Self-Motivation Techniques

Self-Motivation Techniques

• Give yourself credit. Ideas are actually a dime a dozen. If you learn to focus your mind on what results you want to achieve, you'll recognize the good ideas. Your mind will become a filter for them, which will motivate you to learn more.
• Motivate yourself. Why do you want to learn something? What do want to achieve through learning? If you don't know why you want to learn, then distractions will be far more enticing.
• Set a goal. W. Clement Stone once said "Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve." It's an amazing phenomenon in goal achievement. Prepare yourself by whatever means necessary, and hurdles will seem surmountable. Anyone who has experienced this phenomenon understands its validity.
• Think positive. There's no point in setting learning goals for yourself if you don't have any faith in your ability to learn.
• Organize, part 2. Learning is only one facet of the average adult's daily life. You need to organize your time and tasks else you might find it difficult to fit time in for learning. Try Neptune for a browser-based application for "getting things done."
• Every skill is learned. With the exception of bodily functions, every skill in life is learned. Generally speaking, if one person can learn something, so can you. It may take you more effort, but if you've set a believable goal, it's likely an achievable goal.
• Prepare yourself for learning. Thinking positive isn't sufficient for successfully achieving goals. This is especially important if you are an adult, as you'll probably have many distractions surrounding your daily life. Implement ways to reduce distractions, at least for a few hours at a time, else learning will become a frustrating experience.
• Prepare yourself, part 2. Human nature is such that not everyone in your life will be a well-wisher in your self-improvement and learning plans. They may intentionally or subconsciously distract you from your goal. If you have classes to attend after work, make sure that work colleagues know this, that you are unable to work late. Diplomacy works best if you think your boss is intentionally giving you work on the days he/she knows you have to leave. Reschedule lectures to a later time slot if possible/ necessary.
• Constrain yourself. Most people need structure in their lives. Freedom is sometimes a scary thing. It's like chaos. But even chaos has order within. By constraining yourself — say giving yourself deadlines, limiting your time on an idea in some manner, or limiting the tools you are working with — you can often accomplish more in less time.

Mental Gymnastics Keep Your Mind Nimble

Let me share you one of Mr Mao's article in Yahoo.. It's his advise in keeping our memory healthy that helps us remember things.

The article has a few tips, but I'll be re-posting the Gymnastics way of keeping our mind on shape.. (who would want to hunt for the herbal thing anyway?)

So here it is...

Mental Gymnastics Keep Your Mind Nimble
It is normal to become more absent-minded as we age, and in fact, most people over the age of 40 experience some memory loss. The most likely causes of a forgetful memory include poor concentration due to brain-chemical imbalance, tiredness, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders.

If you find you are more forgetful than usual, try these steps and see if there isn't some improvement in your cognitive clarity:

1. Get an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep each night.
2. Do a half an hour of cardiovascular exercise every day, such as brisk walking, slow jogging, biking, or swimming. This will improve circulation and increase blood flow to the brain.
3. Turn yourself upside down for a couple of minutes daily.
4. Mental fitness activities are imperative to prevent age-related cognitive decline. Read and learn new things, find new hobbies, do crossword puzzles, add up your bill in your head while shopping, memorize a set of phone numbers forward and backwards; all these can stimulate brain cell activities and in some cases even grow new brain pathways.
5. Work with your physician to find a supplemental regimen that helps improve your cognitive capabilities. Memory-enhancing supplements and herbs include B-complex vitamins, magnesium, CoQ10, alpha-lipoic acid, fish oil, flax seed oil, Chinese club moss, ginkgo, and ginseng. A supplement that has been well-documented in Europe for reversing age-related dementia and memory loss is phosphatidylserine (PS), a compound made by the body from the amino acid serine. Taken in supplement form, PS lowers stress response and promotes the release of neurotransmitters in the brain that facilitate thought, reasoning, and concentration.

I hope you find your days more memorable for many years to come! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

10 Things to Remember When Working for Yourself

I managed to stumble upon a post by Simon Kitson. It's about the things to remember when working for yourself.

I would like to repost it here for my readers and soon to be readers.

The 10 Things to Remember When Working for Yourself.....

1. Manage your money, or it will manage you. Really.
2. Care for your customers. It's more than just technology.
3. Care for your employees too. You are their God. Be a good one.
4. Remember sales and marketing. Success means more than good techies.
5. Plan ahead, tomorrow will come, no matter how busy today is.
6. Keep learning. Your current knowledge/skills will go out of date.
7. Remember your family and friends. Companies often eat their owners.
8. Listen to your body. It will tell you when your over-stressed.
9. Smell the roses. You wont get paid during holidays. But you still need them.
10. Pin this on the wall and read it everyday. And read other business stuff.

