How to Make a Plan for Anything

There are two ways to achieve things… you can either make a proper plan and work according to it in order to achieve what you are looking for, or you can simply work without a plan and still try to achieve what you want. But the former option has a potential to give you much better results. You will know what to do at each given time and you will know what you should do to go about it.

 

But, how do you make an effective plan? You cannot go about it haphazardly, of course. All plans are not bound to work; if you want your plan to work, these are the most vital things you have to include in it.

 

Why Are You Making the Plan?

 

The first thing that you have to analyze is the reason why you are making the plan. What purpose is it going to achieve? When you are sure that your plan will do something positive for you, you see that its importance rises, and then you go about it in a more focused manner. You should start with a very clear-cut idea of why you are creating the plan.

 

How Serious Are You About Accomplishing It?

 

Whatever the purpose of the plan might be, or whatever results it might bring for you, it is important that you are serious about bringing it to fruition. What is your level of seriousness? Some plans may promise the moon, but unless and until you are serious about putting your efforts into its accomplishment, there are going to be no results achieved.

 

Have You Spent Time on It?

 

When you are planning, you should not do it in a very hurried manner. Such plans, which don’t have much thought put into them, are not much likely to work. You have to be able to devote time to the plan you are crafting and then you should work accordingly. Only when you sit down and think about each aspect of your plan carefully can you rely on its accomplishment.

 

Do You Have the Resources?

 

Another thing that you have to consider is whether you have the needed resources to realize what you have planned? You need to have everything in place. But that does not mean you abandon the plan if you do not have a particular resource. Maybe you can incorporate that too in your plan… how to get the resource that is missing.

 

The most important things that you need are determination and courage. If you have these two vital ingredients, along with a creative mind that is open to ideas, you will find that you are able to make more successful plans that work.

How to Overcome the Fear of Speaking in Public

Most people are paranoid of speaking in public. But, at the same time, these people know that if they could overcome this fear, they would lead a more successful life. Are you afraid of speaking in public as well? These methods will help.

 

1.  Firstly, you should know that the fear of speaking is not the fear of speaking itself. You know that there are many things that you can say, so the speaking part itself is not a problem. Your problem is something related to the act of speaking. Maybe you are afraid that you will mess up on stage, forget your words, or pronounce something in a funny way and become the butt of YouTube jokes. Or, maybe you are afraid that people will walk out when you start speaking, or doze off, or not applaud you. You have to sit and analyze what your cause of fear is. This actually helps in dealing with the situation.

 

2.  Everyone feels jittery, at least a teensy-weensy bit, when they have to walk up on stage and face those people who are staring at them. But, you should realize that this kind of nervousness is universal. Most of these people, as soon as they hold the microphone, find all their fear subsiding. You just have to walk up to the stage, hold the mike and begin… you will find your fear going away.

 

3.  Practice well. If you are paranoid of getting on stage, then rehearsing it in advance will help a lot. If you know your speech backwards and are confident about it, you won’t be afraid too much. You may also try to hold a mock show at home with your family and friends attending, just to get over the fear.

 

4.  Do not worry about messing up with the words. There is only a very remote chance of that happening. The trick is to speak from the mind, to really feel what you are saying. If you are truthful about what you say, you will not lisp.

 

5.  Dress well. Be neat. It all works!

 

6.  When speaking, if you suddenly feel jittery, look at the place where people you know are sitting. Just looking at them can help a lot. From personal experience, if feel a bit nervous when speaking, I look for people who are visibly responding to what I say… nodding their heads or something like that. Speaking directly to them is also something that can help build that confidence on stage.

 

Try these tips. You will find that your stage fright is not as bad as it seems. 

How You Can Motivate Yourself to Work Better

Motivation is something we all feed on. We need to be motivated to do our tasks. We need to be inspired… without that, it is very difficult to achieve anything that we are setting out to do. This is especially true in the case of business goals. If you aren’t motivated about fulfilling the various goals in front of you, your efforts will only be half-baked and you cannot say that they will be successful.

 

Now, motivation comes from various quarters. There are many people who can motivate us to do a better job, but the best motivation is that which comes from within. If we put our minds to it, we can motivate ourselves to perform better. Self-motivation, as it is called, is a state of the mind. To be able to inspire ourselves to do better, we have to condition ourselves to think that we can do better.

 

That is so true! There are so many times that we just let go of things just because we resign ourselves to our demotivated self. We tell ourselves that we cannot do something, and then things really begin happening that way. 

 

In order to keep ourselves motivated, the one most important thing for us to do is to accept that we can do things. We have to prepare a clear plan about each aspect of what we are setting out to do, and we have to build proper strategies for the fulfillment of the task. It is not an easy thing to do, but if our plans are carefully laid out, then we can definitely reach out to do better things.

