You’re reading How To Achieve Your Most Important Goal in 2018 Using 2 Simple Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Out of all the goals you have set for this year I’m sure you’ve got one specific goal that’s been on the forefront of your mind.

A goal that you know has the greatest potential to change your life – Your most important goal for 2018.

But while you are motivated and generally hard working, most likely you are struggling with something most people are struggling with:

Consistency.

One week you’re on fire, working on whatever you need to work on everyday with great focus and energy.

Another week you kind of lose momentum, don’t get much done and procrastinate.

Making matters worse after a week of laziness it takes you another week to get back into productive mode.

Effectively losing 2 weeks that you could be getting closer towards achieving your goal.

Frustrating isn’t it?

Well, you’re in luck – in this article I’ll show you how to achieve your most important goal in 2018 using only 2 simple habits.

They are effective, easy to implement, and immediately applicable right after reading this article.

So let’s get right to it.

Habit #1: Pick the Low Hanging Fruit Everyday

Question: How do you stay consistent and work towards you goal almost 365 days of the year despite motivational slumps?

Answer: Find a task that…

• Can be completed in 5-10 minutes, yet effectively brings you closer towards achieving your goal
• Feels easy, low-effort and can be completed almost anytime, anywhere
• Exposes you to new learning material that will sharpen your approach towards achieving your goal

How to Pick the Low Hanging Fruit:

Here’s my favorite way to pick the low hanging fruit:

Read a book (related to your goal) on your phone every time you go the toilet

I know it might sound a bit weird.

But let’s be honest: You already go to the toilet and you are already addicted (‘scuse me) to your phone.

So what better way to kill two birds with one stone?

The result: You’ll be getting about 10 minutes of extra reading in everyday.

Let’s be pragmatic…

If you read 10 minutes per day you will read 3650 minutes extra in the year.

Divide that by 60 and you get about 61 hours of reading in this year.

Assuming it takes 6 hours to read a book (most self-help books take you less), then you’ll be able to read 10 books this year.

Let’s say your goal is to improve your fitness.

Reading 10 fitness books will teach you invaluable stuff about how to reach that goal.

Reading about fitness everyday will also make sure that fitness is on your mind 24/7. As a result you’ll learn faster and build unstoppable momentum.

Now let me be clear:

Of course your fitness (or any other goal for that matter) won’t improve JUST by reading.

Picking the low hanging fruit is just the base habit.

You need to stack Habit #2 on top to take action and achieve your most important goal in 2018.

Habit #2: Plan Tomorrow the Night Before

To achieve your goal you actually have to take action in the real world.

Not just once or twice…

… but consistently almost everyday.

There is tons of self-help advice out there trying to help you take action.

Stuff like morning rituals, to-do lists, waking up 3 hours early to work and so on and so forth.

Now, if any of those work for you – use them! You always want to keep what’s working.

Just apply Habit #1 in addition to taking action and you are good to go.

What I’ve found though is that a lot of self-help advice on planning in your practice/action time is too rigid.

Life gets in the way quickly. Grandma might make a spontaneous visit for a cup of coffee and interrupt your perfect practice plan. Your strategy has to take stuff like that into account.

On the flip side completely winging it without any kind of plan is not the answer either.

So to take action everyday towards your goal you need the right balance of flexibility and structure.

That’s where Habit #2 comes in.

How to Plan Tomorrow the Night Before

• Define the action/practice that will bring you most effectively towards achieving your goal
• Every night before going to sleep note down all the tasks you have to complete tomorrow. That includes your defined action, but also other stuff like grocery shopping, work, or friends visiting.
• Now give each task a rough start and end time
• Arrange and rearrange the schedule for tomorrow until it feels doable and convenient.
• The next day refer to your plan and if necessary adapt

Every night schedule in an activity for tomorrow that helps you achieve your most important goal for 2018.

If it’s fitness it might be working out.

If it’s blogging it might be writing.

If it’s getting As at Uni it might be studying.

The key is to be realistic and flexible. If you have other priorities for tomorrow accept it and just squeeze in 15 minutes of taking action towards your goal.

If the day is relatively free maybe get in 2 hours.

I’ve tried many productivity tactics and honestly planning the day ahead has been the most effective one for me personally. It provides just the right balance of flexibility and structure to make sure you take action every day.

Let’s recap the whole process

1. Pick your most important goal for 2018
2. Pick a book on a related topic and read it whenever you go to the loo
3. Plan tomorrow the night before and schedule in an action that will help you achieve your goal over time

Done.

If you apply this simple framework Habit #1 will build momentum and accelerate your learning.

Habit #2 will make sure you work towards your goal everyday.

Weeks of procrastination will be a thing of the past. And when life gets in the way you won’t feel overwhelmed.

Instead you’ll have a system to deal with it and make consistent progress week by week.

---

Felix enjoys making complex self-development concepts simple and applicable. Check out his article “12 Ways to Accelerate Your Learning Now” and achieve your goals even faster. 

You’ve read How To Achieve Your Most Important Goal in 2018 Using 2 Simple Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

>

You’re reading How To Achieve Your Most Important Goal in 2018 Using 2 Simple Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Out of all the goals you have set for this year I’m sure you’ve got one specific goal that’s been on the forefront of your mind.

A goal that you know has the greatest potential to change your life – Your most important goal for 2018.

But while you are motivated and generally hard working, most likely you are struggling with something most people are struggling with:

Consistency.

One week you’re on fire, working on whatever you need to work on everyday with great focus and energy.

Another week you kind of lose momentum, don’t get much done and procrastinate.

Making matters worse after a week of laziness it takes you another week to get back into productive mode.

Effectively losing 2 weeks that you could be getting closer towards achieving your goal.

Frustrating isn’t it?

