Bookmark This Page   

"Tips on Training Your Mind"


Today's fast paced life often puts every one of us in difficult situations where stress and anxiety dominate our day. The frequency and complexity of problems that arise and need to be dealt with weaken both our minds and our bodies, making us incapable of finding the right solutions.

There are several ways to improve your power of concentration and to learn how to relax your mind and prepare it for future struggles. Your body responds to what your mind dictates, but most of the times it does this on a subconscious level. If you manage to tap into this vital resource, which is your subconscious mind, you get an extra edge in dealing with all problems that surround you.

First of all, try to change your daily routine. Not much, just a bit, but be very conscious about the changes. In the evening, try to recall all the events that took place in a day. Quickly analyze the highlights of the day and check for any gaps in your memory. If you fail to remember details about an issue you want to recall, it is a good indication that you momentarily failed to concentrate during that timeframe.

You may also try to diversify the way you live. Again, changes don't have to be drastic. If today is no different from yesterday and the day before, you might want to include new elements in your life. You could start practicing a sport or maybe giving a shot to a hobby you never practiced before. Repetitive and dull actions slowly push your mind in a state of semi hibernation, which slows down your responses to the issues around you.

Stimulating your mind by engaging it in a new activity always produces good results. You don't have to play heavy mind involving games (such as chess, for example) to do this. Try the simple things first: take a different route on your way to work, buy another brand of laundry detergent. Try to travel by bus, if you normally use a car or stand up on a chair to have a different perspective of your bedroom.
You can also engage your mind in other interesting activities such as meeting new people or seeing old friends. Give a call to an old high school friend and go out for some coffee or a beer. Your talks will surely trigger a chain of events that you store in your mind but almost never utilize. Still, this would be a good exercise for the mind and, more importantly, a pleasant experience for you.

There are many things you dislike or despise in life. Give them a chance, try to view them from another perspective. If there is a person you hate, try to put yourself in his or her shoes for a few minutes. Try to see yourself through the eyes of people around you and objectively observe your actions and beliefs. Try to let a clear mind analyze events that you find annoying and ignore the preconceptions that urge you to judge a person or event in a certain way.

All of the above are just some simple exercises that will help you face your problems better prepared. Do not overdo any of them and let them integrate naturally into your way of life. You may soon look in the mirror and see a happier you!

Tips to follow when you're feeling down

Everybody has, from time to time, a period when he or she feels more tired than usual, and has a hard time concentrating. The important thing is to know how to react under such circumstances and to be able to maintain control and not fall into depression.

There are a lot of ways to deal with such situations, the most important thing being to remember that the unhappiness is only temporary and that the sunshine will appear again shortly. According to the situation one has to face, there are some so-called tips, which can help you gain back stability and control over your life. Here are some of them:

* If the situation permits it, nothing works better than a walk in the park - nature can do miracles when it comes to healing a tired human spirit! If you take your dog with you as well, you'll see life at least 50% more beautiful.

* If you find yourself at the office and you feel you simply cannot go on with your work, take a moment only for yourself. Put an article or work related material in from of you, in order not to look suspicious to your boss or colleagues, and... start dreaming. Imagine yourself on an island, lying in the quiet sun of the afternoon, reading your favorite book. Before you know it, you'll start feeling better, and you'll have a holiday to plan!

* If you are at home, feeling lonely and miserable and nobody notices it, prepare yourself a bath. Turn the lights off, play your favorite music, light some candles if you want, and try to relax. Don't forget to hang a note on the door asking everybody to give you a break. The time you spend only with yourself is more than precious, it is unique because nobody understands you better than you do, so try to take advantage of it as well as you can.

* If your love mate just dumped you and you feel like everybody knows it, try to do something that involves getting in touch with new people. Go to parties, go to movies, take some friends out for a beer or go on a blind date - anything that helps you understand your universe is not strictly related to that person. In no time, you'll discover that there are things you forgot you like and there are new ones you can't wait to try!

However, whenever you're down, don't forget to analyze yourself and discover what brought you to that state of mind. During the meditation, have in mind all the good things that you did for yourself and, especially for others, and remember how proud you felt during those moments. Do not forget that we only consider our strong and weak points during the moments when we feel down. That is why, whether we like it or not, the sad moments are necessary and bring changes in everybody's life.

That is why, specialists strongly recommend that you find a way to turn the situation in you favor and identify a way to improve yourself. Also, keep in mind not to be afraid to let others know how you feel and ask for advice.

Understand Your Own Perfectionism

If you do 99% of one thing right but mess up the other 1%, and this keeps you awake at night, then you are a perfectionist! In more general terms, whenever you participate in an action and something, no matter how small, goes wrong, you will feel responsible for the negative element.

There are several reasons why this happens and also a few tips on how to make your perfectionism work for you.

