Category Archives: Solutions

Self Confidence

Mental Training Gives You Confidence

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One of the key contributors to procrastination is self-confidence.

There is no one in the world that is 100% confident all of the time. We all have areas in life where self-doubt creeps in and tries to tear down ideas or destroy dreams.

It’s important that you have the mental training that gives you the confidence to put your goals into action. There are negative statements in each of us. These are phrases designed to keep you from succeeding – or in some cases, from even trying.

You might be living with a negative mental teleprompter that feeds you lines that erode your confidence. This can cause you to have a battle that you can’t afford to engage in.

This negative mental attitude can damage your peak performance by causing you anxiety, depression – and even convincing you to give up. You need confidence on your side.

If your inner voice is feeding you lines such as, “You can’t do that” or, “You don’t have the skills, talent, money, or goals to accomplish this,” then it’s time that you shut it down.

What this negative self-talk is doing is poisoning the soil of your mind so that you don’t aim for peak performance because mentally, you’ve already lost the battle – and the war.

This kind of self-talk gets you to picture what can never be (anything good) or what you want (success) because you don’t deserve it. It’s time to silence that inner voice by correcting these false mental statements.

When you hear, “You can’t do that” in your mind, you need to give that statement the boot. Picture opening a door labeled, “I can” and kicking the negative “You can’t” right out of your mind.

This requires some mental training to do this. Don’t give your negativity an audience. Have some fortitude where you visualize giving the negative statement their walking papers for good.

Retrain your mind with positive thoughts about yourself and about what you can do. Replace every negative statement with a positive one, immediately. It takes practice to recognize when you’re being a downer to yourself.

If you have a setback, it’s not that you blew it. You just have to find another way. How you work in life and what you can accomplish will be settled within you long before you even make the first attempt.

Don’t allow yourself to dwell on any thought that stands in the way of your dreams because you deserve for them to come true. The mind is a tool that you can use to accomplish any task – whether it’s mental, emotional or physical.

Over time, as you implement the practice of positive self talk, you’ll notice that this becomes your new way of automatically viewing things – in a positive light. You won’t even have to try hard anymore – it just happens.

Train yourself to see the opportunities in every failure. This is a chance to learn and grow stronger. It’s almost like how we tear down muscles in order for them to grow back – bigger and stronger with every workout.

There’s a lot of discomfort in failure.  But mental training means you sit there and learn how to tolerate that feeling without quitting. Feel uncomfortable – it won’t kill you. Calmly practice working through those moments with calm clarity instead of frustration and panic.

Liberating, Free!

Three Truly Liberating Procrastination Tips

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Are you immobilized by procrastination and indecision? We all know that it is impossible to steer a car that’s not moving and the same is true with your life. You simply cannot direct and steer your life if you are immobilized by procrastination and indecision. It is what prevents you from doing the very things you need to do to make progress.

This debilitating behavior, or shall I say lack of behavior, is responsible for destroying so many dreams and aspirations. Action is the proper fruit of knowledge and doing what you know is often much harder than knowing what to do. This is actually a very accurate description of procrastination. It is the frustrating pattern of wanting to (consciously), knowing how to, but not doing it. It is the lack of action that keeps you from moving forward and making progress. Frustration sets in when you know you can do something, but still you don’t, and this frustration can easily turn into anger, a loss of self-confidence and even depression.

If you are the kind of person who’s actively improving and developing yourself, then there’s usually a gap between where you are and where you want to be. The only way to close this gap is to take action; to act on your desire for change and self-improvement. For this very reason you simply cannot afford to be stuck in procrastination. You must take action and liberate yourself from the disempowering effects of procrastination.

Procrastination is not so much a behavior as it is a way of thinking. The real problem is with your psychology and not with your behavior – the behavior is only the symptom. To liberate yourself from procrastination you must liberate yourself from the inside. It’s an internal shift that’s necessary and once you make the internal shift, it will automatically spill over into your actions. Here are three powerful procrastination tips that will help you liberate yourself from its immobilizing effects.

1. Detach Yourself From Your Behavior.

Realize that you are not your behavior. As soon as you start identifying with a behavior you become it. Just because you procrastinate at times does not make you a procrastinator unless you believe it. One of the strongest forces within the human personality is for your behavior to be consistent with your self-concept. Once you believe that you are a procrastinator all your actions will be filtered through this belief. Since all beliefs are self-reinforcing you will only strengthen this belief with your (in)action.

