If you ask the “right” questions to yourself, you can harness the power of your subconscious mind to conquer any challenges and live your life to the fullest.
The power of questions is truly remarkable, but you must use it responsibly.
If everytime you commit a mistake, you ask yourself, “Why am I so stupid?” your subconscious mind will find ways and create circumstances to prove that you’re right (even if you’re not!).
Instead, ask yourself, “How can I improve the way I do this?” Your subconscious mind will then help you to come up with solutions.
Questions have improved my life tremendously; but out of all the questions I’ve asked myself, 5 of them have made the most positive impact in my life. And I’d like to share them with you now…
Question # 1: What Is My Heart’s Deepest Desires?
You can never be truly happy and consider yourself a success until you’re fulfilling your heart’s deepest desires.
So what makes you so thrilled and exhilarated to get up early in the morning? What are you so passionate about that you’re willing to give up anything for it?
Once you discover your heart’s deepest desires, your life will be filled with meaning and purpose.
You will finally realize that you’re born in this world to accomplish something extraordinary – something you’d truly love to do or become for the rest of your life.
So ask yourself, “What is my heart’s deepest desires?”
Then list down (on a piece of paper) everything that comes to your mind. If you’re not sure whether a desire is something that you’re really passionate about, write it down anyway.
When you’re done, rate each item on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least desirable and 10 being the most). Pay attention to your desires with a rating of 10. These are your heart’s deepest desires.
Focus your efforts and energy towards doing them. Make them a top priority in your life and actually “live” them with passion.
If you do, you’ll become the best version of yourself and live the life that you’re truly meant to live.
Question # 2: How Can I ________________? (Fill the blank with the thing you want to accomplish.)
I ask this question when I can’t figure out a solution, or when I want to know the best possible solution, to an issue.
You may ask it at the exact time you’re encountering the situation; but the best time is to ask it before you go to sleep, because it’s during this time when your subconscious mind goes into hyperactive mode in finding the “right” answer.
Let’s say you dream of owning your own business but you’re limited in funds. Before going to sleep, ask yourself, “How can I get the money to fund my dream business?”
Follow up that question with a firm statement: “While asleep, my subconscious mind will find the best way to start my business. And tomorrow, it will lead me to the perfect solution.”
Sleep peacefully with the confidence that the answer is right around the corner.
Question # 3: Is It Really Important?
I learned this question while reading “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David J. Schwartz, and this one really jumped out at me.
Want to manage stress, avoid arguments, and live longer? Then ask yourself this question every time something sets you off.
There are many “little” things that could annoy us… a driver cutting you off, someone speaking impolitely, kids disturbing your personal time, slow internet connection, and a lot more.
The solution is to just ask yourself, “Is it really important?” whenever you feel irritable or mad.
Oftentimes, you’ll realize that these are just small stuffs that you should ignore, so you can focus on the more important things in life.
And by not losing your temper, you’ll develop harmonious relationships and boost your happiness. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Question # 4: What Makes Me Special?
Ask yourself this question to get a big boost in self-esteem and appreciate your own unique qualities.
This question is especially helpful to people who don’t value themselves highly or those who may feel that they’re not good enough.
But even if you think you already have high self-esteem, asking this question could lead you to discover more awesome things about yourself!
List down a list of your exceptional accomplishments, talents, knowledge, experiences, or traits. Then bask in your own glory.
When I asked this question to myself, my answers include…
– Passed the board exams where the national passing percentage was 17.45%
– Doubled sales for Fortune 500 consultant Kevin Hogan when I rewrote his sales letter for Covert Hypnosis
– Became a bestselling author
– Became a certified NLP practitioner
– Proud parent of a boy who garnered first honors
– Can deadlift 290 lbs.
– Possess a lean and healthy body
– Have a network of people who love me (and whom I love very much)
– Believe I can achieve anything with God’s help and my mind
I’m sure you could think of many things that make you special. Even personality traits such as your determination, love, patience, or courage can be added to your list.
Go through your list as often as you can, and you’ll feel that you’re one of a kind. There’s no other person on earth like you.
Question # 5: What Would ________________ Do? (Fill the blank with the name of the person you’re emulating.)
This is an effective way to handle situations or make decisions from the perspective of someone who is adept in that area.
If you’re thinking of exacting revenge on someone who did you wrong, ask yourself, “What would Jesus (or Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Pope Francis, etc.) do?” This will help turn your hatred to forgiveness.
If you want to lose weight but can’t control your cravings, ask yourself, “What would Jillian Michaels (or your favorite fitness hero) do?” This will motivate you to eat only healthy foods at the right amount.
If you’re stuck in making an investment decision, ask yourself, “What would Warren Buffet (or your favorite financial guru) do?” This will help you decide the best possible option.
Choose someone whose philosophies, principles, and way of thinking are familiar to you. If you regularly immerse yourself in their books, audios, videos, seminars, etc. your mindset will be in tune with theirs.
Change your life now by asking these 5 questions to yourself. And get ready to live your best life yet.
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Running and Entrepreneurship?
