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How to Keep Yourself Sane When Living Alone

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According to what Paulo Coelho has written on his book, Manuscript Found in Accra, “If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.”

Living alone in another country is one of the least things you could wish for yourself. Life isn’t always about living with pure bliss; it’s also about experiencing the darkest of nights. That’s how you can maintain the equilibrium of your life. Just like the “Yin Yang” of the Chinese Philosophy, that means shady side and sunny side, respectively, in order for us to create a sane and balanced life. We always keep on talking about things like this but the question is, how?

Living alone is not a curse

It will always boil down on how will you view the situation, it’s either you’ll drown yourself with frustrations or you’ll start seeing the brighter side of life. You can cry for a while. You can even shout as loud as you can if you think that it could help you lessen the anxiousness that you’re currently experiencing. If you think that living alone is similar to imprisonment, that’s your choice. Why don’t you try changing the way you perceive things first? There’s nothing wrong in trying, right?

Give yourself a reward

When you’re working abroad and you still have a family to support in your homeland, always remember that it’s not a crime to treat yourself sometimes whenever you’ve received your paycheck. If you want to watch your homegrown movies and television series, why don’t you watch it whenever you have time? If you like having a new hairstyle, why don’t you go to the nearest salon and choose the style that suits you? Don’t spare yourself from all the good things that you deserve to have. You’re the one who worked hard for it, anyway.

Stop stressing about not being good enough

Living alone, without anyone that you can’t talk to personally, usually makes you feel lonely. Stress is something you can’t kick out of your life in just a snap. The best solution to fight it is to win against it. What’s the best way to stay calm even though you think that you’re already close to being devastated? Breathe.  Relax.  Yes, you have a report to be submitted before the day ends but it’s more difficult if you will work without a clearer mindset. A minute of distressing yourself won’t hurt.

Stay connected with your loved ones

No one can beat the power of having conversations with persons close to you. Talk to them about all the things that are bothering you. It doesn’t mean that even though you’re now residing in another place, you’ll also cut ties with them. Reconnect with them again and tell them how much you missed them. Talking with the people you love can help you feel sane. Don’t forget that those social networking sites are just a few clicks away.

Never isolate yourself

Not because you’re not with your friends anymore, you’ll forbid yourself to mingle with others. Keep in mind that it’s not a betrayal if you will make new friends. The bad thing about it is when you started ignoring them just because you’ve met people who you think are way cooler than them. Friendships will always about quality, not quantity. The most important thing is that you learned how to acquaint yourself with others so that you won’t be known as a rude person to your colleagues.

Problems are temporary

Did your employer scold you? Haven’t you passed the monthly report on time yet? Were you close to picking up a fight with your workmates? Again, take the time to breathe, to think, and to analyze everything before doing anything. This might be one of the most used phrases but, please don’t ever give up. You can rest for a while before starting the newest chapter of your life. If you feel unmotivated, think of the people who keep on believing in you whenever you think like you’re becoming a burden to society. You’ll make it. Maybe not now but eventually, you will.

If you’re in another country and you’re living alone, use that chance to be able to experience things such as giving yourself a new reason to be a better person. Every problems and situation exist because theses are needed for you to grow. Go easy on yourself now. Let go of all the loneliness and depression before it eats you alive without even knowing it.

You’ve read How to Keep Yourself Sane When Living Alone, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

The 5 Best Ways to Motivate Yourself

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What’s your favorite motivational technique?

How comfortable are you right now?

You might be reading this on a cramped subway shuttling to your job. You might be using this article as “research” while your bigger entrepreneurial project goes untouched. You might be looking for a quick boost to spur you on to become your version of successful.

On your success journey, you’re going to be uncomfortable, and staying motivated is one of the most difficult parts of achieving something great.

These past three weeks have been emotionally tough for me—I lost a client and significant funding keeping my business afloat, among other things. But I pride myself on my stoicism and ability to stay motivated regardless of what is going on around me.

Related: 11 Powerful Mantras for Those Who’ve Lost Motivation

So I did what I always do when I’m having a tough time. I read, and read, and read some more. I compiled the five best ways to get and stay motivated from across the web. For your reading pleasure…

1. Sometimes all you need is 5 seconds.

The most bizarre trait of human beings is how willing we are to stay dissatisfied with our lives. You have an incredible life-changing idea… and then think of 100 different reasons why you shouldn’t do it. Now imagine a life where each of these amazing ideas becomes reality.

