Mindset

Time Management: 3 Steps To Multiply Time And Profits

When you hear the word entrepreneur, your first thought might be Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Daymond John or Susie Ma. These are high level entrepreneurs that saw opportunities to solve problems and make a lot of money. They built capital, created products and services, that are unique and became very wealthy.

The ideas in this article are some of the ways high level entrepreneurs succeed. Have no doubts that if you are a new entrepreneur or even a solo business owner-putting these seven time management ideas to work…will advance your business to new levels.

Some of the ideas can be incorporated immediately, while the others, such as the ones with software or apps…will require a bit of research and decision making.

Set Your Business Goals

Are you 100% clear on what your business goals are? You need to get your new business off to a flying start. Or if you have been in business for awhile and there have been issues, it may be due to not seeing things, crystal clear.

Consider having a self-improvement goal as part of your business goals. Self-improvement will strengthen the other areas of your goal setting. Get a mentor or a coach who has the experience in the areas of self-confidence, self-esteem or creating a new mindset around achieving success in business.

You need to set income goals and keep track of everything. The most basic thing is having monthly, quarterly and annual income goals. If you want to be a high functioning, successful entrepreneur, think about tracking everything daily in a special spreadsheet. You could have a daily income goal and keep track of every dollar that comes in and what you spend on your business daily.

Stop your internal negative dialogue. When you have lofty business goals, sometimes you end up talking yourself out of something that if you stuck to it…would be ultimately successful.

Hannibal saw the mountains and basically said, “we will either find a way or make one. Leading thousands of soldiers and elephants over a mountain range, Hannibal had an extremely positive mental image of himself.

Have a great idea for something that will make you $10K a month? If you start to balk, just take the first few actions and as you see success, put your foot on the accelerator and get up to speed.

Internal negative dialogue or “stinky thinking” as it is also called, destroys dreams and ambition. You can overcome that and build an awesome business.

Define The Tasks That Will Help You Achieve Those Goals

When you have a business idea and want to either start it or add it to your existing business…you need to define your tasks. This is where you put on your strategic thinking hat and write out the who, what, where of what the tasks are. Questions to ask are things like:

Who will help you? Do you have a team already that has the skills to get the new business up and running, then turn it into profit?
What exactly is the business? Make a business plan. Add mind maps.
Where will you conduct this business. Decide if you have enough space. Do you need to upgrade?
How long will it take to get this business off the ground?

When you are a solo venture, the tasks will be slightly different. Let’s look at the example of someone who runs a social media business for a medium size start-up.

Some of the tasks for this person to reach their goals might be:

Getting traffic to their website, to gain new clients.
Getting new testimonials constantly to show they are on top of their game.
Studying and trying new methods to gain followers for their customers.
Learning the best of copywriting to create awesome Twitter/Tumbler/Facebook posts for their customers.
Creating lists for different tasks and tracking everything from sales, expenses, cold calls for new business and new supplies for the home office.

Writing out the tasks and adding time to complete dates will help save time and achieve your goals.

Plan

There should be an action plan with clear time frames, deadlines and who should complete those tasks. Use project management tools as Asana, Basecamp or Trello.

Everyone needs a plan. And the entrepreneur always creates the best plan, while putting together an amazing team. It is a case of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the team members.

With that knowledge, you can decide the best person for a task, set the deadlines, the goals and of course the rewards. With technology today, project management tools help the entrepreneur keep everything on track. Let’s look at three outstanding tools now.

A) Asana allows you to assign projects and then see on the righthand side of the app, who has the project and what stage they are currently in, such as just started or completed. You can chart your course for smooth sailing through the entire project. In Asana, there is a feature called, “Timeline,” where you can see the flow of work and where it is being passed to the next team member for their actions. There are over 100 items you can integrate into Asana, such as emails and all pertinent files.

B) Basecamp works in the same way and has features to remind people when a task is overdue. One thing that bogs any business down, is endless meetings. With Basecamp, it eliminates the need for time wasting meetings as everyone on the team can log-in and see where the project is at.

Basecamp states that 59% of meetings have been cut out by its users. Basecamp is simple to use and there is no steep learning curve, so anyone can jump right in. Basecamp is great for multiple projects, since you can pull them up all onto one screen and see the status.

All conversations on inline and this elimates that annoying re: factor you get in traditional emails. Cut down on the number of apps you normally used in projects, because in Basecamp, all notifications are in one spot.

