Determining Your Priorities & Handling Pressure

Setting priorities assumes that some things will be more important than others, but important relative to what? In this context, the answer is, to your work - that is, the job you have accepted from yourself and/or from others. This is where the next two frameworks need to be brought to bear in your thinking. They're about denning your work. Keep in mind that though much of this methodology will be within the arena of your professional focus. In this article we are using the term "work" in the universal sense, to mean anything you have a commitment to making happen, personally as well as professionally.

These days, daily work activity itself presents a relatively new type of challenge to most professionals, something that it's helpful to understand as we endeavor to build the most productive systems. During the course of the workday, at any point in time, you'll be engaged in one of three types of activities: doing predefined work, doing work as it shows up, and finally, defining your work

You may be doing things on your action lists, doing things as they come up, or processing incoming inputs to determine what work that needs to be done, either then or later, from your lists. This is common sense. But many people let themselves get wrapped around the second activity - dealing with things that show up and how much too easily, and let the other two slide, to their detriment.

Let's say it's 10:26 a.m. Monday, and you're in your office. You've just ended a half-hour unexpected phone call with a prospective client. You have three pages of scribbled notes from the conversation. There's a meeting scheduled with your staff at eleven, about half an hour from now. You were out late last night with your spouse's parents and are still a little frayed around the edges (you told your father-in-law you'd get back to him about. . . what?). Your assistant just laid six telephone messages in front of you. You have a major strategic planning session coming up in two days, for which you have yet to formulate your ideas. The oil light in your car came on as you drove to work this morning. And your boss hinted as you passed her earlier in the hall that she'd like your thoughts on the memo she e-mailed you yesterday, before this afternoon's three o'clock meeting.

Are your systems set up to maximally support dealing with this reality, at 10:26 on Monday morning? If you're still keeping things in your head, and if you're still trying to capture only the "critical" stuff on your lists, I suggest that the answer is no.

I've noticed that people are actually more comfortable dealing with surprises and crises than they are taking control of processing, organizing, reviewing, and assessing that part of their work that is not as self-evident. It's easy to get sucked into "busy" and "urgent" mode, especially when you have a lot of unprocessed and relatively out-of-control work on your desk, in your e-mail, and on your mind.

In fact, much of our life and work just shows up in the moment, and it usually becomes the priority when it does. It's indeed true for most professionals that the nature of their job requires them to be instantly available to handle new work as it appears in many forms.

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3 Ways To Turn Negative Situations Into Positive Ones

1. When you talk, listen to yourself for the "buts," "could ofs" and "gonnas" in your own conversations and those of people around you. Zap those negatively charged words and phrases from your own vocabulary.

2. Create scenarios in which you may have reacted negatively in the past and envision yourself responding in the future with a positive charge. For example: Your boss hands back a report saying it is unsatisfactory and telling you to redo it. In the past you might have made excuses and blamed co-workers or conditions. Now you respond by thanking the boss for the opportunity to improve it.

3. Consider a problem or difficult situation in your life. Is it something that you can change? Or is it something you have no control of? Positively charged people learn to attack those problems that they can change and to live with those that they cannot - thereby robbing the problem of its power over them. If you cannot change the problem, change the way you view it. Example: “My employer is going to lay me off for three weeks.” Positive response: “I can spend the time seriously looking for a better, more secure job.”

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5 Emotions That Can Stop You From Living Your Dreams

Hurtful memories can stifle your development and growth. How do we break through this insidious mental conditioning? How do we grow and develop beyond hurtful episodes that bury themselves in our subconscious and influence our lives? How do we change and grow so that we can live our dreams?

The first step is to break the hold of these inhibiting influences from the past. Recognize them and then either get rid of them or turn them into a positive force that pushes you ahead rather than holds you back. Identify these inhibiting memories in your life so that you control them rather than allowing them to control you. Did someone hurt your feelings? Forgive them and forget it. Move on. Did someone punish you unfairly? It's over. It's done. Go on.

