarmed? Petrified? Jumpy? 

As you expand your feeling-word vocabulary, you may be surprised to discover a new depth and richness in your experiences.

3.   Associate with optimistic, successful people. Talk about your good spirits and expectations, because that kind of thinking is contagious. Let your fears rest in  peace. Life  presents us all with an array of problems, many of which we have little or no control over. Don't be obsessed with what might happen. 

4.   Look for the silver linings. Choose to be positive. Every coin has two sides; every experience both a cost and a benefit; every life, an up side and a down side. Consider your spiritual side. Trust in yourself. Trust in your life. Saying, " everything will work out OK in the end," is phony only if you do nothing to help it work out. Laugh rather than complain. Play "ain't it funny" rather than "ain't it awful." Pop mental bubbles with humor.

5.   Practice the attitude of gratitude. To a great extent our attitude determines the kinds of feelings we experience. A cynical, fearful, negative attitude will fill us with negative experience. A positive, hopeful, open attitude will fill us with warmth. 

6.   In your conversations use positive, encouraging words. Concentrate on upbeat adjectives and adverbs; use action verbs. Practice positive speech from morning to night.


What do you think of these 6 Ways. Leave your comments below. 

4 Secrets of Setting Goals in Life

We are all increasingly bombarded by events beyond our control. Wars, inflation, recession, and other outside stresses impinge on our emotions. 

When we add these events to career, family, health, financial, and personal problems, it is apparent why stress overload is such a common problem.

While these realities are here, with its rapid changes, our delicate human nervous system remains unchanged.  We continually search for firm ground on which to stand and meet our problems. 

Goals and Setting Goals in Life is that firm ground. 

Have a Goal Oriented Plan for Your Life
The truth is that if you don't have a goal oriented game plan for your life and personal development, you may well lose control of those events upon which you can exercise control. For example, you may feel reasonably secure in your career today, but are you prepared for a second, or perhaps a third career if circumstances make such a decision necessary?

Things happen unexpectedly - - career crisis, health problems, and family problems - - and, without planning you will end up being a reactor rather than an actor in life.  

Goal setting makes you an active agent in molding your life and enables you to be clear what you want. Keep in mind that not much of life is accomplished without specific, smart goals.

The pleasure of taking control of your life is, by itself, worth the effort. It prepares you for the inevitable changes that occur as you pass from decade to decade through marriage, children, career changes, retirement, and so on. 

It gives you a full perspective on your life. You can see, perhaps for the first-time, whether or not you are structuring your life to realize your potential and achieve personal fulfillment.

Here Then are Four Principles to Follow:
1. Define your goals clearly 
The failure to establish clear goals is one of the chief obstacles to achievement and personal fulfillment. The art of goal setting lies in your ability to focus on one well-defined objective at a time. A clearly defined goal is one that is specific and measurable and one that is set within a specific time frame.

2. Put your goals in writing 
Goal writing is the tool for achievement and fulfillment. Your goals must mesh with your commitment and your purpose in life. Successful people in all walks of life have found that goal writing can provide the energy and the will to achieve them. Writing down goals forces you to be specific. Your goals become more real and you avoid the dangers of vague, indefinite objectives.

3. Record baseline data 
In setting goals in Life, you need specific information about your present actions in order to establish a basis for change. It is important to have a complete and accurate record of where you stand now if you are to establish a goal for change. 

For example, if your goal is to double the amount of time you spend walking each week, keep track of the time you currently spend walking and figure the average. In setting baseline data, don't rely on memory. Make a record as it occurs and give yourself a long enough period of time to get a fair average. Good baseline information is the foundation for setting successful goals.

4. Break goals into sub goals 
Trying to make the transition from present performance to a desired goal in a single jump can lead to early failure and loss of confidence. Sub goals are stepping stones to success. A big goal is not a measure of your present status. 

It is a target -- something you need to attain ultimately. You shouldn't feel like a failure if your goal is not achieved tomorrow or the next day. You need the smaller sub goals that are just beyond your current ability but still within the realm of present possibility.

These goals can be very supportive as they help build your winning streak. Most importantly they can provide the foundation for successful activity.


Do you set goals? What has been your experience?

5 Great Success Habits You Need to Have

Let's agree that we first make our habits and then our habits make us. 

From a psychological point of view, habits are well learned responses that are performed automatically in response to some stimulus, often unrecognized by the performer.