There. I could go on and explain them one by one... But where's the fun in that? :)
Go ahead and post what you think.

How to Boost Your Self-esteem Quickly

If you're tired of feeling bad about yourself, or just want some tips for those down days, these 7 practical strategies will help you take action to boost your self-esteem.

Boost self-esteem tip #1: Think back to when you did something new for the first time.

Learning something new is often accompanied by feelings of nervousness, lack of self-belief and high stress levels, all of which are necessary parts of the learning process. The next time you feel under-confident, remembering this will remind you that it's perfectly normal - you're just learning!

Boost self-esteem tip #2: Do something you have been putting off.

Like writing or calling a friend, cleaning the house, tidying the garden, fixing the car, organizing the bills, making a tasty and healthy meal - anything that involved you making a decision, then following through!

Boost self-esteem tip #3: Do something you are good at.

Examples? How about swimming, running, dancing, cooking, gardening, climbing, painting, writing... If possible, it should be something that holds your attention and requires enough focus to get you into that state of `flow' where you forget about everything else. You will feel more competent, accomplished and capable afterwards, great antidotes to low self-esteem!

And while you're at it, seriously consider doing something like this at least once a week. People who experience `flow' regularly seem to be happier and healthier.

Boost self-esteem tip #4: Stop thinking about yourself!

I know this sounds strange, but low self-esteem is often accompanied by too much focus on the self. Doing something that absorbs you and holds your attention can quickly make you feel better.

Boost self-esteem tip #5: Get seriously relaxed.

If you are feeling low, anxious or lacking in confidence, the first thing to do is to stop thinking and relax properly. Some people do this by exercising, others by involving themselves in something that occupies their mind. However, being able to relax yourself when you want is a fantastic life skill and so practicing self-hypnosis, meditation, or a physically based relaxation technique such as Tai Chi can be incredibly useful.

When you are properly relaxed, your brain is less emotional and your memory for good events works better. A great 'rescue remedy'!

Boost self-esteem tip #6: Remember all the things you have achieved.

This can be difficult at first, but after a while, you'll develop a handy mental list of self-esteem boosting memories. And if you're thinking "But I've never achieved anything", I'm not talking about climbing Everest here.

Things like passing your driving test (despite being nervous), passing exams (despite doubting that you would), playing team sport, getting fit (even if you let it slip later), saving money for something, trying to help someone (even if it didn't work) and so on.

Boost self-esteem tip #7: Remember that you could be wrong!

If you are feeling bad about yourself, remember that you way you feel affects your thoughts, memory and behavior. So when you feel bad, you will only remember the bad times, and will tend to be pessimistic about yourself. This is where the tip `Get Seriously Relaxed' comes in!

Once you have tried out a few of these, consider making them a permanent part of your life. For most people, good self-esteem is not just a happy accident, it's a result of the way they think and the things they do from day to day. Good Luck!

Article take from TheTheraphyGuy

Own that Ladder and Retire at 30!

Now that's a pretty thought... At 30, early isn't it? Retirement does not necessary means your 80 years old and had

spent the last 50 years of your life in a company. As a matter of fact, retirement means you are through with working!

You just sit around the house watching tv, eating, playing with the kids (grand kids) reading and enjoying life..

(Don't forget to exerice and life a healthy life, ok?) But then again, would you enjoy your life if your 80 and almost one feet on the grave? 'course not!

Retiring at 30 means you are financially established. This way, the things that I mentioned above (living the life stuff) can be achived. The sad thing is, if you're in my age bracket, you're almost 30! And again, if you're like me, there's no way for us to retire at 30 because you feel underpaid, no savings and you're 29! Or worse, you'r way past 30!

Don't worry, if you can't retire at 30, there's still a good chance for our children to make it. All we have to do is teach them how to.

Your kid should know that getting a job will not make him rich. It's very wrong to think, "getting a job" after finishing school will make them rich. This mentality have been program to us ever since childhood. The only way to get rich it to do business. Risky yes, but that's the only way to go. Well, not the only way, but the best way. Like this thing I read somewhere - children should learn to "sit down on the other side of the table". Why climb the corporate ladder when you can own that fre@K!$#ng ladder! :) They's no objection in finishing school and getting a job eventually, but having work or a job while doing a business is a sure way to go!

