Tips to Improve your Listening Skills

Most people think communication is all about speaking and devalue the importance of listening. And many others don't realize what a vast difference there is between simply hearing what is being said and really listening.

People who know how to listen learn more, care more, and end up being the ones we want to be around socially as well as professionally.

Want to improve your listening skills?

Understand why you need to listen and remember to practise these tips the next time you conduct a conversation.

Are your eyes listening?
Your eyes are a dead giveaway if you are not listening. When your mind wanders and you begin thinking of something or someone else, your eyes show your disinterest. And the person speaking to you is well aware that you are not paying attention. And this is true even if you don't look away. Blank stares don't conceal boredom!

How can you know if you are a bad listener?

A good listener uses his/ her eyes and mind while listening.
If you find yourself already formulating your next sentence in your mind while someone is speaking to you, you are doing injustice to the conversation. You will get more out of the conversation if you understand, comprehend and assimilate what is being said BEFORE responding.
Good etiquette = listening!

Do you make these common listening mistakes?
The difference between being a good listener versus a great listener is using your heart in addition to your eyes and mind while listening.

Do you do this?

If a friend tells you something is wrong, you immediately tend to give advice or criticism.
If a friend tells you about something wonderful that has happened, you usually chip in with something similar that you have experienced.
Rarely do we share joy or sympathies with pain. Rarely do we just let others speak. To improve your listening skills, practice with those closest to you. When family members or friends share their thoughts and feelings, curtail the urge to relate what you hear to one of your own.

What if a conversation bores you?
I believe 'interested people are interesting'.

Similarly, 'boring people get bored'.

You don't need to know a lot about a subject to have a conversation. You just need to have a desire to learn, understand and make things interesting.

For example, if someone tells you they are a teacher, instead of saying, "That's nice," and moving on to the next topic, try to find out why they are teaching, how they decided on this profession and what their current thoughts on teaching are.
Dig deep and create meaningful conversations.

How do I get others to listen to me?
Listen more intently, question more, and speak with emotion. Build interesting conversations instead of one-way lectures.
Engage people while you speak. Ask questions like, "What do you think?" or "Do you agree?"

Try not to speak continuously for long periods. People tend to have short attention spans.
When you do not listen to what others are saying and only care to listen to your own voice, this is an indication that you really do not care for other people's opinions.
Think about who you really enjoy being around, at work or in your personal life. Usually it is those who really listen and care about you. Are you listening?

"We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge. People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.

How To Improve Your Speaking Voice

One of the most important components of public speaking is the sound of your voice. It influences the impact of your message, and might even make or break the success of your speech. Fortunately, for many people, good voice quality can be learned.

Instructions :

1. Breathe from your diaphragm – Practice long and controlled exhales. When you speak, use breath to punctuate your point. For example, take a breath at the end of each phrase whether you need to or not. Use that opportunity to pause and let the listeners absorb what you say.
2. Use pitch – Lower pitches generally are more soothing to hear. However, modulating your pitch for emphasis will keep your listeners engaged. Develop your pitch by practicing humming.
3. Moderate your volume – Find out if you speak too loudly or too softly. When you begin speaking, ask your audience how your volume is (each situation is different). Try to stay at the appropriate volume throughout your speech.
4. Moderate your pace – This one is also closely related to breath. If you speak too quickly, people can’t keep up. If you speak too slowly, people will lose interest. Record your speech to determine if you need to change your pace. Get feedback from others.
5. Articulate – Try exaggerating your lip movement to reduce mumbling. Practice articulating tongue twisters and extending and exaggerating vowel sounds. Become an expert at articulating tongue twisters as quickly and crisply as possible. Focus on the ones you find difficult.
6. Practice your speech in advance and determine where you want to pause for a breath. For more emphasis, pause for more than one breath. Mark your breathing points in your notes.
7. Loosen up before you begin. Look side to side. Roll your head in half-circles and roll your shoulders back. Shift your rib cage from side to side. Yawn. Stretch. Touch your toes while completely relaxing your upper body, then slowly stand up, one vertebra at a time, raising your head last. Repeat as needed.
8. Posture – Stand up straight and tall to allow full lung capacity and airflow.
9. Record your voice repeatedly using different ways of speaking. Determine which one is most pleasing.
10. Practice breath control – Take a deep breath, and while you exhale, count to 10 (or recite the months or days of the week). Try gradually increasing your volume as you count, using your abdominal muscles—not your throat—for volume. Don’t let your larynx tense up.

How To Improve Your Communication Skill

Conflict in a relationship is virtually inevitable. In itself, conflict isn’t a problem; how it’s handled, however, can bring people together or tear them apart. Poor communication skills, disagreements and misunderstandings can be a source of anger and distance, or a springboard to a stronger relationship and happier future. Next time you’re dealing with conflict, keep these tips on effective communication skills in mind and you can create a more positive outcome.