Instead, you must start by building a positive self-image and develop empowering beliefs. Choose different ways of defining yourself and forget about what you’ve done up until now. This is a fresh moment and you can change everything around, right now, by changing your beliefs about yourself.

2. You Don’t Have To Get It Perfect – You Just Have To Get It Started

One of the major causes for procrastination is this notion of wanting to get everything perfect. For some it even goes as far as waiting for the perfect time before they take action. Underneath this need to get things perfect lies the fear of failure and how your results will reflect on you. See, when you do nothing, nobody can judge or criticize you. Right? Wrong!

If you do nothing you will get nowhere. This universe is one that is driven by action. There are NO rewards for inaction. Only frustration and a longing for something that you know you can achieve, if only you do it. Instead of making perfection your goal, you should make starting your goal. As you do this and practice it you will soon discover the real secret: once you start, you build momentum and you end up doing much more than you ever intended to do when you set out to just get it started.

Perfection does not exist. Don’t be misguided by the illusion that you have to get it perfect. Its a weak excuse and one that will keep you immobilized. Liberate yourself and strive for a poor result that way you cannot be disappointed!

3. Change Your Perception

One of the most profound teachings that have its roots in eastern philosophy, is that when you change the way you look at things, things change. This idea can free you from virtually anything that might be holding you down. All of life relies on perception. What you take in with your senses are nothing but a vast array of sounds, colors, shapes, images and smells. None of it has any meaning in itself. You are the one that can give it meaning, and you are the one that gets to decide how you interpret this information.

Procrastination is nothing but a way of evaluating something and assigning a meaning to it that keeps you from taking action. At some level, mostly subconscious, you believe that taking action will be more painful than not taking action and by design; you will prevent yourself from taking action.

This is one of the most powerful procrastination tips and you can liberate yourself by starting to change the way you look at the things that you are procrastinating about. Ask yourself what else can this mean and instead of saying that you have to do it say that you choose to do it. The difference is subtle, but significant. Change the way you look at things and the things will change.

These three procrastination tips are by no means the begin all and end all of overcoming procrastination, but it will most certainly help to liberate you from being immobilized by procrastination and indecision.

Later Now

A Short But Accurate Definition Of Procrastination

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We have all experienced procrastination at some point in our lives. For some its something that comes and goes while for others it is a frustrating habit that often prevents them from ever achieving any of their dreams and goals.

There are many definitions of procrastination, but they all seem to point to one common characteristic in behavior, or rather, lack of behavior. When you procrastinate you are quite literally stuck between advancing and staying where you are. Consciously you want to advance, but subconsciously you want to stay. On a subconscious level you are preventing yourself from taking the very actions that you know you need to take to achieve the results you desire from a conscious or rational point of view. The frustrating thing about procrastination is that although you know what you want, and even how to get it, you still remain immobilized and unable to act on it.

Probably the most accurate definition of procrastination is that its the irrational delay, aversion or even evasion of a task or action. Its irrational because we cannot explain this behavior from a rational point of view. We can only explain and understand it from an emotional point of view because the reason why we procrastinate is because at a subconscious level we have an emotional association to the task that prevents us from taking the action. Wanting one thing and then doing the opposite seems stupid and completely irrational, but that is why procrastination can be such an odd behavior to deal with effectively.

The definition of procrastination, when translated from the original Latin, means in favor of tomorrow and although you might intentionally postpone your tasks there is an underlying reason why you do it which is irrational, emotional and stored in your subconscious experiences. You might want to loose weight and even though you can see how fat you are and how your health and vitality is deteriorating, you still can get yourself to exercise. Why is this? Well, on a rational level its very obvious that you MUST take action, but on an emotional level it seems too painful to give up the foods you’re addicted to and to sacrifice an hour of TV-time to go and kill yourself on the treadmill.

This association to exercise and changing your diet is nothing but a belief and an association that exists in your mind. Because you believe it, you will act upon it, even if it only exists in your imagination. On a very basic level all our actions are driven by need to avoid pain and the desire to gain pleasure. Procrastination is nothing but this basic truth in action. When you procrastinate you’re your beliefs about what will be painful and what will mean pleasure are what prevents you from taking action. Since your beliefs reside mostly in your subconscious level of thinking, you will be immobilized even if you say you want the opposite.

