Does Stress Take Away Your Power?

If you allow it, stress can easily take control of your days. I use the word allowbecause you have a choice. I believe stress is a state of mind.
Would you believe it if I said I really don't get stressed. Probably not! Why!Just like everyone else there are stressful situations that happen in my life.

However, there are better ways to handle stressful situations than to allow yourself
to get stuck in fear, feel your heart racing and get that feeling of anxiety that tends to permeate the body. I've been in those places and I didn't like it.

I made a decision to use the power of choice and put plans in place so that if something wasn't running smoothly I can deal with it without 'internalizing' the stress.
The subconscious mind is all powerful and old messages get stuck there so if as a child you perceived that fear and anxiety is the way to live and as an adult you look at the worst first, this can become your immediate response and anticipatory anxiety will become your behavior.

Your mindset is one of your most powerful tools however your subconscious mind is
like a mischievous little 'gremlin!' It will run your life the way it wants unless you become conscious enough to recognize the signs immediately and you have a techniques in place to deal with things differently.
If they are open to it, which most are, one of the reasons I use hypnosis with my coaching clients is because with hypnosis I can bypass the critical area of the mind
and give positive suggestions directly to your subconscious. Hypnosis works just as
well on the phone as it does in person.

I'm not just talking about stress. This applies to limiting beliefs or any kind of negative thinking that might sabotage your success including all the 'what if's" and "I can't."

Lots of things in life can cause stress both personally and professionally but instead of just getting frustrated, fearful or overwhelmed next time things don't run smoothly take a step back before reacting. Allow yourself to be conscious about how the situation makes you feel and then make the choice to deal with it differently.
Working too many hours can cause stress. Has your business/job become your life? Has it taken over so you are spending more time with your job and less time for yourself and your family?

You can easily learn how to balance your work life with your home life. Make a commitment to yourself that when you leave your job for the day work stays where it belongs - at work. Your mind needs to be on you and your family when you get home.

What does your office, home or car look like? Your environment is extremely important to the state of your mind! Disorganization tells me that your mind is in some way chaotic. This is not about perfection it's about creating a space for you that allows your mind to be calm.

Do you love to walk through your front door or do you know that you are walking into some kind of chaos? Is your office a place that feels good so you can create your days with focus, joy and passion or do you dread starting work? This applies even if you are self employed and are using your kitchen table.
No, is one of the most powerful words in the dictionary and yet there are lots of women who are afraid to say No in case they upset someone else! Is this you?

It's not necessary to say yes to everything and everyone. Create boundaries. Say Yes to YOU more often. You can still help others just remember not to go overboard. It really is okay to say no to a friend, co-worker or family member. People will respect you even more when you stick to your boundaries.
Attempting to tackle too many things at one time can cause a lot of stress. This is something that is extremely prevalent in entrepreneurs. You want to do everything. You may have so many ideas that it becomes overwhelming. You're a human being, not a robot. You also don't have to be perfect and wanting instant gratification is a sure path to creating stress and overwhelm.

Your brain can take in a lot of information and it can also overload. Do it and yourself a favor, create a plan, focus on one thing at a time and believe it or not, you will find that everything gets done. It's easier to be creative when you leave space to 'be' instead of always doing!

Transformation Expert and certified coach Hazel Palache is the president of Your Stairway to Wealth and an Amazon, best selling author and motivational speaker. Additionally she is certified as a master clinical hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner and stress management counselor. Using the tools of NLP and hypnosis as well as her vast life and business experience, she teaches women 45 plus, how to let go of fear and doubt so they increase their self confidence and become empowered to live lives infused with financial freedom, more free time and more joy. For more information and to register for her complimentary E-Book, Lifestyle and Business Alchemy - 10 Steps to turn Mistakes into Success, visit http://www.yourstairwaytowealth.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hazel_Palache

Get Up And Move

"I am thankful to all those who said NO to me, it's because of them I did it myself." - Einstein

You can move from the level of depending on others to becoming indispensable to your generation. Reinhard Bonnke shared the story of how he got his break into the supernatural. He had invited a guest minister for one of his outdoor crusade when he was just starting out and he had made some serious publicity and on the D-day, the place was full and to his chagrin, the minister did not show up. He was disappointed and was in want of what to do and somehow, he mounted the podium and began speaking and praying for the people and suddenly there were screams renting the air from different parts of the field of great miracles taking place and ever since that time, there has been no looking back for Evangelist Bonnke.

