One simple way to increase your productivity is to bunch similar tasks. Instead of doing one errand each day you do three days of errands in one afternoon. Instead of responding to emails throughout the day you reply maybe just twice or once a day. Or week. The advantage of bunching is that you can really get a lot done in a pretty short time. You just have to get into doing a task once. Then you can ride on the flow that the task creates to get the other similar tasks done quickly. I have found that this is often a whole lot better than if I just do one task at a time. If I do that then I have to start over and get into a flow with each task each time which wastes a lot of minutes and makes the tasks seem harder to get done. Some of the things/tasks/activities you can bunch are: Online Habits. I have found the method of removing easy access to bad habits to be effective to reduce procrastination and wasting of time. This little trick has reduced my normal web-browsing a lot and made me check things that had become annoying habits – things like blog-statistics, email and my RSS-reader – a lot less than the previous 8 times a day. Now I usually check all this stuff bunched once in the morning and sometimes once before I go to bed. Writing Your Blogposts. While reading blogs for the last year I found that a some prominent bloggers like to write a whole batch of posts in one sitting. Then they just use the future post-function in WordPress – which enables you to set a future date when the post automatically goes live – and go do something else for the day or week. I have found this way of working to be very attractive and useful for a blog like mine where the topics are pretty timeless. Also, on a related note, I remember a good advice from Yaro Starak on this topic. He said that when you get inspired, don't just write one post, write a whole bunch of them. And then just post them when you feel it's appropriate. Running Errands. An obvious one. Visit the barber, post-office, library and pick up some new flowers in one big swoop. Shopping. Instead of shopping for food and related products each day, or when you feel hungry, try to get most of grocery-shopping done once a week. Phone calls. I don't really do a lot of phone calls but have found that when you do a lot of them in a row then the first ones can feel a bit stilted and perhaps awkward. But when you have done a few of them you get warmed up and it get's easier to relax and get your points across to the people you are talking to. And that's some of my thoughts on bunching right now. I'm sure I'll return to this topic again, possibly quite soon as I'll start listening to Tim Ferriss “The 4-Hour Workweek” this week and I hear that he's a big fan of bunching.

I've mentioned all of these suggestions once or twice before but really like them since they are very useful if you want to improve your life. And, besides, I'd bet that few besides me have read the whole archive anyway. :) 1. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate! People often want appreciation from others. It can become a craving need. Instead, start to appreciate everything around you, such as: The sunshine and the weather. Your food. Your health. The people around you. Your friends, family, co-workers and just about anyone walking down the street. A good TV-show, a movie or a song. A good conversation. Your roof and your house. All the great things you can find online. Yourself. If you just look there is a lot to appreciate about yourself. It's a quick way to turn a sour mood into a more positive and useful one. Just try if for a minute and see how it changes how you feel. And it's a win/win solution. You feel great because you are appreciating your world and the people you appreciate feel great too because they feel appreciated. And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong they'll often start to appreciate you too thereby starting a growing upward spiral of positive thoughts and emotions. But don't focus too much on that though. Just focus on appreciating your world and let rest take care of itself. One way to use appreciation to get a good start in the morning is by asking yourself a set of questions. Read more about that in How to Start Your Day in a Better Way . 2. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. The more I do this, the more I discover that it is so key in improving your life. It's simply filling your life and time with more of what you want. The thing is that it is very easy to fall into a habit of focusing your thoughts on what you don't want rather than what you want. If you do that then it will be hard to get what you want in life. If you want to improve your finances then focus on having a great financial situation rather than your lack of money and your debts. If you want a new relationship then focus on meeting a lot of new people and forming great relationships rather than focusing on your loneliness and your lack. If you don't then you'll miss many opportunities that you mind just blocks out since it's focused on your lack. But if you do then opportunities will suddenly start to pop out of all that stimuli that is your world. Your mind can mostly just see what you focus it on. So focus on what you want in life. 3. Educate and explore yourself Self-education can be a great help to live a better life. Read great books on the areas of your life you want to improve. Maybe it's it your financial situation or your health. Or maybe it's your relationships. Ask people with more success in that area than you what they did to improve. If you have a problem in your life, most likely a lot of people have had that problem the last few thousand years. And, at least one of them – or more likely a few – has written down how they solved that problem. This is also a great way to get to know yourself better and understand why you think, feel and do – or don't do – the things you do. And knowing yourself better – and other people too, since we share so much that make us alike – is pretty useful if you want to improve your life and lives of other's too. Feed your mind daily – or weekly – with great solutions and inspirational and useful information. 4. Take a lot of action in your life Yeah, this one's maybe easier said than done. But there is also good information on how to go about it and it's a great way to improve your life. “Just do it!” is a nice slogan. But if you feel like you really can't do what you want then it will probably not be too helpful. If you feel that fear is holding you back from doing something then there are good and practical solutions that has been used throughout hundreds or thousands of years. One of my favourites is taking small steps and confront your fear little by little and thereby creating a momentum that let's you move on to the next step. Another is learning to surrender and accept the now. For more on that suggestion and other strategies to reduce fear (such as redefining failure), check out 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear . Other suggestions to remove or reduce blocks that stop you from taking action is to explore some techniques – such as guided meditations – that can help create a forward momentum within you. Procrastination is of course also a big problem when trying to take action and getting things done. My favorite technique to beat it so far is using the “Get around to it” Paraliminal . Paraliminals are a sort of guided meditations produced by Learning Strategies. 7 other free, and useful methods to beat this problem can found in this article (and you can find one more here ). 5. Improve your social skills So much of the happiness, value and fun in life come from interactions and relationships with other people. Improving those interactions and your communication skills can greatly improve your life. And – as a bonus – as you focus your attention more outward, toward other people instead of focusing inward much of the negative feelings that can come through overanalysing and feeling self-conscious mostly just disappear. You just are. And that's a pretty good feeling state to be and communicate in. Some suggestions for improving these skills can be found in Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation , Focus Outward to Win Friends and Improve Your People Skills and 17 Inspirational Quotes on People Skills . Also, check out 18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language for the ever important non-verbal communication.