C) Trello works on a board system, where all aspects on your projects are listed on individual cards that you can glance at. You can view a card like, “research,” and jump in with a comment or attach a file that will assist in the research end of the project. If your team is already using apps, you can incorporate those right into the Trello card to maximize productivity.

Check out the apps that you feel will power your business by clicking the link below:

https://asana.com/

https://basecamp.com/

https://trello.com/

OK, there are 3 steps you can use to multiply time and profits. However, there are 4 more and if you want to get all 7 in a handy report, then click on the featured resource below to download a free report that you can read at your leisure 🙂

Breaking Goal Setting Down To Maximize Success

How do you move a mountain? One shovelful at a time. It’s a cute saying, but how many of us grab the shovel and start frantically banging away at the mountain, trying to whittle it down through sheer brute force?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the size of the mountain. It’s easy to get frustrated and angry because the challenge seems insurmountable.

That’s why so many ideas to help change your life fail—the frustration gives us an out, a way to rid ourselves of something so vast. It’s an open invitation for defeatism and defeatist thinking.

So how do you move a mountain? You make it into a series of tasks. You have the end goal; now you have to make your timeline. The catch is – you need to make it backward. You need to start with the year-long goal first and then slice it into 12 parts (one for each month).

Then slice each of those into four sections (one for each week) and then each of those into seven (one for each day). See the pattern?

Let’s look at this in a little more detail:

Figure Out Your Big Year-Long Goals

Although it might not be the whole mountain that you’re looking at, your yearly goal should be BIG. At least big enough to be a little scary.

There is wisdom in the expression that “it’s only the frightening things that keep us interested.”

What’s big enough to be a little bit frightening without taking you off into the world of outright terror? What will challenge you this year?

Most of our big goals run into a few general categories.

Career. Are you looking for a new job or a promotion? Do you want to leave a low-paying job and get something with a better future or more in line with what you like to do? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do that would boost your career significantly (like gaining certification or additional training) but that you’ve never taken the time to do? Now might be the time.
Heath and fitness. Many people make goals to get “healthy.” The problem with that this kind of goal is not measurable. “Healthy” can mean many things to different people. Does “healthy” mean losing weight? Not necessarily. It could be exercising more. It could be eating better and less junk food. It could mean making sure you get enough sleep at night. Be specific in your goal. Ask yourself how it can be measured and quantified.
Fun. This goal is also rather vague. What do you consider to be “fun?” For some, a day at the beach would be fun, for others, it would boring. Often “fun” is used as a placeholder for some activity that involves being alone or alone with a significant other. Think about times in the past that you considered ‘fun.’ What were the elements in common? Create a goal then that incorporates those elements. If fun is your goal, be specific about what fun means to you.
Relationships. This goal often arises in several parts. Sometimes we want to have a relationship, whether friendship or romantic, that we don’t already have. Or it might be we want to strengthen an existing relationship. Ask yourself where in your relationships you need the most help. Remember that you might need to enlist the cooperation of the person you’re having the relationship with to succeed here. Resolving to spend more time with a person only works if they’re likewise interested in spending more time with you.
Giving. Donating to your favorite charity is the most obvious goal in this category, but it might be that you’d like to take your commitment to the cause a little deeper this year. Consider giving your time and talent to your community. But don’t forget that giving time to your family also counts here. Often we become so caught up in work and the pressure to earn money and support the family, that we sacrifice the time we could be spending with them. Re-evaluate where you give your time, and then consciously choose where you want to spend it.

Instead of making a New Year’s resolution, sit down for an hour or so and daydream about this time next year. What do you want this year to look like at the end of it? Who do you want to be in this year? Be specific. And don’t worry about “how.” That part comes later. Just figure out the “what” for now.

Decide what you can reasonably do in a month. If you’re taking a rock here and there from the mountain, it will never look any different. You need to concentrate on one small part at a time. Go back to that year-long goal and pick something that you can realistically do in a month.

Now, schedule a re-occurring appointment with yourself once per month to reflect on the progress you’ve made so far on this goal. Look at the long-term plan, the mountain you’re going to move (because you are going to push it), and fix what you can accomplish in the next 30 days. Write that down too.

Take the mountain out in monthly chunks. If your overall goal is to change your career, one month might involve learning a new skill set, say a programming language. The next month might be getting real-world experience by designing and building a website for a charity for free, just as a demonstration project.

Break That Down Into Weekly Goals

This time, the re-occurring meeting with yourself is once each week. It can be a shorter meeting, about 15 – 20 minutes to plan out some steps you can take to get closer to your goal in the next seven days.

