It Only Takes 6 Steps to Change Your Life

Hope is the foundational principle for all change. People change because they have hope, and if people do not have hope, they will not change. You are responsible for the changes that you make in your life. The good news? You can change your life if you really want to. You can improve it, make it better. And it all starts with changing the way you think. So are you ready? I am going to walk you through a six-step plan for achieving positive change.

Here’s how you give yourself a little hope:
 

Step 1: When you change your thinking, you change your beliefs.

Change begins with the mind. Beliefs are nothing more than a byproduct of what you have thought about long enough, something that you have bought into—always remember that. What you believe, what you think, is just a collection of continual thoughts that have formed themselves into a conviction. When you break down the process of thinking into a manageable number of steps, you reduce the perceived risk associated with change.

Step 2: When you change your beliefs, you change your expectations.

Belief is the knowledge that we can do something. It is the inner feeling that what we undertake, we can accomplish. For the most part, all of us have the ability to look at something and know whether we can do it. So in belief there is power… our eyes are opened, our opportunities become plain, our visions become realities. Our beliefs control everything we do. If we believe we can or we believe we cannot, we are correct.

Step 3: When you change your expectations, you change your attitude.

Your expectations are going to determine your attitude. Most people get used to average; they get used to second best. Nelson Boswell said, “The first and most important step toward success is the expectation that we can succeed.”

Step 4: When you change your attitude, you change your behavior.

When our attitude begins to change, when we become involved with something, our behavior begins to change. The reason that we have to make personal changes is that we cannot take our people on a trip that we have not made.

Step 5: When you change your behavior, you change your performance.

Most people would rather live with old problems than new solutions. We would rather be comfortable than correct; we would rather stay in a routine than make changes. Even when we know that the changes are going to be better for us, we often don’t make them because we feel uncomfortable or awkward about making that kind of a change. Until we get courage and get used to living with something that is not comfortable, we cannot get any better.

Step 6: When you change your performance, you change your life.

It is easier to turn failure into success than an excuse into a possibility. A person can fail, turn around and understand their failure to make it a success. But I want to tell you, a person who makes excuses for everything will never truly succeed. Don’t you know some people who just have an excuse for everything? Why they could not, should not, did not, would not, have not, will not. I promise you, when you excuse what you are doing and excuse where you are, and you allow the exceptions, you fail to reach your potential. It is impossible to turn excuses into possibilities.

Source: http://www.success.com/article/john-c-maxwell-it-only-takes-6-steps-to-change-your-life

Give what you want to receive the most. This is one of the most valuable lessons that I can give you. If you want more support, show more support to others. If you want more respect, show more respect to others. If you want more love, just show more love. Then everything will come back to you like a river. THE PROCESS OF GIVING TRIGGERS THE PROCESS OF RECEIVING!

How To Become A Better Morning Person

Who does not know the river: "He stood up with his left foot."? The way you wake up / but will be largely marked the course of the entire day. And therefore, that every day will be the most successful, it is crucial to learn how to stand up "to the right leg" :)

Difficult times give you the chance to grow.

The highest mountains form the best climbers. And troubled times create the best leaders.

The most uncomfortable situations are those tests, where the best businessmen come out. Keep in mind that heavy tests never last long, but strong people always do. Difficult conditions are nothing more than a chance to become a hero. Times of trials, both in business and in life are excellent opportunities to transform disaster into success.

How to change your results?

Your words affect your own mood. Undoubtedly! Words, which are uttered, create your state. If you call a situation "a CATASTROPHY" this triggers a specific emotional response in you, which is quite different than if you would describe the situation as "INTERESTING" or as "a BASE FOR IMPROVEMENT." The language you use, has an impact on how you will react to a failure - whether it is in an optimistic or in an indifferently way.

You should know, that your words are nothing else than your thoughts, which you've expressed. With words you proclaim your beliefs. Your beliefs direct your behavior, your behavior creates all your results! So change your thoughts and your results will change!

The Rules for Being Amazing

If you truly want to become a winner in business, become a person whose walking, talking, living, breathing radiates positive energy, excellence and kindness to every person you meet. Why? Because people do business with people who they like. People do business with people who they can trust. People do business with people who make them feel that they are special. Treat everybody as very important persons and you will see how others will treat you.

13 bad habits you should break in 2016 to be more productive

Being more productive is about working smarter, not harder, and making the most of each day. While this is no easy feat, getting more done in less time is a much more attainable goal if you're not sabotaging yourself with bad habits.

