Posts Tagged ‘self improvement’

Following your Self Improvement Worksheet

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Have you ever wished that your life could be a lot better and more fulfilling than the one you are in right now? With a self improvement worksheet you can put your plans in gear and to turn them into reality.
Here are some of the things you have to plan out in your worksheet for a smooth sailing journey towards your self improvement goal.

Get Up Early!

To be able to accomplish this and still avoid losing any precious sleep, you can go to bed just a half hour earlier to get up a half hour earlier than you usually do. The body likes a routine and take the time to develop a winning routine.

What this got to do with self improvement?

For different people the answer can vary slightly. To start with you need to fully awaken yourself and get rid of early morning sluggishness.

After you are completely alert step outside of your house and watch the sunrise. Nothing like the view of a fresh morning to set you out on your self improvement destination.

This simple but immensely satisfying act will lift your spirits and help with self improvement.

If you are unable to do this, take a brisk walk, jog or run depending upon what you prefer and what you are physically capable of.

Eat Breakfast!

To start your day out on the right foot and stay in keeping with your self improvement plan this is practically a necessity. You need the energy this will provide you with to accomplish your daily tasks.

If you are overly pressed for time you might try oatmeal, hard boiled egg, or even a few pieces of fresh fruit would do.

Any of these are better alternatives than skipping breakfast.

Smile A Lot!

When you go places, smile more at other people, even if you find it a bit difficult at first. Just curve your lips up a bit as you make eye contact with another human being.

An Effective Goal is Written!

This is the primary purpose of your self improvement worksheet.

This is extremely helpful and essential because there will be times when your self improvement goals will make you uncomfortable and you may lose site of them.

When this happens, you need to have them written down to keep yourself on track and accountable. Posting your goals on the refrigerator, bulletin board, or in your planner ensures that you will be reminded of them on a daily basis.

Review them on a Regular Basis.

You must review your self improvement goals in order to stay on track. Check out your worksheet on the schedule you set. Reviewing them causes you to commit to their achievement.

According to studies, only 1% of the population actually understands how to effectively set goals. This is the reason why so many New Year’s resolutions are not followed.

And this is also why people keep failing at the very same goal. The desire to improve yourself is genuine, but the process you go about while seeking this desire is faulty. Then how can you achieve the self improvement results you want?

The positive results of achieving any goal are unforgettable. An individual’s failure to achieve is not because they are incompetent but because they simply do not know the process of success.

Have an effective self improvement worksheet. Follow what is written, be patient and celebrate your success to come.

Mystically yours,

Michael Holt, Ph.D.
Magi Institute of Natural Medicine

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Time Management for Life

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

There are different books and seminars that can help you gather some self improvement guide. All these sources are against the negative factors in your life.

Work, meetings, deadlines, appointments, telephone calls, shopping, taking the dogs out etc. – all these are things most people have to accomplish daily.

Most of the times, on the waiting list there are other things like: family, friends and even ourselves at times.

Sometimes we discover too late that the points mentioned on the waiting lists are, in fact, the most important and, unfortunately, sometimes, we don’t realize this at all, so we find ourselves wondering for what reason are we so unhappy.

Everyone knows that time is more valuable than money – time means, first of all, life and, more than that, it means our lives. Think about it, our lives always break down to an amount of time spent.

That is way we have the obligation not to surrender in stressful situations and to go on fighting for the joy of living.

Let us not forget also that bad time management can produce tremendous health problems, both at the physical and mental level.

But there is good news! Time can be domesticated – we can make it a friend and obey us. First step in implementing this process is to identify the elements that rob your time. Normally, they are divided into two groups:

1)  The external factors (unexpected phone calls, very long phone conversations, unplanned visits, the policy of open doors, not sufficiently trained personnel, frequent meetings, interruptions caused by colleagues, friends and family etc.)

2)  The internal factors – related strictly to our own persons (priorities and objectives that change, the lack of a daily working plan, lack of self imposed deadlines, the tendency to take care of too many things at the same time, disorder, lateness in resolving the conflicts, incapacity of saying no, lack of decision, tiredness).