Mel Robbins has a so-simple-I-can’t-believe-I-didn’t-think-of-it technique called the 5 Second Rule: “If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within five seconds or your brain will kill it.”

Initially, your body hates the action, but it gets results. For example, I was on a train the other day and spotted a cute girl, and 5- 4- 3- 2- 1- GO! I’m sitting next to her and we’re having a great conversation. The hardest part of that entire process was turning the instinct (She looks cute) into “Hello, my name’s Nathan.”

Next time you have an idea or an instinct, count down from five and then act. It might simply be writing down the idea, but you need to attach a physical movement to the mental impulse.

2. You need to bathe more… in motivation.

When you’re working toward a goal, it’s easy to get caught up in the drudgery of getting to that finish line. You start working harder, and harder, and harder, inching ever closer to that dream… and before you know it, you’ve lost sight of what your goal was in the first place. Cut to a loss of motivation, cut to intense stress, cut to complete personal burnout.

Enter success coach and originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Jack Canfield. His solution? Constantly bathing in things that motivate you. How? A vision board.

A vision board is a collection of affirmations, pictures and quotes that you keep in a prominent place. You need to look at this board every day to continually remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing.

3. Chunk it out.

I want to have a stock investment portfolio of $650,000. Even just writing it down seems insane. On top of shelter, food and water; on top of travel costs, socializing and adventures; on top of the sheer expenditure of just existing in one of the most expensive cities in the world, if I saved $50,000 per year, it’d still take me 13 years to reach that target.

Staying motivated when faced with a goal that large and that feels overwhelmingly hard is a tough thing to manage. Thankfully, Brian Tracy, one of the original greats of the personal development world, has a concept that simplifies the goal-setting process. I’ve lovingly labeled it “chunking.”

With any of your goals, “chunk” it down into a checklist of actions that need to be completed. Each time you complete one of the smaller goals, you’ll feel that winning feeling of accomplishment.

Using my dream and my business as an example:

Goal: Have a stock investment portfolio of $650,000 in 5 years

Chunks:

Need to invest $130,000 each year
Need to invest $10,833 each month
Need to sell one end-to-end book writing package each month
Need to contact 100 warm leads per month to sell my service
Need to contact 25 leads per week
Need to contact 5 leads per day

Suddenly, my dream isn’t as scary as it once was. All I need to do is make five sales calls a day. Break down your goals into simple daily tasks and focus on consistently completing them.

4. Play that funky music.

I was with one of my book-writing clients the other day and he told me that he never listens to the radio. When I asked him about this, he said “I don’t allow outside forces to control my mood.” Before we all join him in putting on our tinfoil hats, he’s got a point.

Music can control your emotions, I mean we’ve all got that “killer track” that we can’t help but move our bodies to. That’s why we include music in films, to cue the audience on what emotion they should be feeling and add to that emotional beat.

Award-winning author, record producer and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin has written much on the subject, but one of the most important points is that the right music will motivate you. Whether it’s the lyrics that speak to you, the pounding beat or that irresistibly funky bassline, it’s hard to pin down why some tracks make us feel incredible. Spend some time compiling the music that gets you fired up, and when you need a dose of motivation, press play.

5. Talk to a “you expert.”

Who knows more about you than, well… you? One of the most painful truths that I had to realize about the world and myself is it’s up to me to change myself and shape the world around me. There’s just one problem: We are terrible at knowing ourselves and our motivations.

Hal Elrod, creator of the hugely influential Miracle Morning program, lists positive self-talk as one of the pillars of his program. When you wake up and before you go to sleep, mentally repeat or say aloud your personal affirmations about changes you’re making in your life.

These affirmations aren’t things like I’m a happy person or I am wealthy. Hal’s brand of affirmations go deeper. He says you need to have a clearly measurable goal and the driving force behind why you’re committed to the goal. For example, I am committed to become fitter over the next 12 months, increasing my weekly hours exercising from one to eight, so I can be proud of my body and dedication.

You’ll also need to include the actions that will enable you to reach that goal. The next part of the affirmation might read, To ensure I increase my level of exercise, I will watch one less hour of TV per day and wake up 30 minutes earlier.

From five motivational masters, straight to your brain…. Let’s get motivated!

