Personal Accountability—Do You Know Your Own Influence?

All of us influence someone. We may not be leaders, but we are in leadership. We may not be powerful but we have power. We may not have responsibility but we are responsible. An old adage states, “No man is an Island.” Even those people living the most isolated of lifestyles have influenced someone, are influencing someone or will influence someone. You cannot be human and not influence someone or something in your world. Do you know the power of your personal accountability and the influence you have on the world around you? 

 

As parents, we influence our children. Early child hood experts tell us that a child’s personality is fixed by the age of 5 years old, and in those early preschool years, children lay the foundations for everything they will need to learn for the rest of their lives. As they watch their parents or the significant adults in their lives, they learn as we teach them values, morals and behaviors they see portrayed in us. We influence our children in more ways than we sometimes understand.

 

As members of a work team, we influence the people we work with every day, even if we do not have a leadership responsibility over them. As we interact and work with our colleagues, we challenge work ethics and habits. We help colleagues learn new ways of doing their jobs and to approach time management in a new way. Our influence can help create a harmonious and happy working environment but a lack of team focus by any member or members of a workplace can create an environment of hostility and jealousy that reduces productivity and increases job satisfaction 

 

When we realize the influence we consciously or subconsciously have over other people, we are more willing to accept personal responsibility for our actions and reactions to particular circumstances and situations. It challenges us to consider others needs and the consequence of our actions and words. 

 

There are however those who live with a very self-focused view. This attitude is characterized in advertisements on television that suggest we have every right to focus on our personal rights and to indulge our dreams and desires. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this attitude unless in the process we forget we are not an island and what we do will always influence others. We lead others by example.

 

Maintaining a Journal to Discover Yourself

Do you keep a journal to record your life journey? Maintaining a journal is an exceptionally good way of making sense of the things you go through in your life. You can tell your journal what you cannot tell other people and as you look back on past entries, your journal is a record of how every experience you go through in life, becomes a mirror that reflects how you have grown through those experiences. 

 

Many people feel they could not keep a journal. If you feel this way, and the reason is that you do not like writing or feel you can’t write properly, do not let this stop you exploring this excellent method of keeping track of the many thoughts and ideas that travel through your mind daily. Journaling is not about needing to write in any style or with grammar. You are the only one who will read the journal. It is your thoughts on paper 

 

Other people have found creative ways to use their journals. Drawings, photographs and poetry or quotes can sometimes depict the stories that you cannot write on paper. It is not the method you use that is important, but it is the concept of keeping a journal; it is the benefit it will be to you and your journey of self-discovery. 

 

Most of us hold our feelings inside, these can have both a stunting effect on our personal growth, and they can lead to health problems if the stress that usually accompanies them remains internal. Expressing thoughts on paper is the simplest way of learning how to express our feelings. Once expressed we can either look at them from a different perspective and deal with them ourselves or we can feel more willing to talk about them with others. 

 

Journaling for self-discovery need not be only for expressing our inner feelings and thoughts. As we travel through life, we inevitably have some great ideas. As we write these ideas down, we can return to them when we are in a position to either follow them up with action or to revisit them in the future. Without writing our ideas down, we often forget them and many of the gems that life offers us are forgotten when we try to commit them to memory. 

 

Once you create the habit of maintaining and writing in a journal often becomes a lifelong habit.

 

10 Questions to Understand Yourself

Do you understand yourself? Understanding yourself helps you to make decisions that help you to choose the best paths for you to take. Often the choices we make without understanding ourselves can be wrong decisions that create problems. Understanding our strengths, weaknesses, what gives us satisfaction and what causes us stress help guide our paths to those experiences that will provide us with the best possible outcomes for our choices. 

 

If you keep a journal these 10 questions may help you to know yourself and to get in touch with inner thoughts and feelings. They can help you make choices in your private life, your working life and in your relationships. 

 

1.  Describe what you believe is truly important in life. Describe anything you would fight for in life to keep and not lose.

