What Are You Searching For?

I have not yet met anyone in my world travels who didn't want a little more inner peace. And, I have never encountered anyone who would trade a little money to rid themselves of their stress and worries.

So, is this what each of us is secretly or overtly searching for? Well, to be truthful I'm not sure. People who say they want less stress continue to pursue wealth, fame, power, position and more stuff. People who say they want to be happy often seem to sabotage this goal with poor choices, bad judgment and emotional immaturity. And people who say they want more inner peace still harbor old emotional baggage, replay old slights and hurts and let other people control their behaviors, attitudes, emotions and even their thoughts.

If we are truly searching for any or all the items listed above one would have to wonder whether we are just giving lip service to these goals, desires and dreams or if we really want them but just don't seem to know where to find them, how to achieve them or how to keep them.

I too have been guilty. I am just like you in that I would like a little more happiness and a little less stress yet when it comes to doing what is necessary I often fall short.

Sure, I have read all the books, hundreds and hundreds of them, attended the seminars, had personal coaches, spent hours and even weeks setting and planning my personal goals and dreams and spent more hours than I can remember praying and meditating and yet, here I sit from time to time, still questioning whether all this reading, study and searching is worthwhile.

During my years of study, research and searching I have come to a few conclusions.

1) Many of the people who supposedly have it figured out, don't. 

2) Many of the people who preach and teach this stuff to others and get paid handsomely to do so, don't have a clue. 

3) Some of the people who you would least expect to have the answers often do. 

4) Even many of the religious fanatics, diehards or steadfast believers in God still struggle with the same issues, questions and challenges as those who have never set foot in a church or Synagogue or read the Bible.

Why is this? Are we doomed as a species to just search and never find or discover the true meaning of our life or as the title says, why we are we here?

Humans have been asking for centuries; why am I here, where am I going and what am I supposed to do with my life while I am here?

One could get easily discouraged and feeling a little sorry for themselves spending years contemplating simple questions like these.

Have you ever asked yourself any of these searching questions whether in times of doubt or discouragement or happiness and contentment? Success or failure? 

Do you have any answers yet, or are you like most of us, that you just keep on trudging ahead through life one day at a time just earning, spending, working and playing?

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ABCs of Stress Management

The ABCs of Stress Management Is Awareness, Balance and Control.

Stress is created when external or internal demands made on an individual are in excess of his coping strategies and capabilities. Let us illustrate how physical stress is formed. If you are asked to pick up a glass of water and place it on the table it is not stressful. If you are asked to pick up the glass of water and fill it to the brim without dropping any water outside, it is mildly stressful. If you are asked to hold that full glass of water for two hours without dropping any water, you will get totally stressed out.

Awareness

How stressed are you? Do you feel that you have absolutely no worries and stress in the world? Then you are lucky indeed to be part of the minority of the population today. For most of us stress plays an important part of our daily lives. It disrupts our energy levels, affects our performance and can be a huge drain on our resources. Becoming aware that one is experiencing stress is also difficult as people have got used to being under fire from all sides. It is not a natural state and will affect the health of a person in the longterm.

Balance

Once you are aware of the fact that you get stressed in certain situations, what do you do next? It is now time to manage stress levels better. Keep yourself primed for action without the accompanying tension. This can be accomplished by ensuring that you balance out the stress you are feeling in a certain situation in an optimum manner. You can avoid or modify certain stressors right away on your own. Other stressors may need some contribution from outside influences. The idea is to get hold of the problematic stressors and neutralize them.

Control

Here the idea is not to control the stress. Instead it is to control your own reaction to them. By directing one's own actions and thoughts it is possible to stay in a positive frame of mind. This defeats the stress and allows you a measure of self responsibility and control. A good night's rest is often one of the best ways to control stress. It is easier to deal with issues when you are well fed, well rested and healthy. So make sure that you actively look after your physical body and stress will begin to disappear.