Well, you’re in luck – in this article I’ll show you how to achieve your most important goal in 2018 using only 2 simple habits.

They are effective, easy to implement, and immediately applicable right after reading this article.

So let’s get right to it.

Habit #1: Pick the Low Hanging Fruit Everyday

Question: How do you stay consistent and work towards you goal almost 365 days of the year despite motivational slumps?

Answer: Find a task that…

• Can be completed in 5-10 minutes, yet effectively brings you closer towards achieving your goal
• Feels easy, low-effort and can be completed almost anytime, anywhere
• Exposes you to new learning material that will sharpen your approach towards achieving your goal

How to Pick the Low Hanging Fruit:

Here’s my favorite way to pick the low hanging fruit:

Read a book (related to your goal) on your phone every time you go the toilet

I know it might sound a bit weird.

But let’s be honest: You already go to the toilet and you are already addicted (‘scuse me) to your phone.

So what better way to kill two birds with one stone?

The result: You’ll be getting about 10 minutes of extra reading in everyday.

Let’s be pragmatic…

If you read 10 minutes per day you will read 3650 minutes extra in the year.

Divide that by 60 and you get about 61 hours of reading in this year.

Assuming it takes 6 hours to read a book (most self-help books take you less), then you’ll be able to read 10 books this year.

Let’s say your goal is to improve your fitness.

Reading 10 fitness books will teach you invaluable stuff about how to reach that goal.

Reading about fitness everyday will also make sure that fitness is on your mind 24/7. As a result you’ll learn faster and build unstoppable momentum.

Now let me be clear:

Of course your fitness (or any other goal for that matter) won’t improve JUST by reading.

Picking the low hanging fruit is just the base habit.

You need to stack Habit #2 on top to take action and achieve your most important goal in 2018.

Habit #2: Plan Tomorrow the Night Before

To achieve your goal you actually have to take action in the real world.

Not just once or twice…

… but consistently almost everyday.

There is tons of self-help advice out there trying to help you take action.

Stuff like morning rituals, to-do lists, waking up 3 hours early to work and so on and so forth.

Now, if any of those work for you – use them! You always want to keep what’s working.

Just apply Habit #1 in addition to taking action and you are good to go.

What I’ve found though is that a lot of self-help advice on planning in your practice/action time is too rigid.

Life gets in the way quickly. Grandma might make a spontaneous visit for a cup of coffee and interrupt your perfect practice plan. Your strategy has to take stuff like that into account.

On the flip side completely winging it without any kind of plan is not the answer either.

So to take action everyday towards your goal you need the right balance of flexibility and structure.

That’s where Habit #2 comes in.

How to Plan Tomorrow the Night Before

• Define the action/practice that will bring you most effectively towards achieving your goal
• Every night before going to sleep note down all the tasks you have to complete tomorrow. That includes your defined action, but also other stuff like grocery shopping, work, or friends visiting.
• Now give each task a rough start and end time
• Arrange and rearrange the schedule for tomorrow until it feels doable and convenient.
• The next day refer to your plan and if necessary adapt

Every night schedule in an activity for tomorrow that helps you achieve your most important goal for 2018.

If it’s fitness it might be working out.

If it’s blogging it might be writing.

If it’s getting As at Uni it might be studying.

The key is to be realistic and flexible. If you have other priorities for tomorrow accept it and just squeeze in 15 minutes of taking action towards your goal.

If the day is relatively free maybe get in 2 hours.

I’ve tried many productivity tactics and honestly planning the day ahead has been the most effective one for me personally. It provides just the right balance of flexibility and structure to make sure you take action every day.

Let’s recap the whole process

1. Pick your most important goal for 2018
2. Pick a book on a related topic and read it whenever you go to the loo
3. Plan tomorrow the night before and schedule in an action that will help you achieve your goal over time

Done.

If you apply this simple framework Habit #1 will build momentum and accelerate your learning.

Habit #2 will make sure you work towards your goal everyday.

Weeks of procrastination will be a thing of the past. And when life gets in the way you won’t feel overwhelmed.

Instead you’ll have a system to deal with it and make consistent progress week by week.

---

Felix enjoys making complex self-development concepts simple and applicable. Check out his article “12 Ways to Accelerate Your Learning Now” and achieve your goals even faster. 

You’ve read How To Achieve Your Most Important Goal in 2018 Using 2 Simple Habits, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

>

You’re reading Are You a Slave to Money? (and How This Belief Is Hurting You), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

How often have you heard these sayings about money?

• I’m just a slave to money.
• I work hard to serve the Almighty Dollar, but I never seem to make enough money.

These may sound like irrefutable truths. Yet, having these very thoughts about money is hurting you from welcoming more money into your life.

When you put yourself in the servant’s position, you relinquish all power you have. It’s playing into the victim mentality. It’s believing you are powerless to do anything about your financial situation, so why even try?

But what happens when you shift this relationship to one in which you are the master and money is your faithful servant, ready to do your bidding?

Money Is Just an Idea

First, let’s learn about what money really is. Before money, people traded with each other. If I was a blacksmith, I might have traded my metalwork for some bread with the local baker. But if the blacksmiths had nothing the baker wanted, then trade freezes.

So, money was invented to keep that trade flowing. Money is just a representation of stored value. The more value you are able to provide to the world, the more money comes into your life. Likewise, money is just an indicator of success.

Money’s Purpose

Money has several purposes.

• Enables you to live comfortably.
• Extend the good you are able to do in the world.
• Amplifies the time in which you can do it in.

The more money you have, the more comfortable you are able to live. Anyone who’s ever not have enough money knows how much it sucks to wander how she is going to pay for a dental procedure for a lingering toothache.