If you had to stop and think about anything, it's not a habit.For example, most of us have acquired the habit of using the mouse for navigating the internet, using a word processor, reading, composing e-mails, and so on.

Nevertheless, using the mouse for these tasks and other related tasks are much less efficient and productive than using the keyboard. Once you begin using the keyboard, you'll quickly realize a more effective use of your time and increased productivity.

If you are skilled in using the keyboard, you cannot tell without stopping to move your fingers which finger is used to type "k" or "r". Your typing has become a string of habits too fast for thought but highly desirable for efficiency.

In that you are likely using Windows, here are some simple Microsoft Windows keyboard shortcuts you can be using now: Windows key + D (Desktop to Foreground); F2 (renames a selected file or folder); Context Menu (Right Click); Alt + underlined letter (Menu drop down, Action selection); Alt + Tab (Toggle between open applications); Alt, F +X or Alt +F4 (Exit application); Alt, Spacebar + X (Maximize Window); Alt, Spacebar + N (Minimize Window); Ctrl + W (Closes Window); F2 (Renames a selected file or folder). Getting the keyboard habit is the key to productivity.

It is easier to form good habits than to change bad ones. However, forming new habits requires a daily commitment. Here are some additional good habits that can add to your success That as an independent consultant I have found to be useful:

1. Read consistently at least 15 minutes a day in your chosen field. It doesn't matter whether they are books, articles, or reports.

2. Get to the bottom of the subject or issue to understand the pros and cons and arguments for and against it. The habit of getting to the bottom of things, usually land you on top.

3. Clear your desk at the end of the day. A cluttered desk at the beginning of your day, makes for a confused start and detracts from a sense of focus.

4. Identify six items that can be accomplished by the end of your day, write them down and make a sincere effort to complete all six.

5. Get some file crates. Put them next to your desk and place, in them, the files you are working on for easy access.

Habits are either your best servants or your worst of masters. Make your habits your best servants.

Are your habits your best servants? Leave your comments below.

 

Learn the 10 Business Success Attributes

In my article, "For Personal Development and Productivity - Start with Managing Your Time",  I discussed the three culprits that destroy personal development and productivity efforts. 

Here I will reveal the 10 Business Success Attributes and ask that you will score one for each attribute that you possess. 

Managing your time is one of them, but all are equally important:

___ Strong-Willed Survivor           ___ Opportunity Seeker
___ Fluent Communicator            ___ Information Gatherer
___ Methodical Planner                ___ Astute Money-Handler
___ Disciplined Action-Taker         ___ Self-Motivator
___ Personable People-Mover      ___ Precise Time Manager

A score of 8 or more means that you can be reasonably confident that you are a good candidate for starting and succeeding in your own business. 

Read my article on 10 Strategies for Managing Your Time Effectively after completing this.


What do you think of these 8 attributes? Leave your comments below.

Is There a Difference Between Counseling or Therapy?

Counseling zeros in on real world, everyday problems which include such concerns as "I'm facing foreclosure. What should I do?" "My son is hanging out with the wrong crowd. What should I do?" "My boss is too demanding. What should I do?" "I think my husband is having an affair. What should I do?

Therapy is another option. It has the goal of helping you to develop competencies to deal with the world in which you live. It is not about telling you how to live. But, it will offer options to you that extend beyond your worldview and will result in a disruption of your usual, rigid, thinking patterns. 

These patterns are those which have created the stress you are experiencing and have limited your spontaneity and creativity.

The types of questions therapy tend to deal with are associated with thoughts, moods, and actions. When you have such concerns as: You feel as if you can't go it alone. You feel boxed in and as if there is nowhere else to turn. You are constantly worrying and never seem to find a solution. 
Moreover, it is affecting your sleep, eating, employment, and relationships. And, you have tried to change, but you are just not experiencing any improvement.

Effective therapy will engage you in an active educational process. It will go far beyond conversational therapy and actively guide, coach, model, and teach you how to solve problems, feel better, relate better, and achieve goals. Problems are solved when you make a determined effort to solve them. 

If you continue to feel, act, and think in a certain way, chances are you are choosing that way when you could actually find out how to change and, with help, make the special effort to change. 

I hope that this clarifies what I believe is a real distinction that has to be made. Let me know what you think. Need immediate help? Call (773) 614-3201. 

Leave your comments below.