The definition of procrastination as an irrational behavior is indeed a very accurate one and explains the frustration when you can’t seem to get yourself to act on your conscious desires. Procrastination guarantees a life of frustration and striving. You must overcome procrastination if you really want to make any significant progress in your life.

Here’s a new definition that you might want to adopt to empower you to be more effective and to consistently act on your ideas, dreams and desires:

Procrastination is a call to action. It is a signal that you must act on the very things that you do not want to act on and DO the very thing that’s holding you back. It is the necessary resistance you need to be able to grow, develop and gain confidence that only comes from actually doing it. When you do break through the short term pain that held you back you come out on the other side with an increased sense of esteem for yourself and you start to see yourself and your abilities from a different perspective. The fact that you are procrastinating about something means that it hold significant enough value for you to be uncomfortable with not taking action.The things that are holding you back most are that which will free you most – once you take action. What will free you most is taking action. Not because of the absence of procrastination, but despite the procrastinating.

Psalms and Procrastination – Chapter 1

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Let’s leverage the Bible and it’s teachings to overcome procrastination.  Much can be learned from scripture. Here’s a look at Psalms (Tehilim) ch 1, v 2 & 3.

V2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

V3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

It’s about vicarious victories. That is, sometimes, many times, modeling after other people that have been successful at what we ourselves want to achieve is a great way to push ourselves to achieve, to succeed. To overcome obstacles.

It’s also about hanging around with the right people. The beginning of the chapter, and of the book of Psalms by the way, the very first verse, talks about how the happy one is the one that does not find themselves in the company of the evil, or at least of negative people, of bad role models.

The second, tells us to seek positive role models. And Who of course is the most positive of all role models? It is none other than God Him/Herself!

Verse 3 is very telling as well. It’s about the fruits of our actions. The one who models themselves after successful people, and in this case God, will find themselves as if they are planted along the river side. Just like a tree takes its sustenance, its energy, its power, from the flowing waters of the river. And those flowing waters, and that successful self placement, are what allow the tree, and what allow us to grow  and to bring the fruit in its time.

That’s a very important point. To overcome fear, low self confidence, impulsivity, all underlying causes of procrastination, keep in mind that the fruits will come in the right time, if you put yourself in the right situation, and use the right Role Model.

Focus

Here are 10 More Great Ways to Focus on One Thing at a Time

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  1. Treat a task as an opportunity to excel and not as a burden. If you keep complaining about your work, you will not be able to focus, and eventually you will give up and the rest of the work for others to finish.
  2. Meditate! This helps you concentrate on things more and develop a calmer approach when it comes to dealing with a difficult task. This will improve your concentration “muscles” and will replenish your mind with the right attitude and drive to work harder.
  3. Breathe before your start your work. Breathe calmly and properly – this will encourage your mind to relax and take things one stride at a time. If you come to think of it, breathing becomes forceful, shallow and fast if you feel rushed and if you lack concentration.
  4. Create a normal and steady flow of things. This means that you need to plan and follow your plans by the book. This will keep you from stirring away from what you need to do, thus making your work effectively and efficiently.
  5. Get plenty of sleep. If your body is well rested, so will your mind be. A well rested mind and body leads to a better attitude towards work. Lack of sleep can make you impatient and in a hurry to finish things which will lead to poor quality of work.
  6. Learn how to wait. Take your time and understand that not all things can be done in a snap. Results can or may take time to reflect, so you have to make sure that you wait it out as patiently as possible. Anticipating results is can also keep you from concentrating on what you really have to do.
  7. De-clutter your surroundings. It is not just your mind that you need to organize. You also need a more organized work place – imagine trying to get things done but you keep getting held back by the clutter in your office. A clean work area can help you focus on your work more.
  8. Find a buddy who can help you get back into focus every time you get distracted. Distractions are unavoidable at times, and it would be best to have someone to keep you in synch with your goals. Find a member of your team that you can really trust.
  9. Read your emails before you start your work. If you do this right in the middle of your work, you will obviously get distracted. The lack of focus will deter you from completing even a single task.
  10. Do not be scared to handle one task. Do you know the reason why people handle too many things at the same time? Aside from the fact that multi tasking can help show how productive a person is, it’s also because some people are scared of failing altogether. But you know, if you handle and focus on just one task, it will help you do your best and your undivided attention can almost guarantee that your chances of succeeding will be extremely high.

Finding your focus is never easy, that is if you do not have the right attitude and mindset. However, if you put your mind to it, you will be able to completely focus on the important things first before jumping on to the next one.