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3 Reasons to Carve Out Time Each Day for Yourself and Increase Your Productivity

"I have no time to myself" this is a common refrain by everyone.

Now ask yourself this question, whose fault is it?

First, you have to accept that personal time is a necessity, not a luxury or you will never leave yourself any. This is a growing problem that will even affect your productivity and your health. Let me explain.

One of the most effective ways to manage this is to actually make an appointment with yourself. Block time on your calendar for taking yourself out to lunch, a 30-minute soaking bath, an hour at the library, or at your favorite coffee café. Then treat this like any other high priority appointment and keep it with a vengeance and determination. This is for your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.

Schedule other appointments like this one through out the month, do not a standard Saturday afternoon one hour once a week slot, this routine will become too common place and will disregard the importance of it. You must think of this as a priority and something to look forward to and plan.

We all need some kind of break each day, to getaway from work, chores, and people, even family. Use your great brain and calmly think of creative ways to make time for you. Perhaps at first your family will need a bit of explaining to understand that you are doing something for them as well as for you and you are not selfish. While you are explaining you are also defusing any guilt that might surface, nurturers are notorious for self-imposed guilt.

Depriving yourself of "me time" will only leave your feeling ornery, resentful and stressed out.

Your stressful emotions will spill over onto your family, friends and other relationships. They will feel that something is wrong and they will absorb your stress.

Knowing that your emotions influence others, you have choices to make. You can be grouchy, resentful, negative, stressed and difficult to be around or you can be pleasant, loving caring calm, happy and a productive fostering healthy relationships.

Besides, how else can we properly evaluate what we are doing, see the big picture, and appreciate those we love, unless we stand back from them once in awhile.

This standing back allows you to put your daily life in to perceptive and you gain patience and calmness. Once you have your daily agenda controlled, you can start on the weekly strategies. This will be an ongoing process but a happier, healthier life is worth it.

Take your allotted number of time outs, this time out ideas are a natural way of managing your stress and becoming comfortable with nurturing you. 

Nurturing the nurturer is a major method in naturally managing your stress.

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You Were Not Born to Be Ordinary, So Stand Out and Be EXTRAORDINARY!

Why do we spend so much time and energy out of our precious lives trying to fit the mold that other people try to put us in? We spend so much time trying to fit in when we were born to stand out. It is important to remain yourself and who you were born to be. The world would be so boring and uninteresting if we were all the same type of person doing the same type of thing. That would also hinder our purpose and creativity.

Living a happier and more fulfilled life for me began when I began to "break the rules," and what I mean by "break the rules" is going against the grain of what other people felt like I should be doing, and going with the grain of what I was being divinely led to do. I discovered that I was born to be unique. And by unique I mean creative and phenomenal. Now going against the grain doesn't mean that you never consider the advice of others, but it should be positive advice that is supportive of your uniqueness.

Many times we care too much about what other people are going to think about us, or what other people are going to say about us. So we stay in a "safe place" and never step out to be who we really are. When in reality why does what other people think about us or say about us even matter? Maybe those other people are so critical because they wish they had the courage to step out and allow their uniqueness to shine, but they don't have that courage, so instead they are critical of those who do.

Being true to yourself means that you are in alignment with who you were born to be and what you were called to do. You can create a lot of positive space in your life just by being yourself. And nobody wants to look back 20 years from now and realize that he or she lived their life according to the constraints and guidelines of others. And guess what? Those critical people are not going to have to live with the regret, only you are.

Here is the best way to live your life extraordinary... do what you are being divinely led to do! Even if it makes no sense to others, and it might not make sense to others since it is what you are being divinely led to do and not them. It is often hard for others to identify with things we are inspired to do. And sometimes they don't understand until the results manifest.

You might be surprised at how just going against "what's normal" can contribute to your success. People are drawn to things that are unique and stand out. If you just blend in the same with everyone else in life or in business, how will you stand out and make the impact you were truly born to make?