This article first appeared on  Personal Development – Success.com

Four Clever Ways to Improve Focus

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You’re reading Four Clever Ways to Improve Focus, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

 

You have just 24 hours. And, you’ve got to do everything in these many (but few) hours. Practically, there’s a limit to the efforts you can put into a day, but then,
the paucity of time shouldn’t be a deterrent to achieving your goals.

You can achieve more by increasing your productivity which is contingent
upon improving your focus.

Focusing on the task at hand is the surest way to make the most of your limited
time.

Here are four clever ways to improve your focus

Don’t allow your mind to trick you

The human mind is a trickster. It’ll make you underestimate or overestimate
your capabilities. And, both of them are dangerous.

Your mind will trick you by suggesting that you can complete a task in less
time than you usually take. This is a fallacy that will make you allocate
two hours to do a job that may eventually take five hours to complete.
It’ll end up eating up more time than you initially planned and also drain
your energy. It will demotivate you to the extent that you may stop
planning your day.

Thus, understand your real strengths and weaknesses. Know your speed and do
a precise estimation of the work and plan accordingly.

Shorten your to-do list

It’s a good habit to make a to-do list. But don’t include every small task
in it. It’ll only increase your stress and distract your mind every time
you see it.

Instead, make a small list with just 2-3 most crucial things to do in a day
and assign sufficient time for each of these activities.

Keep your list short and succinct. Don’t overburden it with things that
aren’t going to add to your productivity.

Make a schedule for petty but important things

There are a lot of things which don’t add to your productivity but are
necessary.

Checking comments on your social media posts or wishing people on their
birthdays and anniversaries is not productive but required.

Watching or reading news, taking a coffee break, attending meetings, or
answering phone calls or emails are other things that consume a lot of
time.

But, you can’t avoid such activities. They don’t add to your output, but
you’ve to do them anyway.

Allocate time for them and make them a part of your schedule. What’s more
important is to stick to the schedule.

Take your two coffee breaks at the same time each day. Answer emails once
or twice a day.

For instance, I have fixed a schedule for all meetings, interviews,
responding to emails and queries, etc. between 12-2pm. For the rest of the
time, I focus on things that delivers output.

Do the hardest thing first

Do the most difficult or the worst thing upfront.

Mark Twain coined the term “eating the frog.”

If you’ve to eat a frog and you have the entire day to do it, when is the
right time?

The answer is first thing in the morning. Why? Because it’s the worst thing
to do.

If you keep avoiding it, it’ll linger in your mind breaking your focus.

Instead, get it done first.

Have a tough client to deal with? Meet him at the earliest. Have to
complete a complicated project that’s paying you well? Do it now.

Doing the toughest thing first will boost your confidence and also take the
thing out of your mind enabling you to focus on other things for the rest
of the day.

Conclusion

With these four clever hacks, you can improve your focus manifold.

By eliminating things that aren’t productive or those which are stressful,
you can focus better.

While doing so, aim at your long term goals but focus on the task at hand
in a manner that there’s no tomorrow.

This way, you’ll strive to achieve more, ultimately increasing your
productivity and chances of success.

 

How to Read 52 Books In A Year

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You’re reading How to Read a Book a Week (52 Books in 52 Weeks), originally posted on Pick the Brain.

 

New year resolutions are something that I don’t share publicly.

The goals I write down are personal and most of them won’t be applicable to others. However, I did identify one resolution that I think can be helpful. For the past few years, I’ve stacked books on top of books (virtually) based on recommendations I’ve received from friends, podcast guests, and my personal discoveries.

The problem was: I’ve never made the time (and priority) to set up the right systems to read more books.

Now, I’m laying out a public challenge to you and myself called ‘The BAW (Book A Week) Challenge’.
The goal is simple: read 52 books in one year (one a week; four a month).

*Note: Yes, this is published in March so if you want to participate it can be 48 books.

How I’m approaching the reading process

1. Picking 1-3 areas of my life that I want to most improve or optimize

This year, with the goal to find more balance, I’ve decided to pick diversified topics most important in my life: Health & Wellness, Wealth & Business, Biographies. You can decide to go deep in one topic, and just read books on business, or just on health. Personally my ADHD will drive me nuts, but whatever floats your boat!

2. Create a list of books you want to read

Scour the web, browse through Amazon, take some of my suggestions — do whatever you need to get as many recommendations as possible. Make sure it’s from a diversified circle of people or source, so you can get a diversified group of books. Try to go beyond 52 books if you can.