1. Stay Focused: Sometimes it’s tempting to bring up past seemingly related conflicts when dealing with current ones. Unfortunately, this often clouds the issue and makes finding mutual understanding and a solution to the current issue less likely, and makes the whole discussion more taxing and even confusing. Try not to bring up past hurts or other topics. Stay focused on the present, your feelings, understanding one another and finding a solution.
2. Listen Carefully: People often think they’re listening, but are really thinking about what they’re going to say next when the other person stops talking. Truly effective communication goes both ways. While it might be difficult, try really listening to what your partner is saying. Don’t interrupt. Don’t get defensive. Just hear them and reflect back what they’re saying so they know you’ve heard. Then you’ll understand them better and they’ll be more willing to listen to you.
3. Try To See Their Point of View: In a conflict, most of us primarily want to feel heard and understood. We talk a lot about our point of view to get the other person to see things our way. Ironically, if we all do this all the time, there’s little focus on the other person’s point of view, and nobody feels understood. Try to really see the other side, and then you can better explain yours. (If you don't 'get it', ask more questions until you do.) Others will more likely be willing to listen if they feel heard.
4. Respond to Criticism with Empathy: When someone comes at you with criticism, it’s easy to feel that they’re wrong, and get defensive. While criticism is hard to hear, and often exaggerated or colored by the other person’s emotions, it’s important to listen for the other person’s pain and respond with empathy for their feelings. Also, look for what’s true in what they’re saying; that can be valuable information for you.
5. Own What’s Yours: Realize that personal responsibility is a strength, not a weakness. Effective communication involves admitting when you’re wrong. If you both share some responsibility in a conflict (which is usually the case), look for and admit to what’s yours. It diffuses the situation, sets a good example, and shows maturity. It also often inspires the other person to respond in kind, leading you both closer to mutual understanding and a solution.
6. Use “I” Messages: Rather than saying things like, “You really messed up here,” begin statements with “I”, and make them about yourself and your feelings, like, “I feel frustrated when this happens.” It’s less accusatory, sparks less defensiveness, and helps the other person understand your point of view rather than feeling attacked.
7. Look for Compromise Instead of trying to ‘win’ the argument, look for solutions that meet everybody’s needs. Either through compromise, or a new solution that gives you both what you want most, this focus is much more effective than one person getting what they want at the other’s expense. Healthy communication involves finding a resolution that both sides can be happy with.
8. Take a Time-Out: Sometimes tempers get heated and it’s just too difficult to continue a discussion without it becoming an argument or a fight. If you feel yourself or your partner starting to get too angry to be constructive, or showing some destructive communication patterns, it’s okay to take a break from the discussion until you both cool off. Sometimes good communication means knowing when to take a break.
9. Don’t Give Up: While taking a break from the discussion is sometimes a good idea, always come back to it. If you both approach the situation with a constructive attitude, mutual respect, and a willingness to see the other’s point of view or at least find a solution, you can make progress toward the goal of a resolution to the conflict. Unless it’s time to give up on the relationship, don’t give up on communication.
10. Ask For Help If You Need It: If one or both of you has trouble staying respectful during conflict, or if you’ve tried resolving conflict with your partner on your own and the situation just doesn’t seem to be improving, you might benefit from a few sessions with a therapist. Couples counseling or family therapy can provide help with altercations and teach skills to resolve future conflict. If your partner doesn’t want to go, you can still often benefit from going alone.

How To Be In Calm State

Periodically, I find myself feeling nervous for no apparent reason, or sometimes for a reason, at which point my mind will create stories to instill fear and worry into my being. My stomach would tighten up and when observed closely, I could feel myself breathing shallowly. It is so easy to to fall into that state once it starts.

Your mind is so powerful. It is so easy to be unconscious. But you know deep down that you are in control and that you can switch out of that state in an instant: the instant you decide to feel joy and refuse to believe in your mind created story, which is no longer serving you.

But how do you stay calm when the situation goes bad? How do you calm your nerves while the world around you is falling down? I believe there are some simple things you can do.

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Do nothing for 5 minutes.
3. Take a nap.
4. Take a shower.
5. Listen to comforting music.
6. Listen to natural sounds.
7. Play music.
8. Share to a positive friend.
9. Meditate.
10. Ask “What’s the next action?” and focus on only that one thing.
11. Go to nature (mountain, beach, etc.).
12. Ride a bike.
13. Talk about other topics.
14. Drink a bottle of water.
15. Play games (just for a while!).
16. Go eat with someone who is not part of the situation.
17. Exercise.
18. Read spiritual texts.
19. Listen to spiritual audio programs.
20. Unplug the Internet.
21. Take a cup of coffee.
22. Say to yourself, “This situation is not as bad as it looks. Many people have handled situations worse than this successfully.”
23. Be grateful for what you still have (instead of looking at what you don’t have).
24. Be grateful for what you can learn from the situation.
25. Take a walk around a park.
26. Smile.

Improve Your Presentation Skills

Nobody is happy coping with the idea of having to present in front of an audience, even more; the people most used to speak in public show clear signs of anxiety and stress in their body language, but they are doing it, and in most cases they are doing it very well. If there are mistakes in the way they are presenting they will be forgiven by the audience.

Presenting in public is an uncomfortable situation; it clearly takes us out of our comfort zone. and there are bad and good news: the bad news is that this is never going to change, we are never going to feel comfortable in such situations, and however there is some good news: we can improve our presentation skills and do a better job in passing our message by following three golden rules

Preparation
We tend to think that a good presentation has to have an elegant story being told by someone with an awesome voice and a very attractive and engaging body language, this is not always true. The best presentation is the one that achieves the goal of transmitting the message. Therefore defining the message is crucial and it has to be kept as top priority when designing the presentation, we have to remind that whoever communicates, changes; defining this change that we want to perform and structuring our presentation is key for success.

Rehearsal
We'll never find our limits until we'll actually try to reach them, once our presentation is ready, we defined that wonderful message and we know how to make it be understood by our audience, we must actually present it. The objective is to find what is not working well, where we find problems, check our voice tone and body language and correct what needs to be corrected.

Performing the rehearsal alone would be enough, but recording it or doing it in front of somebody else will be of a great help.

External aids
Now we know which message we want to pass, how to make it be understood and we have practiced until the limit, we feel we are ready, but there is still one step that needs to be done to make sure our presentation will be perfect and this is setting up some external aids, small things that will increase our level of self confidence.

We could have a couple of people around, find them before we get started with the actual presentation and establish eye contact with them.

We could prepare some notes that we'll keep in our hands, this is highly recommendable for a couple of reasons; the preparation of the notes itself will help us in memorizing the key topics and it will increase our self confidence just by the fact of having something in our hands. If we fear that our audience could think that we are not enough prepared because of we have to hold notes, don't worry, in fact the effect is the opposite and the audience tend to think that this is great because of you have spent some time to get ready for them. The size of the notes is important because of we won't like to have big papers with us; it will be advisable to make it in hard paper and in a size that we can easily manage.