Always remind your child to retire by thirty. Always encourage them to seek for financial freedom, not just a sense of job security. Everyone's best chance at becoming rich is through owning a successful business.

I'm not there yet, but that's my ultimate goal.

I am currently employed at one of the biggest semiconductor manufacturing company in the world (the underpaid statement above still proves true here). I want to believe I have secure a stable position in the company but I do have a plan to put up several businesses. Like I said, own the ladder! Keep your day job, but mind your own business!

Save Now.. Be Rich Later

All of the things that I'm going to mention in this
post is subject to debate. I welcome that. Really I do. I can learn from
that and I hope someone else will too.

We're going to talk about Money, and getting rich, and
and getting wealthy and having serveral cars and houses.. you know the idea. Im not saying that I have lots and lots of money and that I do all the stuff that's mentioned here, I just want to share things that I read, things that i saw etc.

There are lots of ways to become financially stable.

If you're an employee (just like the rest of us), you are always looking forward for the payday.

Here some tips to become millionaire!! (or at least have some extra cash.. lots and lots of it!)


Pay Yourself First
Do the Latte Factor
Keep doing the two.. automatically.


Pay Yourself First
This is again another truth.. every pay day, after we receive the payslips (even before we receive it actually)
the first thing we do is to think of the things that we need to pay, all those bills. Now, if anything is left after
settling all those expenses, that's the time when we save a few Pesos.. Dollars if you wish.

When Following the Pay Yourself First philosophy, you must first put aside a portion of your income before settling
any bills. You could try to save 10% to 15% of you income each payday. Or lower.. Its up to you.. On how much you can.

The Latte Factor
The hard truth is: believe it or not, the amount of money we earn is not always directly proportional to the amount of money we sae because, more often thatn not, the more money we make the more we spend.

Any objections?

This sad truth teaches us that: "How much you earn has almost no bearing on whether or not you can and will build wealth".

In a nutshell.. The Latte Factor is watching the little spendings. This means buying small things that don't necessarily need or things that can live without.

Make it Automatic
Here are some ways to automate the above tips/technique.

I can't think of some right now.. This is your time to share yours..
Do you have any suggestions?

You could ask your employer to automatically deduct 10% of you salary to a separate accout or your other existing account.

Some company, like ours, have this 'coop' thing (cooperative) where we put a little percentage of our hard earned pesos each pay
day.

Those are one way.. is there any other way?

Stand Out!

Have you heard the saying, "One cannot judge the book by its cover"? Of course you have. (Not the one that goes "Don't judge my brother, he's not a book" :)

Although this may hold true most of the times, specially when we mean the personality of someone, this proverb does not necessarily be true all the time. Sometimes, "One usually judges the book by its cover".

Think about the last statement and you will surely agree. .
Come on, think about it..
Still not convinced? Let's site an example:

Suppose you were given 2 gifts. One is a small box, attractively wrapped, bearing the label of one of the best shop/stall in Glorietta or from Podium or something else that belonged to the most exclusive department stores. And then there's this another gift, a tiny box, in a nondescript brown paper bag. Which one are you going to choose?

I bet my ass, you'll pick the one with the attractive wrapper, bought in the 'sosyal' department store. Right? Right! Immediately I wuld grab for it too. I may think of the content could be an expensive French perfume, or a delicate piece of jewelry. Can you imagine your disappointment if you were to find a few paper clips? (at least it was bought somewhere 'sosi') On the contrary, what a surprise if the paper bag were to reveal the hoped for jewelry.

Get my point? Here's another example..

Imagine you're sick and in a hospital bed. Then a savvy, suave, clean cut young man enters the room. He is wearing the white doctor's coat, with a stethoscope around his neck. With a friendly smile he would say "Hello, and how are we feeling today?".. I again bet my ass, (if i have two) without hesistation, you would let him examine you. You're thinking he's a doctor right? He most certainly looks like one. But how sure are you that's he's doctor? Since he looks like one, you assume he is.

How would you react if the same friendly young man, wearing a janitor's blue suit and carrying a plumber's wrench, were to make the same request? Without any doubt, holding your blanket protectively around you, you would call security!

Im sure I made my point about the way we draw assumptions based on appearance alone. Believe me, before anyone notices your achievement, he/she will notice you. Keeping in mind, you will also agree that it is imeprative that you present yourself as a "noticeable packages", you have to dress ina noticeable manner. But not to extremes. Being noticeably dressed simply means that you dress in suc a way that you will stand out pleasantly.