Successful Motivation

If you’re in a situation where your life is mostly stagnant, you’re going to feel like you’re in a rut. This is potentially dangerous because you can get stuck feeling as if there is nothing that can get you out of the rut. Taking proactive steps in changing your life for the better is what is needed here.

First, you have to examine why it is you lack motivation. These range from many reasons from depression and feelings of worthlessness or even things that are beyond your immediate control such as a mental block that prevents your action.

If you’re experiencing depression, then you should probably seek counseling. A lot of people are probably sure about why they are depressed, but they have no idea how to fix it. For some, talking with someone (even though they have to pay that person) is going to help them feel better, but sometimes an intervention is necessary to get someone out of the depressive state. That intervention could be antidepressants.

If you’re feeling worthless or inferior, then you should take yourself out of your situation as quickly as possible. No one is truly worthless, but can be made to feel that way because of external influences by peers or family. They’re probably not doing it on purpose, but are actually trying to set a pace that is faster than you want to travel at the moment. This fits in with depression in so many ways, and a counselor would probably know best on how to handle this.

Sometimes, though, there can be something internally wrong that will prevent you from being motivated. Maybe you look at a huge task and you’re overwhelmed. Maybe you try to concentrate, but no matter what you can’t and you’re constantly getting out of your seat to do something else. This is probably some form of an attention deficit disorder and can affect self-esteem and worth, and therefore cause depression. This is another issue that a counselor can fix.

When you realize and eliminate your blocks, you can then find out what motivates you, or if you’ve not had any for a long time, find one that does. Wanting money, success, recognition, and even lots of material possessions aren’t wrong by any means. The problem enters when greed plays too much of a part of your life and you are overcome with enough motivation that you’re willing to steal it to have it.

Setting Proper Goals

Setting goals, like anything else, requires careful consideration. It is important to have your goal set ready so you can see what you have accomplished and what you need to accomplish throughout the day and your life. The technique of goal setting is not a difficult task to master, and once you are setting your goals and fulfilling them, then you’re able to see progress being made.

There are two schools of thought regarding goal setting. One is to set small, attainable goals and the other is to set huge, lofty goals that you can’t possibly reach. I consider the best goal set to be a mixture of small, attainable goals and huge goals, but not so huge that you can’t possibly reach them.

Taking your goals and making small, short term ones that you can accomplish easily will do a lot for your self esteem. Think about things you want to have happen right now, such as completing a project on time for a client, or to add a small percentage to your client base, or write an additional five pages for that book of yours. Whatever it is you think you can squeeze in, write it down and have it as a goal.

Then, think about your long term goals. These can be where you want to see yourself in 5 year intervals. Make each one bigger than the other, and then see what you can do to work yourself toward that goal.

Most people feel that if they do not reach a goal, then they have to be hard on themselves. This simply isn’t the case. Just because you’ve made a goal and you haven’t fulfilled it, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. The end result is you had some kind of goal that you were working towards in order to improve your life, and this is the most important thing you have to remember.

If you’re having problems attaining goals then you should look at the structure of your goal set. Are they impossible, or just too encompassing? If you try to include too much or even goals that you know can’t happen, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

For example, writing a goal as “world domination” isn’t going to happen in any real sense of the word so this is just ridiculous, but a goal of “capturing over fifty percent of the market share” is a potentially attainable one. If you still can’t manage with “capturing over fifty percent”, then maybe you should consider trying to capture an amount that is smaller, and then set a goal to work on trying to reproduce what you did in order to increase your market share.

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Communicating Effectively

Unless you are an isolationist, and even then at times, you’re going to find that you need to talk with people in order to get what you want. Learning how to convey your ideas and receive other people’s ideas is a fundamental to many other aspects, such as resolving conflicts, reducing stress, and managing time.

The most important aspect of communication is listening. You can’t have a conversation with someone if you aren’t listening to them. Often times a conversation will begin nicely, but then quickly degrade as one party, or sometimes both, can’t or won’t listen to the other party.

You must focus on the person speaking to you, in the form of soft eye contact. Note that if you are staring directly at their eyeballs all of the time, then that feeling can be quite disconcerting. Looking away briefly but not focusing on anything in particular and refocusing on the speaker is invaluable. Most people do this when they begin to answer a question or taking in a valid point. Doing this too often will look rehearsed.

Also, while focused, you should not remain motionless. This would seem robotic. While the object is to focus on them, you should add a bit of softness to the conversation in the form of head gestures. This can be nodding when they say something to the affirmative or shaking when they say something to the negative.

If you are not focused on them, then you will not be able to hear what they have to say. If you continuously ask the other person what they have just said then you are not listening enough to the conversation. This will result in bitterness unless you’re just plain deaf.