We could make sure that we have a couple of comments or jokes ready to use as an escape valve when necessary.

Following these three steps will dramatically improve our presentation skills; everybody is perfectly able to make a good presentation with a bit of preparation, rehearsal and usage of external aids.

Build Up Your Confidence

I personally believe that confidence does not actually come that much from the outside, but more from the inside.

If you develop confidence in your character, you will automatically show it in your external features. There is no point of dressing all confident, when inside you are lacking confidence.
First start from the inside and then move to the outside.

To gain confidence, one has to have a positive attitude about life and themselves. Having faith and trust in yourself would be a good start. Do not go into self-criticism. If you make mistakes, learn from them and move on. Do not doubt yourself.

Believe in yourself and in whatever you do and want to do. Hence, confidence will gradually develop. Everyone wants to appear more confident. Let's face it: Appearing confident is a way to be more respected, liked and treated better. Here are some simple tips to appear a little more confident. You also need to work on BEING confident, but that will come in time. Practicing these acts will help.

Confidence does not only mean the ability of other people to rely on you. You may not know, but the truth is that the first person you can rely on is yourself. Relying in yourself means you must know what you are capable of achieving and what you are capable of not achieving. Every person is peculiar in his or her way of doing things. Do you know that you are full of talents that it will be impossible for you to discover every of these talents?

Therefore, both alone or with the help of others, find out what you have as talents and be honest to yourself in what you can do. Do not profess what you cannot do. Always keep yourself away from things that will require efforts more than your competence. Simply say no to what in your opinion is above your competence. If you doubt, do not do it. Simply reserve your energy for something that may be useful in the future. It is sometimes better to lie idle than to get busy with things beyond your competence.

Be Cool

Being stated cool is the hippest statement amongst guys and gals. A cool person is generally referred to as someone, who does things in his own distinct way and does not care much about the world. Cool people have a charismatic personality and are popular amongst their social community. Thus, it becomes a secret wish for everyone to be termed as cool. Though many people feel it is difficult to achieve the milestone, it should be noted that being cool just requires a bit of attitude change. Read on for some tips on how to be cool.

Tips on Being Cool

• Do not care about what people think of you. Most of us are always concerned about what other people think of us. Remember that it’s not possible to please everyone. So, it is better if you live your life the way you like, rather than bothering about the world.
• Though you should be immune to other people’s opinion about you, you should keep a check on how they perceive you. This might sound contradictory, but carries significance. Being cool is all about learning how to perceive yourself better. With regard to physical appearance, beware of bad breath, body odor, etc. In terms of body language, stand/sit up straight, look and feel confident, smile generously, do not stare, etc.
• Present yourself in the most comfortable and confident way. While interacting with people, make sure to maintain a good posture and look them in the eye. For acquiring the respect of others, you need to look and feel positive.
• Find real friends and stay in their company. Real friends respect you for what you are and cherish the time spent with you, making you feel positive and happy.
• Don't shy away from being different, whether it means standing up for yourself, defending someone else or taking interest in something that no one else dares to do. People who break against the tide and question the status quo are quite often regarded as the coolest.
• Speak your mind. Cool people usually speak confidently and clearly, that too with a good pace. However, this does not mean chattering uselessly. Make sure you say what you mean and vice versa. Be confident about what you speak and don't bother if people disagree with your opinion. At times, it is good to be respected for what you believe in.
• Cultivate the habit of laughing at yourself. Remember being cool essentially states finding humor in moments of clumsiness and discomfort. You will not only gain respect for it, but people will like you for being so earthly.
• Another thing to be remembered is that for being cool, one should create his own identity. Find your talent in terms of sports, music, art and the like and pursue it with excellence. Being known for your passion is certainly deemed cool.
• Being cool is all about staying relaxed and comfortable in any and every situation. If at times you do feel vulnerable, and end up losing your temper, bursting into tears or losing control, take a deep breath and mellow down. Don't be disruptive and annoying or have unpredictable mood changes. Your serenity and steadfastness shows your coolness.
• Be friendly and social, but not excessively eager and clingy. It’s good to be outgoing, but do not be overly excited. Do not force yourself on people. Smile and be genuine.

Replace Negative Thoughts

REPLACE With POSITIVE THOUGHTS

A vital step in this process is the immediate replacement of all negative thoughts by the positive ones. The shorter the interval between the disinfecting and the replacing stage, the better it is. Longer intervals between these two events weaken the impact of the positive thoughts. Our success and happiness depend on identifying our goals precisely and chasing them effectively, both of which, in turn, depend on how well we manage our thoughts. The quality of our thoughts decides the quality of the outcomes we land up with. Thoughts have the power to materialize themselves because they are instrumental in channeling energy towards the physical or mental condition they are about.

External situations and the remarks of others can harm us through our thoughts—but only to the extent our thoughts allow them to. So think positive. Talk positive. Read positive quotable quotes of great people. Surround yourself with posters and cards bearing positive messages. Keep them on your table. Hang them on the walls. Paste them near the bathroom mirror and on the doors. Stick them on your watchstrap. Keep them on the refrigerator. Have them on the dashboard of the car. Slip them under the glass of the table in front of you. Slide them in the inner side of the briefcase you carry. Find other suitable places where you are bound to look at them every day.

Remember that these messages will stale with prolonged use. So keep changing their position and contents. Do not let the momentum of these thoughts get weaker.

Use them appropriately in response to specific negative thoughts. The replacing thought must be positive in every sense. Apart from being inspiring and assuring, it should also be suggestive. For example, if you confront a negative thought, "I can never succeed", it will not suffice if you replace it with "Sun! Attack! I can succeed". This kind of replacement may not be effective, for it sounds like wishful thinking and lacks assurance, depth and penetrating certainty. It is better to break your replacing thought down into more definite and specific steps or instructions.