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Why Every Successful Person Sets Goals

Have you ever heard of any successful people, super achievers or elite performers who don't set goals at all?

Honestly I have not.

Goal setting is an important aspect in both your professional and personal lives. Without having goals to strive for, we won't be able to measure our success or achievements. We won't be able to spot our weaknesses and improve ourselves. We won't be able to target our strengths and fully unleash our potential.

While setting goals is crucial to getting what you want in life, what other amazing benefits do this simple act bring you that make all the successful people love?

#1 Control and Certainty

By regularly setting goals and achieving them you are taking control of your life.

This is an empowering mindset, attitude and behavior to have because you are acknowledging that life doesn't 'just happen to you'. There is a lot that is within your control when it comes to creating the ideal life you want and working towards the direction that's right for you.

#2 Optimism and Positivity

Apart from being certain about the future you're heading, setting goals and taking action to achieve them will influence you to have a more positive and optimistic outlook.

This vibe of positivity will help you build stronger mental resilience, which is essential to help you keep going when things become tough or when you got hit by challenges.

Instead of feeling down, depressed or defeated by the hardships, your resilience, optimism and mental toughness will ensure that you see the temporary setback as it is and pick yourself up using your personal power to find a creative way to overcome it.

#3 Wellbeing

Through goal setting you will have created a long-term plan for your life. In your mind, you've created a vision of what you want and worked out a way to get there.

This sense of purpose gives you a feeling of hope that you can achieve what you want. These are all positive emotions which have powerful effects on your mental and physical wellbeing.

Stress levels will be reduced, as will the likelihood of depression emerging. While you are working towards achieving your goals, you will increase your levels of focus and your ability to use it at will to help you get the results you want.

#4 Getting Into Flow State

The regular setting of meaningful goals ensures that you maximize opportunities to utilize the power of flow.

This miraculous flow state occurs when:

you have a meaningful goal;

position yourself away from external distractions;

have all the necessary resources at hand;

have matched the task to your abilities so that it contains enough challenge to keep you motivated and engaged but not too little so that you become bored; and

immerse yourself in the task completely.

Getting into the flow state not only helps you achieve goals, but it also drastically elevates your productivity, relieves stress and increases happiness. The benefits of the flow state have been recorded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian positive psychologist who wrote the famous book <Flow: The Psychology of Happiness>.

By having goals, you are increasing your chances of success. You are also taking positive steps to creating the life or business that you want.

While it seems to take a lot of effort setting goals at the beginning, the benefits you experience will far outweigh any time spent creating, monitoring and meeting them. If you desire to become a more productive, optimistic and proactive, then you should definitely follow what other successful people do - setting goals.

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10 Crazy Ideas to Help Discover Motivation in Life

Motivation is elusive at times, so each one of us has been challenged to find it when it escapes us. Whether it is for a specific work assignment or simply to move life forward, motivation is an essential feature of high productivity and meaningful output. As a result, we lean on a variety of techniques to keep motivation high and continually adapt our approach to staying inspired. When motivation runs dry, use the following tips to turn things around.

Set a Mini-Goal

Success begets motivation, so setting yourself up to win a small battle is a great way to support ongoing productivity. The morale boost from a minor win creates momentum, which can be all that’s required to ramp-up motivation levels. When tackling a work project, for example, carve-out a short-term benchmark you can easily reach. And if that is not enough to spark a roll, move through subsequent tasks in the same way. Eventually, sustained motivation will set-in, seeing the project to completion.



Turn to Past Success

When frustration or self-doubt get in the way of motivation, turn your focus to things you have done well in the past. Reminding yourself of what you’re capable of is often all that’s required to restore forward thinking and ramp-up motivation levels. In fact, sometimes you can pull lessons directly from your past successes, to be applied to ongoing projects.

