Showing posts with label Self Improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self Improvement. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 June 2020

This 4 Minute Exercise Can Seriously Boost Your Self-Awareness

Exercise






If you’re going to audit anything, start with yourself

Jun 24 · 4 min read


If you’re going to audit anything, start with yourself

You’re making things harder than they need to be. Stop thinking so damn much. You need to start a ‘Love / Hate’ list.

Don’t mess up the endgame

“If you’re a hot air balloon, you’ll fly a lot higher if you focus on dropping the weight that is holding you down instead of adding heat to the balloon.” — Conor Neill.

Be careful, you may end up with a journaling habit


Personal Growth

Sharing our ideas and experiences.

Written by

Co-creator of 2 little boys with my dream girl - Career Coach featured in Fast Co, Business Insider, Inc — say hi @ www.linkedin.com/in/mikethompsonblog

Sharing our ideas and experiences.

Friday, 13 March 2020

5 Morning Routines To Feel More Energized

Morning Energy


Skip your cup of coffee and do these instead.





In summer, I love getting up early, but during the cold, dark months, mornings are not my happiest time of the day.
While I can easily get up at 5 AM during the summer, sometimes I sleep until 8 or later and still feel sluggish after getting up during winter.
I deeply admire anyone who lives in a city where the sun shines throughout the whole year. I guess my life would be much easier in one of these cities. Yet, I don’t plan to emigrate anytime soon, so I had to come up with other ideas on how to increase my energy level on cold, lazy mornings.
Here are five of my favorite morning routines to increase my energy and level up my mood:

Drink a Cup of Warm Water With Lemon

I am a sweet tooth, so drinking my water with lemon is quite a challenge, but it’s totally worth it.
It doesn’t only give me an energy boost and wake me up through the sour taste, but it also comes with many more benefits.
Drinking a sufficient amount of water in the morning is critical anyway as our bodies dehydrate during the night. Warm water with lemon adds up to that and helps you fight dehydration right after getting up.
But besides that, it comes with several health benefits:
  • We all know that lemons are a great source of vitamin C and help to strengthen our immune system, that’s a good reason to drink your cup of warm lemon water.
  • However, lemons are also rich in potassium, calcium, and magnesium.
  • On top of that, lemons fight infections as they are antibacterial.
  • Your digestive health will thank you too, and lemon water can even act as a detoxifying agent, especially if you practice intermittent fasting.
I guess these are enough reasons to prepare your cup of lemon water tomorrow.
Sometimes, I also add other ingredients like turmeric or ginger, as these come with additional health benefits, but on most lazy mornings, I just go for the lemon.

Use a Dry Skin Brush Before Showering

You shouldn’t do that more than two times per week, but you can use it as a secret weapon for your super-sluggish days.
Dry brushing the skin helps with the blood circulation, and as a result, you’ll feel more energized and awake.
This one also comes with additional benefits as it helps to avoid cellulite and makes your skin softer and more radiant.
Additionally, I also find dry-brushing meditative. Even though it doesn’t take more than five to ten minutes, for me, dry brushing is a great self-care ritual when I don’t feel very well after waking up.

Take a Cold Shower

If the brushing doesn’t help to maximize your energy level, jumping under a cold shower might be the most effective way to energize your body.
Admittedly, I hate cold showers. I hate the cold in general, and putting my body under cold water is a considerable challenge. And I don’t do it too often, but when I feel too lazy, it’s the best way to give my body a quick energy boost.
There is no chance of feeling inactive or slow after taking an ice-cold shower. Promised.
And guess what? This routine also comes with additional health benefits!
For example, cold showers improve your immune system. So, if you take a cold shower and drink your warm lemon water daily, you might be able to decrease the odds of getting a cold drastically!
Additionally, cold showers strengthen your discipline and lower your stress level. As it takes lots of effort to put yourself under cold water, your emotional resilience tremendously increases through cold showering.

Practice Yoga or Stretching

I know that many people like to meditate in the morning. For me, that’s impossible. I almost sleep-in whenever I try meditation before being fully awake and energized. It just doesn’t work for me.
However, what works perfectly is a slow yoga practice or stretching exercises.
I am not a yoga-professional. I’ve never done professional yoga at all. I just chose a YouTube video and try to follow the yoga girl on my laptop’s screen.
Of course, I can’t keep up with every exercise, but that’s not necessary. I just do what works for me and what feels good for my body.
I realized how even a 10-minute stretching routine helps me to improve my energy level and feel happier, especially if I turn some nice, slow music on.