Following are 13 things you should stop doing right now to become more productive.

1. Impulsive web browsing

Since most of us have access to the internet at work, it's easy to get sidetracked looking up the answer to a random question that just popped into your head.

That's why Quora user Suresh Rathinam recommends writing down these thoughts or questions on a notepad. This way, you can look up the information you want later, when you're not trying to get work done.

2. Multitasking

While many people believe they're great at doing two things at once, scientific research has found that just 2% of the population is capable of effectively multitasking.

For the rest of us, multitasking is a bad habit that decreases our attention spans and makes us less productive in the long run.

3. Checking email throughout the day

Constant internet access can also lead people to check email throughout the day. Sadly, each time you do this, you lose up to 25 minutes of work time. What's more, the constant checking of email makes you dumber.

Instead, strategy consultant Ron Friedman suggests quitting Outlook, closing email tabs, and turning off your phone for 30-minute chunks of deep-diving work.

4. Moral licensing

Whether it's a new diet, workout routine, or work schedule, one of the most difficult things about forming a new habit is the urge to cheat as a reward for sticking to a routine for a while.

This idea that we "deserve" to splurge on fancy meal after being thrifty for a week is called "moral licensing," and it undermines a lot of people's plans for self-improvement.

Instead, try making your goal part of your identity, such that you think of yourself as the kind of person who saves money or works out regularly, rather than as someone who is working against their own will to do something new.

5. Putting off your most important work until later in the day

People often start off their day by completing easy tasks to get themselves rolling and leave their more difficult work for later. This is a bad idea, and one that frequently leads to the important work not getting done at all.

As researchers have found, people have a limited amount of willpower that decreases throughout the day. That being the case, it's best to get your hardest, most important tasks done at the beginning of the day.

6. Taking too many meetings

Nothing disrupts the flow of productivity like an unnecessary meeting. And with tools like email, instant messenger, and video chat at your fingertips, it's best to use meetings for introductions and serious discussions that should only be held in person.

BlueGrace Logistics founder Bobby Harris recommends that people don't accept a meetingunless the person who requested it has put forth a clear agenda and stated exactly how much time they will need. And even then, Harris recommends giving the person half of the time they initially requested.

7. Sitting all day

Nilofer Merchant, a business consultant and the author of "The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy Paperback," shares with TED audiences how she's helped several major companies develop successful new ideas: walking meetings.

She recommends forgoing coffee or fluorescent-lighted conference-room meetings in favor of walking and talking 20 to 30 miles a week.

"You'll be surprised at how fresh air drives fresh thinking, and in the way that you do, you'll bring into your life an entirely new set of ideas," she says.

8. Hitting the snooze button

It might feel like pressing the snooze button in the morning gives you a little bit of extra rest to start your day, but the truth is that it does more harm than good.

That's because when you first wake up, your endocrine system begins to release alertness hormones to get you ready for the day. By going back to sleep, you're slowing down this process. Plus, nine minutes doesn't give your body time to get the restorative, deep sleep it needs.

This isn't to say you should cut back on sleep. As Arianna Huffington discusses in her TED talk, a good night's sleep has the power to increase productivity, happiness, smarter decision-making, and unlock bigger ideas. The trick for getting enough sleep is planning ahead and powering down at a reasonable time.

9. Failing to prioritize

Some people think having lots of goals is the best way to ensure success — if one idea fails, at least there are plenty more in reserve to turn to. Unfortunately, this sort of wavering can be extremely unproductive.

Warren Buffett has the perfect antidote. Seeing that his personal pilot was not accomplishing his life goals, Buffett asked him to make a list of 25 things he wanted to get done before he died. But rather than taking little steps toward completing every one of them, Buffett advised the pilot to pick five things he thought were most important and ignore the rest.

10. Over-planning

Many ambitious and organized people try to maximize their productivity by meticulously planning out every hour of their day. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned, and a sick child or unexpected assignment can throw a wrench into their entire day.

Instead, you might want to try planning just four or five hours of real work each day, that way you're able to be flexible later on.

11. Under-planning

With that being said, you should take time to strategize before attempting to achieve any long-term goals. Trying to come up with the endgame of a project you're doing midway through the process can be extremely frustrating and waste a huge amount of time.