Once you’ve reached a certain median of income (about $75,000), money no longer brings you happiness. Instead, many people start looking at the changes they can bring to the world.

Money Is an Amplifier

Money is an amplifier of the good you can do in the world. For example, your deep desire is to help other people reach a higher-level within themselves. But they might be living in a country where access to safe and clean drinking water is next to impossible.

Then money helps you help them reach their goals. After all, when their basic necessities are taken care of, they can start working on self-actualization through education in order to build better lives for themselves and ultimately for their country.

Money enables you to help build their clean water infrastructure more quickly than if you went over there and did it yourself. Money enables that good to come more quickly into the world.

Key to Freedom: Awareness

Like any other thoughts that enter our minds, awareness is the key. Once you are aware you are having these destructive thoughts about money then you will be more likely to change those beliefs.

After all, thoughts lead to emotions. Emotions create a belief system. A belief system causes us to take action. Finally, actions create results. If you want to know what someone is thinking, then take a look at their results.

Changing your relationship with money involves an increase in awareness about your money beliefs.

Changing the Dynamics of Money and You

You’ve likely experienced a negative thought train. It goes something like this:

If I lose my job, then I can’t pay my bills. If I can’t pay my bills, then I’ll be out of a place to live. If I don’t have money, then I can’t pay for my new car and the medical bills. I can’t pay for my son’s education.

It goes on and on and on. Pretty soon, your stress levels go through the roof. Having an increased awareness means stopping this negativity train before it goes way out of control.

Once you stop this train, you can make it go in a new direction. This often involves thinking new thoughts about money, new thoughts such as…

• How can I cut my spending to create more money?
• How can I invest my money to make more money?
• How can I make more money to invest in the causes and movements I care about?

Money is energy. It represents our thoughts and feelings as well as our stored value. The first step to changing the master-slave dynamic is to see and believe it in your heart. Then the whole relationship dynamic changes. You will start attracting more money into your life.

---

Benson Wong is the Money Freedom Guy and helps people align their energy so that they can have more prosperity of wealth, health, and relationships into their lives. Find out how with your free eBook, Align With the Energy of Money.

You’ve read Are You a Slave to Money? (and How This Belief Is Hurting You), 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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You’re reading 7 Reasons To Meditate, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Do you always feel tired, stressed, and angry? Are you impulsive and can`t seem to stop snapping at people for the wrong reasons? If you say Yes, then you have to meditate more often.

Why You Must Meditate

Meditation is one of the best physical and spiritual activities you can gift yourself. For just 10 minutes each day, you can improve your mood, boost your energy and increase tranquility. But it`s not just about that. Researchers have found many answers to why you should meditate, some of which are listed here in this post.

1. It Can Protect You From Alzheimer’s

Many studies believe that meditation has positive effects on cognition, especially in adults. A 2015 study found that 12 minutes of daily Kirtan Kriya meditation lowered the risk of Alzheimer`s in adults with memory problems such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

The study found that KK lowered the symptoms of both anxiety and depression in participants and improved their sleep quality. They also saw a 43-percent increase in a protein called Telomerase which protects the body against DNA damage and increases longevity.

2. Can Ease Rheumatoid and Asthma

If you have asthma or rheumatoid arthritis, then you should meditate. A 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that it increases tolerance for asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, bowel disease and other inflammatory conditions.

To cope with chronic pain, the participants were asked to sign up for one of two stress-relieving programs. Both programs were quite similar. However, the second was a mix of physical moves and mindful meditation. And guess what proved to be more efficient? The second one.

Another study later confirmed these findings and found that regular meditation mimics the effect of anti-inflammatory drugs reduces the production of the body`s pro-inflammatory genes.

3. Helps You Sleep Better

Meditation is a fantastic treatment for insomnia. When having difficulty sleeping, many people, including me, meditate in bed. In one study, two groups of participants suffering from chronic insomnia were asked to either meditate or opt for a course on improving sleep quality. Those who meditated saw a notable improvement in both sleep latency and duration time compared to the other group.

4. Improves Your Immune System

Meditation is essential to the immune system especially for patients diagnosed with HIV. Studies suggest that it makes the body secrete specific anti-aging hormones that decrease the decay rate of a particular type of cells called CD4 T, which are the most critical cells in the immune system. These cells are usually attacked whenever someone is infected with HIV, making it quite dangerous whenever a patient faces anxiety or prolonged stress.

This is why HIV patients are instructed to meditate. According to a study by the University of California, mindful meditation overcomes the effect of specific proteins called, cytokines, which are released when you feel stressed.

5. Improves Self-esteem

Most human behaviors are impulsive. Think of worrying, overdrinking, or snapping at people for no reason, they all happen when we let emotions rule over logic, which is the case for most people. And guess what? The more impulsive you are, the less disciplined and less grounded you feel. Fortunately, you can reduce impulsiveness with meditation.

A team from Michigan State University told only one group of their participants to meditate before asking them to look at a bunch disturbing pictures while measuring their brain activity. The result? The meditating group was able to tame their negative emotions much better than their non-meditating peers.

Meditation can also help you understand yourself and what motivates to do certain things.

A recent study by Washington University suggests that paying attention to your current experience in a non-judgmental way —i.e., mindful meditation— might help you identify the blind spots in your self-knowledge that cause poor decision-making, poor academic achievement, low self-esteem and lower life satisfaction.

6. Increases Focus

If you feel distracted most of the time, then you should start meditating. A new study by the University of Waterloo in Canada found that you can improve focus by just doing 10 minutes of daily mindful meditation.

These 10 minutes, according to the study, taught chronic worriers, and highly anxious students, how to shift attention from their worries to the present moment, and thus increase their ability to complete a task undistracted.