Write these down. For example, using the idea of working toward a change in careers, week one might be researching the best programming languages to study and which ones are in highest demand. Week two might be working through the first half of the book or video course you have on learning the language, while week three would be finishing the book and making some test programs, and so on.

Maybe you won’t have a finished web page or object-oriented database interface by the end of the week, but you’re making progress to get you there.

Now you’re ready to look at the wheelbarrow full of rocks. In the morning, jot down your to-do list for the goal you have in mind. Following the previous example, you might be doing the next three lessons in the language tutorial, finding a server to create pages on, or learning how to create that database.

Dividing the mountain into successively smaller and smaller pieces makes it easy to see how daily goals become weekly become monthly become annual goals, and moving the mountain suddenly becomes doable. If nothing else, it removes the overwhelming initial fear of trying.

This type of planning is flexible and powerful. Instead of saying, “I am moving that mountain,” all you’re saying is “I have a wheelbarrow full of rocks to put over there.” You still have the scary, impressive goal to aim for, but you’ve made it manageable. It’s now broken into bite-sized chunks that you can handle on a day to day basis.

Take control. No one will care about your goals like you will. The timeline here is yours, so take ownership of it. Our calendars control too many of us, instead of us being in control of our calendars.

One final note: Do you know someone that cannot make a move without checking their calendar? Are you one of them? If so, you might be begrudging the time set aside for contemplation each week or each month to get caught up on the progress. Don’t. It’s your schedule, and the end goal is worth the time. If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t have gotten this far.

You have work/school/kids to work around your schedule. That’s understandable. Few of us do not have a full dance card. But isn’t achieving this beautiful far-flung dream worth skipping an hour of TV each week? What if you sacrificed that time you’d spend playing that game on your phone, or checking Facebook?

Prioritize the time in your week/month by the core values you have. How important is this goal? Where does it rank against the other items in your to-do list? Spending time with the family might be more critical, but maybe spending time vacuuming isn’t.

This fact is especially important for children. Trying to achieve a balance between work and family, and still finding time for some self-investment is a delicate thing. Remember that word – this is an investment. You are investing time and energy and even money into your future. Keep in mind; the payout will benefit you as well as your family.

While this tool is a form of time management, it’s a different type. It’s counting down, making the goal smaller and smaller instead of planning. You’re planning backward – to go forward. Stay the course, and those yearly goals won’t know what hit them!

Learning To Think Big And Aim High To Achieve Success

When you think of success, do you envision oodles of money, a mansion, and a fancy sports car? Those items are great, but what about a deeper sense of success – a success beyond your wildest dreams?

If you’re like most readers of internet articles, websites and blogs, you’ve probably heard some success stories where ordinary folks like yourself have gone from rags to riches scenarios.

However, and more importantly, there are even better stories out there. Like the stories of entrepreneurs and business people leaving their corporate world to go and sell ice cream somewhere in the Caribbean. They, too, are abundantly happy and successful.

What makes up success?

Success is a personal definition – for some, it’s lots of money, and for others, it’s fulfillment and for others it’s freedom. Some people want to live in a mansion overlooking the ocean, while others want to live in a cottage by the lake or down at the farm.

Bottom line – success is what you say it is.

Want to know something even more powerful? Success is even what you say it isn’t. You get in your own way.

Let’s start with defining your own success. Here are a few tips on how to define what success is to you and only you:

What’s your why – we all have a vision of what success looks like to us. However, taking this notion one step further, ask yourself some key questions. What is your why is the first question. Why do you want to achieve this particular success?

Dig deep down and quietly meditate on your true calling, passion and purpose. Everyone has one and it’s only a matter of time before you are one of millions asking yourself, “Is there something than this?”

What is the why behind your success? Do you wish to reach thousands of people and make a difference?

Do you wish to help hundreds solve a problem you have experience with? Do you value freedom over material objects and items? Start getting in touch with your why.

What’s the most important thing to you? Do you value financial freedom, being of service, freedom to come and go as you please, the ability to create a flexible schedule which works for you and your family?

Once you get in touch with your why, your core need and desire will become to come to light. If you have a driving need to be your own boss or a passionate purpose to help others beyond your wildest dreams, this will come to light as well. Once you know your why, your core desire will come to the surface.

What actions steps do you need to take, and what does it look like to make it come to life? Once you’ve done the work to uncover your own definition of success, what your why is, and what’s the most important thing to you, it’s time to take a trip outside of your head and beyond your comfort zone into the world of action. While it’s nice to get inside your head and get in touch with your why and your what, it’s even more important to get in touch with the how. How will you make it happen?