Harvard lecturer Robert Pozen recommends that you first determine what you want your final outcome to be, then lay out a series of steps for yourself. Once you're halfway through, you can review your work to make sure you're on track and adjust accordingly.

12. Keeping your phone next to your bed

The LED screens of our smartphones, tablets, and laptops give off what is called blue light, which studies have shown can damage vision and suppress production of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the sleep cycle.

Research also suggests that people with lower melatonin levels are more prone to depression.

13. Perfectionism

More often than laziness the root of procrastination is the fear of not doing a good job, says British philosopher and author Alain de Botton on his website, The Book of Life.

"We begin to work only when the fear of doing nothing at all exceeds the fear of not doing it very well … And that can take time," he writes.

The only way to overcome procrastination is to abandon perfectionism and not fuss over details as you move forward. Pretending the task doesn't matter and that it's OK to mess up could help you get started faster.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bad-habits-that-are-killing-your-productivity-2015-12

Your struggles always lead to strength.

Do not give up. Keep walking towards discomfort and accept as many calculated risk as you can. Each of your fears will begin to disappear gradually. Do every day the things that scares you, and you will every day elegantly transform your fear into power. Thus you will build confidence and become invincible. Take a chance. Throw yourself into change. Grab your greatest opportunities. Every time you do this, you give your inner leader more fuel. Soon you will come to a point where anything will be possible.

Wise Words From Jack Ma

In just 1 minute Jack Ma explains perfectly what kind of people you have to avoide in business. Wise words indeed.

Remember, what you focus on, expands!

I hope I don't fall; I do not want to work weekends; My boss is incompetent; I will not do this because I don't know how; My neighbor is evil; Our mayor is stealing; Our government is awful; I have no money ... CHANGE YOUR FOCUS! Stop thinking of what you do not want and prefer to focus on what you want!

How meditation changes the brain and body?

The benefits of mindfulness meditation, increasingly popular in recent years, are supposed to be many: reduced stress and risk for various diseases, improved well-being, a rewired brain. But the experimental bases to support these claims have been few. Supporters of the practice have relied on very small samples of unrepresentative subjects, like isolated Buddhist monks who spend hours meditating every day, or on studies that generally were not randomized and did not include placebo­ control groups.

This month, however, a study published in Biological Psychiatry brings scientific thoroughness to mindfulness meditation and for the first time shows that, unlike a placebo, it can change the brains of ordinary people and potentially improve their health.

To meditate mindfully demands ‘‘an open and receptive, nonjudgmental awareness of your present-moment experience,’’ says J. David Creswell, who led the study and is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. One difficulty of investigating meditation has been the placebo problem. In rigorous studies, some participants receive treatment while others get a placebo: They believe they are getting the same treatment when they are not. But people can usually tell if they are meditating. Dr. Creswell, working with scientists from a number of other universities, managed to fake mindfulness.

First they recruited 35 unemployed men and women who were seeking work and experiencing considerable stress. Blood was drawn and brain scans were given. Half the subjects were then taught formal mindfulness meditation at a residential retreat center; the rest completed a kind of sham mindfulness meditation that was focused on relaxation and distracting oneself from worries and stress.

‘‘We had everyone do stretching exercises, for instance,’’ Dr. Creswell says. The mindfulness group paid close attention to bodily sensations, including unpleasant ones. The relaxation group was encouraged to chatter and ignore their bodies, while their leader cracked jokes.

At the end of three days, the participants all told the researchers that they felt refreshed and better able to withstand the stress of unemployment. Yet follow-up brain scans showed differences in only those who underwent mindfulness meditation. There was more activity, or communication, among the portions of their brains that process stress-related reactions and other areas related to focus and calm. Four months later, those who had practiced mindfulness showed much lower levels in their blood of a marker of unhealthy inflammation than the relaxation group, even though few were still meditating.

Dr. Creswell and his colleagues believe that the changes in the brain contributed to the subsequent reduction in inflammation, although precisely how remains unknown. Also unclear is whether you need to spend three uninterrupted days of contemplation to reap the benefits. When it comes to how much mindfulness is needed to improve health, Dr. Creswell says, ‘‘we still have no idea about the ideal dose.”

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/contemplation-therapy/?WT.mc_id=2016-FEBRIARY-FB-INYT-MC9-AUD_DEV-0201-0229&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=IntlAudDev&_r=3

Why now is the best time in human history to be an entrepreneur?