7. It Can Help You Lose Weight

Though it doesn`t burn many calories, studies suggest that meditation — done solo or in groups— can be very effective against overeating, which is the root of all stomach evil.

A recent study by North Carolina State University found that meditation helped participants lose seven times more weight than their non-meditating peers.

After studying 80 participants and testing their levels of mindfulness, the team found that meditation increased mindful eating which helped the meditating group lose an average of 4.2 pounds during the study compared to only 0.6 pounds lost by another non-meditating group.

---

Marwan Jamal is a fitness and health blogger at healthline.com and a great fan of the gym and a healthy diet. He follows the trends in fitness, gym, and healthy life and loves to share his knowledge through useful and informative articles.

You’ve read 7 Reasons To Meditate, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

>

You’re reading 7 Reasons To Meditate, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Do you always feel tired, stressed, and angry? Are you impulsive and can`t seem to stop snapping at people for the wrong reasons? If you say Yes, then you have to meditate more often.

Why You Must Meditate

Meditation is one of the best physical and spiritual activities you can gift yourself. For just 10 minutes each day, you can improve your mood, boost your energy and increase tranquility. But it`s not just about that. Researchers have found many answers to why you should meditate, some of which are listed here in this post.

1. It Can Protect You From Alzheimer’s

Many studies believe that meditation has positive effects on cognition, especially in adults. A 2015 study found that 12 minutes of daily Kirtan Kriya meditation lowered the risk of Alzheimer`s in adults with memory problems such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

The study found that KK lowered the symptoms of both anxiety and depression in participants and improved their sleep quality. They also saw a 43-percent increase in a protein called Telomerase which protects the body against DNA damage and increases longevity.

2. Can Ease Rheumatoid and Asthma

If you have asthma or rheumatoid arthritis, then you should meditate. A 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that it increases tolerance for asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, bowel disease and other inflammatory conditions.

To cope with chronic pain, the participants were asked to sign up for one of two stress-relieving programs. Both programs were quite similar. However, the second was a mix of physical moves and mindful meditation. And guess what proved to be more efficient? The second one.

Another study later confirmed these findings and found that regular meditation mimics the effect of anti-inflammatory drugs reduces the production of the body`s pro-inflammatory genes.

3. Helps You Sleep Better

Meditation is a fantastic treatment for insomnia. When having difficulty sleeping, many people, including me, meditate in bed. In one study, two groups of participants suffering from chronic insomnia were asked to either meditate or opt for a course on improving sleep quality. Those who meditated saw a notable improvement in both sleep latency and duration time compared to the other group.

4. Improves Your Immune System

Meditation is essential to the immune system especially for patients diagnosed with HIV. Studies suggest that it makes the body secrete specific anti-aging hormones that decrease the decay rate of a particular type of cells called CD4 T, which are the most critical cells in the immune system. These cells are usually attacked whenever someone is infected with HIV, making it quite dangerous whenever a patient faces anxiety or prolonged stress.

This is why HIV patients are instructed to meditate. According to a study by the University of California, mindful meditation overcomes the effect of specific proteins called, cytokines, which are released when you feel stressed.

5. Improves Self-esteem

Most human behaviors are impulsive. Think of worrying, overdrinking, or snapping at people for no reason, they all happen when we let emotions rule over logic, which is the case for most people. And guess what? The more impulsive you are, the less disciplined and less grounded you feel. Fortunately, you can reduce impulsiveness with meditation.

A team from Michigan State University told only one group of their participants to meditate before asking them to look at a bunch disturbing pictures while measuring their brain activity. The result? The meditating group was able to tame their negative emotions much better than their non-meditating peers.

Meditation can also help you understand yourself and what motivates to do certain things.

A recent study by Washington University suggests that paying attention to your current experience in a non-judgmental way —i.e., mindful meditation— might help you identify the blind spots in your self-knowledge that cause poor decision-making, poor academic achievement, low self-esteem and lower life satisfaction.

6. Increases Focus

If you feel distracted most of the time, then you should start meditating. A new study by the University of Waterloo in Canada found that you can improve focus by just doing 10 minutes of daily mindful meditation.

These 10 minutes, according to the study, taught chronic worriers, and highly anxious students, how to shift attention from their worries to the present moment, and thus increase their ability to complete a task undistracted.

7. It Can Help You Lose Weight

Though it doesn`t burn many calories, studies suggest that meditation — done solo or in groups— can be very effective against overeating, which is the root of all stomach evil.

A recent study by North Carolina State University found that meditation helped participants lose seven times more weight than their non-meditating peers.

After studying 80 participants and testing their levels of mindfulness, the team found that meditation increased mindful eating which helped the meditating group lose an average of 4.2 pounds during the study compared to only 0.6 pounds lost by another non-meditating group.

---

Marwan Jamal is a fitness and health blogger at healthline.com and a great fan of the gym and a healthy diet. He follows the trends in fitness, gym, and healthy life and loves to share his knowledge through useful and informative articles.

You’ve read 7 Reasons To Meditate, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

>

You’re reading Why Enabling Someone Is Never A Loving Act, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

When You Only Want To Help

Addiction is hard on everyone. If you watch your loved one continually abuse their body, you fear what they’re doing to their health. Abusing drugs and alcohol creates a potential for legal consequences and may interfere with your loved one’s ability to make a living. They make choices that cause unhealthy relationships and drain your bank account. When you see them make mistakes, your instinct is to protect your family from embarrassment and your loved one from pain. You want to help, but you end up making it comfortable for them to continue abusing their substance of choice.

Blurred Lines

Enabling often starts with the best intentions. As habits and behavior patterns become ingrained, it can be hard to separate what actions are helping from the ones that shield loved ones from the consequences of their mistakes.