Tidy Up

For some reason, I find tidying up relaxing and energizing at the same time.
My boyfriend and I are living in quite a small apartment, and our living room equals our workroom. Even though he doesn’t care, I need a clean and tidy workplace in order to concentrate and get my work done efficiently.
If the room is messy, I get distracted all the time. And for some reason, I find it refreshing to tidy up before even doing my morning routine.
It gives me a sense of clarity and control, which, in return, energizes me mentally. Plus, I move my body, so I also get energized physically.

Bottom Line

I honestly admire those who wake up and start their days full of energy. Even though I’ve already read many books around morning routines and habits in general, I find it really hard to win my mornings during the cold, dark winter months.
I had to try a lot of routines until I finally found my top five that help me energize my body and mind quickly during my lazy mornings, but it was totally worth the trial and error.
1. Drink a cup of warm water with lemon: The sour taste will instantly wake you up. Additionally, the health benefits make this habit worth trying, even if you are already a morning person.
2. Use a dry skin brush before showering: It’s meditative, and it improves your circulation. However, don’t do that more than two times per week as it could irritate your skin.
3. Take a cold shower: That’s undoubtedly the quickest way to boost your energy level. Also here: Health benefits included!
4. Practice yoga (or stretching exercises): There is no right or wrong to moving your body slowly; however, I prefer doing it with the help of a YouTube video.
5. Tidy up: Especially for those of you working from home, this might have the same effects as for me: tidying up gives me a sense of control and energy. I usually do it right before my morning routine as it helps me to wake up fully and also energizes my body as I need to move around.



Written by

Entrepreneur, Mentor & Speaker. I write about Personal Growth & Business 🇦🇹 🇹🇷 Join my weekly growth letter: http://bit.ly/gbnl0703 I IG: sinem.guenel

Monday, 18 November 2019

The 8 Traits of Highly Confident People

Confidence


They give their best ideas away for free

Nov 12 · 5 min read

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Growing up with a speech impediment, I was constantly in awe of confident people. Not only the way they talked, but the way that they moved and made me feel when I was around them.
But it didn’t occur to me until much later that the one quality all my friends seemed to share was great confidence. I must have subconsciously chosen to hide behind them as a way to feel protected, to mask my own insecurities. After all, sometimes the safest place for the quietest kid to sit is behind the strongest.
Fast forward to age 23, when I did something really stupid: I got a sales job. Finding myself in this intimidating environment, I did what I always did and I buddied up with the most confident people in my office. It wasn’t because I grasped the strategic importance of allying myself with well-liked people, it was just out of instinct — find the most confident people and hide among them.
This recurring defensive move has turned out to be the smartest thing I’ve ever unknowingly done. And after decades of doing it, I’ve picked up on a few common characteristics that are consistent in confident people — and in the process — I’ve managed to boost my own confidence. Below are eight of those traits.

The truly confident know they will get what they want out of life in due time. As a result, they don’t run around telling everyone they meet about their grand plans. Instead, they possess an “I can and will learn from everyone” attitude and enjoy nothing more than learning about the perspectives, thoughts, and feelings of the people around them. This is for the simple reason that they like people and they want to do good by them.
Next time you’re in a group setting, take note of who guides the conversation and how: Who asks the most thoughtful questions, and who listens more than they speak? Confident people don’t need to control a conversation. They know their own agenda; they want to learn about the goals, dreams, and passions of the people around them.

Confident people are givers and they are constantly on the look-out to help other people achieve their goals. One way they do this is by sharing their network and connecting like-minded people every chance they get. Not only that, but when it comes to introducing people they take the time do so in a thoughtful way.
How do you feel when someone introduces you like, “You’ve got to meet Todd. He was the guy I was telling you about who has a knack for thinking outside the box.” Pretty incredible right? It’s much better than just, “Hey, this is my colleague Todd.”

In addition, to sharing their network, confident people do not hog their creative insights. In fact, they freely give them away as often as they can.
How can I help Nick solve the problem he is facing? How could Lisa get more eyes on her project? What is Ian missing from moving his business from good to great? Confident people ask themselves these questions because they receive great satisfaction from helping people to reach their goals. Plus, they recognize that life is short, and the best way to see their ideas turn into reality is by giving them to other people.