You have sat on the rocking chair for so long, its time to get up and make things happen. You will never know you have it, until you take that step. Many had struck gold simply by not giving up in the wilderness of disappointment. The jabs they'd received turned out to be the raw material for their coronation. Break your dependence off men for the 'arms of flesh will fail.' Sometimes, disappointments are God's messengers for our next level. When we pray sometimes and ask the Lord to take away our disappointments, He smiles and mutter, "only if he knew that this disappointment is my divine appointment in disguise, he will thank me." I pray for that kind of disappointments today. Such that will open great doors and walk me into a world of endless opportunities. Dear friends, you never know what lies within you until you move. You can do it. God bless you big.

http://gbengaowotoki.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gbenga_M_Owotoki

Success Principles 101

Success leaves clues!
Success, like failure, is not an accident. It happens on purpose, whether we strive to do so or not.
This is the first in a series of articles I will be presenting on the subject of success. There have been many books written about it, lectures and seminars given on it and yet even today many people are striving to find the key to lasting success.

What is success? It has different meanings to different people. Consider the following;
1) Family - for some having a happy, functional family with universal acceptance by all is success
2) Health - for some being healthy each day is a sign of success
3) Wealth - to others, you are not successful if you are broke
4) Prestige - being recognized as a leader in your field is succes to many.

You have to determine your personal definition for success. What is success to some will not be the same to others. This definition will help you to identify what steps you need to take in order to reach the levels of success you hope for.

To begin this journey, I want to give you what I am calling Success Principle 101:
"You must take 100% personal responsibility for your life" Period! No exceptions, no excuses.
The tendency for many is to find blame for all the shortcomings in their lives. Yet nothing is further from the truth. In order to find lasting success, you must be responsible. You are not responsible for all that happens to you. But you are responsible for how you respond to all that happens to you.

Is the cup half full or half empty? Is the impossible possible or highly improbable? Can you make it or are you doomed to failure? Too many people blame their lot in life to someone else (I didn't have a father, my mother didnt love me, my siblings hated me, my boss held me back) or to something ( I dont have a college education, I dont have the skills, I lack the experience, I am the wrong gender, wrong color, etc etc etc)
And the list goes on.

True success will always allude us if we fail to realize that no one is to blame for how our lives turn out. You cannot impact what happens to you ( sudden death of a loved one, unexpected illness, job loss, etc) but you have 100% control over how you choose to respond to adversity. And it is your choice.
I want to encourage each and every one of you who wishes to have lasting success in life; Take responsibility for your actions.

Next article will go into more detail on this subject

http://www.lordshipinc.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeffery_Davis

The 3 F's: Fight, Flight and Freeze

The important key of successful stress management comes when we understand what stress is and what it's for. Actually stress is helpful.
Let's go way back in human history to understand how stress helps us.

Let's say sabre tooth cats are still roaming the earth. We're all cavemen are still running around trying to defend themselves from the cats that want to eat us. Scary cats are everywhere.

So you're out trying to find some food and suddenly you're confronted by one of these vicious cats. He's pretty hungry, he sees you, licks his lips and he growls at you. What do you do? I think we can agree that some reactions would not be very helpful in this situation. For example, one unhelpful reaction would be to think, "Oh, what a pretty kitty!" and try to pet it.

