Do Motivation Books Really Work? is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

Top Self Improvement Tips for You is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

Bookshops are full of personal development books. This is big business – possibly the fastest growing sector of the publishing market. Also, personal development websites proliferate – offering all manner of inducements to purchase their program which is guaranteed to change your life in five minutes!

But none of these books or programs will change your life. They may well point you in the right direction, provide you with an understanding that had been absent from your range of experience or knowledge or suggest concrete suggestions on how to get more out of life, change your life, transform yourself or whatever. no doubt about it, there is some excellent stuff available – and some innovative and practical personal development online help – but none of it is going to be of any use to you until you put it into practice for yourself and regularly put it into practice.

It’s down to you to change your life. Only you can grasp control of the awesome inner power that is simply waiting for you to muster up the courage or energy to unleash it. The interesting thing is that much of the advice provided by websites or books requires very little work of you, requires that you make only very minor alterations to the way in which you use your mind. Unfortunatley though, having been in this business for over fourteen years, I have seen far too many people unwilling to take five minutes each day to make the other twenty three hours and fifty five minutes so much better.

And this leads me to the main point – one that I’ve already alluded to – you have to keep putting what you learn into practice. No book, program or package will change your life in five minutes. You’re not going to change your life in five minutes. However, five minutes each and every day is an entirely different proposition – if you make or take the time to ensure that your mind is up to speed each and every morning then your life will change beyond all recognition. Psychology tells us in no uncertain terms that normal people perceive only what they expect to perceive and only experience what they expect to experience – that the normal life is dictated by the sadly blind normal mind. Open your mind each morning, change your expectations and your life will change. But, in essence, it’s entirely up to you – no one else can do it for you.

Changing Your Life: It’s Down To You is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

The I.Q test is especially famous among parents to subject their kids to, to find out if they have the next Bach in the family. When you are trying to measure your own or perhaps the intelligence of your child, you might want to take into consideration the fact that heritability is always there as a factor that can and will influence the development of the intelligence of a child and while high heritability may be a factor in a child or someone attaining high scores, it does not mean that the environment around them will have no effect on their own personal development.

General intelligence and acute intelligence are two different things, and you need to know that the IQ test only can measure general intelligence. Someone who is a genius in a particular segment and style of thinking may not perform well in the test, but that does not mean that they are not intelligent by nature. There is also a common error in a lot of people who think that just because someone is born and has the predisposition to be smart, this is something that can be unchanged. Not true, no matter what, the environment around them, what they are exposed to and a whole list of other factors will just as much determine how intelligent they will be or how well they will perform in the early and perhaps later part of their life.

The other reason why you should or your child should be taking the IQ test is because it has been unconsciously set up in a way to actually track and even reveal if there are any developmental disorders you should know about within the learning and social abilities that would not show up until later. Especially true in the case of people who have been suffering from developmental disorders like mild autism spectrum and did not even know about it.

This test is especially useful in tracking and even creating a situation where a prognosis can be achieved. With this new information , you can then prevent the syndrome from spreading too far and wide and stopping it before it becomes a serious problem to the person afflicted. Test your intelligence and the soundness of your mind with the IQ test, and the good news is, that you can even take one online now. Many educational and even psychological websites have been set up with that service in mind.

IQ test means Intelligence Quotient,with the help of IQ tests intelligence test you can measure your ability of your work in any field, if you get high IQ level in IQ intelligence test that means there is chances of highly complex jobs.

Test Intelligence Using The Standard IQ Test is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

You’re the one who makes things happen in your life – only you can change your life. You have to get up of your backside and do the brave and courageous things that normal people wouldn’t dream of doing – that’s why they’re normal, not-too-uncomfortable, not-too-bad on the trudging sorry-go-round of their ordinary everyday existence. And that is why highly successful people are highly successful – they’ve done what had to be done, taken the brave and courageous decisions, thrown themselves wholeheartedly into getting what they want out of life.

You do realize that there’s nothing brave or courageous about doing something that will lead you towards the life that you really want – what would be viewed as courage or bravery by normal not-too-bad people is simply the logical and obvious thing to do for those who believe and are driven to succeed. But what action do you need to take? Well, for starters – and this is pretty damn obvious – if you want something different to happen in your life, you’re going to have to do something different. You don’t have to do something outlandishly different – start with something small, you’ll be intrigued where it will take you. By small, I mean something as ridiculously insignificant as brushing your teeth with the other hand! Yeah, you heard me – you’ve read that sentence correctly! Doing something this small in a non-routine way will destroy the habit of an adult lifetime of doing all routine things automatically. When you break down little habits, you set your mind up to have a totally different view of absolutely everything that’s happening – you’ll start seeing opportunities that were there already – you were ill-equipped to see them.