Enabling means doing something for another that they should do for themselves or stepping in to handle penalties meant for them. For a parent, if their child is arrested for drugs or alcohol, they feel a protective desire to safeguard their future. For a spouse, when their loved one causes arguments or makes a mess, it feels compassionate to protect relationships by covering up what happened.

Examples of enabling behavior include keeping secrets to protect reputations, paying money for overdue rent or bail, or blaming circumstances when the individual gets drunk or high. Loved ones also enable when they threaten to enforce negative consequences for the bad behavior, but don’t follow through.

Enablers don’t start out trying to make it easy on their loved one. Oftentimes, in the beginning, they don’t realize the depth of the problem, and they only intend to offer temporary help. It comes from a place of good intentions, but spirals out of control. Over time, they become the person who the individual relies on to function in spite of their addiction. It actually will encourage and reinforce bad behavior, allowing it to thrive.

Enabling Isn’t Loving

Enabling is the opposite of loving, because it provides what’s comfortable, not what’s needed. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that in North America there are 23.5 million people ages 12 and older who need treatment for alcohol or drugs. At the time of the survey, only 11 percent (~2.6 million people) were receiving treatment at a specialized facility.

As individuals destroy their lives because of their addiction, their loved ones wonder why they don’t seek help. When they ruin so many family gatherings that they’re no longer invited, when they lose that job that was the opportunity of a lifetime, when they create one legal and financial disaster after another, it’s hard to understand why they don’t come to hate the substance that causes it. Often, it’s because enabling encourages toxic behavior.

Enabling keeps individuals from facing the pain they cause so they can continue to delay treatment. It doesn’t just encourage more substance abuse for the individual, but it also hurts everyone in a relationship with them. Siblings feel neglected when parents spend their time enabling a brother or sister. Children receive less nurturing from their parents and keeping secrets chokes outside relationships.

Understanding Codependency

Codependent relationships develop when one person has an unhealthy reliance on another to fulfill their needs. It can be especially complex in the parent-child relationship. Codependency usually involves avoidance, enabling, enmeshment or controlling behaviors.

Avoidance occurs when family members don’t want to face the problem. They tell themselves their child is just going through a phase or that dropping academic achievement will get better soon.

Enabling behaviors happen when parents realize their child has a problem, but they worry how it will affect their future, so they try to protect their child from consequences. They hide bad behavior and offer any necessary legal representation.

When parents draw their own self-worth or identity from their children, they often exhibit enmeshment codependency. They hide their own disappointment and sadness to keep their child from feeling pain.

Other parents respond by being controlling. They seek to regulate all their child’s activities to keep them from obtaining drugs or alcohol. The child never becomes responsible for their own self-control and often does not receive treatment.

How To Tell The Difference

Most people are raised to help those in need. It helps to find the line between helping and enabling by looking for telltale behaviors.

If you regularly make excuses for bad behavior, you protect your loved one from conflict. It’s better to allow them to communicate on their own. You may notice you often step in to do things they are responsible for, like picking up kids or gathering materials for school assignments. If you tell lies to your child’s teachers about why they didn’t complete their project or show up for rehearsal, you cover up their behavior and help them continue to make bad decisions.

Enabling can look different depending on your relationship and family dynamics. Try checking your behaviors against a codependency checklist for an objective evaluation.

Family First Intervention understands how difficult it is to wait for loved ones to seek help. We have accredited interventionists who help individuals seek treatment and find hope. We support family members throughout the process, with experts in every state.

You’ve read Why Enabling Someone Is Never A Loving Act, 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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You’re reading 5 Effective Tips to Get the Job You Want Without Experience, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

You might think that because you don’t have any experience in a field, the jobs there are out of reach. You’ll be glad to hear that’s not necessarily the case. As plenty of fresh graduates discover every year, there are ways around the no experience barrier. You just have to learn how to play your cards right (and learn what cards to play, of course).

Here we’re going to cover some of the best ways you can still get that job you really want despite your lack of experience. Taken together they will make all the difference.

Get an endorsement

Experience is a way that companies know that you actually know what you’re doing. But that’s not the only thing that matters. As the saying go, ‘hire attitude and train skill’ and that’s a rule that many companies follow. But how can they see you have the right attitude? Well, one great way to do exactly that is for you to get an endorsement from somebody that’s well respected.

Now, there are a lot of ways you can go with this. If you know somebody that’s well respected in the industry then obviously they would make a great choice. Ask them to write you a letter to open up the door. If that’s not possible then look for somebody further afield. You can get somebody like a professor to help you. Otherwise, get somebody famous to do so. Just getting a recommendation from somebody that everybody knows might well be enough for a company to give you an interview – even if it’s just to meet you. From there, your personality can do the rest.

Use your network

You may think that the way people get jobs is by sending out resumes and applying through official channels. And some people do get jobs that way. But it isn’t many. According to one survey, only 15% of people get their job through these channels. The rest? It’s all down to your network.

So use it! Make people aware you’re looking for a job. And when I say ‘make them aware’ I don’t mean ‘put it on Facebook’. I mean, reach out to people on an individual basis and ask them if they might know any leads or anybody.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to people you haven’t spoken to in a while. What’s the worst they can do? Say ‘no’?

Apply up and down the ladder

If you want to be a manager at a IT company, say, but you don’t have any experience, then why not start out a little lower down? Perhaps that manager needs an assistant? Or perhaps there are some internships that you can start at. Yes, those positions are much lower down, but once you’ve got your foot in the door of the company and of the industry it suddenly becomes a lot easier to apply somewhere else. After all, now you do have experience.

It doesn’t matter if your manager yelled at you to ‘write my essay for me please’ or if you had to do the photocopying. The next place you’ll apply at won’t know that. All they’ll see is your experience. And that will get you an interview – which is where you really make your personality shine.