Here are a few of the most common emotions that burrow into the subconscious and impede our growth as individuals:

Anger: This is a natural response to a perceived attack or injury. It makes energy flow. But when allowed to simmer, it depletes energy that could be used to improve your life. If you hold your anger for more than a week, it is only hurting you. Make yourself let go. Envision yourself throwing it out. Ease your mind. Transform your anger into positive motivation. Don't get mad, get motivated.

Revenge: The first cousin of anger. It also robs you of strength in the long run. The person who has injured you has probably gone on with life; so should you. Don't let the injury hurt you further by inhibiting your growth. Lose it or use it. Instead of saying, "I'll get them," say, "I'll show them. I'LL BE SOMEBODY!"

Sadness: This is more crippling than anger because it drains you from the start, sapping your will to go on. You probably will have to let this drain away slowly at its own pace. Time heals, but if the sadness seems to linger, consciously force it out. Seek out things that make you laugh and feel positive about life. Realize that feeling sad will not change anything. Seek peace of mind as your right.

Resentment: Life is not always fair. It is unrealistic to feel any other way, and holding on to resentment is no way to fight back. Drop it and get back into the battle.

Guilt: Guilt is another emotion that stands between you and your dreams. All of us have done things we feel bad about and regret. Things we would do differently. Many of us carry that guilt around and it keeps us from moving forward. Don't let people put you on a guilt trip. Say to yourself when someone is putting you on the defensive, "No matter what you do or say to me, I am still a worthwhile person."

To rid yourself of these past emotions, put them in a perspective that is positive rather than negative and thereby cut off their painful roots in your subconscious. Reinterpret the past with these methods: Get better, not bitter. Find a quiet, comfortable place. Sit back and relax. Think about something or someone who caused you pain or disappointment. Now take a mental step back from that feeling and the situation. Assess it. Did the emotions that resulted make you stronger? Did they give you determination? Can you use those memories to empower you rather than drain you? Why let them hurt you further?

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4 Ways In Which Memory Occurs

1. Registration: The type of information you're receiving determines which region of your brain is active. For example, words are initially processed in the language regions of the brain, pictures initially in the visual regions. This is where your memories are “registered.”

2. Immediate memory: When information comes into a region, it comes in as a pattern of nerve cell activity. This nerve cell activity normally persists for just a short period of time - seconds or less. This is of course what we deem “Immediate” memory

3. Permanent (long-term) memory: If the information in this temporary pattern of activity is to be permanently stored (and most is not) it will be saved within the same regions of the brain. Saving the patterns of activity consists of changing nerve cell connections so that the pattern of activity can be called forth again, at some later time. To do this, some nerve cell connections are strengthened, while others may be weakened. These changes are relatively permanent, although the changes may take weeks or months to completely solidify.

Even though the solidification occurs in the regions of the brain that contained the original activity, the signal to make the solidification occur came from other regions. The best known of these regions with such signaling functions are the hippocampus and the thalamus. The hippocampus is on the inner side of the temporal lobe; the thalamus is located deep within the center of the brain.

4. Memory access: Remembering what you've learned may be a simple matter of just reactivating a latent memory - for example, by seeing a picture again and recognizing it as familiar. In this case, the memories get reactivated in the region of the brain where they were first stored. The measurement of familiarity - the sense of how familiar something is, or how recently you learned it - seems to be done in parts of the temporal lobe, particularly in or near a structure called the amygdala, which sits just in front of the hippocampus.

This simple memory retrieval operates very quickly. You can decide that a picture is familiar to you or not in less than one-half a second, measuring from the very start of the time you see the picture to the start of when you say "yes" or "no." Once the picture has been registered in your brain (which takes about two-tenths of a second), it takes you about two-tenths of a second to actually make the decision, and about another two-tenths of a second to say your answer. The total time it actually takes you is a little less than the time you spend on each stage, because some of these stages can overlap. You start deciding a picture is familiar or not while the image of the picture is still developing within your mind.