Confident people know what they want, and they have the gumption to keep fighting for it, even when the odds are stacked heavily against them. Then again, plenty of people do that. What separates the truly confident from the overconfident is their ability to seek out advice from people with varying points of view.
Not only that, but confident people aren’t afraid to change their minds when they are presented with a better alternative. It’s not a question of who’s right or wrong. If there’s a better idea, confident people adopt it, then thank the person for their advice and pay the favor forward.

Confident people fight to get things right. But they also recognize that much of what happens in life is outside their control and they have an almost stoic resolve to let things run their course after they’ve done everything in they can.
Weigh the options. Seek out advice from people you respect from both sides of the aisle. Make a decision. Let things play out. Like most advice this is easy to say and hard to do — but confident people don’t shy away just because something is difficult.

Researchers have found that the congruence between what’s said out loud and what’s communicated without words is crucial for establishing trust.
Confident people understand the importance of this and when you’re in their company you’ll not only see that they’re being attentive, you’ll feel it— in the way they position their bodies and make eye contact. They lean in when they sense something means a great deal to you and they’re not afraid to give a subtle touch when warranted to show you that they truly care for you.

Attention feeds the human appetite on some level for everybody, but the truly confident, as Kareem Abdul Jabbar once put it, just want “to play the game well and go home.”
I recently overheard someone say, “Surely you heard about what I did?” The crowd thinned out pretty quickly after that one. Confident people play for the name on the front of the jersey and deflect most attention onto the team — or onto someone who went unnoticed. They know that sharing the spotlight is far more satisfying than going it alone.

If you know what you want and are on a path to achieving it, what’s stopping you from truly being happy for somebody who fought hard to achieve one of their goals?
Confident people take real pleasure in seeing other people succeed and recognize the importance of supporting others. They remember how they, too, are empowered by others at key times in their lives. After all, being truly happy for other people has this funny way of adding to your own happiness.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned, though, is that while we all have fears and flaws, the key is not letting them get in the way of being you and going after what you want.
My friends taught me that, and in turn taught me the true definition of confidence: Taking care of your own and giving them the power to one day take care of others.

Thank you for supporting my articles. If you’d like to read more feel free to follow me here.


Relationships now

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

How to Live ON PURPOSE and Maximize Every Freaking Day

Living Fully



Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Oct 5, 2016 · 7 min read
Today can be as great as you want it to be.
Your fate isn’t set. You get to decide how much of yourself you’re going to put into today.
Rather than saying, “Well, we’ll see what happens,” you must powerfully state, “Today, I’m going to make it happen!”
When you go into the gym, you get to decide how hard you’re going to work out. But one thing is for certain, you’ll feel far better if you walk out 30–60 minutes later having given it everything you’ve got.
The same goes with your day.
It’s actually far more exhausting to not work than it is to work. It takes far more energy sitting with internal conflict and justification than it does to just get to work. Said Steven Pressfield, “Most of us have two lives: the life we live and the un-lived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.”
If your life feels out-of-whack or out-of-balance, you’re likely avoiding the very thing you should be doing. It’s only in doing that thing that you’ll regain balance and peace. Avoidance leads to busyness and distraction.

The Invisible Difference When You Fully Live

When I give everything I’ve got at work, I’m a different person. I’m happier. The world is a more beautiful and abundant place. Other people smile at me as I walk past them and I have no idea why.
Seriously.
On days I’ve actually done what I intended to do, it seems like more people look me in the eyes and smile at me as I walk past them. And I’m certain I’m not initiating those smiles. Yet when I receive one of those smiles, I look at that person for a few moments after they’ve looked away from me. I feel love toward them and wish them happiness in their lives.
Moreover, on days I’ve actually lived my purpose, I leave my work more energized than before I started. When I walk through my front door, my kids often run up and hug me, and ask me to play with them. As I look at them in such moments, I see only perfection. Love fills my heart and I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude and humility for my life. To adapt a quote from Goethe, “The way you see [a child] is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is [who] they [will] become.”
Conversely, on days I’ve spent my working time in distraction and self-sabotage, I come home feeling like a fraud. My family still loves me all the same. Yet, it’s so much harder for me to give them the attention and love they deserve and need. On wasted and un-lived days, I end up sucking more energy from those around me than I emit. I see only the problems in my children and am highly irritable.
You can’t see the energy-field around you, but it’s there.