When you are focused on the other person, you need to listen to every word they are saying, and it needs to make sense. Most of the time, all of the thoughts will be cohesive and you will be able to apply parts of what was said that you understand to parts you don’t understand. Make sure you understand the basic premise of what was just told to you before you move on to other parts of the conversation.

Do not interrupt. You may not understand something that was just said, but if you interrupt, then you could cause the person who is talking to you to lose their “train of thought”. For some people, when that train is derailed (to continue the metaphor), getting that train back on track is going to be hopeless.

When you are speaking, address what they have said. If you refer to what they have said then you will show them that you are listening and that you do understand what they have told you. Otherwise, their only choice is to guess that you have received their message and will never know if you understand them.

To add a bit of a personal touch, you could touch them briefly on the arm or shoulder if they tell you something sad, but is usually not necessary. This adds a bit more to the dynamic and personalizes the conversation much more.

Managing Time

Managing your time is one of those things people have told you is important but few have any concrete answers on how to do it best. There are some effective ways to develop time management skills and soon you will find yourself with more time than you’ve had before.

The most important things to remember with time management are:

1.      Be organized

2.      Be informed

3.      Take notes

4.      Be flexible

Getting yourself organized will go a long way to having more time available to you. How much time have you spent searching for something? Learning to put your stuff in a single place so you know where it is all of the time will improve you technique. This is easily achieved by clearing off your desk and then becoming mildly obsessive about where you put your stuff. Keeping your layout constant will help you recognize when stuff is out of order so you can fix it.

Organization is more than just keeping your desk orderly, it’s also about getting directions when you need to go somewhere you’ve never been, or getting a list together for the store before you go.

In order to be informed, you must make sure that you know about everything that needs to happen in the next month, and set “one month” as the duration of your management. That means for every day that has passed, you must accept one more day into your month schedule of which you must be informed.

Things that you need to know will involved deadlines for projects for you or your family members, events in which you must make attendance such as appointments with medical professionals or company meetings, and holidays as they may interfere with project deadlines or other scheduling.

You keep track of these things by taking notes. Write down everything. It is not enough to be told and then expected to remember. Not everyone has instant recall and if you rely solely on that, then you have already lost the battle before it has begun. Don’t just write notes down on little, yellow, sticky pieces of paper. You have to keep a notebook or a journal where you have one central location for all of this. Part of time management is learning how to locate without searching.

Most importantly, you have to be flexible. Life is ever-changing and in order to be successful, you have to learn how to change with life. Nothing is set in stone and you must learn to shift dynamically.

Reducing Stress

Life is filled with stress. There is no doubt about that. From the time you wake up until the time you go to bed, unless your life is filled with people waiting on you hand and foot and solving every problem while you live under a rock, then you know how stressful life can be.

A few steps every day can help you relieve stress and even prevent stress from building continuously that lead to relationship failures and unnecessary worrying about inevitable actions. These actions consist of both mental exercises and physical actions that are easy.

When approached by a stressful situation, you must learn to breathe. That’s it - just take a breath. Don’t tell anyone you’re taking a breath. Don’t make it obvious. Doing a very dramatic inhalation and exhalation does nothing to help the situation and can cause additional conflict if your stress is related to someone talking with you.

Okay, so you have your stress. Now, what do you do with it? Throw it away.

Throwing your stress away doesn’t mean you’re abandoning the problem. The problem is still there but if you tell yourself that you’re going to deal with the problem, and that you expect the outcome to be potentially disastrous, then you are accepting what might happen and then you can move forward and try to resolve the problem.

Fear paralyzes and causes stress, and this is why most people are unable to act. In other people, fear mobilizes them because they have learned how to channel their stress into something a little more useful - adrenaline.

Not everyone can take their adrenaline and use it effectively. For some, this can cause panic attacks that will cause you to be of no use to any situation. Recognize if you are in this group of people and then learn to seek help. There are medications out there that will help you in the middle of a panic attack so you can be calm, therefore relieving stress.

Other ways to deal with stress would be counting. Counting backwards from ten helps a lot of people, in addition to breathing. This will get your mind to focus on another task and will prepare you for the more stressful one.

Also, you could exercise. Take a brisk walk as you turn the problem away temporarily and then come back to it later. This will improve your health as most people do not get enough exercise anyway.

Just because your stress is beating down your door it doesn’t mean you have to face it right there. You can postpone your involvement; just make sure you do not postpone it far enough to where the problem becomes much worse. Obviously, if your stress is that your home is on fire, you can’t expect to breathe, count backwards from ten, and take a thirty minute walk. That would almost seem like arson. Instead, you should call emergency services, then breathe, then talk to them as calmly as possible.