But what if you’ve already tried something and it failed? Well, only losers give up! Research shows that the most successful people in any walk of life, take failure in their stride, see failure as another opportunity to try again. After all, if you really want your life to change, you’re not going to quit that easily, are you?

Success And Happiness – Are You Hoping For Something Better? is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

Of course, you are aware of the odd useless thought that whizzes through your head – thoughts like “I can’t stand my job” (this has nothing to do with your job, it has to do with what you think about it!) “I wish I was out on playing tennis” (a thought that’s a complete waste of your energy if you’re in the middle of a client meeting!) “I feel inadequate talking to this person” (a thought linked to your perceived inadequacy as a normal adult, nothing to do with the other person). You might also be aware of one of the most corrosive forms of useless thought – the curse of worry. But there are the deeper, darker thoughts that skulk in the subconscious – these you believe to be hard facts. All our perceived weaknesses, all the things that we may not like about ourselves, all our shortcomings are no more than thoughts based on things that made us feel a certain way about ourselves during our formative years. They are dangerously toxic thoughts.

Useless thought presents us with three big headaches! Firstly, it distracts us from doing what we should actually be doing – to the extent that we only one percent do it! We’re not going to get much out of life if we haven’t bothered to turn up for the event!! Secondly, useless thought presents us with a familiar, habitual way of going through or, perhaps even, coping with our daily life. It’s a habit that we’re so used to that we’re not aware of it. Thirdly, useless thought prevents you progressing towards the life that you really want. Go on thinking useless thought and you will never change your life. We can all achieve whatever we believe that we can achieve – but if our resident useless thoughts are up against us, how will we ever believe?

You’ve got to break the cycle of useless thought. This is most effectively done by stopping yourself from having irrelevant, simple useless thoughts. Example! You’re walking down the street and a nice car drives past. That’s cool – but you should then walk on and pay attention to whatever happens next. But, you might say to yourself “That car is better than mine!” That’s a useless thought – it has nothing to do with the reality of the moment (the only time and place there is!). And it gives rise to other useless thoughts: “I wish I had a nicer car!” “I couldn’t afford a new car!” “I cannot afford a vacation either!” “What if I can’t keep making my home loan repayments!” Useless thoughts take normal adults down alleys and mug them all the time. It’s part of the way we are as normal adults. But we have to break the cycle of useless thought, if we don’t we will continue to live habitual mundane lives. Is that your life’s objective?

Chains Useless Thought: How To Liberate Yourself is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

And, yet, some months ago, he found himself confronted by a major career decision and, as a result, found himself reverting to the indecision and stress that had almost ruined his life some years ago, that had almost cost him everything. So, his point was this – why, when it came to the push, did his meditation have no effect in the cut and thrust of daily life? Well, for starters, he freely admitted that things would have even been a lot worse were he not meditating. As he said to me, at the very least, he is one of a tiny minority of people who are fully aware of what they are thinking and fully aware when what they are thinking is unhelpful or damaging.

But the key point is that, unless you put what you learn in meditation into the moment to moment living of your everyday life, you will not get the downstream and all-important benefits of clarity, focus and presence of mind. And, you don’t wait until everything goes wrong to start putting what you have learned in meditation into practice – you have to do it when things are just normal. It’s just the same as training for a big match – you train beforehand to make sure that you can play your best on the day.

This training consists of regularly checking your state of mind throughout the day – every day. If everything is running normally, chances are that your mind is wandering and distracted – after all, this is the normal adult default state of mind. Research demonstrates that the normal adult pays just one percent attention to what is going on when all is running smoothly. Obviously, this level of commitment to one’s life is not sufficient to have a great life – and this is why most people tend to be “not-too-bad”. As a result of this, however, the ordinariness of everyday life provides us with the perfect training ground. Simply stop yourself at various points during the day and check to see whether you are clear, present and focused or not – how you feel during meditation will be your guideline for comparative purposes.

If you’re not in a clear and present state of mind, bring yourself back to that state by returning to now. Again, simply, this means that you take a few moments to pay full attention to the here and now – you could stop and focus your sight, feeling, hearing, senses of smell and taste on what is actually going on, or you could simply take and fully appreciate a few deep breaths. Our contact with the here and now – and the opportunity it presents us with to live our ordinary day extraordinarily – is through (and only through) our five senses. You need to come to your senses!

And, if you do this when nothing crazy is happening in your day, you will be fit and ready to be at your best when things actually do go wrong.