Society teaches us to "do our best" even from early on in our lives. In school, we are expected to have high grades and do well in sports. The same pattern follows us through high school and college. We are constantly aware that people around us expect results... good results from us.

We are trained to think that anything less then perfect is unacceptable and when something goes wrong, we take the blame upon ourselves and aggravate it. Living up to our expectations is difficult and we often act with the fear of failing, of not being perfect.

Let's see how these negative characteristics of perfectionism can be turned to fight in our corner. The first thing would be to let your emotions surface. Perfectionism doesn't allow any mistakes or hesitations. However, people around you are just like yourself - not perfect.

They will get closer to you if you show your real self than if you show them a perfect mask. Stumbling on a word, dropping a paper or forgetting a name won't make you fail in the eyes of others. On the contrary, a human approach to things will always attract more supporters than a cold, robotic approach. You can always turn a small mistake into a good joke that will instantly break the ice between you and an audience, for example.

Surrender your quest for perfection for something that works even better: authenticity. You cannot fool everyone all the time and you cannot constantly play a role in your business and social life. Of course, a mistake should be acknowledged and you should try to correct it the next time an opportunity arises. Improving yourself by learning from your own mistakes is essential, but don't fall into the extreme where no success is satisfactory. The ambition to get everything right lowers your possibilities of enjoying life itself. You can never achieve perfection, thus you will never be completely happy.

Another problem with perfectionism is that it is, in its essence, demoralizing. If you're in a middle of an important presentation and one of your slides falls off, you will, as a perfectionist, get overwhelmed by an acute sentiment of failure.

The rest of the presentation will degrade itself because you will no longer be able to concentrate, as the pressure you are putting on yourself is clouding your judgment. Let go of your emotions and accept the small incident. There are always ways to turn it into something positive.

Make a little joke with your audience or ignore the problem completely and go on with your speech. An honest response to any of your personal mistakes will always be more valuable and appreciated than a perfectionist frustration that ruins your entire day.

Use your time more efficiently

There are things in life, which, in case we lose or damage, we can always gain, buy or obtain them back. Time is not one of them. Once it is gone, there is no way to get it back! Anyway, if you realize that a certain period of your life was less productive or was lost in one way or another, there is no point in crying over spilt milk - there is definitely nothing you can do about it, but learning from your own mistakes.

Take the time and meditate on why you feel that period of time was not productive. Analyze what you did wrong, what kept you from having great results, what contributed to your disappointments, etc.

All the information you gather will be extremely useful when it comes to establishing new guidelines for organizing your time in a more efficient manner. Here is some valuable advice that you might want to bear in mind when drawing your plan:


* Think about your priorities, desires and aspirations and make time for accomplishing them. By doing that, you'll have the feeling your time has been used in the best manner possible. Concentrate on choosing things that you always said you would do but never got around to doing, because that will offer you the impression you somehow made up for lost time.

* Don't postpone things like: duties, taxes, apologizing to the persons you hurt, and spending time with your family because all these actions have a certain charm and offer a certain feeling of completeness and serenity when performed at the right moment.

* We all have dynamic lives and we have a million things to take care of every day. That is why, it is crucial to make the right choices and concentrate on the priorities. Deal with the fact that you won't be able to satisfy everybody, but, nevertheless, focus on the persons you really care about. It is them you are not allowed to let down. That does not mean you have to neglect the persons seeking your help or support, but do not try to please everybody at the same time, because you'll get exhausted shortly and you'll end up disappointing everybody.

* Aim at dealing only with people who manage their time efficiently. Don't waste your time with people who repeatedly are late for appointments, postpone meetings or never get there. Try to be in contact only with serious persons, who understand how precious time is. Otherwise, you'll permanently feel unjustified. In case your job obliges you to deal with this kind of people, always try to have a back up plan at hand, something else to do, in order not to wait precious time.

* Learn to do more than one thing at a time. This does not mean turning into Napoleon, but keeping your perspectives open. For example, do your nails while you're taking a bath, exercise while watching TV, listen to the news while cooking or cleaning the house, read the newspaper on the bus, have breakfast while you're answering e-mails, etc.

Remember, there is not enough time for all the things we need to do, so... combine them.

Use all these tips together with a correct diet, exercise at least three times a week and sleep no more than eight hours a night. Keep in mind that time is a gift - this way you will live as you're supposed to - like everyday is the best day of your life!

Your own attitude makes the difference!

In life, there is a huge variety of things that you can't control, no matter what! Nevertheless, you should never let those things, regardless of how bad they are, defeat you. Remember that, no matter how bad the situation gets, you're the one who decides how to react to it and how much it can affect you.