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Building Leadership Credibility

Credibility means believability. Leaders become credible when followers believe in the leader and the leader's course of action. Credibility creates commitment to the leader and the leader's direction. Some people develop instant credibility.

Consider a meeting in which a new team member offers an insight or idea that rings true to all members of the group. Credibility comes immediately because the group instantly believes the idea makes sense. Imagine a group discussion about how to approach a new client. One participant suggests calling a particular person to join the meeting because that individual used to work for the client, knows all the client's top managers, and has years of successful experience attracting new clients. The person called in has immediate credibility based on his or her background and experience.

Typically credibility comes more slowly. People build their base of believability over time. They repeatedly demonstrate they can be counted on to follow through. They provide leadership direction that supports important concerns such that others say, "She's a person we can depend on."

Credibility can also erode slowly or be lost quickly. Consider the gradual undoing of Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War. Recall Richard Nixon's decline from his impressive victory in the 1972 presidential election to his resignation over Watergate. Recall the almost instant fall from grace of Gary Hart over his marital infidelities in the 1988 presidential campaign. Think about Jeff Bezos, who catapulted to Time magazine's "1999 Man of the Year" because he took Amazon.corn to amazing heights. By October 2000, the stock value of Amazon.com had tumbled 75 percent, raising questions about Bezos's effectiveness.

To build credibility requires knowing its secret. Credibility is subjective. Credibility comes from how others perceive you. To illustrate, think of the following people: Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, Jim Jones (the preacher and cult leader in Guyana), Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, David Koresh, Michael Milken, Alan Greenspan, Donna Karan, and Carl Icahn. Which of these individuals would you willingly follow? Your answer indicates your subjective perception of each person's credibility. Think about the list again. Every one of these people had a core of completely committed followers. In other words, each of them was perceived as credible by their followers.

You turn the key to build your credibility by first identifying the credibility markers that others use. That means you have to determine what followers believe makes a person or a course of action believable. Make a list of those you need to willingly follow your lead. Your list probably includes your boss, some key coworkers, a few important subordinates, a couple of essential customers, and other critical stakeholders. Find out what each person thinks are key credibility indicators.

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Write your goals in the form of affirmations

It's great to write your goals in the form of affirmations, as if they have already been achieved. This helps to achieve a clearer, stronger effect. In writing your goals, be sure to put down things that are real and meaningful to you, things that you actually want, not what you think you should want. No one else need ever see your goals unless you want him or her to, and this process requires that you be totally honest with yourself.

You may find that the very process of choosing goals brings up a certain amount of emotional resistance in you. You might experience this in various different ways, such as feeling depressed, hopeless, or overwhelmed at the thought of trying to set goals. Or you might feel the desire to distract yourself by eating, sleeping, or other activities. These emotional reactions (if you should have them) are clues to the ways in which you avoid getting what you want in life. It's important to go ahead and experience these feelings and reactions, to go through them, and proceed with the process. Once you get into it you will find it of value. Then again, you may thoroughly enjoy the whole process and find it very expansive, fun, and enlightening. And you should! Just don't make the choosing of goals too complicated.

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Setting Your Goals Should Not Be Complicated

Possibly the trickiest part of getting what you want in life is just figuring out what you really want! And yet it is certainly the most important part of all. Remember that setting goals does not mean that you are stuck with those goals. You can change them as often as you want to and feel that it's necessary.

Remember also that setting goals does not mean that you have to pursue them through effort, striving, or struggling. It does not mean that you have to become emotionally addicted to achieving them. On the contrary, setting goals can help you flow through life more easily, effortlessly, and pleasurably. The nature of life is movement and creativity, and goals give you a clear focus and direction in which to channel your natural creative energy, thereby helping you to outflow and contribute to the world, which enhances your feeling of well-being and satisfaction in life. Goals are there to help you and support you in your true purpose.