I bet at this point, some of you are wondering, how on Earth running and entrepreneurship even correlate. Entrepreneurship is a mindset, one that inspires all the qualities of successful entrepreneurs, from being a visionary, having drive, the aggression necessary to overcome, etc. Entrepreneurship is about having a laser like focus on survival and setting everything else aside; only an experienced runner can understand this direct connection, one that has helped to mold me into a mentally fit, and driven Fempreneur.
Discipline means excuses are no longer an option.
A disciplined entrepreneur understands the importance of timeliness, of getting things done, and in turn earns the respect of his peers, and team members. Lack of discipline creates chaos, and a disorganized environment that does not set the precedence for a successful environment.
Running has and continues to instill discipline in my life. Fitting running into my impossibly busy routine has helped me to understand the importance of sticking to a routine. In order to build strength, and stamina as a runner you have to keep it up. Starting and stopping will only make the process challenging for you, but creating a routine, will help to strengthen your body, and before you know it, one mile will turn into 2, and then 3.
This discipline can then be applied to your life as an entrepreneur, allowing you to stay one step ahead every time.
A few weeks ago, I discovered a great hill 2 blocks from my home. I was almost done with my run, and I thought it would be a great way to end my run with a few laps up and down the hill. I gave myself 5, but by the time I had run up and down the hill 3 times my body was telling me it was done. My mind, however, was singing a different tune. I knew that if I pushed myself, I could finish my lap, and make the last two blocks to the house.
I remember a time when I would easily have given up and turned back to the house, but it’s hard for me to walk away from these challenges, as a runner and as an entrepreneur, thanks to running. As a runner, I face a similar situation every time I choose to put my running shoes on and hit the pavement.
You are pushing yourself to do something that challenges every muscle in your body, and challenging your mind and body to go beyond their limits.
I am a determined Fempreneur, because I am a determined runner.
According to Michael E Berger, an entrepreneur is a creator:
“So, when you start your company, you must think of it as though you were about to write a book. What would that book of yours say? What would you, as the author of your book, wish to impart to your reader that would hopefully transform the way they think about their life, about their success, about their future?”
A creator is able to envision his creation beforehand, from the moment the decision to create has been made to the end of the journey.
I find that as a runner, I am successful when I visualize myself succeeding. Whether I am running 1, 2, 3, or more miles, I complete the run in my mind before I take my first step, envisioning my success is what helps me during mornings like the one I mentioned earlier. My body is exhausted, and yet, I push through.
In business as in anything else in life, being a visionary, seeing and dreaming when others are asleep, creating, building, and achieving where others fail to, will lay a path for success before you.
Runners are confident.
Not because of their physical accomplishments, but even more so than that, because of the mental accomplishments. It challenges you to overcome fear, exhaustion, and so much more!
How doesn’t that create a better entrepreneur?
In every way the entrepreneurial mindset is the mindset of the over comer. Those that are first to accept challenges and to take them head on, without confidence, it is difficult to walk head first into situations that challenge you in front of your peers. A great runner is confident, and bold in every way.
There are many ways that running has inspired and continues to inspire me as a business owner, mother, and a wife. It takes strength, determination, will power, and ambition to choose to run, and when you do achieve more than what you thought possible, you can carry the same mindset to the board room.
What are some things of the unexpected things that inspire you as an entrepreneur?
The post 4 Ways Running Has Made Me a Better Fempreneur appeared first on Lifehack.
If you have a tendency to avoid reality by fantasizing about your dream scenario, then chances are you are an escapist. But it is not all bad being an escapist; like everything else in life, it does have its good and bad traits.
But believe it or not, there’s an escapist in all of us. But some of us tend to take escapism to the next level and this can be quite bad. In this article, I will identify 5 good and 5 bad signs of being an escapist. So if you want to know whether you are an escapist, check these 10 signs below.
If you have a tendency to daydream (a lot), then you could be an escapist. Escapists are people who want to create their own reality whilst they go about their daily routine. And these day dreams don’t tend to happen purposefully; they actually happen quite naturally when you don’t expect it. And when they do occur, you welcome them. A lot these dream tend to revolve around your deepest desires, like being a rock star, celebrity or being able to stand up for yourself.
If you are capable of making your own alternate reality in your mind, then you must be one imaginative and creative person. And because you developed this habit of imagining, you regularly exercise your creative muscles so you come up with new ideas all the time. If you think about it, some of the most creative works of literature or art (like Stars Wars, Batman—you name it) are all set in a dystopian universe.
If you are an escapist, chances are you are working in a job that you don’t really like. And you probably have this burning desire to quit your job. But being an escapist is not just about wishing to quit your job; there could be many things in your life that you wish weren’t there. They could be finance or family-related, and things which you don’t have control over. Escapists like yourself are longing to free from their shackles and live life on their own terms.
You’re quick to be bitten by the travel bug. And by travelling, it is not your usual going to a beach and partying type of vacation (although you won’t mind doing that now and then). Your idea of travelling is to explore and to embrace the vibrant cultures that the world would has to offer. And since you are an escapist, you’ll be easily drawn to pictures being posted on Facebook where your friends are showing off their latest travelling adventures and you can’t help but to feel slightly envious.