The replacing thought in this case may be: "I can succeed. By earlier failures I have become rich in experience and have come to know specific areas that require special attention. I will jot them down and systematically think of the ways in which I can improve. I shall plan. And then stick to it. There is absolutely no reason why I should not succeed. I will assess, plan, execute, monitor, modify and carryon with the plan, and finally succeed. In fact, I think that success has already been achieved and only time separates my thought of success and its transformation into reality. I am committing myself to all that is required to achieve success. I am a river that knows no obstacles. I shall find my way anyhow—and if there is none I shall make one."

REINFORCE

Thoughts like these can be further reinforced with emotions and images. All this may take longer than one single replacing thought, but these are far more effective since they allow you to divide the desired target into workable units. Focus on a pleasant event that took place in the past. This way your thoughts will turn positive and your emotions and images will reinforce each other, resulting in an overall positive attitude.

Key To Success Regarding Your Job And Career

There are many types of job and career fairs -- from ones scheduled during Spring Break for college students to industry-specific ones for professionals -- but they all have one common theme: it's a chance for a company to meet and screen a large volume of potential job candidates. Whether you're a college student new to the job-hunting process or a seasoned professional, these ten strategies will improve your odds of not being screened out and should lead to a deeper level of satisfaction with your efforts and increase your chances of obtaining a second interview.

Keep in mind that career fairs should be just one small part of your entire job search process; however, they can be a successful part. Will these ten strategies guarantee you success? Of course not, but by following these strategies, you will be in position to strategically place yourself above many of the other job-seekers who are attending the fair.

The Ten Keys to Success:

1. Pre-register. Some career fairs allow job-seekers to pre-register for the event, which usually includes submitting a resume or summary resume. With more fairs going to the Web, pre-registration will most likely become even more common. The idea behind pre-registering, of course, is that employers get a chance to prescreen applicants and possibly make note of applicants they want to meet at the fair. Does pre-registration guarantee that you will get noticed or that employers will even look at the registrations? No, but why would you not take advantage of such an easy step?
2. Research. Many job-seekers go to fairs to "see the sights" and are not prepared to interview. You can get a huge jump on the competition by getting a list of the companies attending the fair and doing some research on each of the companies you want to interview with; don't waste time with companies that do not interest you. While all of the recruiters have company literature at their booths at the fair, you often can't access those until after the interview. With so much information about companies on the Web, there is no excuse not to do your homework.
   
3. Resumes. Bring lots of resumes to the fair -- at least two for each company for which you have an interest. If you have multiple interests or job objectives, make sure you bring enough of each version of your resume. For tips on writing a traditional resume,. You should also bring scanned versions of your resumes. More and more recruiters are simply bringing these collected stacks of resumes back to the corporate office and scanning them into a database.
   
4. Portfolios. More and more career experts are emphasizing the importance of careerportfolio.. These portfolios should include copies of your resumes, a list of references, and samples of your best work. While most career fair interviews are fairly short, there may be opportunities for discussing your portfolio with a recruiter -- either over a short break or meal or during a second interview on-site. It is best to always be prepared no matter what happens.
   
5. Attire. Conservative business attire is essential, even for those Spring Break beach side career fairs because image and first impressions are critical. Know what is the expected attire of your profession and dress accordingly. It is always better to be overdressed than under dressed.
   
6. Strategy. You need to devise a strategy or plan of attack for the fair. You've already done the first step by researching the companies you are interested in. The second step is seeing if any new companies have registered when you arrive at the fair. The third step is surveying the layout of the fair and determining an order of interviewing. Some experts suggest meeting with your top choices first thing in the morning, interviewing with your other choices in the middle of the day, and returning to your top choices at the end of the day to thank them again for their time. But remember to stay flexible as your top choices may be the top choices of many, creating long lines that you may wish to avoid.
7. Interviewing. You may only have two to five minutes to market yourself and protect yourself from being screened out, thus you need to make the most of your time. Many experts suggest that you develop a one-minute "commercial" that highlights the key benefits that you can offer the organization -- and then use it at the beginning of the interview. Also remember the three keys to all interviews: make eye contact, offer a firm handshake, and show enthusiasm. You should also prepare answers to interview questions. The most common question you will face is something along the lines of "what are you here for today?" Seems like an easy question to answer, especially if you've done your homework and can tailor your answer to your interests and the company's interests, thereby marketing yourself. . A great concluding question for you to ask is, "What do I need to do to obtain a second interview with your firm?" Finally, make sure to avoid poor communication bad habits, such as fidgeting, rocking, chewing gum, etc.
   
8. Intangibles. There are several other things you can do to help make your career experience a success. First, don't waste your time interviewing with companies you have no desire to work for; do make sure to interview with all the companies you do want to work for. Second, if you did not prepare for a company you want to interview for, try eavesdropping on several of the interviews ahead of you so you can better prepare; do also try to get some company literature from the booth before getting in line so you can read about the company while waiting; don't just stand in line doing nothing. Third, do extend common courtesies, such as offering to get the recruiter a beverage or snack; don't be upset if the recruiter has to take a break before your interview. Fourth, if your ideal company is hiring computer technicians and you want to work in accounting, do still interview with the company at the fair, being sure to leave the interview with the contact information of the person responsible for hiring that area; don't be discouraged and walk away.
9. Networking. Career fairs are all about networking. Of course, you are building a network with the recruiters -- this task is your most vital. However, you can also network with your fellow job-seekers in terms of sharing information about job leads, companies, and their recruiting strategies and styles. There may also be professional organizations or we employment agencies hand at the fair, which are also good sources for networking.
   
10. Follow-up. Don't take the order of this key to mean it to be the least important; in fact, some would say it is one of the most important. You would be surprised at how few job-seekers actually take the time to follow-up their career fair interviews, thus when you do it, you will get an edge over the many others who do not. There are two main methods of follow-up. Some experts suggest actually calling the recruiter the evening of the fair and leaving a voice mail message thanking the recruiter again for his/her time that day. A more concrete and traditional method is to write a thank you note and mail it the next day to the address on the recruiter's business card. In the letter, thank the recruiter for his/her time, restate your interest and qualifications for the position, reiterate your interest in a second interview, and make a promise to follow-up the letter with a phone call (and then make sure you do in fact call). You probably should enclose another copy of your resume to be sure. What should the letter look like?
    