Goals can be made in the spirit that life is an enjoyable game to be played, and one that can be deeply rewarding. They are not to be taken too heavily or seriously. At the same time, you must give them enough weight and importance so they are of real value to you.

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Goal Setting - Stay Positive But Be Realistic

You need to have a positive yet cautiously realistic attitude toward your own abilities and yourself. Knowing your capabilities and being realistic about your possibilities are starting places for success.

For example, your chances of being a rocket scientist are slim if you flunked high school math twice, so spending several years in college taking every course you need to be a rocket scientist but avoiding the math classes until the last semester is the same as planning to fail. Unrealistic expectations are the seedbed of depression. If you gained 20 pounds over the last three years, believing that you can lose all 20 pounds in three or four weeks is setting yourself up for a letdown. That goal just isn't realistic.

You should, however, be far more positive than negative. You can undermine your success just as easily by setting your sights too low. If you set out to lose one pound a month, for example, the slow pace will eventually cause you to lose hope, interest, and enthusiasm. That's one of the reasons I believe that counselors and mentors are an important part of the mix that makes the success formula work. The most popular and successful weight-loss programs combine sensible eating, exercise, and the help of mentors or counselors.

Everyone needs help in setting realistic goals, especially in areas where they have previously suffered setbacks. Then they need encouragement and motivation to hang in there until they reach those goals.

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Do You Have A Mindset Of Abundance?

A very important part of the whole creative process is developing a sense of prosperity. This means having the understanding, or consciously taking the point of view that the universe is abundant, that life is actually trying to bring us what our hearts and souls truly desire - spiritually, mentally, emotionally - as well as physically. Everything you truly need or want is here for the asking; you only need to believe that it is so, to truly desire it, and to be willing to accept it.

One of the most common causes of failure when seeking what you want is "scarcity programming." This is an attitude or set of beliefs about life that goes something like this: “Life is suffering... It is immoral or selfish to have enough when others don't... Life is hard, difficult, a vale of tears... You must work hard and sacrifice for everything you gain... It's more noble and spiritual to be poor...”

These are all false beliefs. They are based on a lack of understanding of how the universe works, or a misunderstanding of some important spiritual principles. These beliefs are not of service to you or anyone else; they simply limit all of us horn realizing our natural state of prosperity and plenty on all levels.

At the present time there is a reality in this world of starvation and poverty for many people, but we do not need to keep creating and perpetuating that reality. The fact is that there is more than enough to go around for every being on earth, if we are willing to open our minds to that possibility, and change our ways of using and distributing the world's resources. The universe is a place of great abundance and we are all meant to be naturally prosperous, both in material and spiritual wealth, in a way that is balanced and harmonious with one another and with the earth that nourishes us.

In modern times, humankind has lost touch with its natural state of prosperity. Together, we are creating a world vastly out of balance, in which a relative few have far more than they need and are using up our natural resources at an alarming rate, while the majority suffer from serious lack. We are all responsible for creating this reality, and we can change it by changing both our way of thinking and our way of living.

We need to reclaim our ability to appreciate and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Many of us in the industrialized world need to cultivate a simpler, more natural lifestyle. We need to realize that after our basic needs are met, the experience of abundance has more to do with expressing our creative gifts in satisfying ways, and learning to give and receive in a balanced way, than it does with extravagant consumerism.

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Start your Day with these 10 Motivating Affirmations

Just as other people's words affect you, the words that you say to yourself also affect your attitude. Whether you feel negative or positive depends on the input that you get, including the input you get from yourself. You can't change from a negative mindset to a positive mindset without changing from negative talking to positive talking. To do that, you must change the input from negative to positive.

Using positive affirmations is a proven technique that works miracles in many lives. Ideally, you should look yourself in the eye as you make these positive affirmations. Don't be shy; go ahead and get started! Repeat the following statements to yourself every morning to get your day and week off to a great start:

“I clearly understand that failure is an event, not a person; that yesterday really did end last night; and that success isn't final and failure isn't fatal because I only fail if I quit.”