Another would be to say to yourself, "So what? That cat would never eat me."
Not so helpful. Not helpful at all.
One of the 3 F's might be a better, more helpful solution.
Do I freeze? Hmmm, no, he'll eat me for sure. Maybe I could hide over there and then stay real still so he'll not notice me... or,
Do I flee? If I can, I should certainly run for my life,
Or if none of that is working...
Do I fight? I'd better or I'm going to be his lunch!

The 3 F's were certainly helpful instincts for cavemen, but they're still inside each and every one of us today. They still help us survive. For instance, you might be crossing the road and out of nowhere here comes a car speeding toward you. You don't even think about it. Your body instinctively takes over and you jump out of the way. Your jump was the result of a wonderful and innate instinct to save yourself from danger.

However, the problem we have in our modern world is that there really aren't that many sabre tooth cats lurking around. A near miss like I just described is also very rare, but lots of times, our bodies don't know that. A lot of us are walking around prepared for sabre tooths and careening cars all the time!
Why? Why are we doing that?

We are walking around prepared for danger because we are in a state of negative stress. We got there by believing we were in danger when we weren't. We are walking around in a negative state of stress because our perceptions have created a negative stress situation in our bodies.

The body doesn't understand that you are merely convincing yourself with thoughts that danger exists when it doesn't. The body believes you. The body thinks simply. It knows danger and it knows safety. If you say there's danger, it's going to believe you. It's faithful that way. So here's the key: The body knows danger is about because your thoughts tell it that danger is about.

Stress is one of the biggest social diseases of our time. When you have disharmony in your mind, it will rob your energy and focus, causing you to work against yourself. It can even shit your mind down making your mental energies unavailable to you. Marco Auciello at Melbourne Cognitive Hypnotherapy has been working with clients for years in helping them find relief through cutting edge hypnotherapy mind training exercises in Melbourne. He also helps you with weight loss hypnosis and quit smoking hypnosis If you want the best Melbourne hypnotherapy, come visit Marco at: http://www.melbournecognitivehypnotherapy.com.au

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marco_Auciello

How To Improve Your Study Habits and Remember Better

If you're a student attending classes, you have probably experienced many moments when it was hard to make yourself settle down and study, even when an important exam was coming up.

If you're like most students, you put off studying until the very last minute. The night before the exam, you'll stay up all night cramming, getting little or no sleep. In the morning, you'll drag yourself out of bed, psych yourself up with lots of coffee and some cigarettes, and go into the exam feeling exhausted, drained and jittery all at the same time. You'll find it hard to focus or think, and you'll be cursing yourself for not starting to study sooner.

And not surprisingly, unless you're blessed with natural brilliance, or you happen to know the subject matter extremely well, you'll probably do terribly on the test.

If this is your typical method of studying, you already know it doesn't work. Every time you go through this ritual, you tell yourself that you're going to smarten up the next time you face a big exam. Next time you'll start to study weeks in advance, you say. But instead, you keep repeating this crazy pattern. Why does this keep happening? And what should you be doing instead if you want to get better marks?

A big problem for most people, especially those who are young students, is that life gets in the way. If you're a student, you probably have a part time job, and like most young people, you also want to have a social life.
Studying can seem very boring compared to all the exciting temptations just outside your door. Or the games on your computer. Even watching old reruns of Sesame Street can seem more interesting than the biology text your teacher is expecting you to master!

One reason we often don't start studying until the last possible minute is that we have misjudged how long it will actually take us to absorb and understand the material. If your mid-term is still six weeks away, that might seem like plenty of time left before you need to get around to studying. You might find however, that the subject matter is a lot harder to understand than you thought it would be, and all of a sudden there's no time left to ask someone to explain it to you.

Another reason we often put off starting to study is that we are too overwhelmed with how big the project actually seems to be. Somehow we convince ourselves that putting off a tough study project can be the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by it.

When we are faced with a study project that seems exceptionally difficult and overwhelming, it can be to maintain a high level of interest and motivation for the duration of the learning process.
If you have been guilty of all these bad study habits, it's not too late to learn some other habits that will work better for you.