By reading the above enumeration, you probably recalled all the similar situations that you went through. Now, all you have to do is to find a way to eliminate them (keep an open mind here :-) ), so that you can be the mater of your own time again.

Here are a few ways in which you can do that:

Get used to writing everything down. It is useful, especially if you have a bad memory or are very busy. Otherwise you might fail to remember to go to important meetings, to make important phone calls, to answer messages you promised you would answer. Writing things down also allow you to see the appointment and feel it when writing it and most people will also say it internally when writing which means you use 3 major senses to remember the event for recall.

You can also write down great ideas and inspirations that occur to you in the most unexpected moments. Get used to bringing your creativity into reality by writing your ideas down. Dream journals by your bed can assist you in also giving yourself permission to go back to sleep after writing your thought down. Allowing your mind to be more focused the next day to manage your time better.

Make a list of priorities. It takes you very little time to draw it and you can even do it while you’re having your morning coffee. Write down, the things you need to do that day, in the order of their importance and urgency. Franklin has a great time management system and there are many ways to develop your own that works for you. Be creative and explore the many options from sticky pads to day-timers to outlook and other programs.

Learn to say no. One big mistake that a lot of us make is that we put other people’s problems in front of ours. Nevertheless, by helping them in a bad moment for us, we give rise to frustration, stress and we find ourselves unable to respect previous engagements. You are not doing anyone any favors if you make promises you can not keep in the end. Enjoy your new freedom to take control and say no. It builds self esteem and allows you to enjoy the time that you have.

Another drill in time management is to take a piece of paper and every 15 minutes write down what you are doing. Go back at the end of the day and notice certain patterns or maybe times that you lost focus and got distracted. These will be your key points to actually create more time by eliminating the time that you have wasted during the day so you can do something that you value more.

Mystically yours,

Michael Holt, Ph.D.
Magi Institute of Natural Medicine

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Unlock your Self Improvement Power Today!

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

When we look at a certain object, a painting for example – we won’t be able to appreciate what’s in it, what is painted and what else goes with it  if the painting is just an inch away from our face. But if we try to take a look at it a little further away, we’ll have a clearer vision of the whole art work.

We reach a point in our life when we are ready for change and and the ability to embrace a whole bunch of information that will help us unlock our self improvement power. Until then, something can be staring at us right under our nose but we don’t see it.  The only time we think of unlocking our self improvement power is when everything has gotten worse. Take the frog principle for example –

Try placing Frog A in a pot of boiling water. What happens? He twerps! He jumps off! Why? Because he is not able to tolerate the sudden change in his environment – the water’s temperature.

Then try Frog B: place him in a luke warm water, then turn the gas stove on. Wait til the water reaches a certain boiling point. Frog B then thinks “Ooh… it’s a bit warm in here”.

People are like Frog B in general. Today, Anna thinks Carl hates her. Tomorrow, Patrick walks up to her and tells her he hates her. Anna stays the same and doesn’t mind what her friends says. The next day, she learned that Kim and John also abhors her. Anna doesn’t realize at once the importance and the need for self improvement until the entire community hates her.

We learn our lessons when we experience pain. We finally see the warning signs and signals when things get rough and tough.

When do we realize that we need to change diets? When none of our jeans and shirts would fit us.

When do we stop eating candies and chocolates? When all of our teeth has fallen off.

When do we realize that we need to stop smoking? When our lungs have gone bad.

When do we pray and ask for help? When we realize that we’re gonna die tomorrow.

The only time most of us ever learn about unlocking our self improvement power is when the whole world is crashing and falling apart. We think and feel this way because it is not easy to change. But change becomes more painful when we ignore it.

Change will happen, like it or hate it. At one point or another, we are all going to experience different turning points in our life – and we are all going to eventually unlock our self improvement power not because the world says so, not because our friends are nagging us, but because we realized its for our own good.

Happy people don’t just accept change, they embrace it. Now, you don’t have to feel a tremendous heat before realizing the need for self improvement.  Unlocking your self improvement power means unlocking yourself the cage of thought that is “its just the way I am”. It is such a poor excuse for people who fear and resist change. Most of us program our minds like computers.

