1. Sleep less. This is one of the best investments you can make to
make your life more productive and rewarding. Most people do not need
more than 6 hours to maintain an excellent state of health. Try getting
up one hour earlier for 21 days and it will develop into a powerful
habit. Remember, it is the quality not the quantity of sleep that is
important. And just imagine having an extra 30 hours a month to spend on
the things that are important to you.
2. Set aside one hour every
morning for personal development matters. Meditate, visualize your day,
read inspirational texts to set the tone of your day, listen to
motivational tapes or read great literature. Take this quiet period to
vitalize and energize your spirit for the productive day ahead. Watch
the sun rise once a week or be with nature. Starting the day off well is
a powerful strategy for self-renewal and personal effectiveness.
3.
Do not allow those things that matter the most in your life be at the
mercy of activities that matter the least. Every day, take the time to
ask yourself the question "is this the best use of my time and energy?"
Time management is life management so guard your time with great care.
4.
Use the rubber band method to condition your mind to focus solely on
the most positive elements in your life. Place a rubber band around your
wrist. Each time a negative, energy sapping thought enters your mind,
snap the rubber band. Through the power of conditioning, your mind will
associate pain with negative thinking and you will soon possess a
strongly positive mindset.
5. Always answer the phone with enthusiasm
in your voice and show your appreciation for the caller. Good phone
manners are essential. To convey authority on the line, stand up. This
will instill further confidence in your voice.
6. Throughout the day
we all get inspiration and excellent ideas. Keep a set of cards (the
size of business cards; available at most stationary stores) in your
wallet along with a pencil to jot down these insights. When you get
home, put the ideas in a central place such as a coil notepad and review
them from time to time. As noted by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Man's mind,
once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
7.
Set aside every Sunday evening for yourself and be strongly disciplined
with this habit. Use this period to plan your week, visualize your
encounters and what you want to achieve, to read new materials and
inspirational books, to listen to soft soothing music and to simply
relax. This habit will serve as your anchor to keep you focused,
motivated and effective throughout the coming week.
8. Always
remember the key principle that the quality of your life is the quality
of your communication. This means the way you communicate with others
and, more importantly, the way you communicate with yourself. What you
focus on is what you get. If you look for the positive this is what you
get. This is a fundamental law of Nature.
9. Stay on purpose, not
on outcome. In other words, do the task because it is what you love to
do or because it will help someone or is a valuable exercise. Don't do
it for the money or the recognition. Those will come naturally. This is
the way of the world.
10. Laugh for five minutes in the mirror each
morning. Steve Martin does. Laughter activates many beneficial chemicals
within the body that place us into a very joyous state. Laughter also
returns the body to a state of balance. Laughter therapy has been
regularly used to heal persons with varied ailments and is a wonderful
tonic for life's ills. While the average 4 year old laughs 500 times a
day, the average adult is lucky to laugh 15 times a day. Revitalize the
habit of laughter, it will put far more living into your life.
11.
Light a candle beside you when you are reading in the evening. It is
most relaxing and creates a wonderful, soothing atmosphere. Make your
home an oasis from the frenzied world outside. Fill it with great music,
great books and great friends.
12. To enhance your concentration and
powers of focus, count your steps when you walk. This is a particularly
strong technique. Take six steps while taking a long inhale, hold your
breath for another six steps, and then exhale for six steps. If six
steps is too long for the breaths, do whatever you feel comfortable
with. You will feel very alert, refreshed, internally quiet and centered
after this exercise. So many people allow their minds to be filled with
mental chatter. All peak performers appreciate the power of a quiet,
clear mind, which will concentrate steadily on all-important tasks.
13.
Learn to meditate effectively. The mind is naturally a very noisy
machine which wants to move from one subject to another like an
unchained monkey. One must learn to restrain and discipline it if one is
to achieve anything of substance and to be peaceful. Meditation for
twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening will
certainly provide you with exceptional results if regularly practiced
for six months. Learned sages of the East have been advancing the many
benefits of meditation for over 5000 years.
14. Learn to be still.
The average person doesn't spend even 30 minutes a month in total
silence and tranquility. Develop the skill of sitting quietly, enjoying
the powerful silence for at least ten minutes a day. Simply think about
what is important to you in your life. Reflect on your mission. Silence
indeed is golden. As the Zen master once said, it is the space between
the bars that holds the cage.