How To Change Yourself To Positive Attitude

We all want success in life. We want success in our home life, business life, and in our relationships with others. The most important single factor that guarantees our success in every aspect of our lives is having a positive attitude. Without a positive attitude success is not possible. Earl Nightingale call attitude "the magic word."

You will never attract positive things into your life if all of your thoughts are negative. Just as a magnet attracts anything metal our minds attract the things we think about most. Your mind will always seek to turn the things you think about most into physical reality. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "A man becomes what he thinks about, most of the time."

Everyone of us has two different minds, the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious mind is our thinking, which uses logic, deduction, reason, and sound judgment to make its decisions. Your choices in life are made by the conscious mind.

The subconscious mind lies outside your conscious mind. It has access to data, information, and ideas outside your own experience. Your subconscious mind works 24 hours a day and it is the source of all examples of pure creativity, problem solving, and goal achievement. It is a magical part of your mind. The part of your mind where genius lies.

Our subconscious mind is not able to distinguish between postive and negative thoughts. So, if you tell yourself something often enough your subconscious will eventually come to believe it. If you repeat something often enough whether it be positive or negative it will become your reality. This is because your subconscious mind constantly strives to attract the material equivalent of your most frequent and prominent thoughts.

It is impossible for a negative mind to attract positive things. If you're thinking about problems constantly you will find them. Is it possible to overcome negative and pessimistic thinking with postive thoughts? You bet it is! And it's something which can be easily learned.

It's all a matter of conditioning. You can train your mind to think positive thoughts the same way you can learn anything else. The way to do this, is to remove any negative thoughts one at a time until there are none left. And for each negative thought that you remove, you then plant a new and positive thought in its place. You then nurture those positive thoughts until there is no room for any negative thoughts to grow. Then, make a habit of stopping a negative thought any time it appears and replacing it with a positive thought. For example, replace, "I can't do it" with "I can do it" and you'll find your attitude and your life will greatly improve.

Positive thoughts will lead you to financial success and it will help you find the true riches of life for yourself and your family. So whatever it is in life that you want, you must begin today to become a "positive thinker." Once you do this your future success will be unlimited.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant. Joe's work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.

For Joe, success in life is the comprehensive product of greater wealth and income, better personal reltationships, and productive attitudes and environments. He started his personal development services because he sensed a strong need for caring, personalized, and flexible mentoring to individuals from all backgrounds and professions.

Benefits of Optimism

Optimistic attitude helps to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to avoid worry and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life, it will bring constructive changes into your life, and makes them happier, brighter and more successful. With a positive attitude you see the bright side of life, become optimistic and expect the best to happen. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth developing and strengthening.

Optimistic attitude manifests in the following ways:

Positive thinking.

Constructive thinking.

Creative thinking.

Expecting success.

Optimism.

Motivation to accomplish your goals.

Being inspired.

Choosing happiness.

Not giving up.

Looking at failure and problems as blessings in disguise.

Believing in yourself and in your abilities.

Displaying self-esteem and confidence.

Looking for solutions.

Seeing opportunities.

A positive attitude leads to happiness and success and can change your whole life. If you look at the bright side of life, your whole life becomes filled with light. This light affects not only you and the way you look at the world, but also your whole environment and the people around you. If it is strong enough, it becomes contagious.

The benefits of a Optimism:

Helps achieving goals and attaining success.

Success achieved faster and more easily.

More happiness.

More energy.

Greater inner power and strength.

The ability to inspire and motivate yourself and others.

Fewer difficulties encountered along the way.

The ability to surmount any difficulty.

Life smiles at you.

People respect you.

Negative attitude says: you cannot achieve success.
Positive attitude says: You can achieve success.

If you have been exhibiting a negative attitude and expecting failure and difficulties, it is now the time to change the way you think. It is time to get rid of negative thoughts and behavior and lead a happy and successful life. Why not start today? If you have tried and failed, it only means that you have not tried enough.

Developing a positive attitude that will lead you to happiness and success:

- Choose to be happy.

- Look at the bright side of life.

- Choose to be and stay optimistic.

- Find reasons to smile more often.

- Have faith in yourself and in the Power of the Universe.

- Contemplate upon the futility of negative thinking and worries.

- Associate yourself with happy people.

- Read inspiring stories.

- Read inspiring quotes.

- Repeat affirmations that inspire and motivate you.

- Visualize only what you want to happen.

- Learn to master your thoughts.

- Learn concentration and meditation

Optimistic approach never let you down . So be optimistic you will soon realize the change and get more success through it. Best of luck for your bright future.

How To Live Happily

We all notice that we have an energy level that fluctuates up and down like a fountain, and we have a tension level that also fluctuates up and down. The word, "happy", describes how we feel when energy is greater than tension.

So the way to live happily is this: to think habitually of raising energy and lowering tension.

Giving Advice

There has always been a lot of advice about how to live and what to do, but really, we all do the best we can with the energy/tension state we have.

In a high-energy/low-tension state, we are naturally cheerful, optimistic, forgiving, patient, grateful, and compassionate; we think clearly, calmly, courageously, and creatively; work and relationships go well; and life seems very simple.

In a low-energy/high-tension state, it feels like something is wrong, or missing, and needs to be fixed or found, and we try to make things happen, but no matter how much we do, it's never enough, and this makes us anxious, critical, needy, impatient, controlling, self-centered, in a hurry, and tired, and we dream of being heroes or of being rescued; thinking is worried and repetitive, and we drift into addictions; work and relationships are a struggle; and life seems very complicated.