2.  Describe what values in life best reflect what you believe are essential values that you treasure about yourself. Describe what gives you happiness and a sense of achievement and what upsets you and causes you stress and anger or frustration.

3.  Describe a dream you have about what you would like to achieve for yourself personally in life. Describe what affect this dream is having on your life currently and what you would hope it to have in the future.

4.  Who is a mentor or major influence in your life and how do they help you make decisions? Why are they an important influence?

5.  What would you like to achieve within the next 10 years in your personal life? 

6.  What do you consider are your special talents and gifts?

7.  What skills would you like to develop in either your personal or working life in the next 12 months?

8.  What would you regret not doing if you look back on your life in 20 years’ time? 

9.  What do you consider your greatest achievement in life until now? 

10. What do you consider is your greatest failure, sadness or disappointment?

 

Remember there are no right or wrong answers for any of these questions. As you answer them honestly and thoughtfully, the answers will provide you with a picture of you and a summary of your hopes and aspirations and the things you can learn from your past choices. Turn your answers into life goals and use them to help make decisions that will shape your future. 

How to Fall in Love with Yourself

Do you love yourself? Most people probably take a deep breath when they hear that question, but it is a valid and important question and one if we could all answer yes to, would change the way we feel about ourselves and give us self-confidence to achieve the dreams and desires we have for our lives. 

 

Someone once asked the question “how can we expect others to love us if we don’t love ourselves” and this demonstrates the importance of learning to love the unique person we are. It is accepting that we have own special place in this world. Feeling unloved and unworthy is a very lonely feeling. If you cannot find anything to love about yourself, you are probably struggling on the inside with a whole range of feelings. 

 

Learning to love yourself is possible. To love yourself, you must challenge the negative feelings inside that center our thoughts and self-wealth feelings on external things like how successful we are in our roles as mothers or husbands or how well we can sing even how good looking we are. While acknowledging their role in our life, our self-worth and self-acceptance is about the person we are, the person we are comfortable being around when everyone else has left and we are alone. If we are not comfortable with that person, we do not love our self. 

 

Take time to sit and write all the things there is to love about yourself. Be honest with yourself. Do not let negative self-talk stop the process. Try to do these five simple things every day and you will find yourself thinking differently about the private you few others see or know.

• Challenge your negative thoughts about yourself by having positive ones written down and read them aloud to yourself often. 

• Learn to self-care and do something every day that you enjoy doing. You deserve it!

• Look in the mirror and learn to love the person looking back at you and tell him or her often she is lovable and why.

• Fill your life with people who love you and tell you often what a special person you are. Accept their words and their love without questioning it.

• Add to your list about the person you are, the good thoughts you have about yourself and read them regularly. 

 

When you have positive feelings about yourself, you automatically begin to love yourself and hence you do a better job at whatever you do.

 

Using a Blog to Lose Weight!

There are many different ways to lose weight, and people are trying out new things all the time. But, did you know that a blog could actually be a wonderful way to lose weight? Sounds fantastic? Read on…

 

A blog is a chronicled journal where you can make posts, just as you do in a diary. You write about whatever you want. The best thing about a blog is that you can popularize it in various ways. You can send it to your family and friends and people can keep reading it regularly.

 

Now, what you can do is… you can share your weight loss adventures on your blog. Every day or two, write something about what you did to lose weight in those days. Tell people how much weight you lost, or what confidence you gained. Speak about the state of your mind. Speak about how determined you are about it... speak about anything you want to. 

 

In fact, you can name your blog something like HowILoseWeight.com. 

 

This could be a very fun way of losing weight. A few posts later, when you have people coming in and reading your blog, which will inevitably happen, you will find that you actually look forward to blogging. And, because you want to blog about something, you will actually try to do something about losing weight! It is a circle that really helps you go on at whatever it is that you want to do.

 

The best thing here is that there are many people who will be reading your blog. Just for that sake… so that you don’t lose face in front of them… you will feel encouraged to go on.