15. Enhance your will power; it is
likely one of the best training programs you can invest in. Here are
some ideas to strengthen your will and become a stronger person:
a)
Do not let your mind float like a piece of paper in the wind. Work hard
to keep it focused at all times. When doing a task, think of nothing
else. When walking to work, count the steps that it takes to get all the
way to the office. This is not easy but your mind will soon understand
that you hold its reins and not vice versa. Your mind must eventually
become as still as a candle flame in a corner where there is no draft.
b) Your will is like a muscle. You must first exercise it and then push
before it gets stronger. This necessarily involves short-term pain but
be assured that the improvements will come and will touch your character
in a most positive way. When you are hungry, wait another hour before
your meal. When you are laboring over a difficult task and your mind is
prompting you to pick up the latest magazine for a break or to get up
and go talk to a friend, curb the impulse. Soon you will be able to sit
for hours in a precisely concentrated state. Sir Issac Newton, one of
the greatest classical physicists the world has produced, once said: "if
I have done the public any service, it is due to patient thought."
Newton had a remarkable ability to sit quietly and think without
interruption for very long periods of time. If he can develop this so
can you. c) You can also build your will power by restraint in your
conduct with others. Speak less (use the 60/40 Rule = listen 60% of the
time and speak a mere 40%, if that). This will not only make you more
popular but you will learn much wisdom as everyone we meet, every day
has something to teach us. Also restrain the urge to gossip or to
condemn someone who you feel has made a mistake. Stop complaining and
develop a cheerful, vital and strong personality. You will greatly
influence others. d) When a negative thought comes to your mind,
immediately replace it with one that is positive. Positive always
dominates over the negative and your mind has to be conditioned to think
only the best thoughts. Negative thinking is a conditioned process
whereby the negative patterns are established over and over. Rid
yourself of any limitations and become a powerful positive thinker.
16.
Make an effort to be humorous throughout the day. Not only is it
beneficial from a physical viewpoint but also diffuses tension in
difficult circumstances and creates an excellent atmosphere wherever you
are. It was recently reported that members of the Tauripan tribe of
South America have a ritual where they awake in the middle of the night
to tell each other jokes. Even tribesmen in the deepest sleep wake to
enjoy the laugh and then return to their state of slumber in seconds.
17.
Become a highly disciplined time manager. There are roughly 168 hours
in a week. This surely allows plenty of time for achievement of the many
goals we desire to accomplish. Be ruthless with your time. Set aside a
few minutes each morning to plan your day. Plan around your priorities
and focus on not only those tasks, which are immediate but not important
(i.e., many telephone calls) but especially on those which are
important but not urgent, for these allow for the greatest personal and
professional development. Important but not immediate activities are
those which produce long-term, sustainable benefits and include
exercise, strategic planning, the development of relationships and
professional education. Never let the things, which matter most be
placed in the backseat as compared to those that matter least.
18.
Associate only with positive, focused people who you can learn from and
who will not drain your valuable energy with complaining and uninspiring
attitudes. By developing relationships with those committed to constant
improvement and the pursuit of the best that life has to offer, you
will have plenty of company on your path to the top of whatever mountain
you seek to climb.
19. Stephen Hawking, one of the great modern
physicists of the world, is reported to have said that we are on a minor
planet of a very average star located within the outer limits of one of
a hundred thousand million galaxies. Are your problems really
significant in light of this? You walk this Earth for but a short time.
Why not become devoted to having only a wonderful experience. Why not
dedicate yourself to leaving a powerful legacy to the world? Sit down
now and write out a list of all that you have in your life. Start first
with your health or your family - the things we often take for granted.
Put down the country we live in and the food we eat. Do not stop until
you have written down fifty items. Once every few days, go through this
list - you will be uplifted and recognize the richness of your
existence.
20. You must have a mission statement in life. This is
simply a set of guiding principles, which clearly state where you are
going and where you want to be at the end of your life. A mission
statement embodies your values. It is your personal lighthouse keeping
you steadily on the course of your dreams. Over a period of one month,
set a few hours aside to write down five or ten principles which will
govern your life and which will keep you focused at all times. Examples
might be to consistently serve others, to be a considerate citizen, to
become highly wealthy or to serve as a powerful leader. Whatever the
mission statement of your life, refine it and review it regularly. Then
when something adverse happens or someone tries to pull you off course,
you quickly and precisely return to your chosen path with the full
knowledge that you are moving in the direction that you have selected.