These are not moral qualities or character traits; they're directional signs of where we are on the energy-tension scale, navigational features of the landscape. Seeing this, we become less interested in analyzing and judging ourselves and others and more interested in helping ourselves and others to lower tension and raise energy.

Human nature: self-centered or altruistic?

It's a law that "attention goes to trouble." This has obvious survival value, but it also means that a person in a low-energy/high-tension state will necessarily have their attention in on themselves where the trouble is. And when that state is chronic, then attention is chronically inward, and the person becomes known as self-centered. When that person moves to a high-energy/low-tension state, the trouble is gone, and then attention naturally turns outward, and the person becomes more altruistic.

If there seems to be so little altruism in the world, it's because there's so much tension and tiredness, and because most of us are so unaware of how much tension we're used to carrying in our bodies and how accustomed we've become to being tired.

It's the same with arrogance and humility, greed and generosity -- not moral qualities or character traits, but signs of where we are on the energy/tension scale. And the same with other polar opposites: anxiety and serenity; criticism and appreciation; depression and delight; fear and trust; anger and forgiveness; judgment and compassion -- not things to blame or pride ourselves and others for, but signals of the energy/tension balance. Without changing that balance, we can will ourselves to make changes in short bursts, but we don't sustain them.

Morality

This is why moralizing at the level of "you should" or "I wish you would" has always been, in the long run, so pitifully ineffective, like preaching into a hole in the ground, and it's why people resent it so much and sometimes rebel, or alternately, why we feel guilty and get discouraged and decide that human nature is just weak and unable to change very much (which is not true).

The same for self-moralizing and our efforts at self-improvement that lead us into striving and struggle and often then to disappointment. All the resolutions and promises we make to ourselves to improve our lives depend on energy being greater than tension. When it is, we come through. When it isn't, we don't.

Changing the energy/tension balance, though, brings instant results. The body-mind does not need to be controlled; it needs to be comforted -- relaxed and energized.

As tensions melt and energy grows, all the things we "should" do -- love, hope, share, forgive, help out, be patient, give thanks, rejoice, celebrate -- come naturally, spontaneously, easily, effortlessly, constantly. And all the things we "should not" do seldom even occur to us.

Personality

Some of us live in a fairly steady state on the energy/tension scale, and we think this is our personality, character, identity, fate, or "just the way life is" and what we have to struggle with, and we develop a philosophy of life that features the kinds of Certainties that appear at that place on the scale.

Others of us have big swings in energy and tension, and we're never quite sure who we really are, and we develop a philosophy of life that features Change and how you can never be too sure of anything.

Who we all are is the potential for all of it depending on our energy/tension state. We all have the potential to live in peace, love, and joy.

The energy/tension state is what determines our mood and our attitude, which is what determines our every thought and feeling, which is what determines our every speech and action. And everything in the fields of recovery and rehabilitation and healing, and everything in the fields of clinical psychology and criminal law and ethics and pastoral care that works, works because it raises energy and/or lowers tension. Seeing this gives us a clear focus on how to proceed.

What We Can Do to Manage Tension and Energy.

1. Some things we can do immediately:

• we can breathe deep and free and easy.
• we can sit, stand, or walk in a balanced way that minimizes tension.
• we can relax the muscles in our face, shoulders, etc.; we can stretch and yawn (fear is just tension -- no tension, no fear; and tension is just frozen energy).
• we can laugh at whatever we were taking too seriously such as My opinions, My plans, My schedule for when everything should happen, etc. (laughter releases tension in the abdomen and shoulders).
• we can smile, which releases endorphins (even when the smile is faked).
• we can cut our list of things to do; we can do just one thing at a time.
• we can contact our Higher Power and let go and turn something over and feel the relief; rhythmic silent prayer, along with smiling and deep, easy breathing, can be very calming and energizing.

2. Some things we can do daily:

• we can take time out to renew.
• we can find or create a safe place to release emotional tensions so we don't store them up and become emotionally reactive.
• we can exercise in a way and for a time that energizes and relaxes us for hours afterward.
• we can eat the foods that deliver a calm, lasting energy (taking with a grain of salt the one-size-fits-all diets; experimenting to find what foods fit us personally).
• we can find music, books, radio, TV, and movies that relax or energize (not listen to, read, or watch tensers and drainers just because everyone else is).

3. Some things are more long term:

• we can begin insisting that home be a safe place, a place where we consistently compliment and thank and encourage one another, a place where it's safe to relax deeply (if it's not safe to relax deeply at home, it's not a home).
• the same with friends -- positive, loving, encouraging people.
• we can find work that gives back more than it takes.
• we can concentrate on doing just a few things, and doing them really well.
• we can explore different approaches to preventive health care.
• we can work toward more beauty and order in our environment.
  

There are thousands of ways to energize and relax -- mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, social, artistic, musical -- and we are all smart enough to find our own ways, especially when we have encouraging friends who will listen with love and not analyze or criticize or give advice as we talk our way through the problems.

Anyone can do this. Many of us begin by charting our personal energy/tension ecology, listing what in our lives drains and what lifts energy, what raises and what lowers tension -- and what ever has or might. Then we start to make changes. Even a little can make a big difference.

The ability to raise energy and drop tension, and thus to lift mood and attitude and create happiness, grows with practice. There is no limit on the number of people who can live happily, and no limit on how happy each of us can be.

Hard Work Vs Smart Work..

If you work for what you believe, its not hard work! You will consider it hard work when it becomes an obligation. Alas, we don’t find entrepreneurs in every day of life, at least to the nonobservant eye. Probably they are the same people whom we tease as hard workers or the one who don’t find time to take for themselves. What we may not realize is that their enjoyment lies in work. A typical phenomenon I observe is that people believe that they work for their ends and there exists a fine line between personal enjoyment and professional work. Ask what effects personal enjoyment? I have strong objection to people who resign themselves to 12 hours of long work the moment they enter office campus. Neither do I have respect for canteen mongers, or the shirkers who pretend to work only when their boss lands at their cubicle.