The 7 Categories of Life and How to Succeed in Each

Let’s take a look at several categories of life and how to succeed in each one.

Personal

We all have so much going on in life. There’s work, career, school, home and family. The list goes on and on. It’s so easy to lose sight of what our personal goals are. We might want to finish a degree, complete a certificate, write a book or just learn a hobby or skill.

We say we don’t have time, but the truth is we don’t make time. Have you ever noticed if there’s something you truly wanted to do, you find the time to do it? Even if means taking a sick day and doing nothing once in a while.

Bouncing from this, here are a few tips on how to create personal goals and how to achieve them:

Choose one goal at a time – we all have the habit of getting overzealous in our personal goals and start out wanting to lose weight, diet and exercise, clean out clutter, take a class, earn a certificate, etc. and then we spiral out of control and fail at all of the above.
Worse than this, we stop trying because we climbed too high, too fast and fell way too short. Start with smaller goals. It’s almost like a no-fail system. It’s a win/win. Start with one goal – even the type A personalities out there can do this. By starting with one goal and one goal only, you have no place to go but up.
If you want to learn a new sport or skill, for example, start by simply exploring what’s involved a little bit at a time. Don’t take out 15 books from the library, talk to 20 different people about it and research for hours on end on the internet.
Talking to too many different people will only leave you vulnerable, especially when it comes to personal goals. Other people don’t want to leave their comfort zone and they want you to stay there with them as well. Spend small increments of time each day and set the timer. Spend 30 minutes one day and 15 minutes another researching your new personal goal and stop there.
Pick one person you trust to talk to about your fears, excitement and concerns.
Pick an action step for the week and stick to it. Get an accountability partner you will have to report to.
Continue to reward yourself as you go along and reach these milestones.
Slowly begin to incorporate this new goal into your life through small, actionable and measurable steps.
Acknowledge the success you are feeling on a small scale as time goes on. Don’t rush and don’t get ahead of yourself.
Notice you are gaining momentum on your goal. It’s not bigger than you. It’s actually happening in smaller increments.
Begin to get excited, and it will show. Power tip – the more you get excited about what you are doing, the more inspired you will feel and the more momentum you will create.

Career

Career goals may be a little easier to achieve than personal goals. When it comes to personal goals, you get up inside your head and you think or feel too much. It’s easier to set career goals and detach from them in a colder more logical way of thinking.

Examine and explore which area of your career is not working.
Ask yourself what your end goal is – do you want to retire earlier, work fewer hours, or have more power? What is your end goal?
Once you have discovered your end goal, start creating a plan of action.
Pick five action steps, beginning with the smallest.
Record them on paper.
Take one small action step per day for a set amount of time – let’s use an example of three weeks. Take one small action step per day for three weeks to get closer to the second action step. For example, you may want to show up earlier or on time for three weeks or you may want to speak up at meetings where as you never did so before.
You may want to earn a certificate which will put you in line for more money or a promotion. You may want to take on more responsibility at work to show your new boss what you are capable of.
Continue using this model until all five action steps are completed and you have arrived at your career goal.

Relationships

When it comes to thinking and aiming big, you want to have success in all areas of your life. Success is not related to only money and career. Success in relationships equates to thinking and aiming big in all areas of your life.

In order to have big success in relationships, you need to think big. So many times, or actually all times, we come into relationships and bring into them every single relationship we’ve ever had in the past from our parents to our siblings.

If you want big things in relationships, you have to put big goals into them.

A successful relationship means being honest with who you are and also how you show up. It’s so easy to play the blame game in relationships without looking to take some responsibility of our own. It’s important to take a look at our actions, our thoughts, and our pre-conceived notions when we are relating to others.
Relationships are not just love interests. Relationships are people we work with and people we don’t even know in line in the supermarket. How we can show up as a contribution to the other person is always a tough question to ask. However, when you ask this question, you come up with a brilliant solution. What if you were to just express your anger without blaming someone else?

Do you see how this could equate to a successful solution? In business, when a boss or CEO blames their employee, their employee becomes defensive and less cooperative. It just makes sense. However, when a CEO guides and leads by example and makes reasonable requests for change and prosperity, people will follow suit. This is the true meaning of a successful relationship. This works in personal relationships as well as career and other relationships.