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Conflict Resolution in Business

You’ve been in it - the middle of a conflict, and maybe you didn’t understand how to rise about the conflict in order to get to the root of the problem. It seemed that no matter what you did you were always getting under more and more proverbial crap. Well, this is truly a difficult aspect to handle, but done effectively, can mean stopping that all-out war before it ruins the relationship at hand.

The conflict starts rather benignly, usually, as the person who feels they have been wronged approaches with their problem. Some people actually let the problems ferment, and we’ll address those later.

Making sure you listen is the best method to deal with the initial conflict. Where most people seem to go wrong and, therefore, the situation escalates is when the appointed resolver is trying to make points while the problem is still being outlined. No one likes to be interrupted, and if someone is agitated already, this will only serve to exacerbate the situation.

Assuming, of course, that you are well within your power to deal with the customer then you must work with them in order to come to a resolution that is most beneficial to the complainant if you feel the problem is truly justified. Usually, if this is the first time you have received a complaint from this person, then you will decide on the side of the complainant, giving the benefit of the doubt.

If it is not within your power, do NOT tell the complainant to go somewhere else. This is the most extreme mistake anyone can make. No one likes to repeat themselves and they have (possibly) already vented on you. If you make them vent again, then they could feel like they’re getting the runaround and will be even less likely to come to a reasonable solution.  Instead, you will need to immediately excuse yourself from the situation as you consult someone who is able to resolve the situation, explaining fully the problem and taking any advice management wants to give. Management may still want to discuss the problem with the complainant, and will tell you if this is the case.

It is actually wrong to assume the complainant is always right. While this has been the best method for many people for many years, there comes a time when the complainant can’t be right. You must understand how to differentiate between legitimate complaints and complaints that are filed merely to cause a scene or to gain an advantage to service such as free services at presumably a slavery equivalent pay scale or worse - actual property belonging to you.

If your relationship with the complainant has ceased to be mutually beneficial, then you must decide to sever ties with the complainant. Making sure, of course, that you do not say anything or perform any action that would be insulting or hostile, you can then “fire” your complainant from whatever capacity they served.

Remember, for the most part, that you service is not unique. There are many other places these people can go in order to get what they need. Understanding that your time is valuable and that these very few people will not be responsible for the majority of your business will go a long way to being able to turn away a problem customer or two. It is not worth your time to cater to these people when you have many other customers that are happy with your services.

“Firing” your customer or client isn’t violent or hostile. Instead, very politely you should tell them that you feel you can’t cater to them like they need and then you should refer them to someone you believe is more capable of handling their requests. Cheerfully apologize and wish them the best, refund whatever it is they have paid you, and send them on their way. Ignore any further attempts at contact.

Conflict Resolution

Learning how to resolve your conflicts in your personal life and business life will definitely help you improve and grow. Understanding what makes good conflict resolution and why they have been less than good in the past is what we’re going to discuss.

Most people are immediately defensive when they are approached with a problem to resolve. This is perfectly natural, but defies the resolution aspect of conflict resolution. Remember, it is not “conflict sweeping-under-the-rug” or “conflict cover-up” but rather a resolution; resolutions are generally only obtained when both parties feel happy about the outcome.

I cannot stress enough the importance of listening to the person who has a problem. If you are staring at them without listening, or even letting your eyes wander to the other elements in the room, you are not respecting the person who is talking to you. Making sure the person understands that you respect them, their time, and what they’re saying is very important. Only by actually listening to them will you be able to understand what their problem is and be able to reiterate the information they have given you. If you have a difficult time remembering details, then you should carry a small notepad with you to take notes during such events.

Once you are done listening to their problem, then you need to evaluate what they have said. Is this something that is within your power to solve? For personal relationships such as dealing with spouses or your children, this is usually the case since people who are involved personally with someone will generally approach the person responsible for the problem. In business, it may be that you are not management and you will have to refer to management anyway. Most of the time, if it is not within your power to resolve, then it is within a business setting.

If this is a family setting, then keep in mind that there is more at stake with your family than just something that needs to be resolved. If you ignore a problem, then that problem will become bigger at a later point. It is better to solve the problems in the initial stages instead of waiting until they become potentially destructive.

If this is a friend or an acquaintance, then the dynamic changes enough that their angle is no longer from actual “family love” but rather something they see as a problem affecting your casual relationships. Still, these are important to maintain social health, and in hearing their complaint, try to recognize this is something that is important to them.

Developing Your Body

Given today’s health trend, you’re probably in that group of people that would like to at least lose a few pounds. This is something that you should consider as a way to improve yourself, because a healthier lifestyle will help you feel better and function better.