You Can Make the Shift

I know what it feels like being stuck and without momentum.
You can feel absolutely powerless to change your life and circumstances.
But that’s a complete lie.
It’s garbage.
I know it feels more real than anything else.
But it’s not.
Feeling guilty about all the time you’ve wasted won’t help.
If you make a few tweaks to your approach, you’ll be surprised at how quickly your perception of the world and yourself will change. As your perception changes, everything around you will change.
Start small.
Give one or two of these a try and watch what happens:

1. Have a weekly reflection and planning session

“The game is won or lost before it begins.” — John Wooden
One day per week (my preference is Sunday), take 10–30 minutes reflecting on your past six days. How did they go?
Try asking yourself the following questions:
· Who did I not meet this week that I should have?
· What did I not do?
· What did I miss?
· What should I tighten up?
Getting down on yourself isn’t the purpose. Rather, being aware of how you’re doing is the purpose. Awareness facilitates empowerment to change.
After assessing your previous week, make better plans for the next six days. Then, in six more days, do it again.
This need not take long, but it can dramatically improve the quality of your weeks and the days within those weeks.

2. At the end of each day, make your game plan for tomorrow

“Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.” — Jim Rohn
Having a plan eliminates the burden of choice.
If you wake up without a plan, you will undoubtedly bounce from thing-to-thing without really doing anything. You won’t be focused or purposeful.
It’s so much more powerful to wake up with a purpose. To get up and go. To be intrinsically pulled out of your bed rather than clinging desperately to your tired body, without a clear reason to get up.
Taking just a minute or two at the end of your day to make a game plan for the next day will provide you the needed structure to purposefully move.
The same is true of any creative task. Taking just 5 minutes to create an outline for a book, and article, and agenda, or whatever the task is can save you hours.

3. Focus on today, not tomorrow

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” — Jesus Christ
During your day, don’t worry about anything else. Follow your plan. Crush it. Live today to the fullest and be the person you intend to be. After your day is complete, take a minute or two to outline your next day. Then, forgot about it until tomorrow morning.

4. Three month energy cycles

When it comes to your future, you have three vantage points.
· Your vision (your WHY) = 10–25 years’ out
· Your long-term goals (AKA your wild guess) = 36 months’ out
· Your actual goals (AKA your realistic game plan) = the next 90 days
In the 20th century, it was a solid practice to have five year goals. Things were more stable back then. Today, things are changing too abruptly to realistically determine where you’ll be in five years.
Framing your goals in three month increments gives you a clear and realistic future to sprint toward. Of course, these goals are based on your longer-term goals. However, your 3-month goal cycles are your main focus.
Just like your weekly planning sessions, every three months spend a few hours or even a full day reflecting on your previous three months. Make any adjustments you need and make better plans for the next three months.

5. Organize yourself

“Happiness lies in the cultivation of the garden.” — Voltaire
Your life is a garden, cultivate it.
Organize yourself. Clean out the weeds. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. The very act of cultivating your garden will enliven you. You’ll never be finished. But every day, week, and year, you can make your garden a little more beautiful and fruitful.
Clean up your finances.
Clean up how you use your time.
Clean up your relationships.
Cultivate.
Just a little bit every day. Once you start to get things organized, the soil of your life will be better suited for what you plant in it.

6. Always choose the harder right or “higher road”

Perfection is not the goal. However, consistently making better choices is the only way to get momentum. And momentum is exactly what you need. If you’re stuck, momentum is working against you.
It takes some work pumping the water-well to get it going. But it’s worth it. And it really only takes one great day to get it moving.
You are one great day away from having a breakthrough. Steven Pressfield tells of “resisting” what he wanted to do for years. Then one day, he forced himself to write. He threw everything in the garbage he wrote that day. None of it was any good. But when he walked away from that work session to clean a pile of dishes sitting in the sink, he felt changed. “The water felt warm,” he said. He knew that he had just had a breakthrough.
That’s all you need.
Don’t worry about the output when you’re trying to build momentum. Instead, just get yourself to do whatever you feel you need to do.
Regardless of how you feel during the experience, you will feel hope and optimism when you’re done.
You can get to the point where you consciously make solid choices in every situation you’re in.
Consistency = confidence.
Consistency = momentum.

Conclusion

When you woke up today, how did you feel today was going to go?
I challenge you to wake up tomorrow with this feeling, “Today can be as great as I want it to be.”
Having that feeling won’t come out of nowhere. You’ll need to set yourself up to have that feeling. However, setting yourself up isn’t all that hard. It may be as simple as spending 2 minutes the night before writing a plan. It may be spending 15 minutes the Sunday before making a plan.
Whatever it is, you have a reason to live your life to the fullest. You may not know exactly what that reason is, but you’ll find it once you get moving. More than likely, you’ll realize that everything in your life is actually far more beautiful that you could previously perceive.
From this level of joy and purpose, you’ll be empowered to consciously create a future you are worthy of.