Almost everyone has been brainwashed to accept (and pay lip service to) the fallacious premise that hard work is necessary in order to be successful. But the overwhelming evidence suggests the contrary, that hard work has nothing to do with success and is actually counterproductive. If hard work is supposed to produce success, then it would stand to reason that everyone who works hard should be successful. But that is far from the case. Most people who work hard never come close to being successful. In fact, most hard workers have a much higher incidence of non-success than they have success. Financial strain, stress-related disease, and lack personal fulfillment are at epidemic proportions, while wealth, health, and happiness are rare in comparison.

One should have a balanced approach to work. Even if I love my job, there are certain finer aspects for which I pay attention to. Probably it’s my fav music, a book by bed side, a morning workout at the local gym or a walk by the wild side. That’s where smart work comes in. Engaging mind and body in what we love to do every moment. As my boss quotes often, “if you got no mood to work, don’t work lady. Because you will spend eight hours miserably doing what you can finish off in a couple of hours!” Quite true indeed! In this high tension world, where struggle for life is quite evident in every walk of life, one should realize oneself to the full potential. Being smart, managing priorities in the deliverable, intelligently balancing different aspects of life, being focused on career and emotional balance helps in a big way! Keeping a sense of humor about oneself and wearing heart on sleeve helps too.

The Way To Keep Your Mind In Relaxed Stage

In present era of high competition in every field of life, everyone is struggling to keep the mind relaxed and cool. It becomes necessary when you are disturbed from the extra load of office-task, your children disturb you or you have to run your family successfully.

When your mind is not properly relaxed, you are unable to focus on the work in the required facet. You do one work but your mind thinks about other works that is really a worse condition for your mind, eventually your mind stops working effectively or you may lose your memory. Thus, it is essential, to keep your mind relaxed and cool to let it work for long lasting smoothly. Here are some tips that you can try to relax your mind:

Tip 1- Get up early in the morning and inhale fresh air that would relax your mind. You can also spend a few minutes for meditation that is the best way to keep your mind cool.

Tip 2- Be happy and normal in both the pleasing and adverse condition. Don’t take pressure of any work and take it easy. Keep the fact in mind when you get over excited for any work, you lose your energy that you can use to find out solution of any problem or to do the task.

Tip 3- Spend some hours with your friends and family that is the excellent way to keep your mind relaxed and cool. When you enjoy some happy and funny moments with your family and friends, your mind gets its nourishment.

Tip 4- Join any dance class or singing school that is also the rocking way to keep the mind relaxed and cool. According to various researches, it has been proved when you enjoy dancing, your body and mind gets relaxation.

Tip 5-Lastly; boosting your internal capability is the most successful way to relax your mind. If you are confident to find out solution of any problem, you don’t get over excited and thus, your mind always remains in cool condition.

Keep your mind relaxed and cool because without doing so, you can’t enjoy even a single minute of your life!

Negative Attitude

Everyone gets down in the dumps occasionally. We have our ups and downs, our successes and failures. We just naturally feel positive some times and negative at other times. There are times, however, that we don’t bounce back quickly from our negative attitude. It may be a result of failing after putting everything we have into a project. We just want to throw in the towel and give up.

When you remain negative for a long period, it is a signal that something is wrong. It can lead to depression, lack luster job performance, and eventually to poor health. We need to try extra hard to snap out of it. Your attitude and thoughts affect you, your life and the people around you. The thoughts that you think most often affect your behavior and expectations, and the manner people treat you. If you worry too much, lack faith in yourself, and often run movies about problems and failure in your mind, you will eventually attract problems and failure, and would make your life difficult. Being negative, you will feel that you do not deserve success, and would therefore not try to improve your life.

The negative world of our imagination creates a negative world that is real and one that we are forced to live in. Take Ralph, for example. He’s always complaining about life. “Nowadays people are rude and surly. No matter where you go or what you do, you have to deal with ill-bred people.” As he said this, we made our way to a coffee shop. Once inside, we were greeted by a cheerful chap who asked us what we would like. Sighing (as if it took a great effect to speak), Ralph, almost inaudibly, ordered a medium sized regular coffee. When it arrived, he started complaining. Pointing to the cup, he said, “This is medium?” Without waiting for a response, he added, “You should have told me your cups are so small; I would have ordered a large one if I knew.” Despite the long line that Ralph was holding up, the man behind the counter tried to be patient. Without complaint, he took away the small coffee and replaced it with a large one. As soon as it arrived, Ralph looked at it aghast and bellowed, “You call this regular? There’s not enough cream!” The man behind the counter, who only moments ago was cheerful was now upset and sarcastically replied, “Yes, for MOST people, this is regular, but if you INSIST, I’ll put in more cream. Perhaps next time you may want to ask for DOUBLE cream!” I was next, so I got my coffee and joined Ralph at the table. “See,” he told me, “what did I say to you? People are rude.” Yes, in Ralph’s world, people ARE rude, but what he does not realize is he makes them so.

So true! Our mindset determines our level of success in life. A negative attitude can be the downfall of an otherwise potentially happy life. But you can change! You can improve your attitude and improve the results that you are getting.

Get Rid Of Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts such as greed, anger and hate are like viruses. If you give them any attention, they will start to breed and become increasingly difficult to get rid of. Getting rid of these negative thoughts will have a positive impact on your life. Our body has strong physiological responses to whatever emotions we are experiencing. Negative emotions like fear and anger cause negative bodily actions like increased blood pressure. Positive emotions like peace and happiness cause positive bodily responses like increased oxygen flow to the brain!

The negative thoughts you have been having can make any rational thinking very difficult, and these thoughts can lead to other problems, such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks. Now is the time to break the cycle, stop these corrosive thoughts from entering into your mind and poisoning your life and relationships. This can be incredibly energizing and life enhancing, and you will feel that a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders.
Negativity has been built up into your subconsciousness, and its invidious effect on you has stunted your potential, so you need to destroy these thought processes, and replace them with positive thoughts and images.