Money

Money has got to be one of the biggest blocks there is. Money has so much power to control us if we let it. Here are a few action steps to take around having success in the area of finances:

What’s your story? We all have stories around money. It’s your job to uncover your story. Do you believe you’re not good enough to make that kind of money or do you believe only greedy people have and receive money? Do you tell yourself a story that only people who are better, smarter or more worthy will have money? Define your story.
Once you uncover your negative money story and self-sabotaging habits surrounding money, you can now write your own brand new story.
Start practicing positive affirmations around money. I can have more money flow easily into my life and for positive reasons. I can create abundance. I already am in flow and creating abundance. I feel so excited about the abundance of money coming my way. Financial prosperity is possible in my life.
Practice these daily, several times a day, visualize on them and meditate on them if you truly want financial abundance. It’s not a work harder/make more scenario. It’s about being in ease and in flow.

Life Purpose

We all inherently know what our life purpose is, but we manage to use several negative tools against ourselves.

We self-sabotage. The minute we feel we are close to success, we make excuses, we run back to our comfort zone, we fear success or believe subconsciously we don’t deserve success.
We get comfortable in our comfort zone. We make excuses instead of making changes. We back slide and then feel guilty and miserable. We allow life to get in the way.
We are not aware of our own blocks because we live in a busy world with busy minds.

If you want to find success and pursue your life purpose, you need to:

Get out of your head and into your heart. Sometimes we all suffer from what is known as analysis/paralysis. We think too much and we don’t drop down into our own hearts.
Take time to be quiet and sit still. Whether you go to the beach or the boardwalk or the park, you need to schedule time in to be quiet. As odd as it may sound, scheduling time to be quiet will actually help you to get into the process of being quiet anywhere, anytime randomly.
When you sit still and get quiet, you can actually hear a little better than you normally do when there is so much noise in your head.
Take notes. Take time to journal your thoughts and feelings on paper. When you journal, you don’t have to worry about filters. You don’t have to worry about what people will say, respond or how they think.
Write your private thoughts, dreams, desires and wishes for your life purpose down on paper.
Get clear. Once you take on the practice of getting quiet and being still, you now have the opportunity to get clear. To clear your mind of the clutter. To make clear goals. Taking notes is a great way to get clear. Once you get clear, it’s time to take some of those action steps as previously mentioned.
Make a declaration. Once you are clear, start declaring your life purpose. Make positive and happy statements about how excited you are about pursuing your life purpose. Keep it simple, don’t elaborate and allow people to ask their questions.
You don’t have to have all the answers. When you don’t have the answers, don’t doubt yourself, just simply be open to finding the answers. Keep declaring your passion and purpose anyhow. The answers will come in time.

Prosperity

Have you ever looked at somebody and wondered to yourself how they did it? Lots of people feel the same way about others who are successful. We tend to look at others and think they are lucky or they get all the breaks or their husband/wife/parent made it happen or they come from money.

When it comes to prosperity, it is vital to understand you don’t wait for prosperity and abundance to come to you. You create it.

Choose an area in your life where you want more prosperity. Is it in your career, your financial status, credit card debt or savings and retirement?

Once you’ve honed in on an area, take the following steps to create prosperity:

Prosperity is a mindset

Once you understand prosperity is a mindset, the rest will flow. Prosperity is not something that happens to you. It is something you make happen. Change your mindset around prosperity.

Your subconscious mind is solely responsible for all of your habits, even your prosperity habits. In order to tap into the power and leverage of the subconscious mind, you will need to work on creating new mindset habits.

Positive thoughts create prosperity. Your subconscious mind only knows its past history. All the stories, the negativity, and the events are ingrained in your subconscious mind.
If you allow your subconscious mind to rule the roost, you will see the same habits and the same trends without much change. Begin to reprogram your conscious mind with positive thoughts and, over time, this practice will show you how quickly and easily you can create prosperity and success into your life.
Take on the practice of positive thinking. You don’t necessarily have to make things up if you are not at that stage, however, you should take on the practice of what is working as compared to what is not. The more you focus on what is well in your world, the more enhanced wonderful things will appear and magnify in your life.

Spirituality

Success in spirituality comes when you allow and accept what works for you. No one can tell you what, how, when or where to practice your spirituality or what spiritual practices you should take on.

Spirituality success comes when you accept who you are and what works for you.

Once you get beyond the mind and the ego, you can tap into spiritual success. Spiritual success comes from one very important tool – practice.

You need to try on many different things until you find the one or the combination which works for you.

Is Stress Wrecking Your Life?

Stress has become an epidemic in peoples’ lives. They can’t cope. They’re turning to all kinds of helpful people and products in a desperate effort to get relief from what seems like a constant barrage of turmoil.