It is essential to always meditate on the positive aspects of any occurrence. In other words, try identifying the good parts in everything. Even though it might sound extremely hard or very foolish at the beginning, seeking the good aspects in the worst situation of all will help you exercise your way of thinking and, in no time, you'll find yourself meditating in an incredibly constructive and positive manner.

The question is how to find the power to analyze everything in a good light, when things can't get worse than they already are. The answer is to detach yourself from the facts. Remember that most things in this life are temporary and you have to move on, no matter what.

Also, if you train yourself to smile a lot and be polite to the people around you, you might discover that, in fact, this actually represents an efficient medicine against bad thoughts and a healthy attitude towards life can sometimes play a crucial role.

Nevertheless, remember to seek out the lesson you should learn after a disgraceful occurrence. Have a learning attitude towards whatever happened and try to convince yourself that all is for your own interest - after all everything bad that happens to you can only make you wiser, stronger and contribute to your self-improvement, if you know how to turn the situation in your favor.

When there is an extremely difficult problem to solve and no solution seems to fit in, remember to change the perspective from which you're analyzing the data. Getting awfully scared and not being able to think clearly, will definitely not lead you to resolving the issue. On the other hand, if you meditate and try to observe the situation form another perspective, which is, if not better, at least less harmful, you might soon identify a way to solve the problem.

If your worries are related to your future, strive to impose to yourself that you can reach the goal, no matter what! You have to have a winner's attitude in order to defeat the problems. This is why, you also have to remember that, in a certain way, others share the same attitude that you have for yourself. Consequently, if you're nervous, afraid you might fail, unconvinced with your actions, etc. people around you will perceive you exactly as you perceive yourself. Not in vain do they say that what others think about us, is in fact, the reflection of our actions, which is actually the reflection of our attitudes.

The good thing about attitudes is that one can change or educate them and it has been proven that a good attitude toward everything around us is more efficient than any other drug. It's free and it can only produce good results, so have an open attitude about it!


The Art of speaking clearly about things

There were times when you tried to render a message, but instead of people finding out what you really wanted to say, they understood almost the opposite. Disappointed, you ask yourself why that happened.

In order to express a certain thought the way that you really want to, you have to bear in mind a few techniques.

First of all, before saying something important, take the time and meditate on it. Find out, in the first place, if you're really convinced about it. Don't rush to any conclusions, because your decision has to be the correct one.

Then, think about the perspectives one can have in mind, when reflecting on the issue in question. You wouldn't want to express something you agree with, in a manner that would make the others believe you're against it, as well as, you wouldn't want to look interested in something you're not.
Once you are convinced what your position is regarding a certain issue, focus on when and how to present your thoughts to others. Bear in mind that every single detail is of great importance.

* For example, if you have to present something in front of your colleagues at work, remember that the clothes you're wearing that day are important. Specialists always recommend that you wear gray or black - the regular business outfit - because this way, people won't be tempted to analyze your clothes instead of paying attention to your message.

*Remember that your voice has to be your ally. Since you are convinced of what you want to say, don't be afraid to show it. Speak loudly, do not rush, take breaks to breathe and articulate the words as well as you can. Show no hesitation and, although it's an oral presentation, don't forget to use punctuation marks. Remember that a structured speech is always easier to follow and tips using rhetorical questions help involve the audience in your presentation.

* Another important technique when it comes to keeping your audience interested and focused is establishing eye contact. Do not stare at only one or two people in the presentation room, only because they are your bosses or the special guests, but try rendering your attention to all the persons in the room, because, since they took the time to come and listen to you, you should consider all of them important. The movement of your eyes and eyebrows can mark a point of extreme importance in you speech. Observe that when you are convinced of something your eyes get larger and your eyebrows rise, but when you're talking about something you are not convinced of or you don't know much about, your eyes get smaller and your forehead wrinkles. Therefore, do not forget to use your eyes during your presentation.

* Mind your body position. When you want to convince and attract your audience, slightly bend forward. In addition, be careful what you do with your hands - you wouldn't want to realize you're scratching your nose while you're talking about an important issue.

* Keep in mind that the words you are using are the means you're employing in order for your message to get to your audience. Adapt the vocabulary of your speech to the persons listening to you. Don't use specialized terms for non-specialists, but try to make your message easy to follow.

Meditating on the tips above mentioned will help you improve the manner in which you make your opinions known to others. So, take a deep breath, keep your head up and give the speech!

Google

 

Improving Your Relationship
Successful eBay Trading
Unique Gifts
Home Business - How to Do It
Healthy Lifestyle Tips
Subscribe to our mailing list

Sign up now and we will periodically send you informative articles like this one!
Please enter your email address and click on Subscribe.
* email:

Our Privacy Policy
We do not sell or rent your email address. Your email address will be kept in my personal mailing list and I will never send you spam.

To unsubscribe from the mailing list, just enter your email address below and click Unsubscribe.
* email: