Building Self Esteem

Building self esteem is something that, if done successfully, can change your life. Being able to accept yourself, to have confidence in yourself, and to know that you are good enough can take you a lot further in life compared to thinking that you're worthless and that no one likes you or accepts you. In this article, I will talk about where having low self-esteem comes from and what you can do to help build it back up. If you want to build self esteem, the first thing you need to understand is how it got so low in the first place. Understand that much of how you see yourself was formed from a very young age. For most people, having low self esteem has to do with their parents. To be more exact, it had to do with your misinterpretation of what you experienced or what you were told as a child. One of the most common beliefs that people with low self esteem have is the belief that they are not good enough. No matter how hard they try or how well they do, they will feel like it just wasn't enough. This is most likely caused by having parents who said things that made you believe you weren't good enough. They may have communicated this verbally or through their body language. Either way, the message you received was that you were not good enough. It doesn't stop in your childhood though. Because you developed this false belief, you went through life looking at the world with this false perception of yourself. It's like walking around with a pair shades with yellow lenses. Everything you see, hear, or experience is perceived through those yellow lenses. In other words, the reality that you have experienced has been tainted by the beliefs that were instilled in you at a young age. Someone can compliment you on a job well done but through your eyes, you're still not worthy and may even believe that person is being insincere even though they are not. Understand that reality and what you perceive to be reality can be two very different things. Building your self esteem will be a lot easier when you realize this. What you experienced as a child that led to you having self esteem issues, has been misinterpreted. What do I mean? Well, if your parents told you that you are not good enough, does that really mean that you are not good enough? Think back to when you were young and try to remember an incident where your parents or some other authority figure told you something negative like you'll never amount to anything. Notice how that feels. Now think back on that incident or incidents again but only this time, see it as a third person watching the event take place. If you could talk to that child version of you, what would you say? Is it possible that your parents just said those things because they thought it would motivate you to do more? Is it possible that their opinions about you as a child have nothing to do with you as an adult? Do you think your parents have special powers that enable them to predict a person's future? Do you believe that people can change? What do these questions have to do with building self esteem and confidence? If you can understand that it's possible that you may have misinterpreted what your parents said or at least decipher their true intentions incorrectly, then you will realize that you have been walking around with a false sense of low self esteem all of these years. When you don't think highly of yourself, when you believe that you aren't good enough or important enough, your mind will search for evidence to make it true. On the other hand, if you realized that your are good enough, that you misheard your parents or interpreted their intentions incorrectly, you can start to destroy your low sense of self esteem by using logic and questioning whether or not what you believed to be true all of these years is actually wrong. There are tons of ways to build self esteem but one of the most powerful ways is what I just described. It is to simply recognize the fact that you have been looking at the world through a lens that only focused on things that reinforced your false belief that you aren't good enough. After all, your mind doesn't want to make you a liar. If you believe you are worthless, your mind will prove that you are by warping reality to make you see things that will back that belief up. If you are unfamiliar with how beliefs and perception works, that's okay. The good news is that the reverse is true as well. If you believe that you are good enough, that you are a likeable person, that you are meant to do great things in life, your mind will create a new lens and focus on things that will back up that belief. There is no "reality". Reality is what your mind perceives it to be. So to summarize this topic of building self esteem, realize that the cause of your low self esteem started when you were a child, before you knew how to use logic to determine what was true and what was false. This is why there is a lot of building self esteem in children programs. That's where it all starts. Realize that all of the so called "evidence" that you have seen up until this point of your life that "proves" you aren't good enough or people don't like you or you're not important was a distortion of reality caused by your belief that you are worthless. Now that you know better, use your logic and common sense and go back into your childhood memories, to those times when you were told that you were a piece of crap, and challenge those statements. If parents can predict the future based on the past, they would all be filthy rich by investing in the stock market. You are much more than who you think you are. Besides, now that you know you have been wrong in thinking that you aren't good enough, you can begin to take charge of your life. Building self esteem comes down to understanding that you can control your beliefs. The belief in who you are and what you are capable of achieving in life is up to you to decide, not your parents. Now that you know this, make sure you say the right things to your kids if you have any. It will have a major affect on their life.

The Vision Board

A vision board is basically a platform where you put pictures of your goals and dreams on it. It can be an actual cardboard where you place pictures and cutouts all over it, a collage, or simply a picture on your desktop. The purpose of having these boards is to help you attract what you want into your life by making it clear to your subconscious exactly what it is you want. This article will give you some pointers on how best to use these types of boards and what is possible when you use one. The idea of having vision boards has been around for some time but they started to get a lot more popular due to the success of The Secret, a movie that talks about the law of attraction. The basic premise of how and why this works it that when you see in your mind what you want, things will start to happen to bring the images that you have created into reality. This may seem like a bunch of nonsense to many people, which isn't surprising. How can putting pictures of what you want on a board make them come true? Well, you have to understand that your goals won't just come true because you stick pictures of them on a vision board. They come true because when you make a vision board and put it where you see it every day, your mind will be focused on your goals a lot more often then normal. When you constantly think about your goals, you will tend to do more towards obtaining those goals. Not only that, your mind will start to notice things around you that will help you reach those goals that you may have not notice if your mind hadn't been focused on your goals. Creating a vision board can be a pretty fun project. What you put on the board is really up to you. The point is to find pictures that will help produce a positive feeling inside of you every time you look at it. It's like visualizing your goals only with a board; you will have physical pictures to look at. You can look through magazines for pictures or even print out pictures from the internet. You can search for the secret vision board examples if you want to have an idea what they look like. There's no wrong way to do this. As long as looking at the board will remind you of your goals and give you some sort of emotion, then it's good enough. I have my own vision board that I have made. Well, it's not really on a board though. I made it on my computer. I basically just found a bunch of pictures that represented the goals I have in different areas of my life such as physical, relationship, and financial. I have it on my desktop so everyday when I turn my computer on, I see it. You may be wondering if this actually works. Well, I can tell you from experience that it does. Will miracles happen? Probably not. However, if you constantly have your goals and dreams on your mind, you will have a far greater chance of making them a reality. I think this is why having a vision board is so effective. Whether creating one of these things will attract what you want into your life or not, they are quick and fun to make so why not give it a try? Who knows, it can change your life. I have several things on mine and one of them came true about 3 months after I created my vision board. Another came true 15 months after that. I'll have to wait and see if the other ones materialize. I'll keep you updated.

The 7 P's of Goal Setting

Guest Post by Charles Chua When you are inspired by the generosity of philanthropists, you aspire to be one of them. However, you have to be rich. In order to be rich you need to do something to bring you the wealth. What you need is a goal to turn your dream into reality. Here are the 7 P’s in goal setting: 1. Passionate: Are you fervently interested in what you intend to do. Not only that, are you able to do it easily and better than other people? Your goal is your inspiration and aspiration. 2. Positive mindset: A positive mental attitude is essential to realize your objectives. You will look at things on the bright side and work diligently towards your goals. 3. Practical: Is it achievable? Is it useful to yourself and others? Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. When you have many goals, set priority for each goal and work accordingly so that you are not overwhelmed. 4. Put in writing: Written goals are powerful tool. It is precise, clear and written in positive terms. It spells out in great details the tasks for each stage and the completion dates. You will be kept posted to do your daily tasks because you notice it every day. 5. Plan: You set yearly, monthly, weekly and daily tasks. Your plan is your road map. You follow accordingly to get what you want in life. 6. Pay the price: A goal is not a goal when you can get something easily. It involves time and tremendous effort. It takes blood, sweat and tears to reach your goal. 7. Perseverance: Do not be disheartened by setbacks along the way. Look at failures and problems as valuable lessons to learn. There is no overnight success. It can take many years to achieve your goals. Goals give you meaning in life. They provide direction and measure your success. You know what you are looking for and every day you strive to reach your objectives. About Author As a husband and a father of two I write about parenting, work, home life, happiness, relationships, success, healthy lifestyle, self development and personal finance at... All About Living With Life. I hope my articles can uplift your mood and motivate you to improve your life for the better. Charles Chua C K

Achieve Your Goals

Why should you do everything in your power to achieve your goals? Why should you go through the trouble of disciplining yourself to take consistent action each and every day towards your goals? Why should you have to deal with setbacks and challenges that will bring you to your knees? Why do go through any of these things just to accomplish your goals? One reason is because if you don't, you will feel regret. The second reason is because you will miss your chance to change other people's lives. When people get to the end of their lives, they will even feel fulfilled or full of regret. If there is something you have always wanted to do, do it. Even if there a possibility that you may fail, do it. Realize that most of the things we regret in life will come failing to take action, not taking action. In other words, we will have more regrets over the things that we didn't do than the things that we did do. So when you achieve your goals, how does that affect other people's lives? Well, if you think about it, we are all motivated by one of two things. The first is desperation. When we become desperate, when our backs are against the wall, when there is no other choice, we will spring into action. There are hundreds of stories of people who went from being sick of being broke and living in poverty to becoming successful. The second reason people are motivated is inspiration. When you see someone achieve massive success, you start to believe you can to. The problem is that many people see successful people as being lucky. Now if you achieve your goal, you will be able to inspire the people around you to believe in themselves because they won't see you as just being lucky. Whether you are trying to achieve your financial goals, fitness goals or any other kind of goal, just realize that your success or failure in achieving that goal doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone around you. Learning how to achieve your goals and more importantly, putting what you learn into action, will help inspire others to pursue their own goals with the same determination that you had in achieving your goals. No one said living your dreams was easy, it's not. That is why so many people end up quitting. There are far too many stories of failure and not enough stories of success. No matter how big or small your goal is, do everything you can to accomplish it. Your accomplishment can possibly inspire someone to become more than they thought they could become.

Life Motivation

A lack of life motivation can come down to not knowing what you want in life. It can also be that you don't really want anything out of life. However, this is rarely the real reason for not having motivation in life. It's hard to find out what you want for your life if you are currently in a wrong mindset. Let's say you're stressed out. Would it be a good time to ask you to put together a business plan? Probably not. So in order to find that motivation in your life to do things, you will first need to get yourself in the right state of mind. Keep in mind that if you have severe depression, then you will want to seek professional help. The first thing you will need to do is to understand why you feel the way you feel. There are basically three factors that will determine how you feel at any given moment. The first thing is your physiology. If you are walking around like you're depressed, you're going to feel depressed. Your body posture can have a huge effect in the way you feel. The next thing is your focus. If you focus on how life sucks, it'll be hard to find any motivation to do anything with your life. The third thing is your standards. If you have a standard that says, "It's okay to be mediocre in life", then that is what you will experience. So how does knowing these things have to do with finding motivation in life? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the reason why you have a lack of motivation in life is because you don’t know what it is that you want. The reason why you don't know what you want is probably because you are in the state of, "I don't care". In order to give your life some meaning and give yourself some life motivation, you will need to have a purpose. In order to do this, you will first need to get out of your lousy mentality. What you will want to do is to force yourself to get excited by changing your body movements. If you are currently moving slowly, have a slouched back, your head down, and are breathing shallow, change that by walking fasters, straightening you back, put your head up, and breath more fully. This will create a change in your physical chemistry and will start to instantly make you feel better. The next thing you will want to do is to focus on the positive things. You can do this by asking yourself the right questions. So instead of, "Why does my life suck", you will want to ask, "What is good in my life right now? What can I be excited about my life right now if I really wanted to?" By asking empowering questions, your mind will start to focus on empowering things. The last step to have more motivation for life is to change your standards. Up until now, you probably have pretty low standards for yourself. You don't really expect much out of your life and therefore have no motivation in life. The best way to get out of this rut is to start surrounding yourself with people who are full of life motivation. Since you become who you spend most of your time with, by hanging out with people who are alive, people who have a purpose and are going for their dreams and goals, you will start to pick up their way of thinking as well. All of these things can change your life. If you want more information on the above steps, you can read books on Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP for short. You will learn different skills to help you instantly change the way you feel. It will help give you more life motivation so you can make the best out of this life.

Dealing with Stress

Dealing with stress is something that almost all of us have to go through. Stress isn't always a bad thing though. It can sometimes help you to take the necessary course of action. However, in this article, I'm going to talk about the bad type of stress. The one that gives you headaches and causes you to become agitated enough to yell at a stranger or to come home and kick your cat. I will also give you some tips to help you reduce stress. So what causes stress? It can be a lot of things such as too much demand at work. Dealing with work stress can cause your days to go by really slow. Not only that, it can follow you home and cause you to get into arguments with your spouse. Since stress can cause all kinds of damage both mentally and physically, it is in your best interest to learn how to deal with it. One way to deal with it is to ask yourself, "What can I do at this very instant to make this situation better?" Some people get stressed when they are stuck in traffic. This can be solved by realizing that there's nothing you can do to make the situation any better. Feeling stressed isn't going to help so why even stress about it? Is dealing with stress really that simple? How about dealing with stress at work? As long as you're doing everything you can within your control, why stress about anything else? Most of the stuff people stress about is things they have no control over at the moment anyway. When you only focus on things that you can change, you will have a lot less on your mind. When you have a lot less on your mind, you will have a lot less stress. There are lots of other ways of dealing with stress like getting a massage, doing yoga, meditation, exercise, squeezing a stress ball, and even having sex. There are a ton of other things you can do as well but these are mostly ways to get rid of stress that you already have. When you get used to only stressing over things that you can actually do something about at the moment, you will prevent a lot of the things that used to cause you stress from even happening. Since your stress levels will reduce dramatically, you can then use any of those other techniques to get rid of any remaining stress that you may have. Whether you're dealing with stress in the workplace or at home, just remember that there is no point in stressing over things that you can't do anything to change. Focus only on things you can change and you will free yourself from pointless stress.

Business Motivation

When it comes to business, there are few things that are more important than business motivation. Why? Because if you have a business full of unmotivated employees, how long do you think your business will last? Without a business, nothing else really matters. In a perfect world, you would be able to hire the most dedicated and self motivated people for the job. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. You will sometimes need to be able to provide your workers with motivation especially if you run a group of sales people. Finding people who have motivation in business can be a bit difficult. The fact is that most people, if they were to win the lottery, wouldn’t continue working for you. That means they are there because they need to be there, not because they necessarily want to be there. This is one reason why there can be a lack of motivation in the office. So what can you do about it? One thing you can do is hire a motivational business speaker. Their job is to come in and inspire your team to become more focused and help give them more reasons to be more productive. The main goal of any business is to make a profit. Even non-profit organizations need to make money to have the business running. If that is the case, then it's vital that the company is able to produce. This will come down to the employees being able to do their job in the more effective and efficient way. Being able to do this will help you stay in business. The company that dominates the field isn't always the one with the best products. It's normally the one who can deliver want the customers want in the most effective and efficient way possible. This will require your employees to be motivated to achieve this goal for the company and not just to make a paycheck. Business motivation can be achieved but it may take a lot of work. Hiring a business motivational speaker can be effective. You will want to do your research to find the right speaker. Get a motivational speaker for business purposes instead of just entertainment purposes. You can even give your employees a survey to take that will help give you a better understanding of what motivates them. You can even talk to each of your employees if you have a small business to make it more personal. You can also do some research on the study of business motivation to come up with other ideas that you can implement to help increase the level of motivation in your business.

How to Motivate Employees

Knowing how to motivate employees can mean the difference between a thriving business and a failing one. Since a large percentage of people would rather be doing something else other than their current work, motivating them can be quite the challenge. This isn't an impossible task however. This article will give you a few ideas on how you can help increasing productivity in the workplace in order to improve your bottom line. As you may know, there are different types of employees. Not everyone will be motivated the same way. For some people, a bonus can do the trick. For others, more money won't really do much at all and if it does, it will only be temporary. The first step to knowing how to motivate your employees is to realize that everyone works for a reason. Sometimes it's just for a paycheck but many times, it's more than that. For some people, all it takes is a, "Hey, thanks for doing such a great job on that last project." For others it may take a public recognition such as receiving an award for something in front of their coworkers. Some people can get these things and will still be unmotivated to work. For them, becoming motivated could mean having to really feel that what they do is making a difference, that they are somehow responsible for the success of the company. As you can see, with so many different styles, figuring out how to motivate employees in the workplace can be difficult. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to figure out people's motivation style is. This can be done by doing things like having them take a survey or even having a one on one talk with them to find out what their goals and purpose of working at the company is. Many employers will think that giving more money will do the job. This will work but many times, it's just temporary. The examples above are about how to motivate employees without money and can be much more effective. Realize very few people are actually lazy. You may see someone who just doesn't want to do anything but that doesn't mean they are a lazy person. It may just mean that they don't see the purpose of working hard. These people merely lack a strong enough goal or a reason. Figuring out how to motivate lazy employees can be as simple as asking them what will motivate them. Give them a reason to be productive. Remember, a paycheck may not be enough. Knowing how to motivate employees can be tough but it's something that you will have to figure out. There are a lot of different books and programs to help deal with this challenge. You can even hire a motivational speaker or even a company to come in a find out what motivates your employees for you so you don't have to.

Effective Communication

Developing the skill of effective communication can do wonders for the quality of your life and your relationships. One of the major causes of arguments and disagreements is not being able to convey the right message. Far too many marriages have ended in divorce due to miscommunication. If you look at the business world, lack of proper communication can cause all sorts of problems from loss of sales, loss of jobs, to the downfall of companies. Let's explore some ways on how you can improve your communication skills in order to better send your message to the other person. So what is effective communication anyway? Simply put, it is the condition where a receiver gets the message from the sender in exactly the way the sender has intended it. In other words, if you tell someone your phone number and they get it correctly, you have succeeded. If however, you give your phone number but the other person gets it wrong, then there is a problem. It can be the sender's fault, the receiver's fault, or both. These misinterpretations of the message are called barriers. So what are some common barriers of effective communication? One common problem is that the receiver doesn't want to listen to the sender. I'm sure you have experienced this. You are trying to tell someone something and they just won't listen to you. It can be because they aren't focused, or they are upset and don't want to bother, or they just don't care. Another common barrier has to do with the sender not conveying the message clearly. This can be due to things like not being able to come up with the right words, giving a bad example, or simply not understanding the message enough to explain it to the receiver. Having effective communication skills can be critical if you are talking about business. Let's say your boss asks you to do something and you end up doing the wrong thing. Whether it's the boss's fault for not giving you clear instructions or you not receiving the message correctly, the bottom line is that the job wasn't done. This can cost the company money. This is why having effective business communications is so vital whether it's verbal or written. Miscommunication can cost a lot of money. Taking time to work on effective communication in the workplace will not only help the business run more smoothly but it will also prevent resentments and arguments. When communicating a message to the other person, one thing you can do is to make sure the other person understands your message. Don't just assume that they do, make sure of it especially if it's something really important. You can do this simply by asking them to explain what you just told them. Just make sure you do it in a nice way. As the receiver or listener, it's a good practice to paraphrase what the other person just told you. This will accomplish two things. The first thing is that you will make sure you understood the message in your own words. The second thing is that the other person will know that you are truly listening. This will also reduce the chances of any miscommunication. There are a lot of courses you can take or books you can read about the subject of effective communication. Sometimes, you can say the right things, have the listener hear exactly what you said, and still have miscommunications happen. This can occur when the two parties have different definitions of certain words or even facial expressions. This is especially important in relationships where just using one wrong word can set off a chain reaction that can end up in the relationship ending. Constant communication and refining the quality and effectiveness of the communication can do wonders for a relationship. It might not be the easiest thing to do but since having effective communication is so important, you need to spend the time to develop that skill as well as get your partner to learn it with you.

Office Motivation

With so negative things that have been going on in the economy lately, office motivation can really take a hit. People are wonder if they will still be employed 6 months from today. They are wondering what they will do now that their retirement funds have nearly been cut in half. There is a lot of concern about what the future will hold. Since productivity relates to motivation and the success of your business, you need to do something about this. One thing you can do is to help your employees get into the right mindset and have the right perspective on things. Sure, things may be bad but it can also be a lot worse than it is. Will making people realize that by having a job, they are better off then millions of people who have lost their jobs within the past year? It might or it might not. Of course, this type of scenario isn't always the case. Sometimes, you can have an office of people who are just being lazy and are slacking off. In this case, what you will want to do is to create a different environment. You will want to have one where people take pride in getting things done. This may mean you will have to get rid of some people or it may mean you will have to set some new rules and standards. A lack of office motivation can hurt any business. When it comes down to it, a business needs to produce. When it doesn't produce, profits will sink. In order to produce, you will need everyone in the office to be on board and take part in the company's success. This can be achieved by getting your employees to feel like what they do actually matters. Get them to feel like they are part owners in the company. Ask for their opinions on important matters and take their suggestions seriously. Give them more responsibilities. These things may or may not work depending on the situation and what kind of business you have. There are lots of ways to increase office motivation. You can find out more by reading books on this topic. There are a lot of great ways to increase employee motivation without necessarily having to use money as a motivator. It may take a lot of work but if you can increase the office motivation, your bottom line will increase as well.

Diet Motivation

When it comes to diet motivation, it's all about creating enough reasons to achieve your outcome. Losing weight and getting in shape is one of the biggest challenges for many people. This is why every time you turn on the television or surf the net, you will inevitably see some sort of weight loss ad. The promise of quick and easy weight loss can be enticing but seriously, if those things worked as well as the ads claim, people wouldn't be more overweight and out of shape today than they were 20 years ago. So let's see what you can do to get the results you want. The first thing you will need to work on is your purpose. What is your motivation to diet? Why do you want to lose the weight? What will happen if you don't? How will your life be 5 or 10 years from now if you don't start taking control of your physical health? Will you likely even be around 30 or 40 years from today? The point of asking you these questions is help you associate pain to not dieting. For most people, looking good isn't a good enough reason. The reason has to be much deeper than that. It has to be something that will move you emotionally. You will need to either associate massive pain to not losing the weight, associate massive pleasure to losing weight, or both. It can be a constant uphill battle when it comes to diet motivation. It's easy to want to hit the gym when you feel like it but when you don't feel like it, you will need a better reason than, "I want to look good." How about, "If I don't do this, I won't live to experience having grandkids." Or how about, "If I don't do this, I will forever be unhappy." The point is to make the reason of not getting yourself to eat the right foods or not exercising so strong that you won't even think about doing what you know you shouldn’t be doing. At first, this will be hard. You will have to continually talk yourself into doing what you know you should be doing. This is all part of your dieting motivation talk. Most of the time, people slip on their diet because they talk themselves into slipping on their diet. The reasoning will sound so good that you will just fall for it. Don't let this happen. Diet Motivation Tips So once you have a strong enough reason to diet, you will now have to reinforce your actions long enough until they become a habit. When you have to force yourself to do something, it will be hard. However, if you can get yourself to eat the right foods and maintain that diet exercise motivation, it will eventually become a habit. Once it becomes a habit, things will get a lot easier. You may want to get on this diet with a friend. It may be best to find someone who is already well on their way since there's a much smaller chance that they will give up. You could even hire a coach to help push you as well. Getting support from your family is a great idea. They will help you stay on track. Diet motivation really comes down to having strong enough reasons to go on a diet and taking the necessary actions long enough for those actions to become a habit. Along the way, you can make things easier by getting support from friends, family, and even a fitness coach. When things get hard, go back to the reasons why you even went on the diet in the first place. Make it emotional for the best results. Good luck.

Employee Motivation

How important is being able to increase employee motivation? In this type of competitive environment, it can mean the difference between still being in business 3 years from today and being a distant memory. It's great to hire employees who are self motivated and in a perfect world, the persona you see in the interview will be who you see on in the workplace. Unfortunately, this isn't normally the case. Most people will put their best face on during the interview and will tell a great story but when it comes down to the work, it can be a completely different story. In this article, I will discuss the number one mistake that employers make when it comes to motivating employees as well as give you some tips on how to increase their motivation the correct way. Before I get into the mistake that many business owners make, let me first talk about job dissatisfaction. Let's face it. If you have more than a couple of employees, chances are, you will have some who would really rather be doing something else with their life. You have your business goals and they have their career goals. Often times, those two goals are completely different. The Reality Realize that a huge percentage of people only work because they need to work, not because they want to work. If you can understand that, it will help tremendously when it comes to trying to motivate your employees. It will also help you avoid the number one mistake that most owners make. The challenge is that you can't just have people pursuing their dreams and quitting on you when you need them to get their work done in order for you to meet your business goals. The most obvious solution is to find the right people for the right positions. Is being a secretary something that is inspiring to most people? Is it something that will make most people jump out of bed in the morning with a smile because they just can’t wait to get to work? It's probably not likely. However, there are people who love that type of work so if you can find these people; your life will be a lot easier. Once you do that, all you have to do is find someone for each and every position you have who will absolutely love their job. In the perfect world, this can happen and the problem of employee motivation won't even exist. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. So what's the next best thing? Find people who are capable of doing their work and who also don't mind doing the work. Here is the number one mistake that employers make. They expect everyone to be self motivated and therefore won't even bother trying to inspire or motivate their workers. After all, isn't that what those workers are getting paid for? Sales Motivation I would guess that if you are reading this, chances are, you have a sales team to run. When it comes to employee motivation, there is no other department that needs it more than the sales department. The most common scenario that you will see in sales offices all across the country is sales managers expecting their sales people to be self motivated and those who aren't are seen as losers or people who don't want it badly enough. Sorry to say but if this is how you feel then you're really just coming up with an excuse to not have to motivate your sales team. Most people need some encouragement every now and then. If you are in charge of a sales team, the first thing you will want to know is their goals and dreams. From there, you will want to help them make those goals and dreams a reality. It's a better motivator than merely telling them they need to make more sales. Isn't it obvious that everyone needs to make more sales? Focus on the real reason why they are working for you and help them achieve that outcome. Employee Motivation Going back to the normal workplace, in terms of employee motivation ideas, you can do something similar. Everyone wants something out of a job and most of the time it's more than just a paycheck. Sometimes all they need is to know that they are appreciated for what they do. For some people, they need to know that what they do is making a difference in the company's bottom line. For others, they want to be recognized publicly for a job well done. In other words, take part in increasing their motivation instead of just taking the, "They should be self-motivated" approach. That's just an excuse to not have to do anything. The challenge is that different people are motivated differently so when it comes to employee motivation, one idea may work on one person but it may not work on another person. What you may want to try doing is give them an employee motivation survey to find out what it is that motivates them. What will get them to want to work harder and be more productive? Sometimes it's more money but a lot of the time, it's one of the things mentioned above. There are a lot of employee motivation rewards that you can give out as well. You can even hire a company that will come in and implement an employee motivation program to help increase the overall motivation of the workplace. Conclusion As you can see, this can be a lot of work. That is why most employers won't even bother and will just stick to the "do your job and you get to keep it, if not, you're fired" method. If you can't hire the perfect people for the positions then what you will want to do is to inspire the people who do work for you. Give them something to look forward to when they come into work each day instead of just a paycheck. Employee motivation comes down to knowing what motivates the employee and finding ways to give it to them. One of the most powerful things you can do is to create a work environment where the people who work there are proud to be a part of the company. They will naturally want to work hard because they will feel like they are contributing to something great. For more details, you can look for books on restructuring the company and building a strong company image that will naturally attract the right people.

If there is one thing that will ensure your happiness, it's personal growth. What do I mean? Well, if you agree that happiness is the most important thing in life and that almost everything we do is to move towards being happier, then you will understand that in order to be happy, we must know that we are continually growing. This can mean different things to different people. In this article, I will be writing about the different paths to growth as well as give you some tips on how you can work on this area of your life. Before I get into that, let's first explore why this is even something you should spend time on. We al have dreams and goals, at least at one point in our lives. For some people, they have lost their reason for going for anything since they have been beaten down by life so many times. Even then, we all want to know that we are getting better in some way or another. Let me ask you a question. If you look at where you were a year ago and compare it to where you are now, would you feel better if you are better now compared to a year ago or worse? The obvious answer is you would feel better if you were better than you were a year ago. When I say better, what I really mean is happier. Are you more satisfied now with your life than you were a year ago? Now if you answer is no, then you will understand just why personal growth is so important in terms of your happiness level. We all want to become more, to do more, and to experience more. Sure, some people may be happy just the way they are now and there is nothing wrong with that but unless you are constantly growing, you will be falling. There's no staying in between. The world is constantly changing so just to stay the same, you have to be growing whether it's physically, mentally, spiritually, or anything else. So now that you know how personal growth and happiness tie together, let's look at how you can work on improving yourself. There are a lot of different personal growth tools that you can use to help you become a better you. What you use will just depend on what area of your life you would like to work on. If you want to figure out what to do with your life, then you may want to look into different careers. You may want to try out different things or join social circles that think a bit differently in order to discover more about yourself. How you approach this will depend on what works for you. Personality and personal growth are related. If you already know what you want to do but need some inspiration to get you going, you can do things like read personal growth books. You can learn a lot of different insights and skills this way. You can even try personal growth coaching as well. Basically, you will have someone who will help you set up a plan and make sure you follow through on it. Let's say you want to improve your physical fitness level. You may want to hire a coach to help push you and keep you on track if you have a problem with motivation in this area. The main point of all of this is to grow as a person. One of the worse realizations to have to deal with is that you are the same or worse than you were 5 or 10 years ago. How you feel will really depend on the importance you put on different areas of your life. If money is the most important thing to you, then having less now than you did 5 years ago might make you feel a bit lousy. If relationship is the most important thing to you than knowing that you are more in love with your spouse now than you were 5 years ago will make you feel fantastic. So what can you do today to help you become better in whatever area of your life you want to focus on? You can start by doing something every day to help improve that area of your life. It doesn't have to be any drastic change or anything. Small actions taken every day will result in gigantic changes down the road. You can read personal growth quotes, read books, hire a coach, or get support from friends and family, anything to help you focus on your personal growth. The goals that you set for yourself are mainly there to help you become more. It is the person that you become in the pursuit of your goals that will make you happy.

The Importance ofMotivation

What is the importance of motivation when it comes to your personal life as well as the workplace? Well, unless if you don't have goals go work on and tasks to complete, motivation is quite worthless. Of course, you and I both know that there are always things to do in life. The biggest challenge that many people have is being able to have enough motivation to do the things they know they should be doing. One fact of life is that most of the things that will give us what we want are the things that we want to do the least. That's probably why most people will never really experience the life that they have always wanted. Let's look at what motivation is and its importance in different situations. Motivation is basically a feeling of movement. When you are motivated, you want to go from doing one thing to another thing. Most of the time, you are going from doing nothing to doing something. This is the main problem when it comes to achieving your goals. You know you need to take a certain action in order to produce a certain result but what you are currently doing is more pleasurable than taking that action. Let's look at different situations and how a lack of action can lead to negative consequences. Importance of Motivation in the Workplace When you don't have the motivation to do your work, you will either eventually get fired or you will not likely get promoted and will stay where you are for a long time. If you are the supervisor or the owner, a lack of motivation throughout your company can create a rather unproductive workplace. This will lead to loss of sales, profits, and market share. In this case, it's important to do what it takes to create an environment where people naturally want to do their work. The importance of employee motivation shouldn't be taken lightly here. The company's survival depends on it. Importance of Motivation in Business If hate working for someone else and want to start your own business, that is great. However, as most business owners will find, having your own business will depend way more from you. This can be great if you're highly motivated but if you're not, that can be a bad combination. Without anyone on your back telling you to do your work and threatening to fire you if you don't, it's easy to just put things off until later. The worse thing that can happen is that you go out of business and if you have invested a lot of money into the business, it can be a tough situation to go through. Business owners normally work 12 to 16 hour days so unless you really hate working for someone else or you really love the business, you may want to think twice about this option. It's not for everyone. Importance of Motivation in the Classroom When you have no motivation to study, it can be hard to get the grades you need to accomplish your educational goals. Most students, believe it or not, are capable of doing very well in school despite what their current grades are showing. Most of the time, it's not the lack of ability to learn the material but the lack to interest and motivation to put in the effort to actually do well. If you are the teacher, it's important that you do what you can to teach the material in a way that will interest the students. Even something as boring as history can be taught in a stimulating way. There's no question about the importance of motivation and how it plays a part in all areas of our lives. We all have dreams and goals that we want to see become a reality. If you had a never-ending stream of motivation, you can literally do anything. The problem is that most people will never put in the effort that is needed to live an extraordinary life. Why? Because it's easier to do nothing than to do something. Go do something!

The Importance ofMotivation

What is the importance of motivation when it comes to your personal life as well as the workplace? Well, unless if you don't have goals go work on and tasks to complete, motivation is quite worthless. Of course, you and I both know that there are always things to do in life. The biggest challenge that many people have is being able to have enough motivation to do the things they know they should be doing. One fact of life is that most of the things that will give us what we want are the things that we want to do the least. That's probably why most people will never really experience the life that they have always wanted. Let's look at what motivation is and its importance in different situations. Motivation is basically a feeling of movement. When you are motivated, you want to go from doing one thing to another thing. Most of the time, you are going from doing nothing to doing something. This is the main problem when it comes to achieving your goals. You know you need to take a certain action in order to produce a certain result but what you are currently doing is more pleasurable than taking that action. Let's look at different situations and how a lack of action can lead to negative consequences. Importance of Motivation in the Workplace When you don't have the motivation to do your work, you will either eventually get fired or you will not likely get promoted and will stay where you are for a long time. If you are the supervisor or the owner, a lack of motivation throughout your company can create a rather unproductive workplace. This will lead to loss of sales, profits, and market share. In this case, it's important to do what it takes to create an environment where people naturally want to do their work. The importance of employee motivation shouldn't be taken lightly here. The company's survival depends on it. Importance of Motivation in Business If hate working for someone else and want to start your own business, that is great. However, as most business owners will find, having your own business will depend way more from you. This can be great if you're highly motivated but if you're not, that can be a bad combination. Without anyone on your back telling you to do your work and threatening to fire you if you don't, it's easy to just put things off until later. The worse thing that can happen is that you go out of business and if you have invested a lot of money into the business, it can be a tough situation to go through. Business owners normally work 12 to 16 hour days so unless you really hate working for someone else or you really love the business, you may want to think twice about this option. It's not for everyone. Importance of Motivation in the Classroom When you have no motivation to study, it can be hard to get the grades you need to accomplish your educational goals. Most students, believe it or not, are capable of doing very well in school despite what their current grades are showing. Most of the time, it's not the lack of ability to learn the material but the lack to interest and motivation to put in the effort to actually do well. If you are the teacher, it's important that you do what you can to teach the material in a way that will interest the students. Even something as boring as history can be taught in a stimulating way. There's no question about the importance of motivation and how it plays a part in all areas of our lives. We all have dreams and goals that we want to see become a reality. If you had a never-ending stream of motivation, you can literally do anything. The problem is that most people will never put in the effort that is needed to live an extraordinary life. Why? Because it's easier to do nothing than to do something. Go do something!

Bulimia Story

Guest Post by Shaye Boddington from http:// www.your-bulimia-recovery.com The journey to discover myself, care for myself and love myself has been a long one... It's been a journey with many ups and downs... A journey that has taken me to the darkest corners of my mind - and back again... But, it's been a journey that has ultimately saved my life... Learning to love myself has enabled me to beat the dark burden that I've carried since I was 8 years old... Bulimia. I remember throwing up for the first time when I was just a little kid. Somehow I had developed the belief that being thin was the only way to be accepted and loved. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that I needed to change. I decided that what I was wasn't quite good enough. This destructive thought pattern intensified as I got older and bulimia became more and more ingrained into my life. When I was 15 years old my family was forced to emigrate from my homeland - Zimbabwe. The political situation meant that it wasn't safe for us to live there anymore. My parents decided to sacrifice all that they had ever worked for to give us, their children, a safe future. We said goodbye to everything we had ever known and boarded the plane for New Zealand. The trauma of immigration made my bulimia spiral out of control... I felt alone and scared in a world that was completely different to anything I had ever known. Eating helped to numb my mind and throwing up helped keep my body skeletal - which I had grown to believe was an essential part of being loved and accepted. By the time I went to university I was throwing up over 15 times a day. I was suffering from the terrible bulimia side effects - heart palpitations, electrolyte imbalances, decaying teeth and depression just to name a few. I was so ashamed of what I had become... I remember sobbing in the shower one night and screaming in agony 'What has happened to me?!' I felt devoid of life - I had become a machine living out the motions of bulimia. The Belief That Saved My Life Long before my bulimia began, I remember a teacher who I respected very much saying - It is impossible to love others if you do not love yourself first... And, although my bulimia had completely turned my life upside down - I knew one thing for sure - That I loved my family and partner more than anything in the world. And, because I loved them - I knew that deep down I did love myself... and I knew that I was worthy of more... This belief eventually made me pick up the phone and book my first appointment with a therapist. This was my first true commitment to healing my self esteem and well being - and with that - beating bulimia. The first session I had with my therapist - Amanda - was amazing. I walked out of her office feeling like I had finally done something positive for myself. I felt like maybe, just maybe, I wasn't such a freak after all. Amanda made me realize that I wasn't the only bulimic in the world... I wasn't alone in my suffering and there were thousands upon thousands of girls just like me. I met with Amanda for the best part of a year - over which time I learnt how to treat myself kindly, respect myself, cherish myself and love myself... The side effect of this was that I said goodbye to bulimia after over a decade of suffering. I used cognital behavioral therapy and positive energy treatment to transform my self image and say goodbye to bulimia for good. Many of the techniques Amanda taught me are shared in the book "Mom, Please Help: Anorexia and Bulimia Positive Energy Treatment". To read my review of this bulimia self help treatment, click here. A Life Without Bulimia I never imagined that this sort of life was possible... A life where you wake up in the morning - excited for the day ahead. A life where you enjoy food because it's fun and it nourishes your body! A life where you look in the mirror and smile because you truly believe that you're beautiful. A life where you're so grateful for every moment that sometimes it even brings you to tears... A wonderful life. A bulimia free life. A simple and content life... A life full of well being in every sense of the word. This life is possible... How do I know this? Because I have it... And guess what... You can have it too. Just turn to face the direction of self discovery, self love and self acceptance - and keep walking, in baby steps - until you get there. It will be the journey of a lifetime.

Depression Self Help Tips

If you are looking for some depression self help tips to feel more alive again, this article will give you some suggestions. Before you read on however, keep in mind that if you have a severe case of depression, get help right away. Depression isn't something you should be ashamed or embarrassed about. It happens to millions of people and there are people waiting to help you fight this problem. If you just feel a bit down every now and then and just want some tips on how to pick yourself up, then read on. Everyone goes through some stage of depression every now and then. Some people will experience it more than others. It can be a sign that something is mentally or physically wrong. Some people use it as a reason to escape their problems. Regardless of why you may feel depressed, there are some things you can do to help make yourself feel better. If you go into any book store and go over to the self help aisle, you will be able to find many depression self help books. These books can help you have a better understanding of what makes you feel the way you feel and can offer you some strategies to help you feel better. These tips may or may not work depending on the severity of your problem. Let me remind you again that if you have a severe case of depression, you will want to seek professional help. There really are people who care. Let's get into what determines the way we feel. There are two main things. The first is how you are using your body. If you ask 100 people to describe how a depressed person walks and talks, 100 out of 100 times, you will get the same answer regardless of language and culture. The answers will include things like having a slouched back, walking slowly, breathing shallowly, and an overall downward look on the person's face. If I asked you to describe a happy person, would you be able to do it? Of course you can. Most likely, this person will be smiling, walking upright, breathing fully, and will generally walk faster. If you are feeling a bit depressed at the moment, here is a depression self help experiment you can try. What I'd like you to do first is to stand up straight. You want to have your chest stick out a little bit and have your shoulders relaxed and your back straight. The next thing I want you to do is to breathe a little bit faster. From here, look straight up at the ceiling and put the biggest grin possible on your face and leave it there for 30 seconds. What I'd like you to do is see if you can feel depressed without changing your body or facial expression. If you actually do this, you will find that it's pretty much impossible. So now you know that your physiology is one major factor in the way you feel. If you want to learn more about this anxiety depression self help technique, you can read up on a science called Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP of short. The other factor that will determine how you feel is what you focus on. If you walk around focusing on how your life sucks and how no one loves you or how everything in your life is a disaster, then of course you're depressed. Tell me someone who can keep focusing on those things and not be depressed. So besides changing your body posture, another thing you will want to do is change your focus. What we focus is primarily determined by the questions that we ask ourselves on a consistent basis. So here is a self help for depression exercise you can do. Try to notice what type of questions you're asking yourself on a daily basis. If it helps, you can even write it down. What you will find out is that most of those questions are negative questions that are designed to make you depressed. Every time you ask yourself a question, your mind will come up with an answer whether or not the question is valid. For example, if your life is going great and you ask yourself, "What is wrong with my life", your mind will come up with an answer to that question. Ask questions like that enough times and sooner or later, you will start to feel like there really is something wrong with your life even if it was going great. If you understand this then you will realize that asking better questions can help change your focus and will therefore help you feel less depressed. You will want to ask questions like, "What is good in my life right now? What am I most grateful for?" Now, your mind might say, "Nothing" but don't settle for that answer. Keep asking yourself these positive questions and expect to have a positive answer and you will eventually get one. The more you focus on what is good in your life, the better you will feel. No matter what you are going through, it can be a lot worse couldn't it? That's something to be grateful for right there. Again, if you want to learn more about this type of approach, read books about NLP. You can even read, "Unlimited Power" by Anthony Robbins as well. He's a lot more entertaining to read. He basically built his career on teaching these types of techniques. The self help with depression strategy can work wonders but it may take some practice so be patient. There are lots of depression self help groups that you can join as well. Just remember that these depression self help techniques are for people who don't have a severe case of depression.

How to Invest Your Money

When it comes to figuring out how to invest your money, since there are so many options that you have, it can be a difficult task. Investing your money is one of those things that you will want to learn how to do. Sure, there is a risk of losing your money but the rewards in the long run will typically far outweigh the short-term losses. Since this is a motivation website, I won't necessarily be talking about investing in stocks, real estate, or business although I will touch upon these. These things, in my opinion, are secondary. The best way to invest your money is to invest it in yourself. You may wonder if this is a smart idea. I mean, when you invest in yourself, you won't see the quick gains that you can see with something like investing in stocks. You may think investing in yourself means investing in your education. This is just one way. There are other things you can do as well such as buying a gym membership or learning a new skill. If you had your money in real estate around 2006-2007, then chances are you took a beating when the market crashed. This was the same for people who had their money in the stock market. The point is that these investments, although good, can go away when the tides turn. The investment you make in yourself, however, will always stay with you. So if you want to know how best to invest your money, the answer is to invest it where events like a market crash won't hurt you. How to Invest Your Money Wisely So what are some specific things you can do? For starters, if you aren't a reader, you should start with that. Reading books can really expand your mind and allow you to learn so many different skills and gain knowledge that will help you in all areas of your life. I'm not talking about fiction books here. I'm talking about business books, personal development books, or any book where you will actually learn a new skill by reading it. You can also take courses and attend seminars. Think about it. These programs are taught by people who have spent decades figuring out how to make some aspect of their life work and now they are going to teach you how to do it. Of course, you want to do some research before you invest in some of these seminars and make sure you're not just paying for some sales presentation. Reading, listening to audio tapes while you drive or workout, attending seminars, and doing anything that will increase your knowledge and skill base are all great ways to invest your money. However, before you start, you will want to make sure you have a goal in mind. You want to be clear on what you will gain out of doing all of these things. Are you looking to become a better husband or wife? Do you want to get in the best shape of your life? Do you want to be a better cook perhaps? How about becoming a writer? When you learn how to invest your money in yourself, you will start to improve different areas of your life. The more you do this, the more valuable you will become to the market place. If you have a job where you can get better pay by being more knowledgeable in your industry, take some time out each night to increase your understanding and skill sets in that business. If you want to be the best in your field of work, you will want to invest some money into upgrading your skills and knowledge. If you want to know how to invest your money safely, then the answer is the same. Invest it in yourself. Although a savings account is seen as the most secure investment, as you may already know, even that isn't 100% safe. Even if you never experience your bank closing down, the return on investment is some little that if you take inflation into consideration, you're actually losing money. When you invest in yourself, the results in terms of return on investment can be huge. You may not see any monetary gains right away, but over time, it will show up in terms of your happiness level as well as your level of success.

Stop ProcrastinatingBy Kevin Ngo

Being able to stop procrastinating can completely start to change your life around for the better. Procrastination occurs when you have something to do, you know you should be doing it, but for one reason or another, you're not doing it. This can be a habit that can literally destroy your life if you don't take control of it. This article will be about why we procrastinate as well as give you some tips to help you take action more often in order to achieve your goals and get done what needs to get done. What Causes Procrastination? Before you can stop procrastination, you first need to understand what causes it in the first place. It's actually quite simple. The reason why we do or don't do anything comes down to two things: Pain and Pleasure. Everything we do comes down to either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure. Let me give you an example. Have you ever procrastinated on studying or writing a term paper? Of course you have. But why do we do this when we know it's important? The reason is because we associate more pain to taking action than not taking action. Now what normally ends up happening after you have procrastinated to the last minute? I don't know about you but no matter how much I would procrastinate on doing something, there will come a time when I will just bite the bullet and just get it done. The reason is because after a while, NOT getting that task done is more painful than just getting it done. Understanding why you procrastinate will help you stop being a procrastinator. Think about the last time you put something off. Now ask yourself why you put it off. Chances are, the reason why you just didn't get the job done was because you associated some type of pain to taking action. Now think about something you don't have a problem doing like going out with your friends. The reason why you won't put something like that off is because you associate pleasure to doing it. How to Stop Procrastinating Here are some steps to stop procrastination. The first thing you will want to do is to figure out what is causing you to associate pain to getting a task done. Let's say you want to clean out the garage. Just thinking about it makes you shiver. Well, that's the reason why you have been putting it off. It's what you visualize in your mind that is causing you the pain. You haven't actually done anything yet so in reality, you aren't experiencing any pain. This means you need to work on what you are focusing on in your mind. In this case, instead of thinking about how long cleaning the garage is going to take, focus on how great it would feel once it's all cleaned up. Or you can focus on all the free time you will have after you get this task over with. The point here is to get yourself to associate pleasure to getting the task done. When you can get yourself to look forward to taking action, you won't procrastinate. Another way you can stop procrastinating is to associate more pain to NOT taking action. Let's say you need to get back into shape but you keep putting off going to the gym and no matter how much you try to tell yourself how great you will look if you get yourself to go to the gym, you still don't go. In this case, you will need to focus on the pain of not getting into shape. Imagine how your body and health will be 5 years from now if you don't start taking better care of yourself. Now imagine how you will look 10 years from now, 20 years from now. The key to making this work is to actually feel the pain you would cause yourself by not taking action. Where would your life be 5, 10, or 20 years from now if you keep letting procrastination take the best of you? If you can make this experience intense enough, it will drive you to take immediate action. Conclusion There are other ways to stop procrastination but they all come down to either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure. If you are a guy, think about it. How far will guys go to impress a girl in hopes that the will get lucky? They will do things they never thought they can get themselves to do. How about if you're a mom? How far will you go to keep your children from starving? Will you do anything, even work at a job you hate, just to give them what they need? Knowing how to stop procrastination is the first step. The second and final step is to make taking action a habit. The more you can get yourself to immediate action, the less you will be inclined to procrastinate. Putting things off is just a habit. The more you do it, the more you will continue doing it. In order to stop procrastinating, you will need to get in the habit of taking action regardless of whether you feel like it or not. Focusing on the pain of not following through or the pleasure of getting something done will work but sometimes, you will be too lazy to even focus on anything. This is where having the habit of taking immediate action will come into play. When the choice comes down to getting something done and putting it off, you will get it done. This one habit, if you can develop it, will change your life. The alternative is reaching the end of your life and having nothing but regret. Develop the habit taking action and stop procrastinating and you will prevent that situation from happening.

Sales Motivation

Sales motivation is about being able to get yourself or your sales team to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. It's the ability to get yourself to take action whether you feel like it or not. In sales, one of the toughest aspect is having to deal with constant rejection. This is why most people fail to be a success in the field of sales. The stress that can be caused by this profession can be through the roof especially if it's 100% commission based. Sales happens to be the number one highest paid profession in the world. Guess what the lowest paid profession in the world is? That's right, also sales. Anyone can get a job that pays on salary or by the hour and make a certain secure amount of money every month but it takes a certain type of person to be able to control the amount he or she earns each year. The profession of sales is not for the weak minded person. Sales motivation is about the ability to have 99 people say, "No" to you and still be fully confident that the 100th person will say, "Yes." How many people do you think can go in and talk to that 100th potential client with the same enthusiasm and excitement that he or she had with their 1st prospect? Not many at all. Sales is truly one of the few professions where a person with no educational background, with no talent or skills, can become one of the highest paid most respected people around. The skills needed to become a highly successful sales person is something that can be learned. What it really takes isn't brains, or a nice expensive suit, or even knowing the right people to begin with. What it takes to be highly successful in sales is a burning desire to be the best at it. It's that sales person who will not stop making cold calls until he/she gets the amount of appointments necessary to achieve his/her goal. If you are in a leadership position, the whole concept of sales motivation comes down to having the ability to give your team a vision of who they can become and where they can go regardless of who or where they are right now. It's the ability to inspire confidence in your team and ignite that intense desire to succeed in each and every one of them that will make you a true leader. There's no doubt about it. Sales can be a life changing profession. If you are in sales, then you can literally change your entire life around, from poverty and broke, to wealthy and fulfilled. If you are in a leadership position, realize that you have the opportunity to help change people's lives. Learn everything you can about sales motivation and there will be no limits to what you can achieve.

Motivation in theWorkplace

So how important is it to create motivation in the workplace? Well, if you care about your bottom line, then it's very important. The fact is that when people are motivated, they will do more. When they are unmotivated, they will be less productive. So what causes some employees to be motivated to do their work than others? This article will give you some tips to help you increase employee motivation and in turn increase workplace productivity. The first thing you will have to realize is that most people don't like their jobs. It's just the reality. The best thing to do is to hire the right people for the right job. It's not about hiring the most capable person for the job though, at least not always. It's about hiring the person who will love the job. People will tend to be more motivated to do their work when they love what they do, or at the very least don't hate what they do. Since it's hard to gauge whether someone will love their job during an interview since everyone puts on their best face, most of the time you will have to take a different approach. The first thing you will want to do increase employee motivation in the workplace is to find out if it's an environment thing or just an individual thing. If it's an environment thing then you can do different things to make the workplace a bit more fun. If you don't think people can have fun and be productive at the same time, you may want to take a look at Google. If it's an individual thing then you will need to find out what motivates them and use that knowledge to get them to be more enthusiastic about work. Different people are motivated differently. For some people, all you need to do is pay them more money. For others, money won't do a thing, but recognition will. Still for others, it's all about feeling appreciated for what they do. The lack of motivation in the workplace can be a combination of many different things. It could be both the environment, people having the wrong jobs, and not getting what they want out of a career. So as an employer, it's a tough situation to have to deal with. One thing you can do is to have a talk with the employees that aren't very motivated with their work and find out what it will take to get them going again. There are companies that can help you set up a program that will deal with this problem. Now if you are an employee who has a lack of motivation at your job, then one thing you can do is figure out whether or not you should keep working there. Life really is too short to waste your life doing something you don't like. If it's something that is just temporary that will help you get to where you really want to go, then stick with it. Otherwise, you may want to think about what is truly important in your life. If you are a sales manager, then the importance of motivation in the workplace is especially important. What you can do is to feed your sales team with constant inspiration. Some people are self motivated but don't slack off in trying to give your team pep talks. If anything, it will be a refreshing message after having to constantly taking rejections from customers all day. So find out what motivates your employees and give them what they need. Giving them a sense of purpose for doing what they do will go a long way. If you are the employee, figure out what it is you want in life and focus on that. Every time you increase your productivity, you are getting closer to your goals.

Fear of Public Speaking

Do you have a fear of public speaking? I would guess that if you are reading this, you probably do. For the longest time, I had the same fear. It's actually not that uncommon. In fact, various studies have shown that the fear of speaking in public is ranked higher than the fear of death. In other words, some people would rather die than have to speak in public. This may sound a bit extreme to many of you but if you get nervous, shaky, and sweat like crazy just at the taught of speaking in front of a group of people, then you can probably see that it's somewhat understandable, at least at the moment. I remember I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking. My legs would get weak as I made my way in front of the audience. My mouth would tremble as I would begin to utter the first few words. I would sway back and forth or do some awkward things with my hands. I would avoid eye contact at all cost unless I find someone with a smiling face, then I would just stare at that person for the whole speech. Have you experienced these things? It's not exactly the best experience to have is it? Fortunately, there is a way to overcome fear of public speaking. Just to give you my experience, I went from what I described above to one day being able to confidently get up in front of an audience. I'm sure there are plenty of ways of overcoming the fear of public speaking but what I will describe is what worked for me. Now for people with a severe fear of public speaking phobia, professional help may be needed. How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking 1. Understanding the cause of the fear. The first step in getting rid of your fear of speaking in public is to find out why it's a fear in the first place. The main reason is the fear of being embarrassed. This includes being laughed at, messing up, or doing anything foolish and having the audience judge you. Do you get nervous when you are in a room by yourself? Probably not. It's only when there are other people, people who might judge you or think badly of you, that causes you to get nervous usually. Knowing why you have this fear of being in front of an audience will help you figure out what to do to overcome the fear. Once the fear is revealed, it can be conquered. It could also be that you had a bad experience in the past that triggers feeling of fear. Either way, for most people, it comes down to the fear of what others might think of them. 2. Change your mindset. In order to overcome the fear of public speaking, you need to be able to change your mindset. When you can go from thinking about yourself and what the audience might think of you to thinking about the audience and how you can best deliver your message across, you will be able to conquer this fear. 3. Practice. Although you may still get nervous even if you have done dozens of speeches, the more you do it, the easier it will get. When you practice, it's best to do it in front of a supporting group of people. This will not only make public speaking easier but it will also help you gain confidence. You can do things like join your local Toast Masters Club where you will get the chance to practice speaking in front of people who are all there to help you become a confident, well spoken speaker. The way I was able to defeat my fear of speaking came in two phases. The first phase was the "I Don't Care" phase. In high school, in order to get an A in my speech class (we were required to take it), I had to join the speech and debate team. Since grades were really important to me at the time, I reluctantly joined even though at the time, I was still afraid of speaking in public. Since my sole purpose was to get an A in the class, I didn't care about winning any debates or speech contests. Because of this attitude, when I got up in front of people to speak, I wasn't nervous. Even when I messed up and forgot what to say, I still didn't get nervous because I really didn't care since just joining the team was a guaranteed A for me. Is this the best way, not care? Of course not but it helped me. This was the first phase. The next phase took place during my sales career as a trainer. I went from not caring to focusing on delivering my message across. My job was to motivate people. It's hard to do that if you focus on what people will think of you. So gradually, my focus went from thinking about myself, to not caring, and finally to thinking about my audience. Instead of thinking, "What if I mess up?" I thought, "How can I best impact the people in my audience?" Those are two completely different questions. One question will put you in the mindset of fear while the other will put you in the mindset of power. So overcoming fear of public speaking comes down to having the right mindset and practicing. Start practicing in front of supportive people. You can do this by joining Toast Masters. From there, as you get more comfortable, your focus will shift from you to the audience. Once your focus is on creating value for them, your fear of public speaking will be gone. Good luck.