Jenny repeatedly tells everyone that she doesn’t have the guts to be around groups of people. She heard her mom, her dad, her sister, her teacher tell the same things about her to other people. Over the years, that is what Jen believes. She believes its her story. And what happens? Every time a great crowd would develop over their house, in school, and in the community – she tends to step back, shy away and lock herself up in a room. Jenny didn’t only believe in her story, she lived it.

Jenny has to realize that she is not what she is in her story. Instead of having her story continually pushed in her face for everyone to remember, she has to have the spirit and show people “I am an important person and I should be treated accordingly!”

Self improvement may not be everybody’s favorite word, but if we look at things with a different point of view, we might have greater chances of enjoying the whole process instead of counting the days until we change. Three sessions in a week at the gym would result to a healthier life, reading books instead of looking at movies will shape up a more profound knowledge, going out with friends and peers will help you take a step back from work and unwind.  And just when you are enjoying the whole process of unlocking your self improvement power, you’ll realize that you’re beginning to take things light and become happy.  After a while you won’t even be able to remember what it was like to be the way you were before no matter how hard you try.

Mystically yours,

Michael Holt, Ph.D.
Magi Institute of Natural Medicine

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WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF?

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Sometimes, when all our doubts, fears and insecurities wrap ourselves up, we always come up with the idea of “I wish I was somebody else.”  More often than not, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are better than us.- when in reality, the fact is, most people are more scared than us.

You spot a totally eye-catching girl sitting by herself at a party, casually sipping on a glass of Asti Spumanti. You think to yourself, “she looks so perfectly calm and confident.” But if you could read thru her transparent mind, you would see a bunch of clouds of thoughts and you might just be amazed that she’s thinking “are people talking about why I am seated here alone?… Why don’t guys find me attractive? …I don’t like my ankles, they look too skinny… I wish I was as intelligent as my best friend.”

We look at a young business entrepreneur and say “Wooh… what else could he ask for?” He stares at himself at the mirror and murmur to himself, “I hate my big eyes… I wonder why my friends won’t talk to me… I hope mom and dad would still work things out.”

Isn’t it funny? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we could trade places with them, while they look at us and thinks of the same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self improvement because we are enveloped in quiet desperation.

Sometimes, you notice that you have an irritating habit like biting off your finger nails, having a foul mouth, and you – of all people, is the last to know.

I have a friend who never gets tired of talking. And in most conversations, she is the only one who seems to be interested in the things she has to say. So all of our other friends tend to avoid the circles whenever she’s  around, and she doesn’t notices how badly she became socially handicapped – gradually affecting the people in her environment.

One key to self improvement is to LISTEN and TALK to a trusted friend. Find someone who you find comfort in opening up with even the most gentle topics you want to discuss. Ask questions like “do you think I am ill-mannered?”,  “Do I always sound so argumentative?”,  “Do I talk too loud?”,  “Does my breath smell?”,  “Do I ever bore you when were together?”.  In this way, the other person will obviously know that you are interested in the process of self improvement. Lend her your ears for comments and criticisms and don’t give her answers like “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!”  Open up your mind and heart as well. And in return, you may want to help your friend with constructive criticism that will also help her improve her self.

One of Whitney Houston’s songs says “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” True enough. In order to love others, you must love yourself too. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have.

Before telling other people some ways on how to improve themselves, let them see that you yourself is a representation and a product of self improvement. Self improvement makes us better people, we then inspire other people, and then the rest of the world will follow.

Stop thinking of yourselves as second-rate beings. Forget the repetitive thought of “If only I was richer… if only I was thinner” and so on.  Accepting your true self is the first step to self improvement. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others only to find out at the end that we’ve got  10 more reasons to envy them.

We all have our insecurities. Nobody is perfect. We always wish we had better things, better features, better body parts, etc. But life need not to be perfect for people to be happy about themselves.Self improvement and loving yourself is not a matter of shouting to the whole world that you are perfect and you are the best. It’s the virtue of acceptance and contentment. When we begin to improve ourselves, we then begin to feel contented and happy.

Mystically yours,

Michael Holt, Ph.D.
Magi Institute of Natural Medicine

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