Posts Tagged ‘Personal Power’
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
There is a phrase in an essay that was written by Cyril Parkinson and published in The Economist in the 50’s that is now called ‘The Parkinson’s Law’; the phrase goes like this, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
When I first read that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. “How true,” I thought. I wish I realized this back in school. If I had a month to write a paper, I’d think about it, and ponder, and review it multiple times, only to finish it the night before. If I had an evening to write a paper, I’d review it only once or twice, but it would still get done. It’s like that free space on the desk – it will get filled with something when it is available.
So what is the lesson here? Give yourself less time to get things done. You’ll still get them done, but it will take you less time to do them and you will stick to the essentials. I compare this to writing a one-page vs a ten-page paper on the same topic. In the former you need to stick to what matters most, while in the latter you can go on about things that are hardly important to fill the space. The same principle applies to doing tasks – when you have little time to do them, you’ll stick to the core essentials and forget about the not-so-important fluff.
Hope this helps you carve out a little more time out of your day…
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Cyril Parkinson, Human Behavior, Parkinson's Law, Personal Power, Success, Time Management
Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
I seem to always be more productive when I have a lot of things on my plate and very little time to do them. Do any of you find that to be true in your lives as well?
There were so many times in my life when I was looking forward to a lighter work-load so that I could spend more time on this, that, or the other thing. When a break finally came in the form of a vacation or something else, I never got to the things that I wanted to do originally, even though I had more time. Somehow the abundance of ‘free’ time just seemed to make it very challenging to get anything done. The solution for me lies in scheduling.
I am most productive and most balanced when I follow a schedule. It was a lot easier back in the school days when a schedule was given to me. I knew when I had to get up, when I ate lunch, when I went to the gym, when I did homework, and when I saw my friends. When there is no one breathing down my neck, it takes a lot of discipline to make and follow a schedule, and so far, I have to admit, I have hardly been consistent with it. But I do know where the key to productivity now lies and what needs my attention. Does any of this ring true for you?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, goals, Human Behavior, Personal Power, Scheduling, Success
Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Yesterday I wrote about how making significant changes in life, especially changes in beliefs, is something that takes time, effort, and energy. In other words, it requires a great deal of focus. Focus is also essential in many other areas of your life where you want to get worthy results, and unfortunately, we have so many things fighting for our attention, that maintaining focus is becoming more and more challenging – we need to focus on being focused.
Focus allows you to concentrate your energy on the task at hand. When you are focused on the task, as opposed to having your mind occupied by other things, you complete it better, faster, and more accurately. The challenge is that we have many things that keep distracting us on the ongoing basis.
One of the worst offenders is email. Most people check their email every few minutes and email clients commonly make some sort of sound to notify you of a new message. That constantly distracts you from what you are doing and eats up a lot of your time during the day. Smart phones are not much better. Now you have phone calls, emails, text messages, and facebook and twitter updates that come to a single device that rings, blinks, and vibrates to notify you of life calling. I noticed that my smart phone was commanding my attention so frequently, that I turned off all notifications except for phone calls. I feel that it saves me at least an hour every day.
Take a look at how you spend your day and pay special attention to the different things that constantly grab your attention without a good reason. Work to minimize those distractions in order to create longer spans of time during which you can give your undivided attention to the important things. Then enjoy the benefits…
Until Monday,
V
Tags: Action, Energy, goals, Human Behavior, Personal Power, Success
Posted in Energy, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
We are a quick-fix society. Stephen Covey talks a lot about that in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and how that is a big roadblock to change. Unfortunately people do not like to hear that, and since it is a profitable business practice to tell people what they want to hear, most self-help books, courses, and seminars sell the quick-fix. The titles of books and their introductions constantly suggest, or even explicitly promote, a complete life overhaul virtually overnight. But it does not work like that, and the problem comes up when people start believing that changes in life are quick and easy. When people do not see the results the next day or two, they get discouraged and give up on the whole thing, labeling all of the self-development materials useless.
Changes that have a lasting, positive impact on your life are never quick and never easy – they take a lot of time and a lot of energy and dedication. Beliefs form a driving force in our lives, and they are the hardest thing to change. We form beliefs automatically and in many cases they do not serve us as well as they could. Unfortunately changing them is as not as easy as it was forming them in the first place. There are tools available, like affirmations and visualizations, that help the process along, but it is hardly a quick process.
So give yourself a reality check. Make sure you grasp the magnitude of the tasks before you. Do know that change is possible, but change is not an overnight thing.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Affirmation Triggers, Affirmations, goals, Human Behavior, intentions, Personal Power, Stephen Covey, Success
Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
My advise – don’t worry so much about what other people think. I wrote several times on fear and how it is usually the primary offender in keeping us from taking action. I think, and I hope that you’ll agree, that a big component of fear is our concern about what others will think of our choices and our actions. Another way to think about it, is to consider how you would feel about a given choice if you knew, with absolute confidence, that no one would ever know about its success or failure. Whenever I try that to think about it that way, a lot of the fear goes away. But that is not what I want to talk about today.
We established that people care a great deal about what others think of them, which contributes to the feelings of fear, that I am sure we have all experienced. The interesting thing is that as you, and me, and my neighbour, and your friend, and your friend’s friend, and everyone else worries about what others think of them, they do not leave much time for worrying about others. That is where the notion that ‘you are the person who cares most about you’ comes from. Following that logic, it seems that people don’t really care that much about the choices of others, but they think that everyone else cares about their choices. What that says to me is that I should not care so much about what other think about my choices, since they likely won’t think much of them anyway.
