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3 Ways to Focus on What You Want
You’re reading 3 Ways to Focus on What You Want, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
In today’s 24/7, never-unplugged culture, getting through a day often feels like a full-contact sport – bruises and all. Despite the billions of dollars raked in annually by the wellness industries, statistics show that more Americans than ever are stressed, depressed, and anxiety-ridden – with high-achieving women disproportionately sitting at the top of the burned-out, run-ragged pack.
A breakdown-moment question I often receive from women executives and entrepreneurs alike is some form of, “How can I grow my business faster while having a proper and healthy work-life balance and remaining present in my children’s lives and spending time with my husband and traveling?” (No joke. That’s a word-for-word question I received last week.)
My short answer is: You can’t.
My longer answer is: One cake at a time.
Because you can have your cake and eat it too, but you can’t have multiple cakes at the same time. It’s critical to be aware of what’s most important to you and how you intend to consistently show up for that.
For example, I carve out uninterrupted playtime with my daughter almost every day. Yesterday it was coloring; today it was flying human airplanes in bed. Those simple moments together reinforce my commitment to be a playful and present mother, and show my daughter that she is a priority in my life. (So I’m not checking my phone intermittently while we’re coloring, or thinking about something else while I’m reading to her.) I’m fully present, and she can feel that.
I apply this same singular focus to everything that’s worth doing in my business and life. The cumulative effect of those consistent growth practices is pure magic.
Here are a few simple strategies to experience this same magic in your life:
Strategy #1: F.O.C.U.S. Follow One Course Until Successful. In a keynote speech about the Third Metric, Arianna Huffington discusses the dangers of multitasking: “You think you’re being efficient, but actually you’re being stupid.” As Arianna points out, we now have scientific evidence proving we cannot multi-task. Knowing that, what’s most important to you right now? Maybe it’s taking time off to hang with your little one. Or a personal project you’ve been putting off… Whatever it is: it’s time. Don’t let all the things you can choose get in the way of what you know you must. When you set up your time and space to ‘single-task’, you’ll accomplish more and feel less stressed and more satisfied.
Strategy #2: ACT. To paraphrase from motivational author Napoleon Hill’s work, knowledge is not power. It’s potential power. Knowledge without action is completely useless. So what 1-2 actions could you take today to move in the direction of your FOCUS? What could you create? When I had an over-full-time corporate gig, I dreamed of starting a blog. I didn’t even really know what a blog was at the time, but I used my lunch breaks and late evenings to find out and to simply start writing. What daily action can you take in the direction of your dreams? Small, consistent practices lead to big, crazy cool results.
Strategy #3: CONNECT. Who can help you and who can you help with what you’re creating? When you connect to your deepest desires, you’ll also start connecting with the people and circumstances that steadily bring them to life. And remember, in this information age you can spend time with anyone you want. Find someone who’s killing it in the biz-life areas you feel called to focus on and study them. What are they doing differently? Make it a point to learn something from them today — either by reading or listening to their work, or by finding other creative ways to engage indirectly or directly with them.
Cortney McDermott is an award-winning writer, TEDx speaker, and strategist to Fortune 500 executives, entrepreneurial leaders, and think tanks around the world. She writes for a number of international publications, including She Owns It and HuffPost. Her debut book, Change Starts Within You: Unlock the Confidence to Lead with Intuition was selected for Inc.com’s “26 Favorite Books of High Achievers” and has been featured in multiple media outlets around the nation.
Before turning entrepreneur, Cortney served as an executive at Vanity Fair Corporation, vice president at Sustainability Partners, professor of graduate studies for Big Ten US universities, and global associate for the renowned beCause Consortium. (She also moonlighted as a deli waitress, secretary, and everything in between, as a way to put herself through school and life.)
Cortney is a graduate of the London School of Economics and a certified cultural mediator in multiple languages. She lives with her family between the United States and Italyfocus
You’ve read 3 Ways to Focus on What You Want, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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The Pity of It All
Ken Burns achieved renown with lengthy film histories of the Civil War, World War II, jazz, and baseball, but he describes his documentary The Vietnam War, made in close collaboration with his codirector and coproducer Lynn Novick, as “the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken.” Ten years in the making, it tells the story of the war in ten parts and over eighteen hours. Burns and Novick have made a film that conveys the realities of the war with extraordinary footage of battles in Vietnam and antiwar demonstrations in the United States.