As mentioned in one of the previous signs, escapist are incredibly creative and they’re responsible for creating the greatest works of fiction, especially in the fantasy and sci-fi genre. And as a fellow escapist, you admire their work because it allows you be a part of their imaginary universe. It gives you a chance to escape.
This is a classic sign for anyone who is an escapist. Chances are, if you are an escapist, then you may hate your job. There’s a part of you who wants to go on to achieve greater things, perhaps a better career, or you want to do something that you love. So you continue to daydream and lose focus of what you should be doing. And because of this, you are at risk of under-performing in your job.
Video games have evolved so much recently that you actually feel as if you are a part of their pixelated world. Like many escapists, you are probably addicted to playing video games, and that is because these games allow you to escape into an imaginary reality. Games like the SIMs are becoming more popular because it allows you to create your own alternative version of yourself where you are living your dream world. And because you are so submersed in your universe that you have created, you don’t want to let it go.
This is very common characteristic of all escapists, and it should be seen as a sign. As an escapist, you will have probably imagined this amazing future where you will be living the life of your dream. But when you go and pursue this dream, the shock of what the world is really like disappoints you. You will quickly realise this so go back to just imagining your dream world, where you feel happy.
Although you may have all these aspirations to live your dream life, the truth is something is holding you back and it is preventing you from pursuing passion. The one thing that is holding you back is your fear of failure. In fact, you’re petrified of failure. You keeping asking all these “what ifs” and they all revolve around failure (e.g. “what if people all mock me because I want to be a writer?!”). And because of this, you end up staying where you are and you start procrastinating.
Similar to the last point, another sign which coincides with procrastination is your inability to face uncertainty. Your alternate dream world is where you go to escape the actual reality that you find difficult to accept. When you face uncertain situations, you tend to start procrastinating and start to fantasize. And that’s because you find certainty and security in your dream.
There good and bad signs when it comes to being an escapist. The good signs tend to lead to creativity and exploration, but the bad signs lead to procrastination and not being able to accept reality. If you do have difficulty in accepting reality and pursuing your passion, you could benefit from seeking professional help. But hopefully, this article has made you familiar with signs that are usually associated with being an escapist.
Featured photo credit: Petra via pixabay.com
The post 10 Signs You’re an Escapist (Both Good and Bad) appeared first on Lifehack.
According to Lars Backstrom, engineering manager for Facebook’s News Feed ranking, the average user’s News Feed has around 1,500 possible stories filtered through per day. Not all of them will make your feed as only about 20% are what you see. Yet, how much time you spend on Facebook and what you actually do on this social media site could explain how productive you are.
The average person spends 22 minutes a day on Facebook. And surely this social media site is willing to squeeze more time out of you. You really are not meant to like everything you see on your newsfeed and all Facebook’s fancy algorithms may not be what will inspire the most productive feed for you. Your Facebook newsfeed reveals how productive you are and how much you want to get value for your time. For many productive people I know, decluttering their newsfeed aids their productivity. Here is how your Facebook can tell you how productive you are.
We tend to put so much meaning to the word friend. We could think that many others users in our networks are friends, but how many do we really know? I have not met many of my “friends” on Facebook in person and when you either have to unfriend or unsubscribe a “friend,” we feel we might hurt someone’s feelings. Busying yourself with the activities or “noise” from unknown friends can affect your productivity negatively. The best thing is to appreciate quality over quantity and focus on the friends that are known and add value to your progressive goals. The rest you can either unsubscribe or unfriend or make adjustments to.
There is nothing as irritating as being informed about someone’s farm or requests about you joining a farming group when actually this is not your interest. Such doesn’t add to your productivity so go to the upper right-hand corner of the app posting and block apps like Farmville and other annoying applications.
Truthfully some of our friends on Facebook posts great content, but these contents could be deluged and clogged by poor contents from certain friends. If you have taken the time to engage in beneficial posts from perhaps from influential thought leaders, it means you are willing to be more productive and selective and have more of such incisive posts on your Newsfeed.
You could also improve on your Facebook experience by seeing less of someone’s annoying posts by clicking the Friends box and select “Close Friends” or “Acquaintances.” The acquaintances list will rarely be shown while “close friends” will be shown more often.
Some sponsored posts and ads can be annoying and distracting. Yet there is no way to fully eliminate ads from you News Feed. However productive people who’re concerned about less distracting ads use Adblock plus to get rid of annoying ads, and focus on the nitty-gritty of being on Facebook. You could also reduce annoying ads by providing feedback on the ads you like and those you don’t like by clicking the arrow in the upper right-hand corner of annoying ads.
People who get stuck to the old ways and approach are really unproductive and not willing to improve on their feeds. Being productive means you are willing to take measures to get value for your time. Getting informed about changes Facebook is making to the Newsfeed shows you are willing to get more value for your time and improve on what you see on your Newsfeed.
Featured photo credit: http://www.pixabay.com via pixabay.com
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Sig Nordal 