If stress has sent your cortisol levels soaring and you can’t seem to get a grip on what you can do to control things and turn chaos into calm, then you need to analyze how bad the problem is so you can pick and choose methods and strategies that will alleviate this pressure.

Do You Feel Like You Just Want To Get Away?

One way you can determine whether or not stress has catapulted out of control is to think about the times when you feel significantly stressed. Sometimes, people will start out feeling stressed only in certain situations.

This might be just while you’re stuck in traffic, or only when you’re at work. Maybe even specifically when one person comes around, like an in-law or intrusive neighbor. But then you start to notice that the stress never really goes away.

It’s haunting you all of the time – day and night, at work, at home, when you’re around anyone and everyone – and even when you’re all by yourself. It’s no longer situational – it’s chronic, and that’s when stress is at its most damaging.

You start to realize that there’s no safe place for you to go to anymore. It used to be, a hard day at work was manageable – as long as you could escape at 5 o’clock and go to the comfort of your own home.

But if you wake up and go to bed filled with stress, and experience it throughout your entire work day, it means you’re under constant attack, and that’s not healthy for you emotionally or physically.

Your outlook may change to where you just want to escape it all – everyone and everything that’s causing you trouble. Just pack up your car and disappear – or at least get out of town where you’re not subjected to this chaos and commotion 24/7.

Everyone deserves to have space where they feel relaxed, protected and at ease. If you don’t have that in your life right now, running away isn’t the answer – you simply need to carve out some time and an area where you’re able to release the pressure of the day and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet or fun and entertainment.

You may need to get organized for that to happen, or change something big about your life, such as who’s in it or where you work. You’re not stuck in the situation – it’s just that you’ve been avoiding making those tough decisions.

Are You Taking It Out On Others?

When you’re dealing with a chronic stress situation that’s wreaking havoc on your life, you start to change. Your entire demeanor – the tone of your voice, the way you walk, the expression on your face – is all altered in a way that shows the world you’re under duress.

Your actions change as well. You begin treating people differently – even if they’re not the ones responsible for the upheaval in your life. You may not be aware that you’re doing it.

Or maybe you’re aware, but you feel helpless about changing your ways – especially when burdened with so much stress lately. You need to start thinking about how you’ve been treating others.

Start with your kids – have you noticed that you’re short with them lately? If they don’t do something on the first request, you lash out maybe more than you should? They won’t tell you, because it’s intimidating, and you don’t want to ruin your relationship with them.

How about your spouse? Does everything they do and say get on your nerves lately? Do you find yourself avoiding time with them or not reacting whenever they try to interact with you?

Maybe you’re feeling like every second you have to be at work is a nightmare – you can’t stand your coworkers, your boss or even your customers and clients. This is a sign that you’re not handling your stress load very well.

Sometimes, even well meaning friends and family can grate on your last nerve and you realize you’re just extremely grumpy with everyone and you’ve begun avoiding any kind of socialization.

You may shut yourself off from the world, or worse – lash out at others with yelling and a very visible, irritated demeanor. And maybe they even did something to deserve your wrath, who knows?

But the fact is, you not being able to handle life around others is a detriment to you – no one else. It’s you who will suffer and you don’t want to go about your day feeling like this.

So the first thing you need to do is analyze your true nature of interaction with others. Then, learn how you can diffuse your anger or irritation before you react to whatever has annoyed you.

It may be something as simple as taking a deep breath before you speak, or you may have to dig down and do some introspective work on yourself and why you’re not handling stress very well.

Are You So Confused You Can’t See A Way Out?

Confusion is one of the many symptoms of stress overload. You may get brain fog, or simply feel so overwhelmed that you can’t cope and you can’t focus on how to get better – it’s all too much.

But you have to be proactive about this. You have to simmer down and get unfrazzled so that you can learn to exist in life without a negative reaction to everything and everyone.

The first thing you need to do is take inventory of what’s going on that has you feeling so undone. Is it relationships? Finances? Physical issues? It can be a combination of many things, but you need to stop, spend a few minutes and write it all down.

What’s bothering you? Get it spelled out because you’ll need that list later when you’re addressing each issue individually. Next, rate the stress of those issues on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most stressful.

Something might annoy you, like the kids not picking up their toys at the end of the day, but it’s a minor irritant and not as stressful as a coworker who dumps their entire workload on you every day while they surf the ‘net.

Once you get everything rated, start from the minor irritations and work your way up. Smaller things will be easier for you to handle, and as each one lifts with a solutions, you’ll feel stronger in handling the major issues.