Your resume and your cover letter

Even though a lot of jobs are landed through your network, people will still ask to see your resume. So you have to make sure yours is ready. A well-written resume might not get you the job, but a poorly written one will make sure you don’t get it.

What do I mean with a poorly written resume? I mean one where the spelling and grammar aren’t perfect. I mean one where things aren’t aligned properly. I mean one where you use commas in one place and then periods in another.

Do these sound like nitpicky things? Well they are. There can be no doubt about it. The problem is, when people have a job they often get dozens (if not hundreds) of applications for that job. And as they need to narrow down the field, they’ll use whatever criteria they can. A poorly written resume is such a criteria. After all, their reasoning will go, if you aren’t careful enough to write an error free resume, then how can you ever be careful enough to not make mistake while you work for us?

Connect

You should always be looking to make new connections. You never know what they’re good for. A big part of being lucky is the people you know. So make sure you know a lot of people. Also, be aware of how you network. People can see straight through a phony. So don’t just network with people because you want to climb up the ranks over their backs.

Also connect with people to see if you can help them. People remember who helped them. And down the line that can pay serious dividends. Because the truth is, when you’ve got this great job, then you’ll find that it’s something else you’ll want next. And that will require more connections and people.

Last words

Experience will come with time. So don’t despair. Just start trying. And don’t be afraid of people that say ‘no’. A lot of people will do that in your life. But they don’t really matter. The only people that will ultimately matter when you’re hunting for a job is those who say ‘yes’. So focus on them.

A good strategy to use if you’re afraid of failure is set out a goal to get this many rejections in the next six months. If that’s your goal, if you set out to get this many rejections every week, then you know you have to push hard to send enough applications out there. And when you’re sending out that many applications, it’s almost inevitable that some of them will come back positively.

That’s a good strategy for getting the job you want. That’s a good strategy to get anything you want.5

You’ve read 5 Effective Tips to Get the Job You Want Without Experience, 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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You’re reading 11 Tips Presentation Anxiety Doesn’t Stand A Chance Against, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

It’s not just you. Presentation anxiety is a common feeling that comes from fear of public speaking, one of Americans’ most common fears. It’s important to understand how to reduce and control these feelings before a presentation so your hard work doesn’t fall flat.

Whether for work or school, you want to deliver a great presentation. The eleven effective tips below are designed to put you in control and help you deliver with confidence before your next presentation.

Map It Out In Advance

Mapping out each step of your presentation is a great way to kill uncertainty. Breaking down big jobs into small tasks is so helpful that Penn State crafted an online tutorial to walk you through the planning process from start to finish. The tutorial recommends focusing on your body content before crafting your introduction and closing statements.

Nail Your Introduction

After you know what you are going to talk about, public speaking coach Ellen Finkelstein recommends hitting three main points in your introduction to grab your audience’s attention:

• Who are you?
• What are you talking about?
• Why is the topic important?

Finkelstein suggests writing out each answer, then editing them and, finally, practicing delivering them. Doing so gives you the confidence to start your presentation because no decisions are left to the moment of delivery.

Practice Your Delivery

Bill Rosenthal, chief executive of communication training provider Communispond, says locking down your presentation will make you a more confident presenter than an inauthentic one. Ever heard of a dancer looking robotic because they practiced their steps too much?

A sure fire way to crush some fear is to show yourself how capable you are by practicing your presentation a handful of times before the day comes. If you can, get in front of some friends you trust to get their feedback or record yourself on your phone to look for things to improve.

Establish Your Mindset

Understand that it’s a lot easier to focus on negative things and overlook positive ones. For example, it’s easier to think you will give a bad presentation and not about the value the audience is will get only causes further anxiety.

Communication coach Cher Gunderson explains that supporting yourself with positive reinforcement is one of the best mindset shifts you can take on. She writes, “shift hyper-critical, non-supportive, judgmental thoughts to supportive, balanced thoughts.”

Review The Situation

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had your own personal therapist during moments of distress? Well, now you do. Youper is an anxiety assistant you can use to analyze your thoughts to anchor them in reality and facts, not false expectations. In just a few minutes, you complete a mini therapy session and gain a healthy perspective on your trigger situation. Users report that the tool is just like interacting with a therapist.

Show Up A Little Early

It’s important to get comfortable with the location and the audience where you’ll present. Walk around, pay attention to the layout of the room, and look for things that could potentially distract you. This will help you feel more comfortable because you’ll snuff out the initial tension of being in a new place.

Meeting a few people in the room establishes allies in the audience for you so you don’t feel like you are presenting to strangers.

Keep Water On Hand

Ever notice that presenters usually have a cup or bottle of water on hand when giving a presentation? Keeping yourself hydrated during a presentation is important because dehydration can trigger anxiety symptoms. That’s the last thing you want before you deliver a presentation.

Breathing Exercises

When you get anxious your breathing gets faster. Breathing calms anxiety by guiding you back to a slower rhythm, calming you down in the process. Research indicates that breathing exercises are an effective way to lower anxiety levels.

For those that find it difficult to focus on their breathing, a guided exercise with audio or a visual to follow will help you focus on your breath through an entire cycle.

Visualize A Successful Presentation

Imagine yourself finishing the presentation and hearing the sound of applause. Visualize members of the audience thanking you, or colleagues congratulating you. These positive images help manifest a positive attitude, which will come out during your presentation.

Visualization isn’t just for improving your attitude. Studies have shown that visualizing an activity can have the same effect as real-life practice. Moreover, if you visualize and practice in real life, you are even more likely to do well.

Remind Yourself Fear Is Normal

Fear is normal and helps us avoid danger. That’s great! However, is it dangerous to give a speech?