 

It is also possible that a lot of people with similar problems will want to check out how you are progressing. They may even take tips from you, because if you have a blog, you become a sort of an authority figure.

 

The motivation that you can get from such a blog is enormous. In fact, even if you feel like giving up, you will not, because you will feel uneasy about giving up the blogging. And because you have to meet most of your blog readers in person, you will not want the ridicule! Also, people will comment on your posts and they will flood you with messages if you want to give up. That kind of public support can have a fabulous effect in keeping you motivated.

 

So, think about it. Combine your weight loss programs with technology. You will see that you do much better than you could do it traditionally. 

 

Significance of Journal Writing on Self-Improvement

Journal writing is a powerful self-improvement tool. When one picks up a pen to do journal writing, what he or she writes is what comes straight from the mind and heart without being tampered with. When you do journaling, you get a realistic view of what really lies within you.

 

Everyone needs a safe place to express themselves without judgment or ridicule. In a private journal, you have a trusted confidante who you know will not spill your secrets. It's up to you to keep the journal in a safe place.

 

You can begin to express your creativity and individuality by carefully selecting a journal of who you are. It does not have to fancy or expensive, just feel good for you. The design and texture of the journal not only reflects who you are but also should give you immense pleasure when holding it and thus writing in it. This makes a big difference in how often you will use it. For it to be effective, you do have to use it regularly.

 

The act of writing your thoughts down on paper, gives them legitimacy. It is a great time to really get to know yourself and take your hopes, dreams, and wants seriously.

 

It has been known to heal broken hearts, and has been a great source of strength for people undergoing certain changes.

 

You do not have to feel obligated to write every day, but it is a good idea to try even if it is just a short paragraph or two.

 

To help get you started, we have listed some journal topics that have been very well received in terms of helping people make a connection.

 

Suggested Journaling Topics:

 

1) You at 85:

 

Imagine that today is your 85th birthday and a reporter is going over to your house to interview you. You have about 10 minutes to highlight important things in your life up to now. Discuss significant events in your life, people you've known and loved, places you've seen, good will that you've shown, etc. Describe your life exactly how you would like it to have been should you be 85 years old looking back.

 

2) My Favorite Treasure:

 

What is your favorite material thing? It should be something that holds great personal value to you. If you had to save one material thing from your house, what would it be? Discuss why it's so important to you? What value do you get out of it?

 

3) My Favorite Space:

 

Describe your favorite space in the whole world. It does not have to belong to you, but it should be the place that you go to that brings you great happiness, joy and a sense of safety.

Making Up Your Mind to Lose Weight

When it comes to losing weight, one of the most important things—even more important than choosing which diet you will use—is to work up a strong determination in your mind to do so. Without a resolute mind to shed those obscene pounds from your body, it will be actually quite difficult for you to do so. Weight loss is not a very easy thing to do—it requires a lot of dedicated effort—and most people who fail at it do so because they do not stay true to their goals.

 

But, how do you work that determination to lose weight?

 

Think of the Incentives

 

Often, thinking about the various things you can do better when you lose weight can be a great way to motivate yourself. Think about it. When you lose that weight, you may be able to run faster and for longer, you will be able to dance more at those parties, you will look better, you will be able to wear sexier clothes and so on. Always keep your mind on these things that will improve in your life when you lose weight. For most people, these are the things that can help them keep going.

 

Psyche Yourself

 

There are many ways to psyche yourself into losing weight. Maybe you could buy a really fine pair of jogging shoes. Or, you can buy a treadmill and install a television right in front of it. Or, you can simply watch more fashion shows and see how graceful those ramp walkers look. All these things subconsciously keep telling you to lose weight… that’s the best thing to do.

 

Don’t Go All Out All Too Soon

 

There are many people who try all they can to lose weight and then, when things become difficult, they give up on everything altogether. They lose all the determination they had mustered. To avoid that, you should start with something simple first. Maybe only go for a jog for 30 minutes every day and include more fruits and veggies in your meal. When you see these results coming, you will automatically be motivated to try out more. But if you exert yourself too soon, the exhaustion may have a detrimental effect on your resolution.