First, remind yourself why you want to do better in your studies. Maybe you need a good mark to get into a good college. Maybe you want a chance at a career that will pay you well. Always keep your end goal in mind.

You can put little cards up around your room with inspirational messages, and attractive photographs that will remind you why you want to do well in school.

If you feel very overwhelmed, you can improve your motivation and your performance by breaking up the project into smaller sections, or "chunks". Each time you accomplish one little bit successfully, give yourself a meaningful reward.

If you have a deadline looming, decide how much of the project you need to tackle at one time.
Let's say you have six weeks to master the content of a difficult biology text. Looking through the book you realize that if you study one chapter each night, you can get through the book in 28 days, leaving two weeks in which you can again review the material.

With this knowledge you can pace yourself. You know what your assignment is. You know how much you need to read every night. Concentrate on the immediate task at hand. You don't need to feel overwhelmed by the entire book at one time. Next, work out a system of rewards for yourself. Give yourself a series of small rewards each time you master one chapter, and a larger reward for completing the entire book.
For rewards to work they must be immediate, and personally meaningful to you. There is no point in rewarding yourself with a new fishing rod if you hate fishing.

Rewards don't need to be material objects if there is something else that would really motivate and inspire you. How about attending a special concert, or taking a special trip? You decide. Get creative and think of something that will spur you to take action.

It's very important that the reward take place soon after the work has been accomplished. This creates a sense of positive reinforcement. Give yourself a small reward every time you finish a small part of the job, and a bigger reward when the project is completed. If there is too long a gap between the activity and the reward, it will not have the effect of reinforcing the desired activity.

Besides motivating yourself with a series of external rewards, learn to motivate yourself internally. Tell yourself you're a good learner. Tell yourself you enjoy learning. Tell yourself you enjoy giving your brain a good work out. Congratulate yourself for your efforts. Tell yourself you love acquiring new knowledge, and let yourself feel a joy in learning. Be proud of yourself for the work you do to gain more knowledge.
For information to sink into your brain and be accessible to you, you need to review it several times, and your brain needs to sleep properly for the memories to be encoded in your neurons. You need to reduce your mental stress. Your brain needs good nutrition and it needs to be in a peaceful, confident state. Drugs and alcohol don't help the process of learning.

Write out what you are learning in your own words, and find a learning buddy. Practice explaining to someone else what you have learned. This will increase the likelihood that your brain will remember it.
If you start to cram the night before, you are putting your brain at a big disadvantage.

You're increasing your physical and mental stress, and you're not giving yourself time to review the material several times. By cutting back on your sleep, you're not giving your brain a chance to put the information you've been studying into the hard drive storage of your brain.

By starting your studies early, and reviewing what you've learned, you have a much better chance of remembering and understanding what you need to know when you face a big exam.

Royane Real is a science educator and the author of several books on improving learning. This article is taken from the new short report "Your Quick Guide to Improving Your Learning Ability" You can get the paperback version or download it from http://www.lulu.com/real

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Royane_Real

Time Management: Establishing Productive Work Habits

All human beings are creatures of habit, even when the habit is laziness or being disorganised, there is always a rhythm. The difference between a productive person and an unproductive person is in the habits they have allowed themselves to develop. If your aim is to become more productive, you need to know how to change your daily habits to fit the work you need to get done.
Before setting out to develop these new habits, you need to confront three aspects of your mindset.

1 - Start with your mental clutter. If your head is swimming with information or emotional problems, you are not going to get very far. Learn how to prioritize and control your mental energy, and to concentrate on the task at hand no matter what.

2 - Gather all your loose ends. Any aspects of your life that desperately require immediate attention are not going to let you get on with your work in peace, so address them and then move on. You obviously won't be able to solve all of your problems in one sitting, but feeling that you have at least started to deal with them will help you stay focused.