As mentioned above, fear of public speaking is high on the list of most common fears. Being judged is not something humans are comfortable with, and giving a presentation puts you in a position where you can be judged.

Remember that everyone feels anxious before they present, and you feel this way because the presentation is important to you.

How To Calm Down Before A Presentation

Use as many or as few of these tips as you’d like, but I don’t suggest trying to do all of them. That might be harder than giving the presentation!

The important thing is to do what you feel you can without adding to the pressure of the presentation. If you have questions about what you feel before a presentation or other social situation, learn more about social anxiety symptoms.

You’ve read 11 Tips Presentation Anxiety Doesn’t Stand A Chance Against, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

>

You’re reading 11 Tips Presentation Anxiety Doesn’t Stand A Chance Against, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

It’s not just you. Presentation anxiety is a common feeling that comes from fear of public speaking, one of Americans’ most common fears. It’s important to understand how to reduce and control these feelings before a presentation so your hard work doesn’t fall flat.

Whether for work or school, you want to deliver a great presentation. The eleven effective tips below are designed to put you in control and help you deliver with confidence before your next presentation.

Map It Out In Advance

Mapping out each step of your presentation is a great way to kill uncertainty. Breaking down big jobs into small tasks is so helpful that Penn State crafted an online tutorial to walk you through the planning process from start to finish. The tutorial recommends focusing on your body content before crafting your introduction and closing statements.

Nail Your Introduction

After you know what you are going to talk about, public speaking coach Ellen Finkelstein recommends hitting three main points in your introduction to grab your audience’s attention:

• Who are you?
• What are you talking about?
• Why is the topic important?

Finkelstein suggests writing out each answer, then editing them and, finally, practicing delivering them. Doing so gives you the confidence to start your presentation because no decisions are left to the moment of delivery.

Practice Your Delivery

Bill Rosenthal, chief executive of communication training provider Communispond, says locking down your presentation will make you a more confident presenter than an inauthentic one. Ever heard of a dancer looking robotic because they practiced their steps too much?

A sure fire way to crush some fear is to show yourself how capable you are by practicing your presentation a handful of times before the day comes. If you can, get in front of some friends you trust to get their feedback or record yourself on your phone to look for things to improve.

Establish Your Mindset

Understand that it’s a lot easier to focus on negative things and overlook positive ones. For example, it’s easier to think you will give a bad presentation and not about the value the audience is will get only causes further anxiety.

Communication coach Cher Gunderson explains that supporting yourself with positive reinforcement is one of the best mindset shifts you can take on. She writes, “shift hyper-critical, non-supportive, judgmental thoughts to supportive, balanced thoughts.”

Review The Situation

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had your own personal therapist during moments of distress? Well, now you do. Youper is an anxiety assistant you can use to analyze your thoughts to anchor them in reality and facts, not false expectations. In just a few minutes, you complete a mini therapy session and gain a healthy perspective on your trigger situation. Users report that the tool is just like interacting with a therapist.

Show Up A Little Early

It’s important to get comfortable with the location and the audience where you’ll present. Walk around, pay attention to the layout of the room, and look for things that could potentially distract you. This will help you feel more comfortable because you’ll snuff out the initial tension of being in a new place.

Meeting a few people in the room establishes allies in the audience for you so you don’t feel like you are presenting to strangers.

Keep Water On Hand

Ever notice that presenters usually have a cup or bottle of water on hand when giving a presentation? Keeping yourself hydrated during a presentation is important because dehydration can trigger anxiety symptoms. That’s the last thing you want before you deliver a presentation.

Breathing Exercises

When you get anxious your breathing gets faster. Breathing calms anxiety by guiding you back to a slower rhythm, calming you down in the process. Research indicates that breathing exercises are an effective way to lower anxiety levels.

For those that find it difficult to focus on their breathing, a guided exercise with audio or a visual to follow will help you focus on your breath through an entire cycle.

Visualize A Successful Presentation

Imagine yourself finishing the presentation and hearing the sound of applause. Visualize members of the audience thanking you, or colleagues congratulating you. These positive images help manifest a positive attitude, which will come out during your presentation.

Visualization isn’t just for improving your attitude. Studies have shown that visualizing an activity can have the same effect as real-life practice. Moreover, if you visualize and practice in real life, you are even more likely to do well.

Remind Yourself Fear Is Normal

Fear is normal and helps us avoid danger. That’s great! However, is it dangerous to give a speech?

As mentioned above, fear of public speaking is high on the list of most common fears. Being judged is not something humans are comfortable with, and giving a presentation puts you in a position where you can be judged.

Remember that everyone feels anxious before they present, and you feel this way because the presentation is important to you.

How To Calm Down Before A Presentation

Use as many or as few of these tips as you’d like, but I don’t suggest trying to do all of them. That might be harder than giving the presentation!

The important thing is to do what you feel you can without adding to the pressure of the presentation. If you have questions about what you feel before a presentation or other social situation, learn more about social anxiety symptoms.

You’ve read 11 Tips Presentation Anxiety Doesn’t Stand A Chance Against, 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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You’re reading How I Went From Insomniac to the Best Sleep of My Life, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Sleep. Some of us can’t get enough of it, while others are in a love-hate relationship.

For many years after becoming an entrepreneur, I was the latter. Like every human, my mind and body needed sleep to function. The problem was, I had trouble actually falling asleep in the first place.

Now, I will say that there are variances of how one would define an insomniac. I wasn’t suffering from chronic insomnia that could do serious damage to my well-being. However, there were many periods when I would only get two to three hours of sleep during the week.

If mild and periodic insomnia is something you face, or even chronic insomnia, read on. As my work, relationships, and overall energy began to decline further, I took serious action to research and ‘self-experiment’ on fixing my insomnia for good.