For example, it may be as simple as promising the kids that if they pick up their toys every night, they each get to choose one family meal per week – or maybe you give them each an allowance for doing it.

When the minor stuff is handled, it will be time to turn to the major stress. You want to formulate a plan on how to handle this – how you’re going to approach any other parties involved, compromises you’re willing to accept, and so on.

You also want to have a back up plan. Think about if things don’t go your way when you try to solve the problem. What then? You want to have a reaction ready so that you don’t fly off the handle and feel overwhelmed again.

You also want to have some scenarios in place so that you can find a backup solution. For example, you could approach your coworker to discuss the issue, or simply refuse to take on their additional work. Or, you may have to take the matter up with your supervisor, but being ready calms your nerves.

Can You See Physical Symptoms?

Whenever stress takes a toll over the course of weeks, months or years, your emotional state seeps into your physical health, and you begin to suffer the consequences of not handling stress in a better way.

You might suffer from pain. Pain is a direct result of feeling too much stress, so you might suddenly notice you’re getting more headaches. Maybe they even feel so strong, they resemble migraines.

You can suffer from other aches and pains, too. For example, most people who have stress at work end up experiencing pain in their neck or back from time to time. The stress is a result of tension in your muscles.

The tension is how your body braces for the overwhelming feelings you have whenever stressful situations occur. You can’t relax, so those tense muscles eventually hurt, and that pain creates even more stress.

Hair loss is another common physical side effect from stress that both men and women endure. You may notice it a little at first, and suddenly your entire hair line has changed due to the extreme amount of stress that you’re under.

Insomnia, or a lack of ability to get and stay asleep, is yet another physical toll stress takes on your body. Sleep is crucial to helping you manage stress, and you may find it hard to sleep when stressed – but when you don’t get sleep, it stresses you out even more – it’s a horrible cycle.

Digestive issues often show up as physical symptoms from stress overload. This can range from constipation to irritable bowel syndrome. You might have an upset stomach, acid reflux or any sort of digestive problem when your stress levels are high.

You have to watch out for your physical well-being. If you start suffering health issues, that’s going to compound with the stress you already have on your plate, making things worse.

So whenever you begin noticing physical ailments during particularly stressful times, make sure you implement a good health regiment. Start with sleep. You want to improve your sleep hygiene so that you’re easily able to fall asleep each night.

Next, work on nutrition. Eat foods that sustain your energy levels and don’t cause a crash in energy, like processed, sugary foods do. Add exercise to the mix once you master nutrition.

Movement will help boost endorphins. And then, start pampering yourself with emotional stress relief options that help you relax and take some of the load off of you each and every day.

Has Stress Become Your Norm?

It’s unfortunate when you accept the way life is – even if your stress levels are out of control. But that’s what many people do. They think this is just how life is, and maybe someday it’ll turn around for them.

Life doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to accept that overbearing stress is a normal way to live. You simply have to make a firm decision to change the way things are for you.

Refuse to accept the status quo – even if others are okay with going through the motions. You don’t have to. You get to choose how pleasant life will be for you, and even if you can’t remember a time when life wasn’t stressful, your new life can begin today.

Once upon a time, you had dreams of how life would be. You knew you wanted relationships to be a certain way. You had an idea of what kind of career you wanted. But maybe things didn’t turn out that way.

Now is the time to start planning for a renovation of your life – one with far less stress. One where you’re surrounded by people you get along with and people you love and who love you.

This new life you create begins with new routines that make you feel satisfied each day – whether it’s how you wake up and start your day or how you end it each night. You might add exercise to the mix, or meal planning.

You’ll want to set aside time each day to nurture yourself. Because nobody else will take care of your needs the way you will. Buy yourself some aromatherapy products or something to improve sleep as an investment in your future happiness.

Shake things up with a new schedule. If you’ve been used to going to bed at 11 PM and waking up at 5, switch it to an earlier bedtime so you get one extra hour of sleep each night.

If certain things cause you daily stress, such as traffic jams, look for another route that’s less congested – and invest in an audiobook to listen to as you drive instead of depressing news talk radio to start your day.

The Most Important Goal To Set To Achieve Success

If you want to be successful in life, whether that be in business, relationships or anything else, I’m sure that you know about the importance of setting goals to help you achieve the results you desire.

But can I ask you a question?

Do you know what the most important kind of goal is for your life?

We all have goals that we set and we know the importance of goal setting and it’s one of those topics that gets beaten to death and a lot of us don’t want to hear about goal setting anymore.