 

Chart Your Progress

 

This is another way in which you can keep up at your determination. You should maintain a chronicled journal of your progress. Record every ounce of weight that you lose. Photograph yourself regularly and paste them in your journal. Whenever you feel that determination sagging, all you have to do is to look at this journal and you will find the motivation building in again.

How to Earn as a Freelance Home Writer

Do you love to write and often impress people by your writings? If yes, then you can establish yourself as an online freelance writer and work from home. Nowadays, it has become a tough task to establish you as an author in the real world. Therefore, Internet has many opportunities to make you known as a writer and establish yourself independently. Internet has become the best platform for such striving writers to show off their skills. 

 

There are two ways to get started as a writer. One you can set up your own business writing articles or you can be paid for writing articles for different people. In the first case, you have to make some initial investment while the second one requires no investment. However, if you have no funds for setting up a business, but want to, then it is advisable to start out as a writer writing for different people and being paid. Then when you cover the initial costs, you can start your own business. 

 

Several websites offer writing jobs. All you have to do is browse through the Internet and search for good websites that offer such jobs. Sign up with them and get started as a writer. Even if you do not have the formal trainings as a writer, they offer comprehensive packages and tutorials that can make you a good writer and satisfy the high-quality requirements of the clients. Companies are in huge need of content and you can serve them well with your good work.

 

Regarding the earnings as a writer, this one job does not pay on an hourly basis. They pay on project basis or the number of articles written. Generally, an efficient writer takes around forty-five minutes to write a medium-sized article. A medium-sized article pays from $5 to $25. Therefore, it is possible to earn $10 per hour on an average. However, this is not an accurate earning. The more skilled you are in your writings, the more is the probability to earn.

 

You can also start your own business where you can write content for your website. However, to start and succeed in your own business, there are other aspects too. You must have much technical and marketing expertise. 

 

Thus, it is not much difficult to get started as an online freelance writer if you have the skills or the passion to write. Overall, you must enjoy your work.

Time Out for Renewal and Self Development – 2

 

We have explored the need for time out and renewal as a means of self-development and the importance of prioritizing it in our lives at least once a year. Most people are keen to take the time but struggle with how to achieve it. Here are some suggestions. 

• Discuss with your partner the need for time out. Decide to either take the time out together or individually. If children are involved, enlist the help of grandparents, siblings or friends. Suggest to friends you each take time looking after each other’s children so you can go on a retreat. 

• If taking time out together with a partner ensure you schedule alone time during your retreat as well as time together. Personal reflection is essential to renewal and self-development. 

• Try to allocate some of your annual leave to have at least a day of time out, even whilst you are on vacation. There is no better place to enjoy time out and renewal than when visiting beautiful locations. 

Once you have scheduled time out, it is essential to plan how to take the most benefit from it. Preparing for the journey is as important as being on it, here are some suggested ways to prepare for your time out experience.

• Choose a location that will help you relax. Whether this close to home or some place you will need to travel too, the key is to relax and refresh. 

• Don’t take anything with you that will act as a distraction. If you take your cell phone with you, try to borrow one that does not allow you to be tempted to check email or spend time on the Internet. 

• Do take a personal tape recorder or a journal to enable you to record your reflections and goals as you create them.

• If religion or philosophy is important to you, take a religious book or self-help manual if you would like to use them as meditation and prayer aids. 

 

When you arrive at your time out location and begin the process of self-reflection, here are some guidelines to help focus your thoughts.

 

• Evaluate what causes you to feel sad and happy as you review your life. These will help you focus on those things that need addressing in your life.

• Celebrate the things you have achieved, and goals you have accomplished. 

• Create action plans for those things you feel sad or dissatisfied with.

How to Discover Yourself through Journal Writing

Journal writing is not only limited to the young girls in their teenage. You can reap a number of benefits by writing journals at any age. By writing journals, you will be able to bring out your hidden emotions, anger or any other feeling that you may have. It is a sort of therapy that relieves a person and helps one in self-discovery. 