3 - Identify the things that suck up most of your energy. There are areas of your life that inevitably take a lot out of you. You need to be aware of these and know how to deal with them. Effectively managing your energy is the single most important step in becoming a productive and efficient professional.
By this point you have already made significant changes to your lifestyle, just by changing how you look at it. Now there are a few areas of your daily routine that you need to change. An important piece of advice here would be to start small and to be patient. If you change everything on the first day, you will be overwhelmed and feel that you cannot do it. Likewise, even when you make small changes there will be days when you slip up. Be prepared to acknowledge these moments without losing track of your goals.

Now here is a list of some of the changes you may need to make to your routine:
- As much as possible, make sure your work routine is in line with your body's natural rhythm. If you're a morning person you don't want to be doing most of your work after midnight.
- Whatever time you decide is best suited to your own natural rhythm, be disciplined and stick to it even on the days when it feels harder.

- Make lists. The most important ones are your daily to-do lists and your lists of short-term and long-term goals.
- Make an effort to concentrate your energy on getting things done, instead of talking about getting them done. This one seems obvious, but when you make a conscious effort to notice when you are making this mistake, you notice how easily it happens.

- Write down what you have done, as you complete each action, and reward yourself with a little snack, a short walk, or something like that, but only when it's really finished!
- Don't allow other people to pull you into unscheduled, unproductive activities. Your priority during working hours is to get your work done.

- Do the thing you least feel like doing first, and get it finished. It will make the rest of the day much easier.

Finally, whatever you do, stay positive. Negativity is the productivity killer!

No matter how confusing or complicated your current workday is, becoming more productive and streamlining the process is always just a single decision away: decide to make that change! If you need help improving your productivity and time management skills, visit http://www.productiveandefficient.com where you can get a FREE 7-day course in productivity.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dominic_C_Knight

Leadership: 7 Simple Keys To Effective Leadership

Not Bosses But Leaders
Not bosses but leaders inspire effective conversations around the future, vision and purpose. Leadership qualities in professionals at all levels of the management hierarchy play a key role in business success. Today's fiercely competitive environment demands that we step up and be counted. Becoming more successful as a leader, is about developing you presence, know how and skills.
Lack of support for managers leads to leadership problems and crisis of organizational culture. In reality we know it is not like that. Some people call it office politics and not everyone will follow like lambs to the slaughter. No matter how good a leader you are, there are always issues, events or individuals that will let you down as a leader. Acceptance can be one of the most complex endeavors in history, but great acts are made up of simple deeds.

Leadership is not just confined to the business environment. Big conversations that develop real results are just as important in your home and leisure activities, outside of your workplace. If you want to discover a recipe for success, there are some simple principles to follow that focus on behaviour and values.
This is not over complicated, self serving, management psycho babble you read in most leadership books, but leadership plain and simple. How to achieve more as a leader, developing your leadership muscles and focusing in on what you want to achieve in any environment you are called to leadership.
If you have already mastered the power of great questions and you are having robust conversations around performance and delivery. Then you are probably thinking you don't need this. But if waking up on Monday is still often hard, then how do you make it easier to reconnect with your wild side, the side that is deeply human.

This is the chance to reconnect with your true intentions and purpose. Help to claim the life you never planned on, yet was part of you. We have all naturally managed to be good leaders in things we love, so obvious, yet it is so easily overlooked. I guarantee you will not forget this wisdom as you are filled with a new vibrancy and clarity.
7 Simple Keys To Effective Leadership
1. Develop highly committed & competent people through directing, coaching, supporting & delegating.

2. People always need empathy before advice. When people sense they matter they instinctively become more engaged & productive.

3. However great the strategy you should occasionally look at the results.

4. Spend less time trying to motivate people & spend more time trying to hire motivated people.

5. Through cooperation rather than conflict your greatest successes will be derived. Great leaders allow others to perform at their best.

6. Avoid verbally dancing around issues. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

7. Very few great leaders ever get through life without failing sometimes dramatically. So embrace failure. Learn from it & move on.

If you would like to improve your relationships, reduce your stress & increase your happiness visit www.trans-formation.org.uk/blog for more FREE resources.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marteka_N_Swaby