We’re sick and tired of goal setting. But we know they’re necessary as well, and that’s why we always come back to them.

You do, I do, we all do goal setting at one level or another. Maybe you just do it mentally and you think about them from time to time.

Other people like me, I’m very, very strict about my goals. I’m always writing them down and refining them.

But there are different kinds, and this is a very, very critical aspect.

There is a type of goal where you define what you want to do, there is a type of goal where you define what you want to have and there’s also a kind of goal where you define who you want to be.

The kind of person you want to be.

It’s the third one, the goals you set on the type of person you want to be, that are the most pivotal, most important and most influential in your life.

Your material wants or even bigger wants than that, the things you would like to acquire, the things you would like to eventually achieve in your life, some you’ll hit and some you’ll won’t.

Some will take longer than planned, some you’ll maybe get shorter than you planned. They’re going to be all over the map.

As an example, you may be at a certain financial position right now. Let’s say you’re earning $50,000 a year and you want to take that to $100,000.

There are a number of different ways you could do that. You could set a goal to do that within the next year, the next six months or the next three years and you go after it.

You may or may not hit the goal, and you may or may not try as hard as you can, although the whole point of goal setting is you do try and you go for it.

But this is a measurable, specific thing that you’re shooting for and you may or may not get there.

There’s all kinds of circumstances, things that could come up that could prevent it from happening.

But think about the type of goal where you decide who you want to be, and the exercise of writing down your goals on a daily basis and reviewing them.

Sure, you can have a plan that says I want to get from 50k to 100k and I’m going to do this, this, this and this over the next X amount of months or years and you do those things and that plan may or may not work.

But what if you started asking yourself or writing a goal down to say, here’s who I want to be.

I want to be a positive and uplifting person. I want to be loving towards my family. Every time I see my family I want them to feel excited in my presence. I want them to feel uplifted.

I want them to feel inspired. When I meet new people I want them to feel like they just met somebody really interesting, and they want to get to know me at a deeper level.

I want to set a goal to be the kind of person that follows through on every commitment I make to myself.

I’m going to achieve XYZ by a certain date, such as I’m going to lose 20 pounds by March 30^th is very results driven. It’s very achievement driven, and the timeline for that may change.

You don’t know how quickly you can lose that weight and you want to be able to do it in a healthy way, so you may have to adjust that plan.

But who do you have to be to reach that weight?

You have to be the kind of person who commits to their goals, who does whatever it takes, who when they say they’re going to do something they do it and follow through and hold themselves accountable.

So here’s my challenge to you, or even call it a suggestion or tip.

Begin journaling on a daily basis, writing down where you’re at but more importantly where you want to go, goals.

It’s very fun to set goals like the type of income you want to earn, the type of business you want to run, the trips you want to take, the material possessions you want to own. All those things are cool.

If you want to go to a conference next year to learn something new, write that down. That’s a great goal to have. You need to know how much money it’s going to take you to get there and all that.

But I also want you to start thinking about two or three or even four who do I want to be type of goals.

What I found is when I started doing this, I started writing things down like I want to be an inspiring person to be around for my family.

I want my family to feel loved and excited when I’m around. I want my family to run and give me a huge hug when I walk in the door after being gone for a long time. That’s the kind of person I want to be.

When I write that down and remind myself this is who I want to be, all those other goals I find come to me a little bit more naturally. They come to me easier.

It’s because I’m acting and behaving in a way that’s congruent with those goals.

If I say I want to be a committed, dedicated person who follows through on his commitments and then I set a really, really aggressive goal like doubling my income in what some may deem an unrealistic period of time, I’m way more likely to hit that goal if I’m the kind of person who sticks to his commitments and then goes above and beyond the call of duty and does whatever it takes in any situation to create whatever I envision.

So that’s the difference. That’s the key. You may not have done this before. I know it was a relatively new concept for me.

I was always writing down my materials wants. I was always writing down the achievement-based goals and not the who do I want to be kind of goals.

When I started doing that, it had such a deep impact on a daily basis.

It literally, in those moments of weakness where I wanted to break a commitment and go back into an old habit that would have prevented those cool goals from coming into my life, these being goals would remind me of the kind of person I need to be and I want to be and intend to do.

I want to live this way every single day, and so I write those goals down on a daily basis and it keeps me in check. It keeps me on track for where I want to go.

So do this. Have some fun with it. Think about the kind of person you want to be, write it down, explain it in as much detail and then do it daily and repeat it to yourself and start living this way.

All those material goals and wants are going to come to you.

self-discipline