“I have the courage to admit a mistake and to say that I was wrong. I have the courage to ask for help and the courage to say "I don't know." I have the courage to continually strive to be the person that I am capable of becoming.”

“I have vision in my life, which means that I see not only with my eyes but also with my heart.”

“I am successful because I believe that to be truly educated, I must be mentored - either in business or in my personal life, by reading or by association - by superior minds with greater skills and mature spirits.”

“I discipline myself to do the things that I need to do when I need to do them, because I know that doing them will enable me someday to do the things I want to do when I want to do them.”

“I clearly understand that if I develop yearning power and apply learning power, I will increase my earning power.”

“I am successful because I don't confuse activity with accomplishment. I know that I can't make it in life as a wandering generality, so I am a meaningful specific.”

“I am like an eraser. I recognize my mistakes, I learn from my mistakes, and then I erase those mistakes from my memory.”

“I move forward in my life every day, even if it's only a tiny step, because I know that great things are accomplished with tiny moves, but nothing is accomplished by standing still.”

“Today I will seriously look for the good in every situation and find something about which to praise every person who works with me. Today I will be friendly to the people I work with and will treat them as though they were completely responsible for my career. Today I will
express gratitude for the career that I have and the society of which I am a part, and specifically for my family and friends. I will also express gratitude for the fact that my career is rewarding in ways that go far beyond financial remuneration.”

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Bringing Out the Best In Your Teenagers

Bringing Out the Best In Your Teenagers: A 5 Step Plan

Here is a little checkup list for teenagers that can help them evaluate their lives.

1. Check yourself: What do you want from your life? Is your behavior bringing the results you want in life? Is it moving you toward your dreams? How do you see yourself in the future? How can you get to where you want to be? Are you molding now what you want to be as an adult?

2. Check your relationships: Do your friends tear you down or build you up? Do they weaken you and make you dependent on their approval? Or do they make you feel strong and capable? Measure the value of each relationship against how that person makes you feel about yourself. Is this person more likely to help you get on the honor roll or the detention list?

3. Get a plan: No pressure here; it doesn't have to be for your lifetime. Just for the next week, month and year. Get some help and determine the steps you need to take to make that plan work. What is it that you like to do? How do people make a living doing that? Are you interested in making that your career? Think about the type of person you want to become, not the type of possessions you want to accumulate.

4. Recognize your own value: Respect yourself. Think about the activities that give you the most satisfaction, the skills or talents that you have that you can build upon and turn into lifelong gifts. Develop them, take pride in your abilities and your creativity and the strength of your character. Each of us is unique; celebrate your uniqueness and the diversity of the world around you. Be secure within yourself so that no one controls your destiny but YOU.

5. Seek mentors and role models: Sit down and talk to people who are doing what you think you want to do. Volunteer to work for them or ask to spend a week following them as they work. Role models don't have to be adults; they just have to be positive people.

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Bringing Out the Best In Your Teenagers

When you bring forth the best there is within you, you lift yourself to greater and greater heights. I don't believe we have the right to sit on our greatness. We have the responsibility to put our gifts to work. It is important to let our young people know that there is importance and significance to their stories, their songs, their concerns, their questions, their ideas, their answers and their journeys. Tell them that all their best is still within them. Inspire them to reach within for it, and bring it out for the world to marvel at.

Teenagers are sometimes bedeviled by their own temperaments. Much of the time, they are as confused by their own behavior as their parents are. They need to understand that no matter what outer behavior they find themselves presenting, there is still goodness inside them. Let them know that you see it even if they don't. Beneath that coolness, that tough stance, that hard cynicism, that rebelliousness, there is still the good child, the person with goodness to share. They need to give themselves permission to unleash that goodness - not to please adults or authority figures, but in order to reflect that higher consciousness: the best of themselves.

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6 Ways In Which You Can Be Happy, Right Now!