It’s Your Duty to Fully Develop Your UniqueTalents and Gifts By Josh Hinds

I’m often asked how I came to have such a positive outlook on things. First, let me assure you, I have my moments where my rose colored glasses are a bit dimmer then I’d like them to be. That said, I do make a point to see the positive side of life whenever possible (and yes, I do believe, from my own life experience, and studying the lives of many others through the work I do that it’s a choice we make). Depending on what each individual person has gone through in their life, perhaps an easier choice then for some, but a choice none the less. That said… There are any number of things I do, and have done over the years to help me remain focused on the good things which life affords us, but if I had to key in on one thing that laid a foundation for my positive outlook, I believe I would have to point to how fortunate I was, from as early as I can remember, to have heard my mother say to me, “Josh, you have unique GOD given talents and gifts — but it’s up to you to explore those and develop them to the best of your ability.” Sometimes I heard it just like that, other times it took a different form, but the message, the powerful meaning of the message was always the same. If you know my story you know that I’ve had my share of adversities and challenges. Friend, I can say without a doubt that having that important foundation in place — having fully accepted that I had unique talents, that I was not only capable of developing, but that I in-fact was expected to fully develop, helped me tremendously in having the fortitude to move past life’s challenges as they appeared, knowing that I had in me, or was capable of acquiring whatever skills I needed in order to accomplish my greater good. If you were lucky to have had a similar such gift from people in your life, those who took the time to encourage you, take a moment to appreciate it in full. Not everyone is so lucky. If you’re not fortunate to have had the type of positive influence I’ve outlined above, first, allow me to assure you, it’s true for you as well. If you’ve never heard it before, well congratulations, you have now, and as such you have the duty to fully develop your own gifts and talents — not partially, but to the absolute best of your ability. And don’t think you get a pass either, because you are just now being tasked with the idea of getting on with uncovering your talents. The point isn’t when you find out — as much as that when you do, you get on with the most important task of doing what’s necessary to fully make use of those incredible gifts and talents which GOD has loaned to you. Friend, as you begin to fully develop your talents you will inevitably begin to experience a deep fulfillment for having done so. It’s quite the rush. By the way, I understand that you may not subscribe to what I’m suggesting here – that’s fine. We’re all entitled to our own beliefs – I appreciate that we’re all individuals and have varying views. I’m not here to change your personal belief system, rather I’m sharing with you my own experience knowing full well that you can either agree or disagree — that said, I know what I believe and know what I’ve seen play out time, and time again, and yes, in case you’re wondering I have also seen it play out in the lives of those who starting out didn’t believe they had any special gifts in the least, yet in time as they went about being open to the idea, and working to develop them came to believe because the truth in the idea played out before their very eyes. In summary, if what I’ve shared here with you is a new concept, that’s OK, but don’t put off the idea that you’ve got greatness in you and as you begin the ongoing journey of living out your greatness through your commitment to developing those truly special gifts and talents which were entrusted to you you will be better for it. Also, be conscious of the opportunity, and when necessary create those opportunities, to encourage others by letting them know that they too have their own GOD given abilities, which they have been entrusted with to fully develop and share with the world. All sorts of powerful things happen when you encourage others in this way — and that I can tell you as it is something I’ve seen play out beyond my wildest dreams through the work I do — not the least of which is an incredible sense of fulfillment that you simply can’t put a price tag on.

Action Breathes Life Into Your Dreams ByJosh Hinds

Sadly, far too many folks are waiting aimlessly for their so-called ship to come in and magically change their life for the better. More often than not, they end up missing the boat that could actually carry them to a brighter future (the boat I’m talking about is the USS Action icon Yet, because they are often so afraid of testing new waters they spend an entire lifetime waiting on the shore. Friend, if you identified a bit more then you wish you did with the words described above, take heart, because in this very moment you can make the conscious decision to start getting the most out of your life’s journey. Notice I said you can make the decision — yes, it is a choice you have to make yourself — and of course be willing to take action, and truly commit to living more fully. That said, if you are willing to make a plan, and follow through on your plan to the point of completion, not just every now and again, but even in those moments where you’re inclined to give up — then I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you’re going to join the ranks of those who experience a greater sense of accomplishment for having achieved the goals you set for yourself. Certainly there be will times where you may fall short of your desired outcome, but so long as you’re willing to adjust as necessary and get back to your pursuit you will eventually get to where you want to go. Right now, repeat to yourself, “greatness is a part of who I am.” Believe it, it’s true! And remember… It’s your life, LIVE BIG! Josh Hinds

NC Amendment One ImpactsBusinesses Like Lulu

I believe that Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers makes a good statement about North Carolina Amendment One, up for vote on May 8: “You’re sending a message to the world that we’re not inclusive… North Carolina is competing with the world for business, and we have to be inclusive and open.” This amendment has an economic impact. As a business owner, it impacts my ability to attract the talented, highly educated, open minded people that Lulu needs. It further impacts my ability to offer competitive health benefits to my employees and their families. This is not about supporting or opposing gay marriage, it’s about taking the conversation off the table completely. It’s about North Carolina, via its constitution, sending a message that everyone in the state isn’t even willing to have the conversation. Track Back URL: www.lulu.com/blog/2012/04/nc-amendment-one/

The Book of Wits (Full Version)

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True Love's Profile

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The Book of Wits (excerpts)

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This book is an excerpt from my recent book "The Book Of Truths" which is broader and touches the depths of other topics.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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Pursuit of happiness is compilation of quotes to educate and entertain audiences of all ages with family-friendly quotations from history's most prominent figures through to today's newsmakers - famous celebrities, athletes, politicians, authors, and everything in between. I am passionate about quotes, and on a mission to share this great knowledge with the world. People such as Les Brown, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Henry Ford, Peter Drucker, Jim Rohn, Tremayne Curtis, Bill Gates, Stephen Covey, W. Clement Stone, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Zucker, Edward Zander, Owen D. Young, Jerry Yang, Steve Wynn, Walter Wriston, Steve Wozniak, Charles Erwin Wilson.

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The book of truths is a filtered, made-simple, version from the complexities of philosophy and so much religion for easy comprehension from human existence. These philosophies seek to touch the very bowels of Wit, Love, Death, Hope, Pain and the very Soul, exposing its unchangeable truths and mysteries humans sacrifice lavishly on altar of sheer vanity. You can click to buy or sample this book online.