Better Humans

Better Humans is a collection of the world's most trustworthy writing on human potential and self improvement by coaches, academics, and aggressive self-experimenters. Articles are based on deep personal experience, science, and research. No fluff, book reports, or listicles.

Saturday, 12 October 2019

How To Schedule Your Day For Optimal Productivity

Structure Your Day



 We are able to achieve so much more with structure to our day!


Aug 21 · 4 min read

Most people are unproductive because they haven’t created a clear plan for their day. This lack of clarity quickly leads to procrastination as the brain doesn’t like ambiguity.
When you lack clarity on precisely when you’re going to do what, your brain will use this moment of ambiguity to talk you out of doing the hard work and do something easier instead (such as watching a funny YouTube video). That’s why scheduling your day is so important.

The Power of Scheduling Your Day

By pre-determining when you’re going to do what, you remove the need for decision-making within the moment as you’ve already created a precise plan in advance. Psychologists call this an ‘implementation intention’.
A study in the British Journal of Health Psychology showed that creating such an implementation intention increases the success rate of following through with an activity from 34% to 91%.
In other words, by scheduling your day, you’re much less likely to procrastinate. That’s a big benefit for such a simple routine.

Scheduling Removes Ambiguity

When you schedule a task or activity, it becomes real. No longer is it this vague ‘somewhere today I want to workout/read/meditate/write’ — which usually doesn’t get done because it’s too ambiguous.
Only when you attach a time to a task or activity does it become a real appointment with yourself. Before that, it’s just a wish — something you can easily talk yourself out of.

Photo by Chander R on Unsplash

When you schedule your workout, it’s much more likely you’ll get off the couch and go for a run.
When you schedule your reading, it’s much more likely you’ll stop watching Netflix and grab a book instead.
And when you schedule your important tasks, it’s much more likely you’ll work on it instead of wasting time with email or social media.
By scheduling an activity, you make an appointment with yourself, and you should honor this appointment the same way you’d honor an appointment with other people.

How To Schedule Your Day For Optimal Productivity

My #1 rule of scheduling the day is that I schedule my most important tasks for the hours in which I generally have the most energy — and my lesser important tasks for the hours in which my energy tends to be lower.
According to research, for most people, the morning is peak energy time (but it differs per chronotype). During your peak energy time, your willpower is stronger and your brain has more energy to focus deeply, think clearly and solve difficult problems with more ease.
According to Steve Kay, a professor of molecular and computational biology at the University of Southern California, most adults perform best in the late morning when it comes to cognitive work.
As I experience this as well, I schedule my 1–3 most important tasks in the morning. This way, I’m a lot more effective and efficient.


According to recent research led by Robert Matchock, an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, most people are more easily distracted from noon to 4 p.m.
That’s why I schedule my lesser important tasks such as email, answering comments, phone calls or meetings later in the day — after I’ve already completed my most important work.
Tip: I like to batch produce these tasks (lump them together) so that I can get them done in a time-efficient way, without splitting my focus or letting these tasks get in the way of the tasks that truly matter.
Furthermore, I like to use different colors to schedule different type of tasks. For example, my personal appointments are blue, my workouts are green and my work-related tasks are yellow. This way, I quickly see what’s coming up next.

Now Do It

Change only comes from taking action — not just by knowing. Therefore, I highly recommend you follow these 3 steps for your next workday.
  • Step 1: Schedule your most important tasks for when you have the most energy.
  • Step 2: Schedule your lesser important tasks for when you have less energy (preferably lump them together).
  • Step 3: Schedule personal appointments (lunch, dates, etc.) and habits (exercise, reading, etc.) using different colors
To Your Personal Growth,
Jari Roomer

Want To Upgrade Your Productivity?

Download my free guide ’27 Productivity Hacks For Superhuman Performance’ to learn how to get more results without working more hours, achieve your personal & business goals 372% faster and gain more free time (without feeling guilty about it).


Personal Growth Lab


Sharing Proven and Actionable Advice On Improving Your Performance | Download The Free ’27 Productivity Hacks’ Guide Here: https://bit.ly/2X6iPIs