Costs of Procrastination

Procrastination Comes with a Cost

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Be honest – are you one of those people who puts things off? It’s ok – we all do it. It’s human nature. “Why do something today when you can do it tomorrow,” or so the saying goes. But procrastination (to give it it’s “proper” name) can cost us more than we can imagine.

Why do we procrastinate? In general, we procrastinate because the task we are putting off is unpleasant in some way. Either we don’t like doing it (like making that phone call…), or there is some physical discomfort (like going to the dentist). The task may even be boring and monotonous, or just plain difficult. Its about avoiding some sort of stress, be it fear, anxiety, low self-confidence and the like.

But the effects of procrastination, the costs, can run deeper than just not doing the task. Other problems it may cause are:

Being branded as lazy: When people notice that you haven’t completed particular tasks, you can be branded as a lazy person. Not only can this affect your job or personal life (promotions and the like), but it may mean the tasks you really want to do are offered to someone else who is considered more reliable!

Creates clutter: Many unfinished tasks can leave a lot of clutter around – books, papers or other items that are needed to perform the job.

Bad for morale: There is nothing worse than knowing you have a job you need to do, and knowing at the end of the day that the job wasn’t done. It can make you feel down, and even preoccupy your mind while you’re trying to concentrate on other things.

You have no leeway: When you put something off, jobs accumulate. This means if an urgent task suddenly comes in, you have no leeway to drop everything and work on it – there are too many other outstanding things that need doing.

The task becomes more unpleasant: The job itself may not change by putting it off, but the feeling in our mind of how unpleasant we think the job will be grows. We think about how we have to explain not doing the job to other people, and the whole situation feeds on itself and becomes ugly.

Now to be fair, sometimes procrastinating isn’t a conscious action. Particular jobs just never seem to get done, even though you never consciously decided not to do them. But at other times you do make the decision not to do the job at the moment, and just put it off.

But you can save yourself a lot of mental clutter, and perhaps even more discomfort later on, if you just adopt a “do it now” attitude. Decide that you’re just going to get the job out of the way when it comes it, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. By doing the job straight away, often you will realize that the discomfort you associated with the task was simply your mind feeding on itself as you were putting it off. And the sense of relief you get from finishing the task is well worth it.

So, now you know about procrastination you have to ask yourself the question – “what am I going to do about it?” Hopefully you will decide to banish procrastination from your life, and reap the rewards of that decision!

Win

Simple Steps To Beat Procrastination

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One of the better means that can be employed to beat procrastination is being aware of how to manage time in the best and most effective manner and though procrastination is a very common occurrence in our lives, there is still a need to overcome procrastination so that many of the adverse consequences of procrastinating do not end up spoiling your life. Thus, any help you can get cure your procrastination would be welcome and so there is a need to look at some of these steps that can do the trick for you.

A very simple step you can take in order to beat procrastination is to do the task that you consider is the worst at the top of all your other tasks. The advantage of taking this option is that much like swallowing a frog, once you get that into your system the rest of the tasks will pass off much better and will be easier to do. A second step that you can take if you want to cure procrastination is to break down tasks into easily manageable smaller tasks, Remember, the best way to climb a mountain is to take one step at a time. The wisdom of breaking down tasks into smaller tasks will make more sense to you and thus prove an effective remedy to procrastination.

Those putting off exceptionally difficult tasks can learn how to overcome procrastination by thinking of the task in small pieces rather than a large problem. Think back to other projects that were completed and relate them to the existing one. To help learn how to overcome procrastination avoid planning long projects, start with ones that can be done in five or ten minutes and do not stop until the either the time expires of the job is complete. Either way it will be a positive step in the right direction.
You can also beat procrastination by delegating work to others including friends, and once you get a task begun, the rest of the task becomes easier to perform and in the same vein you can also try and do parts of a particular task that is more pleasing to do first and then do the rest of the task later. That way, the unpleasant tasks don’t seem so unpleasant and you will have taken a step forward which often is the hardest part about doing your work on time.

Another useful method that can be employed at conquering procrastination is taking just fifteen minutes on every task that needs to be performed in which time you can get the task moved ahead and then a momentum can be built that will make the rest of the task easier to complete. Other steps that you can take to beat procrastination include tracking your goals and trying your best to keep the tasks moving ahead, and best of all you should have a system of reward and punishment for tasks completed on time and those have remained unfinished respectively. The best part of procrastination is that it is something that is not permanent and though you may be successful, procrastination can still affect you, and remember that with some of these simple tips, you can easily beat procrastination.