 

An emphatic part about motivation comes from expecting results. We need to keep our focus on what we want to achieve. If our intentions are clear, we are able to concentrate on the task in a better way too. We have to actually visualize the results of fulfilling a particular goal and that can drive us towards the accomplishment of that goal.

 

It is quite a difficult process to go about that initial phase of self-motivation. It is difficult to generate that, but once it is created, it remains stable. When you condition yourself to think that you want to achieve something, the inspiration does not fade away easily.

 

So, your difficulty might be only in that initial phase when you do not know what you might do to motivate yourself. But, once you are out of that phase, and you build some determination within yourself, you find yourself going ahead in the right direction.

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.

Overcoming Ignorance—A Potential Way of Ensuring Success in Life

We usually come across people who have spent the prime of their lives cribbing about things and not trying things out when they could have. These are the people who spend their lives complaining that luck did not favor them, or that they did not get the opportunities that apparently other people so easily got.

 

With such people, the more unfortunate thing is that their misery could have been very easily avoided. The way to do that would have been simple either—they should have armed themselves with the right knowledge about things around them, especially things that related to the industry that they were working in.

 

This is one very important thing that you have to remember as well. In today’s times, technology is advancing by leaps and bounds. What we learn today will be obsolete within six months. In such a rapidly advancing world, it has become more important to keep up with technology. People who do not give this much of their attention are the ones who are easily superseded by their competitors and then they find themselves in a rut, not able to move on up.

 

It is never a humiliation to ask for something that you do not know. You could ask an experienced authority on the subject, or you could check out on the Internet on a reputable website, or maybe you can even go to school to learn that new technology. If that something is vital for your business, you will find that the time, money and effort you spent on acquiring the knowledge was well worth all of it.

 

With the Internet, it has become so much easier to shun our ignorance and accept new facts and truths. All we have to do is to search on the Internet and we find much of the information that we are looking for. The Internet is also filled with blogs and forums where you can post your question and get an authority figure to answer it for you. This could be your way of networking even. When the cognoscenti responds to you, it paves the way for good relation-building also. You become a part of a hallowed group of elite individuals. 

 

Right now, looking for information has become easy and convenient. So, there is no reason why you should still live in ignorance. Whatever you want to know is literally at your fingertips and the harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. Do not make ignorance an excuse for staying behind anymore!

Self-Help for Anxiety—Some Simple Rules

What most people do not know is that there are several techniques of self-help for anxiety. What is anxiety actually? In very simple terms, anxiety is excessive worry. Worry is a universal human trait; it is present in everyone. However, in people who are overtly anxious, the worry can go to great lengths. In extreme situations, it can cause social anxiety disorder, which can manifest itself in various physical ways. At such times, methods such as hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy need to be used for the treatment. However, in most cases, methods of self-help for anxiety can be used and the problem can be snuffed out before it assumes monstrous proportions.

 

Stop Building Extreme Case Scenarios

 

Most people who worry out of proportion to what the situation warrants actually worry about extreme case situations. They may take a small thing and blow it out of proportion. If they see a single mosquito, they will think that they will suffer from malaria. This is just an example of how their thinking works.

 

You must stop worrying on these counts. Remember that it is only the rarest of situations in which things go to the extreme limit. You have to rationalize things. You have to understand that there are various ways in which a particular thing can happen and most solutions are always convenient. If you are basing your worry on what you have seen in movies and read in books, you are only inviting depression and panic attacks to be your long-term companions.

 

Don’t be Judgmental about Yourself

 

A lot of people build impressions about themselves – often negative – and then live their whole lives within it. They build notions such as, "Oh, I am too dull; I can't make anyone happy" or "I am too old, I cannot do this or that". This causes a lot of worry when particular situations arise. The effect of projecting one impression onto others makes the situation worse. If a person thinks he or she is a bad conversationalist, for example, they would not like to attend any parties.

 

You need to control anxious thoughts, especially those that relate to your 'perceived' weaknesses. What you term as weaknesses are probably present in a lot of people out there.

 

Personalization and Generalization

 

Two things that compound worry are personalization and generalization. Personalization is the habit of directing the causes of every problem toward oneself. For example, if a thing does not pan out the way it should, these people would think, "I am surely responsible in some way!" Generalization is the habit of applying the result of one incident on all other similar ones. "I scored badly in this exam. I can never do any exam right." The problem with personalization and generalization is that it makes the person constantly blame the self.

 

One of the solutions for coping with worry is to remove self from the picture and then evaluate things. This can surely be done through self-help, but if the situation is too drastic, therapies such as hypnosis can help put a right perspective on things.

 

Self-help for anxiety works if used in the right measure and the right time. Since self-help for anxiety comes from within, it is one of the most effective measures for curbing the problem.

Do You Really Need This Self-Improvement Stuff?

This question may seem somewhat awkward and unlawful when you read it for the first time, but I dare ask it again, “Do you really need this self-improvement stuff?” it may seem to be an obvious question, but when you really think about it carefully, it is not. Many people have no idea how to answer this question, and this tells why people spend lots of cash in the self-improvement process with no progress. Every human being is on the road to self-improvement in one or several areas of life. In fact, every human being MUST be on a certain self-improvement plan.