Dealing With Stress is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

So, here’s the key question: What is Awareness? Let’s make it even easier – what can you be aware of at any particular point in time? Of course, you could be aware of your thoughts – most people aren’t because, as decades of research prove, most people are aware of pretty much nothing at all. You could be aware that you’re feeling annoyed or stressed – but these so-called emotions are merely the product of the thoughts that you’re not aware of in the first place. You could be aware of how you feel about yourself – your own self-image – but that’s not awareness, that’s getting involved in the ongoing internal power struggle between you and your personality (remember, personality derives from the Latin word, “persona”, meaning a mask and your personality is nothing more than the amalgamation of all the personal “snapshots” you took as a child).

Authentic awareness is being aware of the present moment. To paraphrase the Buddha, when I am walking, I am aware that I am putting one foot in front of the other. Only in the present moment is reality to be found. In fact – scientific fact as explored by quantum physics – only in the present moment does anything exist and all that exists is changing from one moment to the next.

And then there is the question of choice. We have a stark choice that has a fundamental impact on our lives – we can choose to be aware or we can (and this is the unaware choice made by normal people) choose to live in a make-believe world created by our own, predominantly negative, thoughts. This is a choice that we must make time and again, in each moment because no one becomes aware and stays aware – it is an ongoing process in exactly the same way that the reality of our universe is a continual process.

The life you are living is how it is as a consequence of your action, reaction or inaction in the present moment. The average person reacts to their own thoughts and perceptions. The abnormally successful person acts on the basis of the facts in the moment and, as a result, creates a life that is exciting, spontaneous, adventurous, fulfilled and successful. Now, do you think you might be up to making that choice?

Success And Happiness: What Is Awareness? is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

Newsflash! – the one sure way of holding yourself back is wondering why you’re not going forward! Frustration is a waste of our precious attention and energy. Wondering why what we want to happen hasn’t happened yet is a useless, negative, self-defeating thought – you might as well say to yourself “well, I kinda knew that it wasn’t going to happen anyway!”

You and I have a finite amount of energy available to us and your personal development goal must be to marshal that energy and target it, like a laser beam, on getting on with both what we have to do now and heading in the direction of whatever it is that you want out of life. Frustration, worry or even wondering about when, how or if something will happen is a dangerous distraction, a self-destructive use of your energy – it’s like you’re targeting your powerful laser beam back on yourself! You have to be so careful where you point that laser beam because it can be equally constructive or destructive.

Unfortunately, if you’re normal, your laser beam isn’t turned on at all. Psychology informs us that the average person pays little or no attention to anything and invests a mere one percent of their energy in doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing now, when are you going to start? The only place and time that you are is now – the only time and place that you can focus your energy is now. Wishful thinking, daydreaming, wanting or needing are destructive uses of your energy because these mental ramblings have nothing to do with the scientific reality that everything only exists now.

Therefore, if you’re frustrated that you don’t seem to be making progress, it’s your frustration itself that’s tying you down. If you feel that you’re stuck in a rut, it’s that very feeling that will perpetuate your discomfort. You must to direct your attention to the urgency of living in the here and now. Now is the time and place that demands your focus – not some of it, like normal crazy people, but as much of it as you can marshal. The very input of an abnormal amount of energy into the present moment will trigger an abnormal response from universal energy. This is how abnormally successful people are so successful – they put their energy into the present and, as a result, they have presence. This must be your goal also.

Is Frustration Destroying Your Best Efforts is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy

In addressing this issue, I often refer to what a client from Northern Ireland said to me at the height of the so-called “Troubles”. He said “It must be that, for some people, doing their mental exercises is a bit like the way some of my fellow-countrymen go to Mass on a Sunday, kneel down and pray and, on a Monday, go out and shoot someone!” A well made point – if your efforts at personal development don’t make an impact in the ordinary course of your everyday life, there really is little or no point in fooling yourself into thinking that you’re on the road to the life that you want. Personal development isn’t supposed to make you feel good for just a few minutes each day, it’s supposed to change your life and if it isn’t doing that, then you’re doing something wrong.

As I write this, I’m expecting a client who is going to spend the next couple of days with me here in the Alps. He sent me an advance note – what he called his “agenda” – and, in that note, he asks how to bring the calm and focus that you get during meditation or mental exercising into the cut and thrust of everyday life. My answer to him will be simple. During the course of your everyday life, especially when the going gets tough, you’ve got to regularly stop yourself, notice state of mind and compare it with the calm and clarity that you get when you’re doing your personal development exercises. If you’re state of mind has drifted from your benchmark calm then you’re going to have to take a momentary step back from what’s going on, take a few deep breaths, and restore the mental calm and focus that will make the difference to your actions and personal effectiveness in the present moment.

Personal development isn’t personal development if you’re not seeing concrete results in your ordinary life – if your life is still all over the place, you’re just lulling yourself into an even more dangerous place where you might well make decisions or taking what you think is action that could make your life worse rather than better.

Personal Development Is Worth Nothing Unless You’ve The Results To Show For It is a post from: Self Improvement Made Easy