Focus

10 Great Ways to Focus on One Thing at a Time

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Focusing on one task at a time can help you get more things done, compared to multitasking that can divide your attention and in the end you will be doing less than what you are supposed or expected to produce.
Now, if you want to be more productive, there are at least 30 ways to practice single tasking – that is focusing on one task at a time.

  1. Concentrate and turn off everything that can distract you from completing your task. This includes your mobile phones, contact with people as well as locking your doors until you get your project done.
  2. Give yourself a target and a time frame – this will ensure that you are in synch with your schedule. If you are on the right track, you will notice that work gets finished easily and on time.
  3. Stop dilly-dallying and work! More often than not, interruption or lack of concentration doesn’t come from external factors. These distractions come from you. Convince yourself that it is a must that you complete your task and that you should avoid doing or getting into something that can keep you from single tasking.
  4. Post-its are great reminders. If you have a bunch of sticky notes lying around your office, try writing some motivating quotes to keep you focused on one task before moving on to the next. Especially if you are working in front of your computer, stick those notes on your monitor to keep you motivated.
  5. Since multi tasking doesn’t leave you room to relax, single tasking can give you enough opportunity to stop for breaks. So to take advantage of this privilege, take 10 minute breaks once in a while to refresh your mind and relax your body.
  6. Create a vision – of what you would want to accomplish at the end of each task. If you want to succeed in your online marketing business, envision that all your hard work has paid off and that you have gained more online followers and loyal customers and the results will not be far off from what you have planned to achieve.
  7. Prepare yourself emotionally. Psych yourself and focus on the task at hand. Just think about the positive results that working on single task can do for your business and your online marketing campaign.
  8. Use technology and make it work to your advantage. Since you are in the online marketing business, make use of your tech-skills and come up with a single campaign to promote your business, products and services online.
  9. Block out your schedule. Take note of what your project needs and how long it should take you to complete it. Set definite schedules for each part of your task and surely you will find it easier to accomplish.
  10. Start fresh every day. And because you are single tasking – which means that you are focusing and doing one task at a time, you will have more room to take breaks and start fresh come every work day. Since you do not feel tired, you be refreshed and ready to face a new day.

Finding your focus is never easy, that is if you do not have the right attitude and mindset. However, if you put your mind to it, you will be able to completely focus on the important things first before jumping on to the next one.

Time Management

Just What Is Time Management?

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Forget all the complicated and sometimes confusing definitions you’ve heard in the past. Time management is actually very simple. It is the way you choose to spend your time.

Whether you realize it or not, you already do engage the process of time management. You simply can’t help it. If you are living and breathing, and make any move to do anything, you are applying a process in time management. In short, you are choosing what to do with your time.

What this means is that there is good time management and bad time management. When you choose to engage in productive or good time management, you are organizing the tasks or actions you want to accomplish into a logical and cohesive progression that will allow you to complete each and every task within an equitable time frame. At its best, this type of time management does not create stress or drive up your blood pressure. Instead, it actually makes the day run smoother, and empowers you a little more each time you can strike one action item off your list.

Good time management is a proactive process. You define what must be done within a given period of time, prioritize those action items and then develop a plan of action that will make it possible to successfully accomplish each one within the time allotted. With your plan laid out, you then take the initiative to start at the beginning and keep going until everything on your list is done.

By contrast, bad time management does not make the day pleasant at all. You are much more likely to feel constantly stressed out, as action items appear as if from nowhere. People are constantly demanding to know what a report was not completed or why there is no food in the cupboard.

Bad time management leaves you feeling powerless to do anything to improve the situation. The hopeless feeling continues to grow until you more or less shut down, deciding that those action items weren’t that important anyway. You put yourself into a state where you basically move through the day, never quite getting a handle on what is going on and only accomplishing something when pressured by outside forces to do so. At the end of the day, there are still many action items left to accomplish, leaving you a general feeling of having failed.

If you are still reading, then there is a good chance that you recognize a bit of yourself in both these scenarios. Most of us do tend to engage in both good and bad time management from time to time. The goal will be to rethink the way we apply time management principles so that we are exercising good time management more of the time and finding ourselves bogged down due to bad time management much less often.