 

Now those not acquainted to journal writing may ask what exactly journal writing is. Well, journal writing is not a professional writing, but just a daily writing if the daily works done by a person or writing down the feelings, emotions and or anger of a person into words. Even if you do not do it daily, you may write every few days or once a week. It does not require any expensive kits, just a pen and a notepad. That is enough! Studies show that if you release your feelings into words in the paper, then you can get much relief from the daily stresses of life, and in this way, you can discover a new individual within you. 

 

You may ask how you discover a new individual within you simply by writing journals. Here is a detailed explanation of the process. Writing journal can help you discover the real you within yourself. In a journal, there are both happy as well as sad moments. This is because when you write down your feelings in a journal, you write down all the feelings you had in a day. 

 

For instance, if you are sad with having the same old job without a raise in salary, you can write down your frustrations. On the other hand, if you have seen someone a day and your heart flattered, you write that too. Therefore, when you read the journal later on, you will be able to find out what exactly makes you happy and what makes you sad. Thus, you are able to discover yourself unknowingly by writing journals. 

 

Further, when you write journals, that is you release your pains, frustrations, anger, anxiety, depressions, fear or any other feelings into a piece of paper, you get the feeling like sharing with your best friend. This feeling of sharing tends to calm you down and lighten you. Moreover, as you calm down, you seek solutions to your problems or think about those feelings if they are good. Thus, journal writing is a great way to discover you as a new individual. 

Strategies to Discover Yourself

Many a times, it may have felt the need to change something in order to taste success. Alternatively, you may have wanted to do some other work in life and the problem is you cannot identify what to change that will make you satisfied. It is only when you identify these things, you discover yourself. Nevertheless, the question that comes up is how to identify the changes. 

 

Well, there are many ways to discover you as a new individual. One of the best ways is to create journals. Many persons have discovered themselves simply by journaling. They are now leading happy and peaceful lives. We can say that by journaling we can release out the anger or any happy or sad feelings that we have within ourselves. That will make us a calm person and the ability to take decisions by ourselves. You may ask how journaling will make us a happier person. Well, if you stick to certain topics while journaling, and then you can do journaling in a proper way. 

 

Besides writing down your daily feelings in the journal, write down a certain list too. Write down the list of things that you like to do. Write about circumstances, events or sensations that you love. When writing the things you love, also write down the feelings that you have when you face these situations. 

 

Write down some activities that can even make you stay wide-awake at night. Again, write down the feelings related to these activities. Write down some points that you would love to do during your childhood days. Ask yourself question like, if given to do such activities, would it make you feel happy the same way as it felt in childhood. Write down the names of few people who you would like to follow. Include the traits you would like to follow and the attractions. 

 

Write down the names of the places that you would like to visit. If you had been there before, then write down the feelings of the past you have had when you visited there. Write down some things that you want to achieve and about the feelings, you may have after achieving it. Finally, write down your feelings on the topic if you would die the next day. 

 

After writing down all these feelings in a journal, you will get a sense of satisfaction within you and you will unknowingly discover yourself. 

Discover Yourself by Writing Journals

There are a number of benefits that can accrue as a result of keeping a daily journal for you.  It can help you have a deep insight into your life. It can help bring to the fore some aspects in your life that may be hidden. It helps you look back and notice a certain habit that you are fond of. It May also serve as a tangible way of relieving yourself of anger and emotions that might be getting to your nerves or disturbing you. Thus, to a large extent, journal writing can help you discover yourself.

 

Journal writing refers to where an individual keeps some form of log of his/her day-to-day life. It may be kept on a daily basis or even weekly basis. Here you jot down the activities of the day, the thoughts, dreams you have had, emotion and feelings. You can do this on a well decorated leather journal or you keep journal of your life on a simple notebook.  The end result is similar weather you are using a simple notebook or an expensive leather journal.