Compete

Playing a game or competing in a sporting event stimulates motivation. Pitting yourself against others or even against yourself in a solo sport stirs natural internal responses, which motivate you in all areas of life. Win or lose, competitive juices motivate you to perform at peak levels.

Find Help

Motivation and inspiration are infectious, so leaning on helpers can be a strong force for revving-up your own enthusiasm. Even tapping an associate’s or co-workers expertise for a single piece of the puzzle can be enough to boost your motivation tackling the other aspects of a project.

Get back to Nature

Though it represents a stark contrast to business environments and other fast-paced parts of modern life, nature has an amazing restorative impact on motivation. Walks through the park or a more intensive hike, for example, expose you to inspirational features of nature, which are easily carried to tasks you need to complete. Taking-in the larger picture this way inspires reflection capable of motivating observers to get excited about their own places in the universe.

Study Mentors

When struggling with your own output, it can be beneficial to study examples of the type of work you wish you were producing. Formal mentors can help with motivation directly, by sharing experiences and helping tweak your trajectory. But even studying respected colleagues from afar yields clues to what motivates them and keeps them on track.

Change your Scenery

Sometimes work environments become stale and uninspiring, calling for a change of scenery to boost motivation levels. If possible, shake things up by changing your environment, which can itself stir inspiration. Travel, for example, stimulates worldly feelings, which can be beneficial to self-motivation. And though it is not always possible to get away when motivation wanes, there are nonetheless worthy options found locally, allowing you to stay on-point with assigned work tasks. If you telecommute, for example, try heading-in to the office for a day or two to mix things up. Or if a cubicle stands in the way of motivation, seek permission to deliver remotely, enabling you to complete work assignments at home, the library, or some other inspiring location.

Get Fit

Mind and body are inextricably linked, so motivation levels are influenced by physical fitness as well as mental fortitude. If you find your productivity and inspiration slipping, account for your physical approach alongside the mental exercises you tap to increase motivation. Start slow, to get your blood flowing and synch your and and body. Once positive results are felt, it becomes easier to engage in exercise as a motivational force. Walks and other low-impact movements should not be underestimated for the benefits they bring.

Do the Opposite

Human beings undeniably get in ruts, reinforcing patterns that can be hard to break from. When your motivation slips as a result of sameness, try changing your approach with a radical departure from the status quo. By acting contrary to your standard approach, you’ll open new perspectives and channels of understanding. Even if you determine your original take on things is the best one available, it serves to reinforce your confidence, motivating you to keep up the good work.

Be Forgiving

Second-guessing your methods and performance can be enough to thwart motivation and hold you at a standstill. Rather than becoming mired in negative introspection, forgive periods of diminished motivation with a clear eye toward brighter days. This forward-thinking frame of mind helps you get beyond life’s inevitable speed bumps into positive territory that supports achieving your goals.

Motivation ebbs and flows throughout the course of daily life, and it doesn’t always synch with your personal and professional responsibilities. When motivation dips at the wrong time, it pays to reevaluate your approach using these helpful tips. In the end, jump-starting motivation levels leads to ongoing success for those able to move beyond trying times.

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6 Simple Questions You Need To Ask Yourself When You Become Fearful

"One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." Henry Ford

There isn't an individual who hasn't been afraid or faces difficult circumstances that caused them to be fearful at some point. Fear is one emotion that most of us dread, but all will have experienced during our lifetime.

What are you afraid of? What makes your heart stops when you think of it? What stresses you out more than anything else? What is it that worries you most?

Are you worried about your future like so many of us? Do you worry about the security of your job or the future for your children? There isn't a shortage of things to cause us fear. Life is unpredictable and because of the uncertainty and the unknown we develop a fear for the future.

If you are like most of us, you need to develop the right attitude to overcome your fears. Living in fear is never the answer. You need to face the fears you have and find solutions to avoid dealing with them over and over again.

