Choosing Your Words Wisely

If you use the words "I can't", "I won't", "I don't need to", "why should I try"? With a slight change to the way you talk to yourself you can start to feel good and empower yourself. You will find what you say to yourself turns out to be true!

Why is this?

Your brain is like a computer and you programme your computer each and every day. Your brain doesn't ask whether what you are programming is wrong or right, it doesn't know always know what's real or not unless you tell it, it will just accept this information.

An example being: If someone you loved has hurt you, you may keep telling yourself that all people who love you will probably hurt you too. Your brain just records this information for reference, its data. Now your brain will think that everyone you ever love will hurt you. Now, do you think this will allow you to behave in an empowered way or make you feel good? Do you think you will attract loving people into your life?

Now, what if you programmed your brain with some positive information:

"Okay this person hurt me and broke my heart - but that's only one person. I'm a great person, I'm lovable and I have many lovely people in my life who love me and haven't not hurt me. I know that the right people are coming into my life all the time. If someone hurts me, I will forgive them and let them move on."

Positive Words are so very empowering and feeling empowered means you are in control of your life, confident and happy.

Word to choose would be:

I can
I want to
I will
I must
I am
I love to

Speaking negatively is a habit and all habits - good and bad take time to develop but by developing new positive ones you can reach a new level of self esteem and confidence. It's really worth practicing this and repeating positive statements over and over until they become a habit.

The Challenge from me is for you to try it for a week.

Every time you catch yourself saying, "I can't", when you don't really mean it, instead try saying, "I can", and see how you think and feel about yourself then.

I have a daughter who is nearly three and have been showing her the benefits of this exercise. I hear her saying "Mummy, I can't get on my bike" I see her struggling and I ask her to say instead "I CAN get on my bike" and then, she says "I can!" AND it's like a miracle, the next time she attempts to get on she gets on. It's the same with her putting on her shoes or clothes.

This technique is also useful when you can't find something. For example: instead of saying "I can't find my keys" or whatever it is you are looking for. Repeat to yourself, or out loud "I CAN find my keys" or even better "I have found my keys". You'll be surprised at the results. It works every time for me. Have you ever looked for your keys and find them plainly insight? This technique really does works, try it next time to prove it to yourself.

Remember, the words you use to empower yourself will have a long lasting positive effect on your life. Practice them and make them become a habit (an acquired behavior pattern methodically stuck to until it has become instinctive).

They say it takes about one month to develop a habit but after a week, you will see that it starts to become easier.

Five Tips For Getting More Done in Less Time

The world of work has become very intense and moves at a faster pace than ever before in our history. To get ahead, or just stay even requires effective strategies for managing your minutes, hours, days or weeks. These five tips can help you be more effective by getting more done with less stress.

1. Plan
It is imperative that you plan your hours, days, weeks and months if you really want to accomplish more. Sure, the plans will change as external factors and internal factors associated with your business change. But, if you don't know what you will be doing each day, your days will be filled with working on unimportant and urgent stuff that happens every day while the important goes lacking. Working without a plan leads to more stress, especially in the intense and fast world of work that we live in today. A simple list of work to be done can go a long way towards getting more done. Make your list, refer to it often and mark it off as you complete each task.

2. Know your priorities
Make a simple list what is really important and urgent in your business and then focus on those items first. Too often we focus on what we like instead of what is important. If you aren't sure, then maybe you need to ask your boss what's important to him or her. Priority should be given to those tasks or issues that are important. We often live under the tyranny of the urgent, even when the urgent may not be all that important. When you make your list of work to be done, prioritize it according to what is important to your business or situation.

3. Don't over commit, learn to say "no"
It is easy to over commit our days at work or at home. Realize that most tasks take longer than you think, so allow enough hours or days to get the work done on time and right. Just because someone else has failed to plan and prioritize doesn't mean you have to respond as though it is an emergency for you. When you're feeling overwhelmed ask yourself, "When did you last say 'no'?"

4. "Haste makes waste"
The old saying from most of our Moms, "if there's time to do it over, there's time to do it right at first!" How many hours do you waste in a week doing stuff over because you got in a hurry and made mistakes or overlooked a big piece of information? Think about it.

5. Organize your files
Several years ago it was widely reported that most executives spend six weeks a year looking for stuff. Now that we have so much information it is difficult to "separate the pepper from the fly poop." The key to finding stuff when you need it is to get your files (electronic and hard copy) organized in a coherent manner. One of my clients requires any memo or document that is published to have the file path/name printed so it may be found easily. While this may be the extreme, it works and saves a lot wasted effort.

You can read all the tips and study the books, but as the old saying goes, "nothing works unless you do!" So, stop procrastinating and make the most of everyday. Make your list, prioritize your work day, organize your files and get more work done every day with less stress and effort.