People are pessimists. As a rule we're all pretty negative, and we get off on thinking about how bad everything is, and how much better it used to be. I'll bet it goes all the way back to a bunch of grunting cave people, whining about how the Hunting/Gathering was better when their parents were younger. Entrepreneurs, tech-types and founders do it too. We talk about how much better it was to start companies back in the 70s, or the 80s, or the 90s, when we could have been the founders of Apple or Microsoft. When there were so many things to discover and build. And we look at those companies with a hushed awe, like they're fucking Gods. It's all wrong. I'm 100% sure that this is the best time in human history to be an entrepreneur.

                                 Mark Zuckerberg

Affordability

Starting a company is dirt cheap. It really is. You can kick off a new online venture for less than $100, easy. You can register a domain name, purchase hosting and web design through a drag and drop interface, and be up and running for a tiny initial outlay. That kind of approach could enable businesses of almost any model, whether it's e-commerce or a service-based design firm. Sure, you'll run into a lot more cost when you start looking at building software or platforms yourself; but validating the cost of development won't cost you a thing with a launch page and a sign-up form. You're looking at $15 a month. It doesn't take venture capital to found a small start-up or business. It just takes guts. Read my favorite book — "The $100 Start-up," by Chris Guillebeau. It will change the way you think about starting up.

Global teams

Finding a co-founder isn't the challenge it once was, either. Where meeting a business partner in the past could have been a lengthy process, searching out a face-to-face meeting, you can now discover talented individuals on the other side of the planet. Look at companies like Woothemes  — their original team were separated by hundreds of miles back in the day. You aren't limited by the people around you or your local technology or business environment. You have the ability to get out there and discover a genius who perfectly meshes with your approach to business, no matter where she is. If you need someone to climb that fucking mountain with, she's out there. When you have the entire population of the connected world at your fingertips, trust me  —  the hard part won't be finding the right co-founder, it'll be choosing which one.

Tools and platforms

From e-commerce plugins and solutions to 3D printing services, you can take care of just about everything your business needs from your smartphone or a browser tab. That's incredible. The apps, software and platforms that are instantly available to us now would have been unimaginable in the past. When I initially started in business as a freelance designer, my first expense was shelling out hundreds of bucks for Adobe Photoshop and Corel Graphics Suite, just so I would have the bare minimum I needed to get the job done. Nowadays, with a simple subscription that adds up to the price of a few cups of coffee, I have access to the entire collection of fully featured Adobe apps. And some of the best tools out there right now are so easy to use. Canva. Squarespace. Hundreds more. The only obstacle to getting shit done is your own knowledge.

... And on that subject

You can learn anything right now. We have on-line courses, tutorials, academies, apps and teachers who can provide you with the knowledge you need to learn coding or business development or even hand lettering. If there's any knowledge you lack to start a business, that knowledge can be learned at minimal cost and from the warm comfort of your couch. It's just putting in the work and the hours to absorb that knowledge and attain a level of engagement and familiarity. The material and the chance to get the technical education you'll need is out there right now. Look at Code Academy or Udemy. Hell, you can find most of the basic knowledge you need to run your first start-up on Quora. There are more reasons of course   —  movements in technology and business are creating new opportunities every day. But I think the above three cover some of the reasons I'm most excited about our current era of entrepreneurship. What it really boils down to is this:

We don't have a lot of valid excuses for not starting up.

If you want to found a company, my advice to you is that you find the time. You scrimp and you save every second. Because to miss out on the world of opportunity in front of you now … let's just say, you'll regret it. This is the greatest time to be an entrepreneur. But it's a terrible time to make up excuses and reasons why it's not worth trying.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/now-is-the-best-time-to-be-an-entrepreneur-2016-1?utm_content=bufferfbd90&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Gratitude can be a game changer!

Do you want more out of your life? Be grateful for everything you've already got, and immediately stop complaining! By changing your vibration you will attract the right persons and events in your life that will direct you to the right path. Are you maybe interested in what could be the right path for you?

Criticism is good!

Great people build monuments with stones that critics have thrown at them. 

Critics mostly criticize just because you are important for them (in a good ar a bad way).  When critics do not say anything, is this because you are no longer important. So you have to be worried only then, when nobody is criticizing you. 

Set your goals high!

"In my life as a businessman, politician, owner of the football club, I have always followed one rule: I have been setting my goals much higher than those that would be defined by common sense as achievable. And I have allways achieved them!"

Silvio Berlusconi