 

However, you first need to know what you want. Self-improvement basically entails changing something in your life that you think is either not right or is not fully realized. Therefore, you need to identify what it is that you want changed or developed before you begin any self-improvement program. After knowing what you want, go a little bit further and find out why you want the change or development. Self-improvement is not as simple as it may sound; it entails harsh bending of the norm you are used to. Therefore, if you have not found the “what” and the “why” then you will not stay put to the end of the process.

 

When you have passed the above step, go to the second step, which is setting goals. If I would tell you that my goal this month is to make ten million dollars out of my grocery business worth one thousand dollars (all assets included), you would laugh at me. However, that is what most people do. They set weird goals like “losing a pound a day” or “two degrees in two years.” Someone who loses half a pound per day gets too disappointed to continue, while in the real sense this is quite an achievement for most people. The goals that you set should be realistic. 

 

You should also know that no self-improvement program is magic. Therefore, you should take it upon yourself to see to it that the self-improvement program works for you. It is your personal responsibility to improve, no matter how good the program is. It is you who sets the goals and endures the hardship of the self-improvement process, and not the program that you use. If you do not take action, then these miracles will remain fictions to you, and you will continue living in a familiar world. 

Easy Tips to Boost Your Confidence

In personal development, aspect that is more important is the self-confidence. Without confidence, you cannot achieve anything in this world. As a human, you will want to have several things and if you lack self-confidence, there is no chance of you getting them. So, how you can build your self-confidence? There are no medications to do that. 

 

You might have seen that almost all those people who have achieved something or made some mark on history have been those who had great self-confidence. In your work place, at your home and neighborhood also you will see people with high self-confidence being noticed more than you are. No matter how much talented you are, if you lack self-confidence no one can help you.

 

So, how you can change this scenario and boost your confidence to be noticed and appreciated? This is something that only you can do. You will need to come out of your own shadow of fear; fear of being laughed at, fear of being rejected or insulted. All human beings are same. God made everyone in His image and likeliness. Remember, you are not less in comparison to anyone. If decided you too can achieve anything in this world. 

 

You just have to come out of your comfort zone and try out things without worrying about what others will say. Come out of the negativity around you. Learn to say, “Yes I can”. Invest your time in reading good self-help books and read self-help blogs. These things will give you inner strength to face the world with increased confidence. However only reading various books and blogs is not enough.

 

You will need to make a plan of action. Try to talk your thoughts among your friends, family and for sure at work place. Let people know what you believe in. At office place, make sure to explain your ideas about the work that needed to be done. Take up new challenges and give your hundred and one percent to that task. This will help you to get the appreciation of your seniors and they will start believing in yourself. 

 

If your love life is getting affected due to your lack of self-confidence, then go talk to your loved one. Let him or her know how much you care for them and what they mean to you. Build the confidence to talk honestly about your feeling towards them. Let them see the confidence in you when you ask them to come out with you on a date. Therefore, do not just read self-help books bring them live into action as well. 

Enjoy Every Moment as You Walk the Self-Improvement Path

The journey of self-improvement is quite rewarding, but treading it can be at times very frustrating, tiring and harsh. It needs focus and determination, and the path can only be taken when one clearly knows what they want, why they want it and where they are going with it. If you closely follow up those who have succeeded, one of the main strategies they use is failing to immediately fulfill the desire they have to indulge. What they would have used today to gratify themselves is kept for the security of the future. This is usually the main difference between the successful and the unsuccessful, which are usually not willing to make short-term sacrifices for long term success. 

 

Success and self-improvement is not a destination but a journey. To put it better, it is not a long race but simply a succession of short ones. During this journey, one usually compares their progress to those of others, and this journey may at times end up to be a lifelong contention with one self, the mind being the battlefield. This contention may also end up jeopardizing the self-improvement efforts we have invested in for so long. It is therefore important that you learn how to enjoy every present moment life presents to you and to avoid being too overwhelmed by the self-improvement thing. 

 

Enjoying life as you journey through self-improvement is not easy, because it looks wrong. Therefore, it needs deliberate effort from within you. Otherwise, you are going to end up depressed and full of boredom. The motivation you should have for deliberately enjoying life is the fact that you have only one life to live, and life is never a rehearsal for “the main show.” You can therefore not live the whole of your life as if you are doing self-improvement for the main performance of life. 

 

You need to be that mother you ought to be despite you having the determination to further your studies. Even if your target is to stop being extravagant but instead make a lot of saving, do not let your love for nature and scenic places slip away; you will never have it in the “next life!” find a slot in which you can still go out for scenic viewing without feeling guilty about anything. Enrich your life with every simple thing going on about you; the giggle of that toddler or the still waters of the river.