1. Be gentle with yourself and others. The place where you are right now is perfect for you look how far you've come. And how well you have been prepared to take your next big step.

2. As you become certain of the path you're on, and the person you are, begin to appreciate other people's gifts, as well as your own. Each of us is exactly where we need to be, and is no better or worse off than you are.

3. When you don't live up to your dream, just notice what happened, learn from it, congratulate yourself on what you've learned, and move on.

4. Your rate of progress will be fastest if you don't waste time focusing on negative thoughts. Keep choosing the positive point of view.

5. One concrete step taken in the right direction will take you far. Keep your attention focused, and avoid going off on tangents.

6. Practice makes permanent. Practice continually asking yourself, "Am I living my dream in this moment? What more could I be doing?"

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Clearing Your Head Of Limiting Beliefs

If you believe you can't possibly live your dream on your own, without someone else changing or helping you, you're probably not living your dream right now. If you see yourself as a failure, you probably aren't focusing on the possibility of being wildly successful. On the other hand, if you believe it is your destiny and your right to be tremendously successful, you have your eye set on that goal.

What beliefs do you have that get in the way of living your dream? Start by making a list of beliefs that stand in your way. Here are some examples:

1. I'm not qualified; I don't know how; I'd have to have a college education.
2. It's too hard; I'd never have any fun if I worked as hard as my dream would require. I need to relax.
3. I have to wait until...
4. Someone else should take care of me.
5. I don't have what I need to get started.
6. I don't have a sharp-enough mind or memory.
7. It's too late to start all over; I'm too old.
8. I have to wait for inspiration to strike.
9. I can't afford it.
10. Something or someone else has to come first, before my dream.

It's time to be positive - to realize that you do not need to have self-limiting beliefs - to know that you can create whatever you truly desire!

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Personal Growth Increases Motivation

When you develop your skills, improve your thinking capacity, or increase your knowledge of topics, thus making you more valuable to yourself, your family, and your employers, you are acquiring assets that you can utilize throughout your whole life. Growth motivation has the additional benefit of making you feel good about yourself. That's a benefit because the way you feel about yourself has a direct bearing on the way you perform.

As a child, you felt good when you did well on a test, were promoted to the next grade, got elected class president, or received special recognition because you accomplished some worthy objective. You can get that same feeling as an adult by volunteering to head up a community project; by being the best salesperson, employee, spouse, or parent; or by coaching a team that your child participates on.

Personal growth requires commitment, goal-setting, and responsibility; you can't just say "I'm going to grow" and expect it to happen. But when you work to, say, acquire new job skills and are promoted or given a pay raise as a result, your confidence grows, and your feelings of self-worth increase.

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Personal Development and Success

Personal Development and Success - an inside job

Success Starts from Within

One of the biggest questions on the minds of the motivated is: "How can I discover my life purpose and make a difference in the world?" When you hear this question you know it usually means two things. First, the person asking the question is probably unhappy with his or her current circumstances. Second, their soul, the very essence of who they are, yearns to be expressed in their life more fully. This person is seriously looking at increasing their personal development.

We all want to make a difference in the world. We want to know that our lives matter, that our presence on Earth has meaning and purpose. Each one of us has a Divine assignment - an important mission to fulfill - and we each believe that it is important to be successful. This assignment consists of two parts. First, you must make your personal and spiritual development a top priority by following your own unique path toward healing and growth. Second, as you develop a strong character by doing this work, you are also charged with improving the world in some way.

There is a reason why your personal development work comes first. When you make a conscious commitment to your own inner development, you take a giant step toward making a greater contribution to others. Though it seems at first glance to be selfish to focus on your own life, when you realize that we are all connected by a greater power at work in the world, you begin to understand how fulfilling your individual assignment directly benefits others and contributes to the success of other people. As you focus on strengthening your integrity and character, furthering your personal development and success, you make your greatest contribution to humanity.

How To Recreate Your World
Personal Development and Success