3. Categorize them into the 1-3 areas 

  • If you have more than 2+ topics, you can either:
    • Read 4 books a month on one topic, then 4 books on the next. Or…
    • Diversify by reading books on each topic every month (this is my approach)
  • Have a free for all section
    • This gives you the freedom to either choose a book that is not related to the topics you chose, or read another book around your chosen topic. For me, these are topics around psychology, philosophy, relationships, history, fiction books, and more.

4.  Go through your book list and start adding books in the order that you’re interested in 

What usually works for me is to select topics that I can immediately apply in my life. Otherwise, you feel forced to read something that’s not directly applicable.

Another tip to keep in mind is to do some back research on the length of each book. For example, you wouldn’t want to cram in multiple 400-page books in the span of a month. Unless you’re a reading machine, then all the power to you! And last but not least…

5. Put the rest on your backlog

The backlog is there in case you run into a book that you lose interest in (which happens more often than you think). I’ve found that it’s rarely a good idea to finish a book for the sake of finishing a book. If you’re not vibing with the author, drop it and move on.

 

My last $0.02

  • Take the time to study the process of reading faster. If you’re going to be reading 100,000’s of words, taking a few minutes to increase your reading speed can save you a massive amount of time.

  • Audiobooks can speed up your ‘reading’ MUCH faster. If you can retain non-fiction books in audio format, then this option is highly recommended. Although for certain books that involve more visual representation (such as bodybuilding or nutrition books), I prefer reading them.

  • Even though I’ve resisted Kindle for awhile (I’ve always liked the tangible feeling of books), adopting it into my life has been huge. I no longer have to carry around books when I travel, and I can bring one tablet that contains all of my books.

  • If you slip up and forget to read a book (which will happen), keep going. The real purpose of the challenge is not to read 52 books in 52 weeks, it’s to develop the habits, time management, and reading skills to read more books. As long as you end up reading more books than you normally would, you’ve already won.

 

You’ve read How to Read a Book a Week (52 Books in 52 Weeks), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.

If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

 

Low Self-Confidence is an accident…

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We don’t decide to have low self-confidence We usually develop the Low Self-Confidence habit when we’re very young. It usually begins as a result of how people treat us and communicate with us – plus how we make sense of things which happen to us.  Once begun, the habit is maintained by how we think about things […]

Let babies cry themselves to sleep?

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“Letting babies cry themselves to sleep is good says latest research” It must be true – it’s scientifically proven: let babies cry themselves to sleep. That is, according to the Daily Mail (the headline is from their website) and nearly 2,000 other online and offline publications.  Their claim is based on scientific research at Flinders University […]

Filed Under: NLP

Reframe life’s setbacks

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Sorry, we’ve got to change your appointment My quarterly appointment with the dental hygienist was at 11:40 AM today. The practice is about 30 minutes away so I was due to leave at about 11 AM.  And I got a phone call from the receptionist at 9:40 AM to say that she was ‘ever so […]

Be careful with WHY? questions

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Treat ‘Why?’ as an attack question! We pay a lot of attention to words in NLP. We think about: What’s the thinking behind the words and comments How they impact people The intention behind them – why they are used. For example, take that little word WHY?  Harmless enough, isn’t it? After all, it’s a little word […]

Paragraph 2: Treat ‘Why?’ as an attack question! We pay a lot of attention to words in NLP. We think about: What’s the thinking behind the words and comments How they impact people The intention behind them – why they are used. For example, take that little word WHY?  Harmless enough, isn’t it? After all, it’s a little word […]

Treat ‘Why?’ as an attack question! We pay a lot of attention to words in NLP. We think about: What’s the thinking behind the words and comments How they impact people The intention behind them – why they are used. For example, take that little word WHY?  Harmless enough, isn’t it? After all, it’s a little word […]

Treat ‘Why?’ as an attack question! We pay a lot of attention to words in NLP. We think about: What’s the thinking behind the words and comments How they impact people The intention behind them – why they are used. For example, take that little word WHY?  Harmless enough, isn’t it? After all, it’s a little word […]

Conversation Hijackers

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Spot the conversation hijack! It’s become a morning sporting event; spot the hijack! One of our local radio stations has a presenter who is a master of the conversation hijack. He can turn any topic around to himself in seconds: conversation with the weather or traffic or business support team, interview with a guest, or something…

 

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