I won’t bore you with the full journey, but rather give you the top 5 actionable tips that had the most impact in my sleep quality. Hope it brings you value.

1. Choose your ideal sleep cycle

I had no idea that there were different sleep cycles you could experiment with. My entire life, I just assumed that people sleep 7-8 hours then remained awake for the rest of the day.

I found that there are four main sleep cycles that are well-known:

• Monophasic Cycle
  • Amount of sleep: 7-9 hours (one sleep cycle)
  • Best suited for: 9-to-5 workers
• Biphasic Cycle
  • Amount of sleep: 5-6 hours within the day
  • Best suited for: Workers that can leave work early or work at home
• Everyman Cycle
  • Amount of sleep: One 3.5 hours of deep sleepwithin the day; Three 20 minute naps during the day
  • Best suited for: Those who want to explore polyphasic without going extreme
• Uberman Cycle
  • Amount of sleep: six to eight naps (20 minute each)
  • Best suited for: Those who want the most out of their day without being tired

In the end, I decided to remain in the monophasic sleep cycle, but I often experiment with biphasic cycle to see how I feel. You should see for yourself what’s right for you.

2. Invest in the right tools

Just like finding the right tools in your work can make you significantly effective, finding the right sleep tools help you sleep better, faster.

a. Bluelight blocking glasses
Usage: During the day

Research show that we spend over 10 hours per day staring into our screens. Likely more if you’re in tech. Studies state that blue light exposure can negatively impact different parts of our brain and body. They include digital eye strain, headaches, and of course disruption of our sleep cycle.

As an entrepreneur I spend late nights staring at my lap top screen. When I tried to sleep, my mind was still stimulated overflowing with thoughts and energy that made it impossible for me to sleep.

I started wearing iGOTHAM’s blue light blocking glasses and have noticed reduction in my eye strain. I normally wear these when I’m working, and make sure to put them on at night before I sleep (since I can’t stay away from my laptop at night!). Some harmful effects of bluelight can be found here.

 

b. Blackout curtains
Usage: For the bedroom

Even a sliver of light that enters into our bedroom can impact one’s sleep. While I can sleep through some light coming into my room, there are other nights where I absolutely need total darkness.

Using blackout curtains is the simplest solution, and installing it is pretty simple.

c. Bonus: Hot shower

Need I say more? All in all, taking a hot shower helps me relax when I’m stressed or stimulated before sleeping.

3. Leave any electronics out of the bedroom

A tip that has surprisingly been effective for me is: keeping all personal electronics outside of the bedroom.

I know… it’s devastating. But I encourage you to try it for just one day. 

Here’s what you do:

• Just before you go to bed: Take your phone, computer, smart watches (and chargers) outside your room
  *If you don’t have any other space, then place it on the opposite end of where you sleep
• Put all of your devices on silent mode (or turn if off completely)
• Don’t check it until the next morning

Let me know how this goes!

4. The 90 minute rule

“You need 8 hours of sleep per day.”

It’s one of the most common (and generalized) advice you get about sleep. Speak to professional sleep researchers and most of them will tell you that is baloney. Instead, the use the ’90 minute rule.’ This is based on the knowledge that our sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, divided into four stages of non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, followed by a stage of REM sleep (in which we dream).

Each of these cycles takes roughly 90 minutes, followed by a brief interlude when we are relatively wakeful, before a new cycle starts again. This means that you will feel most refreshed when you awake at the end of a 90-minute sleep cycle because you will be closest to your normal waking state. 

To maximize the chances of this happening, work out when you want to wake up, then count back in  90-minute blocks to find a time near to when you want to go to sleep. You can also use this sleep cycle calculator to make it easy for yourself.

Let’s imagine that you want to wake at 8am and wish to go to sleep around midnight.

Counting back in 90-minute segments from 8am would look like this:

8am > 6:30am > 5am > 3:30am > 2am > 12:30am > 11pm

In this example, you should aim to fall asleep around either 11pm or 12.30am in order to feel especially refreshed in the morning.

So next time someone tells you that you must get 8 hours of sleep, tell them about the 90 minute rule!

5. Change how you think about the bedroom

I used to work from my bedroom, and looking back. It was a mistake. Now, I only do two things in the bedroom: sleep and sex. That’s it.

More importantly, there’s a few actionable things you can do today to transform your bedroom into the ultimate sleep cave.

a. Go DARK

And I mean DARK.

Any sort of light that is seeping through can potentially disrupt our sleep cycles. That could mean

• Shutting your curtains completely (or buying a better one that completely fills up your windows)
• Pointing any electronics or alarm clock away from you
• Turning off all warm lights

Then, when it’s morning time, you can start the day with bright lights and your body will be able to know that it’s morning time.

b. Replace white light with warm light before bed 

This option is great for preparing your body to calm down before bed time. Most of the bright LED lights trigger alertness when it’s turned on, and that’s the opposite effect we want before bed.

You can find warm, orange light in just about any pharmacy store in your local neighbourhood.

c. Light up a candle

Similar to option 2, but the candle combines the warm lighting with a soothing scent.

I recommend checking out the following aromas:

• Lavender
• Chamomille
• Vanilla

d. Adjust your room temperature

Sleep experts have shown that room temperature between 60 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for the best sleep. A room with extreme temperatures leads to more frequent awakenings and lighter sleep.

I hope this was useful for those of you that struggle with getting quality sleep in your life. As a fellow entrepreneur burning the midnight oil, sleeping better has been a game changer in my personal life and business. If these tips overwhelmed you in anyway, I recommend just starting with one of them. Once you notice the positive effects in your sleep, you can try another, and so forth. Best of luck and leave a comment below to share how it went!

You’ve read How I Went From Insomniac to the Best Sleep of My Life, 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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