Take notes, every day for a week, of what you eat and at what time you eat it. If you keep track of this successfully, then you may see a trend of things you’re putting into your body. If you put too much of something into your body, whether it’s something good for you or bad for you, then you’re going to have an adverse result.

After tracking your diet, you’ll be able to see different things, such as if you’re eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables, or if you’re eating too much sugar. Increasing what you need and decreasing what you don’t will help you achieve that balance of healthy food in your life.

Along with bad food habits are bad physical habits. There are a lot of people who lead basically sedentary lives - they sit in their chair all day long and hardly ever walk around, increasing blood flow and oxygen into their body. This can result in a heart that isn’t accustomed to working as much as it should and you could begin to accumulate fatty deposits on your body. Get up and take walks more often. Use the stairs and park further away from the store. These are all things that will help you get more incidental exercise.

Think about just adding, at first, ten minutes of exercise per day to your routine. This will help you get accustomed to a workout and will lay the foundation for a better lifestyle. As you’re able to tolerate the physical activity, add more to your daily routine but remember to not overdo it, as too much of anything can be bad.

Learning to control your diet and exercise will improve your health, and you could set an example for the rest of your family. You could very well be what inspires your children or your wife to get up and be more active.

It’s difficult because today’s society is geared more towards a sedentary lifestyle. You can now order food online, read books online, and play games online so there’s hardly ever a reason to get up, except to go to the bathroom. Take steps to improve your health and you will notice a difference in your daily life.

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Developing Your Mind

One of the best ways to make the whole process work better for you is to constantly improve upon your mind and expand your horizons. The easiest method for this is to read: read anything, such as books, magazines, newspapers - it doesn’t matter so long as it is several pages at a time and conveys a concept.

A goal you should probably have is reading until you reach a word you don’t know. Look that word up in the dictionary, and then add that word to your vocabulary by finding a way to use it. Try to find a word every day that you can do this for and soon you will have a vast vocabulary. This is a simple way to exercise your brain.

Engage yourself in a puzzle. Sure, the standard jigsaw puzzle is great, but if you take the time to find mental puzzles that will challenge you instead of just using spatial rearrangements then you will find you have an increase capacity to think better. Being able to improve your learning curve will go a long way to making new concepts easier for you to understand.

Learn a foreign language. There is nothing that makes someone appreciate their native language better than to learn one that is not even related or is very loosely related. Don’t let learning the language just be a substitution of words - most languages don’t even translate this way.

Explore history. What we know about the world tomorrow can be researched by knowing what happened yesterday. History does tend to repeat itself and if you want to understand trends then you’re going to have to understand where the trends will take someone.

Learn a science. If you learn a science in which you may have an interest, then you can learn problem solving. Science is fairly consistent with regards to most material, and you’re able to take concepts from one and apply it to something else. This will get you to think and increase your problem solving skills so you will better know how to resolve sticky situations.

Learning something new can be difficult at first, but once you start the process, it will become easier for you to master. Then, before you know it, you will be able to tackle just about anything life throws at you.

Developing Your Self

Everyone wants to be able to improve their lives and interact better with people on a personal level that will carry over to a professional level. Learning how to be personal without taking things personally and how to be professional without being cold is a very important skill set in today’s work environment.

The biggest barrier to overcome is, of course, the feeling that everything is done to you personally. It may be, actually, a multitude of other reasons why that person with whom you’re trying to talk is being rude and snippy instead of anything you’ve done. You have to learn how to make that quick, psychological evaluation and turn the conversation into something a little more productive than an angst laden discussion with your customer or partner about what needs to be done.

Allowing for too much animosity can poison your relationship and cause your sentiments to fester until they spiral out of control, resulting in potential actions that can never be taken back.

There are six important areas on which we’re going to focus. They are, in no particular order:

• Conflict resolution
• Stress reduction
• Time management
• Effective communication
• Goal configuration
• Successful motivation

All of these are part of the greater package, improving yourself and your relationships with people you know and people you’re going to meet. The people who know you now are going to notice a change in your behavior that will make you more charismatic and a valuable asset.

Imagine being able to stand amidst chaos as you manage to keep your head level and your momentum moving forward instead of being stopped by people who would unintentionally set barriers for you to fail. These people probably include you right now, and you don’t even realize it. You have probably set yourself up for failure and that is why you are failing at interpersonal relationships.

One thing you have to understand - this is not a religious discussion. There are other forums or methods out there to get you to “the right path” with your spiritual power but this is not that forum. Learning to rely on something you can quantify or qualify is much more effective in improving yourself. That is not to say religion should not play a part of it if you want it to play a part, but rather it is not the basis for these discussions.