Find the source of your fear and deal with it head-on. The great thing about confronting your fears is that once you have dealt with it, it will no longer cause you to fear. You will also become stronger and better able to deal with other uncertain issues in your life.

Here are six questions you should ask yourself when you are feeling fearful that will help to manage your fears.

1. Am I fearful for the right reasons?

Fear is a good thing as it helps to keep us safe. Use your fear in the right way and for the right reason. Do not spend your life being fearful of life. Use your fear to motivate you to go after your dream. Do not be consumed by the fear of the future but use those fears to work on making your future brighter. Face your fears by channeling them into areas that will give you the results you want.

2. Are my fears positive or negative?

What are the things you dread most? Are they positive or negative? Which type of fears do you tend to focus on? Rather than be fearful of the things you have no control of, channel your energies on to things that will make your life easier and less stressful. Take the time to focus on the positive and do not focus on negative things. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Franklyn Roosevelt

3. What meaning am I giving to challenges?

Think about it seriously, what are you focusing on? Are you giving these fears a life by constantly thinking about them? If so resist the urge to worry and reclaim your power and focus your attention on things you want to achieve. Focus on the things that will help you to become a better person.

4. Am I causing fear to rob me of my life?

If you spend your life in fear, you will never enjoy your life. There will always be something to fear. Why spend your time worrying about things that might not happen and you cannot control. To be happy, you must rid yourself of fear as fear robs you of your joy. You can never enjoy life being afraid.

5. Are my fears real or imagined?

Many times you cultivate fear when, in fact, there is nothing to fear. When a situation arises, you give it more power than you should? Quit giving your fear the power to grow. Remember things always seem worst than they truly are.

6. What can I learn from these fears?

Find out what lessons life is trying to teach you. Do not miss the opportunity to get the message you are being sent. Whenever you feel afraid, find out what it is that scares you the most and what you can do to reduce your fear.

Our fears will never go away, but you must be able to control your fears and not allow it to control you. Live your life in confidence expecting the best, and the best will happen. When you feel fearful find the cause of your fear and find a solution and if you can't stop worrying about it because there is nothing you can do about it.















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Learn to Focus

Learn to Focus

Why Do You Need To Learn To Focus?

Mind power is undeniably powerful but it is principally unproductive without another constituent -focus. Our energies must be well channelized in the correct order to make them more functional. Unlike nature's powers which cannot be caged and deflected, the human mind is free and more potent than any other power around us.

It is extremely painful to see a person with potential, squander the possibility of a successful existence and end up living an average life. Our cognitive powers are ineffectual unless we learn how to focus on our goals and build up positive energy. The first step to learning how to focus is indulging in unwavering concentration. In actual fact, focus is nothing but protracted concentration.

Learning focus is very important for people looking to loose weight. Spending all the time thinking about junk binging is a constant worry which most people find hard to deal with. There are four ways which will be of assistance to you to focus on weight control

• Focus hard and picture yourself thin - Before starting with a work out plan frame a picture of your slim body and bear it in mind recurrently. Remember, no one can underestimate your mind power.

• Eat neat- Focus on your eating habits and food weaknesses. Don't let any temptations overpower your self-control.

• Acknowledge help-Do not be hesitant to accept positive reinforcement and never avoid a question even if it hurts as it will help you to become stronger in your efforts.

• Be your best buddy- Focus well on your strengths and weaknesses and let yourself down. Take pride in what you are and what you stand for.Both are great ways to practice taming distractions and improving focus.

Reduce distractions. Turn off the TV, put down your phone and log out of your email account. Not convinced it'll help? Eliminate noncritical screen time for two days and see how much more you get it done.

By sharpening your focus, you'll not only get more done but also enjoy more flow - when you're so absorbed in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Flow can create a sense of fulfillment, engagement and even contentment.

When you try to solve a jigsaw puzzle, what is important? It is pure with focus that you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Our lives are similar to that puzzle and ultimately we get what we focus on. Stay Positive.




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