Many of us are confused by activity with accomplishment, we feel like going round and round like a merry-go-round, with no concrete results. Although there are many opportunities around us but we can’t see them. Therefore, it’s very IMPORTANT that you have specific goals and objectives that you can measure.
If we don’t have a goal, we might as well be like the caterpillars.
There was an experiment conducted on the Processionary Caterpillars. These caterpillars would blindly follow the one in front of them. The caterpillars were carefully arranged in a circle around the rim of a flowerpot, so that the lead caterpillar came into contact with the last one, making a complete circle.
Some pine needles, the food of the processionary caterpillars were placed in the middle of the flowerpot. The caterpillars went round and round
the circular flowerpot. They continued to go round and round for seven days and seven nights, and finally dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion, ironically, with abundance of food within reach.
Moral of the story: Don’t wander around without specific goals in life. Set goals and keep moving ahead.
Once upon a time there was a king who wanted to compile the “wisdom of ages”. He gathered his wise men together and asked them to carry out the urgent task immediately, and condensed it into a book. The wise men began their research and after one year they returned with a thick book on the “wisdom of ages”. The king was pleased, but requested them to condense it further. The wise men went back to work and after few months later came back with only one chapter. But the king still insisted that it was too long. Finally, after more thinking and hard works the wise men condensed it into a sentence. When the king read it he was very pleased and said, “This is truly the wisdom of ages.” The sentence simply said, “There is no free lunch”!
Yes, it’s very true indeed, “there is no free lunch”. If you want success then you will need to invest your time, effort, and money to get it. If you want good employees working for you, you will have to pay them more, so that they will stay with you. There is always a price to pay for everything! As the saying goes, “if you pay peanuts, you will get peanuts”. The Law of Compensation states that, “You will receive according to the effort you put in”.
Here is a Success Principle to remember…
“If you want to achieve success, you need to prepare to pay for the PRICE first before you can obtain the PRIZE”. Most people want to get the PRIZE before they pay the PRICE. The success principle doesn’t work this way.
Our sub-conscious mind can only accept and act on information passed to it by the conscious mind. It has no capacity to reject or decline any instructions or information passed to it. Hence if you pass positive instructions to your sub-concious mind, it will react in a positive way. On the other hand, if you pass negative instructions to your sub-councious mind, it will react in a negative way. A negative sub-conscious mind can be deadly.
There once was a man who performed his routine works in the freezer compartment. The door accidentally closed and he found himself trapped inside the compartment. He tried to shout for help but no one heard him. He tried to break down the door but he could not. As he lay in the freezer compartment, he began to feel colder, and colder and then weaker, and weaker. He felt hopeless and thought he was going to die. He wrote on the wall of the compartment, “I am feeling colder, and colder; and I am getting weaker, and weaker. I am dying!”. In the morning when the other workers opened up the compartment they found the man was already dead.
The sad twist to the above story is that the freezing apparatus in the compartment had actually broken down a few days earlier. The poor worker did not know about that and in his mind the freezing apparatus was working perfectly. He consciously thought that he was getting colder, weaker and dying and his sub-conscious mind accepted the instructions and this affected his physical body.
The sub-conscious mind can be very powerful if you continually give it a positive message but it can also be deadly if you give it negative message.
Everyone has bad habits. Procrastination, wasting time, drinking too much, eating too much, not exercising, etc. etc.. the list goes on… It’s easy to talk about wanting to be successful in life but we don’t show it in our own actions, we don’t walk the talk!
So, how do we get rid of the bad habits for good? Here are ten tips you can use to kick bad habits and living a better life.
Tip #1: Don’t deny or hide your bad habits. Acknowledge and own them. Believe it or not, sometimes just by facing and acknowledging your problem, it becomes less intense and loses much of its power. Say out loud to yourself that “You will get rid of your bad habits!”.
Tip #2: Don’t be ashamed of your bad habits. Understand that no one is perfect and we’re all striving to improve ourselves. Everyone has something they need to work on. Once you stop feeling ashamed of it, you can move forward and take control of your bad habits.
Tip #3: Find out the source of your problem and understand where the bad habits come from. One of the great ways to get rid of a bad habit is to first understand where it came from. For example, if you have a tendency to eat a lot in the evenings, this could stem from your habit of skipping breakfast. Once you know the reason behind your bad habits, they’re easier to change. In the example of eating too much at night, a simple solution may be just getting rid of the habit of skipping breakfast in the morning, rather than trying to stop eating at night and starve yourself.
Tip #4: Understand the reasons why you want to get rid of your bad habits. Do you want to feel better? Look better? More successful in life? When you understand the reasons why you want to get rid of your bad habits, it is easier to find the right motivation to help you achieve your goals. For example, if you’re motivated to look better and feel healthier, take a family photo in which everyone look happy and is smiling. Put that picture in a conspicuous place where you can easily see it everyday. This will help to self motivate you.