Let us see how to get rid of negative thinking patterns. These negative thoughts may have been ingrained in your subconsciousness for most of your life without you even realizing it, and they may have been working against you making any progress in your life.

1. Turn off your phone or any other electronic device that makes noise.

2. Sit in a comfortable position. It can be in a chair or on the floor, whichever suits you. Please note that if you are on the floor it is recommended that you cushion yourself with something soft like a pillow.

3. Breath deeply, focus on your breath. Notice how it flows in through your nostrils, down into your lungs and back out.

4. After you have established a breathing pattern, focus on your thoughts. Watch them come and go. Don't hold on to any particular one, just watch.

5. Observe the negative thoughts. Don't give them any attention, just watch them. If you label them for what they are, they usually go away. More persistent ones, however, will stay. For these kinds of thoughts, invite a positive one over and they will probably go away.

6. Practice regularly, and you will start to see improvement

Try this mental exercise to help you STOP the negative thinking.

Think Optimistically

No matter how great your life is, you still won't feel good unless you think positively. After all, worrying doesn't really do you any good, but it can do a great deal of bad. I know this for a fact because I thought this way for years. There is a logical fallacy that many of us experience frequently: from one incident we jump to all sorts of wild generalizations. On one hand, certain people, when they fail, refuse to see it as permanent ("My initial cancer treatment did not work, but I am hopeful that the next one will work"). These optimists do not assume that if they’re having trouble in one area, they’ll have the same difficulty in every area.

This is one of the hardest things to do. I am very critical, picky, and a perfectionist. It is hard to see things as “a glass half full” rather than a “glass half empty”. I think that I need to improve step by step. If anyone has any advice to think with a positive mind, please feel free to give it. I think, that whenever I think something negatively or wrong, I will ask myself, “what good is coming out of this?” or “why did this happen that will make things better?”. For example, if I didn’t sleep well, instead of complaining, I should tell myself that it helped me to appreciate healthful sleep, and the nice bed and roof I have.

The key to doing this is to make a decision to completely stop negative thinking. I have often tried to worry less, but I have always failed. This is because it is impossible to be negative sometimes and still think positively when we want to. If you really want to be an optimist, you have to change your style of thinking completely.

In work and life success is not just dependent on talent and drive but also on your attitude to success and failure, that is, your level of optimism. In fact the more a task involves persistence, initiative and dealing with frustration and rejection, the more optimistic you need to be.

People who have drawn wealth into their lives used The Secret, whether consciously or unconsciously. They think thoughts of abundance and wealth, and they do allow any contradictory thoughts to take root in their minds.
Rhonda Byrne - Wealth - Thinking - Mind - Optimistic

Optimism is also good for the health, so much so that optimists have been proven to live 19% longer. What's more they are also more fun. Think of the people you most enjoy being around. Chances are they are optimists - positive people who motivate you and lift your spirits just by being with them. This is a good way to practice changing your attitude. Second, each evening I would remember the events of the day and how I thought about them. This helped me catch negative thinking and change it in the future.

Hard Work Never Fails

Success is defined as “a degree or measure of succeeding; a favorable or desired outcome; the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.” People have different preferences regarding the goals of life. While one’s achievements may be remembered after death, the success that he or she experiences lasts only as long as the individual lives and sometimes not even that long.

fe is full of twists and turns .Everyone has to struggle here in this world to overcome every obstacle in the way to success.For this hard work is necessary. Without working hard and just by sitting idle it will be hard for one to get success. Since from childhood and till now I always remember the sentence that my parents used to tell me "TO be A better person in life and to get success YOU have to work hard, The result of hard work is always fruitful,so YOU have to work hard". I want to give example S from my experience today whatever I am its only because of hard work. For a guy from A lower class family it is almost impossible to GRADUATE in engineering BY FINANCING YOURSELF. It's only because of the regular hard work I got A scholarship to do B Tech.I don't believe in luck since luck is never my LOT.

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
Behind every human effort lies a hope for success. So keen is his desire for success that he fails to see any value in failures. But one must remember that failures are the pillars of success. They provide us an opportunity to realize our shortcomings so that we...

Tips To Make Your Mind Peace

Have you ever felt like your brain will not be quiet? I’ve had a real struggle with this for a lot of my life. Whether my mind is obsessed with worries or involved in creative brainstorming, sometimes it will not leave me alone! While I get a real high when my brain starts off on a creative spiral, I’m not so crazy about the nervous system overload that comes with it. Anxiety and sleeplessness get old very fast. Over the last few years, I’ve done a much better job of stopping myself before I get caught in a mental frenzy of activity. Today, I have a confession to make…I fell off the wagon.

So here I’d like to share ways to have a “mind like water”, a state of mind so peaceful that it’s like a calm water.

Stop and think of three things that you have in your life right now that you are thankful for. Think of three blessings or three things that make you happy that you have in your life right now. You can do this anytime you are feeling stressed out or like you are being short changed by life.

Reduce your use of rational thinking, you should increase your use of intuition. Listen to your intuition whenever you need to make decisions. Your intuition often knows more than you think. Furthermore, since intuition works instantly, it won’t bring a lot of things into your mind. Your mind will remain calm and peaceful. No wonder Einstein said that “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

Don't take everything too personally. Some emotional and mental detachment is desirable. Try to view your life and other people with a little detachment and less involvement. Detachment is not indifference, lack of interest or coldness. It is the ability to think and judge impartially and logically. Don't worry if again and again you fail to manifest detachment. Just keep trying.

When things are tough you should walk to a window and take one long, deep breath. When you do this you should focus on nothing but your breath. This sounds very simple but it is very effective. If you do not have a window then just take a deep breath and focus on the way your breath feels on your upper lip as you exhale

Meditation is one of the best ways to calm your mind and have a “mind like water”. . Learn to practice meditation. Even a few minutes a day will make a change in your life. Meditation is a good way to purify it.