 

If you want to discover yourself through journal writing you simply start by creating an account where you simply write all your undertakings. Here you are simply downloading all your troubles and feeling to your friend, with the advantage that this will not spill to a person you do not want. When you want to blow off steam that has resulted at your place of work, or your wife/husband is driving you nuts. It is important to let these feeling go. To a large extent when you jot down your feelings it seems therapeutic and they act as a highlight of how the day was.

How It Leads to Self-Discovery

 

It will help you express your emotions of happiness, love and personal fulfillment and result in peace of the heart. It will help you shed off tears of anger, feelings of anger and depression, relieve you of anxiety. It can act as a very useful way of letting off what is taking you nuts. After you have done enough writing you will start to notice patterns that are within you.

 

With ease track the things that bring you certain feelings. You can come to a conclusion of what makes you upset, what depresses you or the particular time when you get upset. It can also help you know whether, for example, you have some issues at your workplace that are unresolved. 

Steps to Self-Discovery

The best way of self-discovery is through a personal journal. You can choose to keep a journal for only a week. You can put down promptly their total series of work during that whole week. This will help you to examine themselves and be able to tell the state that they are in and make them to think seriously about what exactly they are. 

 

A single day would correct the exception of the other and make yourself to weigh all those different acts which are forgotten within no time must be included. You do not have to buy a very expensive journal if you do not have money. 

 

You can make use of the common books or get the not so expensive notebooks from various stores. This will bring out the right look of the true you. Do not be scared of your own thoughts. If you want to do this in a much simpler way, you can consider taking a mirror and sitting in silence while closing your eyes and pay attention on yourself. You should think from the time that you started your day in the morning to that time that you end your day in the evening. 

 

Think about all that happened to you in the course of the day. For you to be able to focus more, you should be able to do this every single day for at least a moth, as the saying goes, ‘practice makes perfect.’ 

 

You should also look at your image in the mirror and pay attention or focus on yourself and talk to yourself. You can do this by complimenting yourself. You are also not to think of any negative thing, let your mind think of only positive things. You should remove all the negative thoughts from your mind. Sometimes you might feel sad or scared, do not cast them away but instead clinch on to them and look into the mirror and accept yourself the way you are. 

 

You will at some point experience these strong feelings when we are able to look at ourselves when we can say these words and imply them. When you reach this point, you can now grab your pen and start to write down whatever you feel at this particular time. If you journal about yourself for several weeks then by the end of the month you would have formed a series of self-discovery evidently.  

Journal Writing as a Key to Self-Discovery

Using a journal is more of an exploration of your own self. Most people think that writing a journal is extremely a narcissistic step but that is not true because this is the first step of moving inside you. When you look inside yourself you will realize that you know so much that what you thought you knew. This will help you to also be able to counsel yourself. There are various ways which a journal can help you in self-discovery. When you are writing journal you do not have to put down everything but what you were thinking of that particular time. May be when you were taking the dog for a walk you saw somebody crying that will make you stop and reflect. You should reflect about what you studied and the reason why you do something.

 

There are times that you do not know what to write on the journal and the time to write. A journal can be written anytime. But you should try and choose a time that is standard and so you do not have to write the journal every single day. You can choose to write a journal at least twice or three times a week. You can either write in the morning or evening or both morning and evening. It is very important if you choose a standard time so that you can have a guide to discussing and writing during these times. 

 

Some people also find it hard to buy a personal journal or some do not know where to write a journal. This is not a complicated thing and you can journal in an ordinary book. You can also go to the streets and find a cheap notebook which will help you as much. Journals were also made from blogs, in this current day they have changed to websites, but one can use them as journals still and writing confidential information. Blogs can also be made private and this has helped so many people because it helps those who are not shy of whatever people will read.

 

The other thing that most people do not know is what to write in the journal. The good thing about a journal is that you can put down whatever you want. This can also be looked at as an individual website to chat about your needs. You can be able to learn more about yourself and also remark on things that you have observed. This is a superb way to work through a series of views. Looking for self-discovery questions will also help you in having an insight of your thoughts.