1 Universe, 9 Planets, 204 Countries, 809 Islands, 7 Seas, and I had the privilege of meeting you…
The Case of Isabel Archer
The Portrait of a Lady can rightfully claim to be the novel that began to edge fiction out of a Victorian concern with spectacle and plot and to introduce us to what became, in the early twentieth century, in the hands of Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, and others, fiction that is concerned with the ebb and flow of individual consciousness as it ranges across the mundane events of daily life. James frequently pauses the action and allows us to eavesdrop on Isabel Archer’s most intimate thoughts, feelings, and fears, in a manner that readers in 1881 would have found both startling and thrilling. John Banville’s seventeenth novel, Mrs. Osmond, seizes the narrative baton from James.
Change…
via Bits Of Wisdom http://ift.tt/2A8BlzF
Half Of Hawaii’s Coral Reefs Damaged In One Year, And It’s Going to Get Worse
Unprecedented amounts of coral reef bleaching destroyed the coasts of Hawaii, and it will probably keep getting worse.
via Half Of Hawaii’s Coral Reefs Damaged In One Year, And It’s Going to Get Worse — Newsweek
New Photo Enhancing Software Easily Transforms Low-Resolution Images into High-Resolution
We’re lucky enough to be living during a time when technology is evolving faster than ever. And now, sci-fi crime drama cliches are actually becoming a reality. Let’s Enhance is a new online photo enhancing software that allows you to turn images from lousy low-resolution to crisp high-resolution.
Founded by Alex Savsunenko and Vladislav Pranskevičius—a chemistry Ph.D. and a former CTO—Let’s Enhance is designed to be super-easy to use. The website invites you to drag and drop your image and then instantly gets to work on the magical transformation. The software’s secret lies in its use of neural networks—computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks of human and animal brains. Let’s Enhance uses neural networks that are tailored to different image types—such as landscapes or portraits—to upscale low-res images by four times.
In addition to using image-specific neural networks, the program incorporates three different layers to make up the final image. The first layer—the Anti-JPEG filter—removes JPEG artifacts, such as loss of edge, clarity, and tone. The second layer—called the Boring filter—does the upscaling while preserving original details and maintaining edges. Using AI technology, the third and final layer—called the Magic filter—tries to identify the image subject (from past database images) and fills in new details that weren’t there before. The results are surprisingly accurate, and the software is even due to improve with continued use.
You can try Let’s Enhance for free via their website.
This free photo enhancing software allows you to transform low-resolution images into high-resolution.
Let’s Enchance: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
h/t: [Design Taxi, PetaPixel]
All images via Let’s Enhance.
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The post New Photo Enhancing Software Easily Transforms Low-Resolution Images into High-Resolution appeared first on My Modern Met.
What is Modern Art? Exploring the Movements That Define the Groundbreaking Genre
Modern art is renowned for its avant-garde aesthetic and celebrated for its forward-thinking artists. Developing over the course of roughly 100 years, it incorporates many major movements and has inevitably seen an eclectic range of styles.
In order to trace modern art’s remarkable evolution, one must recognize and understand the many genres that compose it. To do this, however, it is helpful to come up with a modern art definition.
What is Modern Art?
Not to be confused with contemporary art, the “modern art” label refers to late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century art. Works produced during this time showcase artists’ interest in re-imagining, reinterpreting, and even rejecting traditional aesthetic values of preceding styles.
History: Major Movements and Artists
Starting with light and airy Impressionism and ending with energetic Abstract Expressionism, the modern art genre is composed of several major movements.
Impressionism
Widely considered the catalyst for modern art, Impressionism challenged the rigid rules and realistic depictions of academic painting. The movement emerged in 1872, when Claude Monet innovatively employed blurred brushstrokes, a focus on light, and a vivid color palette to paint Impression, Sunrise.
‘Impression, Sunrise’ by Claude Monet
Photo: Claude Monet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This style dominated French painting until the turn of the century, with artists like Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas at the forefront.
Post-Impressionism
Inspired by the artistic freedom introduced by the Impressionists, artists like Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec began working in distinctive, unconventional styles. Known as Post-Impressionism, this colorful movement started in the 1890s and showcases an interest in emotion and a preference for subjective interpretation over realistic representation.
‘The Starry Night‘ by Vincent van Gogh
Photo:Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Fauvism
Founded by les Fauves—an avant-garde group of artists including André Derain and Henri Matisse—Fauvism first appeared in the early 20th century. Like the Post-Impressionists, Fauvists favored unrealistic tones and an emphasis on individual perceptions in their depictions, which typically featured recognizable (yet somewhat abstracted) forms.
Les Fauves, Exhibition at the Salon D’Automne, from L’Illustration, 4 November 1905
Photo: By Not identified, anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The post What is Modern Art? Exploring the Movements That Define the Groundbreaking Genre appeared first on My Modern Met.
Sig Nordal 