Does that make sense? Your thoughts?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Fear, Human Behavior, Irrational Behavior, Personal Power, Success
Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
We have all heard the “get the good grades, a good education, and then your life will be set” from our parents or our teachers or someone else. I have heard it countless times, and even bought into it for a good part of my life. Good grades are often a must if you are pursuing an academic career. Overall, a degree can definitely open some doors for you, but only doors in a given building where a degree is required (and remember, “C’s get degrees,” so good grades are not a necessity). That being said, I definitely do not subscribe to the idea that good grades or degrees are essential to successful, fun, and fulfilling life.
An interesting article was sent to me earlier, and it is well worth a look. It is entitled “100 Famously Successful People Who Skipped College“. The level of success that these people have attained in their careers is astounding and many of their stories are very inspiring.
While formal education is not a prerequisite for success, ongoing education in your field is a must. In this context education encompasses all the possible ways that you can improve your knowledge, skill, or ability on a given subject. It can come in a form of reading books and magazines, finding things online, attending conferences and trade shows, or listening to experts in the field talk (just to name a few). It is by being the best in your field that you’ll make yourself very valuable and irreplaceable to your customers or employers.
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Education, goals, Inspiration, Money, Personal Power, Success
Posted in Success | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Do you consider yourself a risk taker in your personal life? How about in your professional life? Or are you careful all the time? There is definitely that trade off between staying safe and having some awesome experiences.
I know people who are very careful and always think twice before doing anything remotely dangerous. I actually used to be a lot more like that, except that at one point I said “what the hell, let’s do it”, and took my first leap of faith out of an airplane. To this day, that was arguably the best experience of my life. I took calculated risks a few more times that led to really awesome experiences – bungee jumping and riding a motorcycle are a couple of examples. There is an inherent risk that goes with such activities – I could hurt myself badly or even worse, and it is usually for those reasons that people never attempt anything remotely ‘dangerous’ and hold themselves back from experiencing something special.
Same type of behaviour easily carries over into other areas of life. One could be afraid of getting their heart broken and thus will stay away from any sort of romantic relationship. Or one could be concerned about the financial stability and never take a chance at a more exciting and fulfilling career.
What kind of risks have you taken that led to some wicked experiences? And on the flip side, what areas of life could you take more risks in to get some wicked experiences?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Human Behavior, Inspiration, Personal Power, Relationships, Success
Posted in Psychology, Relationships, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
As a final project in the Science of Mind class that I have been taking, we were supposed to present our vision for a better world. Yesterday’s post gave me an alternative vision for a better world than the one I actually presented. To tell you the truth, there are a lot of things that can make for a better world, so this is only one of them. What is it? People taking personal responsibility for their lives.
Think about it…how different would the world look if every single person took responsibility for their lives, for their actions, and for their behaviours? Now we are playing that ‘what if’ game, but I think that if that was the case, people would not be complacent and would actually take action to change things they do not like – politicians, economics, relationships, etc. People would stop blaming others, which will result in more love and peace. People would live more happy and fulfilled lives as they would not remain stuck for long in any particular place that they do not like. People would pursue what they want in harmonious ways.
That would truly transform the world, don’t you think?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Action, Energy, goals, Human Behavior, Inspiration, Personal Power, Response-ability, Responsibility, Science Of Mind, Success
Posted in Affirmations, Energy, Relationships, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
I’m pretty confident in saying that there is no person in this world (except for me maybe) who has not attempted to influence someone else’s behaviour by feeling bad for the self. It’s a really strange behaviour, if you ask me. To get some attention/love/caring/my way, I am going to put myself in a negative state so that another person (or people) feel bad for me and do what I ’secretly’ want them to do. Do you know anyone like that?
Every time I contemplated this, I’ve come to the same conclusion – you can always get that what you seek without resorting to the ‘feel bad for me’ state. The other conclusion that I came to is that this is unlikely to change, unless people take their understanding of the self to another level. Why do I say that? Because this is one of the first things that we learn as infants – we cry and we get attention from our mother. Pretty quickly we as children figure out that by crying we will get attention, love, caring, and often our way. Then we take those lessons with us through life.
How often do you play ‘victim’ in order to get something? Do you think that serves you very well? Can you come up with alternatives?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Communication, Human Behavior, Irrational Behavior, Personal Power, Relationships, Response-ability
Posted in Psychology, Relationships | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Or are some things just plain annoying/frustration/offensive/hurtful/etc? On one hand I understand that nothing is good or bad, kind or insulting, gentle or hurtful, or anything else, except that our thinking makes it so. An event is just an event – our thoughts about that event define how we interpret that event. A rainy day can be looked at with disappointment or it can be looked at with ease and appreciation for the freshness that it brings.
While the logic makes sense and I agree more with that line of thinking than I disagree with it, I still feel that there are exceptions. But how can there be exceptions when we are dealing with a Principle? Maybe it is like a language, where there are rules and then there are exceptions to those rules? Anyway, welcome to my head – this gives you a 3 second preview.
For instance, if someone punches you in the face while you are walking down the street and minding your own business, you’d have to work pretty darn hard to convince yourself that it was a nice experience to go through (maybe if you are in the UFC ring, you’d enjoy a punch in the face – I don’t know). And that is exactly what I think you’d have to do – convince yourself that it was a positive experience, because I believe that that experience is just plain negative.
What I’d like to find out from you is whether or not you feel there are certain things that are just positive or just negative (for the sake of generalizing these categories)? Or is everything just our interpretation of it – always?
Until next time,
V
Tags: Happiness, Human Behavior, Personal Power
Posted in Psychology | No Comments »