Tip #5: Set goals that are specific and attainable. There is no point in setting the lofty goals that you’re unlikely to achieve. If you’ve a bad habit of procrastinating and giving up, establish goals you are fairly certain you can attain can help. That doesn’t mean they have to be easy goals, but it is important that they are attainable and within your capability. So, you’ll have no excuse to delay and give up what you’re set to do.
Tip #6: Commit yourself to replace bad habits with good ones. This is common sense, if you want to get rid of bad habits forever, you must replace them with the good ones. For example, if you find yourself always looking for excuses to skip your exercise routine, you must force yourself to change to your sport wears and just go outside and start walking. After a while, you’ll gain your momentum you need to do your exercise routine.
Tip #7: Seek support from friends, family or support groups. Sometimes we just need a little help from others. We need an extra hand, a little encouragement, or someone to listen to us when we’re having a tough time. Friends, family and support groups are great resource you can tap on.
Tip #8: Stay positive. A positive attitude is extremely helpful to getting rid of bad habits. It helps to come up with a few methods for staying positive. Find something that can make you happy and motivated. For example, earlier we mentioned about taking a family photo in which everybody look happy and smiling. If that picture can make you happy, keep one in your wallet. When you’re having a negative thought or a unhappy moment, pull out the photo that can trigger happiness in you.
Listen to this song “Break this Bad Habit” by the Destiny’s Child.
One day Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England was invited to address the graduating class at Oxford University. When he was introduced to speak, he walked to the podium, grabbing the lectern in both hands, he paused for a moment and looked at the audience. He continued looking at the crowd for about 30 seconds and then said, “Never, never, never give up!” Then another long paused, and with even greater emphasis, he repeated, “Never, never, never give up!” He stared at the audience for a few more seconds and sat down.
This is undoubtedly the shortest speech by Winston Churchill but it’s also one of the most meaningful. It serves as a reminder for people who want to achieve success. Many successful people do fail, not once or twice, but hundreds of times. But failure for them is success in the making. These people will never be defeated by failures.
Now, that’s “persistence or persistency“. The key element of success!
So, how do you develop the habit of persistence?
Here are four simple steps that can help you to develop and cultivate the habit of persistence…
Define a definite goal you want to achieve.
Draft out a definite action plan.
Stay out from all negative and discouraging influences. This includes negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances.
Always hang around with people who have positive mindsets, purpose and desire for success.
These four steps are essential for success in all walks of life. If you can commit yourself to take these four steps consistently, you will be able to develop and cultivate the habit of persistence.
Researchers had long discovered that caring and loving physical contacts of people could have positive physiological effects. One study is very interesting… hundreds of adults divided into two groups, one group consisted of people who are married or had long-time partners and another consisted of people who are single.
The group who had partners, were asked to watch a pleasant video for 10 minutes and then hugged each other for few seconds after that. Those participants who are single were asked to rest calmly.
Both group of participants were then asked to talk about something that made them feel upset and stressful recently. As we know, when someone feels stressful, his/her heart rate will increase and blood pressure will rise. The study found that those participants who were single experienced an increase of heart rate by ten beats per minute and twice the rise in blood pressure compared to the other group.
These caring & loving touches or hugs also have positive effects for children and even newborns. In fact, newborns can actually die when deprived from nurturing even if their other physical needs are met.
The heatlh benefits of loving & caring hugs had been proven by science. So why not use them as your health therapy. Make it as your habit to greet your family, friends, and acquaintances with hugs, handshakes, or pats on the back more often.
Watch this inspirational video titled “Free Hugs Campaign.” (only 4 minutes). This video has spread across the Internet like wildfire and inspired millions to consider the changes we can make by simply giving more hugs.
Disagreeing without being disagreeable means acknowledging or validating other person’s point of view first before making your points.
Here are some tips you can use to handle disagreements:
Tip 1: When someone says something that you don’t agree, do NOT say… “you are WRONG!”. Say, “You make some good points. Here are some perspectives we want to consider…”. This validates his/her points before suggesting him/her to look at another point of view.
Tip 2: When making your points, be more specific! Rather than saying… “Everyone knows that information is not true”. Be more specific and say… “I have information from a doctor that we want to consider here”.
Tip 3: Don’t insinuate or imply. Just say what you mean. For example, if someone’s perfume is bothering you, avoid saying… “people should consider others before they put on perfume”. Say… “I am sensitive to your perfume”.
It’s easy to disagree without being disagreeable if you always remember to apply Stephen Covey’s habit #5 “Seek First to Understand: Then to be Understood” in his best-selling book 7 habits of highly effective people. When you cultivate this habit, you will be surprised that people are more open to you. This is because they feel validated and safe expressing their point of view with you. Hope you find these tips are helpful to you.
Difference Between ACTIVITY And ACCOMPLISHMENT
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