After over 20 articles with inspirational quotes I thought I'd mix it up a bit and focus each of the upcoming posts on more specific areas. First up, one of the most important areas for pretty much everyone: people skills. I hope you can get a bit of wisdom and inspiration out of these quotes and from the people who have walked before us. Arguing with a fool proves there are two. Doris M. Smith The less you speak, the more you will hear. Alexander Solshenitsen The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the man you want to be. Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others. Wilfred Peterson No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. Aesop The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. Charles Lamb No one needs a smile as much as a person who fails to give one. Unknown A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want. Madonna As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do. Andrew Carnegie Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate. Albert Schweitzer Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again. Og Mandino You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one. Dale Carnegie Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. Aristotle I make progress by having people around who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am. Henry J. Kaiser If you envy successful people, you create a negative force field of attraction that repels you from ever doing the things that you need to do to be successful. If you admire successful people, you create a positive force field of attraction that draws you toward becoming more and more like the kinds of people that you want to be like. Brian Tracy A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group. Russell H. Ewing The people with whom you work reflect your own attitude. If you are suspicious, unfriendly and condescending, you will find these unlovely traits echoed all about you. But if you are on your best behavior, you will bring out the best in the persons with whom you are going to spend most of your working hours. Beatrice Vincent The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. Ralph Nichols

One way to kick a bad habit is to remove the easy availability. Here's an example. Since I've started blogging I've been checking up on the statistics of my readers and earnings several times a day. Many bloggers/webmasters fall into this habit. We all hope that our readership/earnings will increase so we watch our all of our statistics many times each day. This interrupts our workflow, wastes time and creates a habit of being disappointed. Your website may be growing, but it's most often a slow process. So checking too often mostly just means that you'll be disappointed. This will lead to doubts and possibly even giving up. So what did I do? I simply deleted the bookmarks to my statistics. You can do this with any bookmarks or shortcuts that have created an addiction for you. Maybe your addiction is to a forum, maybe it's to a frequently updated blog, maybe it's to a computer game. Now, if you want to visit the sites you have to have google it or type in the address manually. If you want to play then you have to go into the folder where the game is installed. This has saved me time and reduced negative energy. Since it's become a bit harder to access my statistics I check them much less, only once or twice a day. I have done the same thing to my RSS-reader. To access it now I google it and only quickly browse it once in the morning and maybe once at night instead of checking it something like eight times a day. You can also expand this beyond your computer. If you have a bad habit of eating too much sugar then don't have cookies and candy at home. I recommend having something to snack on though. I always keep some oranges and carrots in my apartment. When I feel the craving for candy, but find none in my kitchen then I eat an orange instead. Doing this will over time replace one habit with a more useful one and probably make you lose some weight too. Easy availability is one of the big reasons for developing stupid and unnecessary habits. Take an example like McDonalds. They are everywhere. It's so easy to just go in there and have a meal. The high availability increases the usage. Reducing the availability redirects you to take another, hopefully more useful path. This can also be used to your advantage in another way. If you want to establish a habit of writing down your goals each morning then, before you go to bed, put out the pen and paper where it's most visible at your desk. If you want to establish a habit of working out then leave your training clothes out on a very visible place in your room/apartment/house instead of having them tucked deeply into your closet. This tip is almost stupidly simple. But, when used, it works surprisingly well.

One common mistake in conversations of any kind is to turn your focus the wrong way. You (and I) may often focus too much on ourselves while at a party, at work, at school, online or in just about any setting instead of shifting your focus outward, toward the person we are talking with. Why do we do that? Please look at me and listen to me Well, one big reason I can come up with is a need for validation and approval. We want to be validated by people around us so we can feel good about ourselves and our interests. However, it can be hard to get that validation. Especially if you become needy and really want it so you prattle on about you and your life even though the person you are talking to may not be listening that attentively anymore. Which leads you down a downward spiral where your need for validation becomes bigger and bigger. How do you shift out of that “look at me and please validate me” mentality? Basically one idea is to give up or at least reduce the need for approval. How? By giving up the need for both negative and positive approval. The two are connected because when if you no longer crave positive cheers and approval from people then you will no longer have fears of not getting that approval either. When you really start to give it up – which might have to be done over time and with patience as your ego probably will want to snap back to seeking that sweet, sweet approval – you start to realise that neither of them are that important. They are really only as important as you decide they are. You are what you think you are and the world is what you think it is. And if you like, you can start to validate yourself instead of seeking such things from others. As we grow up we learn – through what may be called social programming or social conditioning – that to gain validation, appreciation etc. from others we can try to impress them. But frankly, I don't think that it that works that well to try and consciously impress someone. When you do that you are seeking a reaction and you will come across as needy rather than impressive, interesting or cool. However, if you talk about your passions and interests just because you like them so much, without thinking about wanting a positive reaction out of someone, then that is a better approach. It lets people see that you have things in your life you care about and, well, people seems to kinda like people with passions. Shifting the spotlight When you start to care less about what other people may think and say about you you'll gain freedom inside your mind to actually take the focus off yourself and develop a genuine interest for what the other guy/girl is saying. I believe that if don't decrease your need for attention and validation then it will be hard to actually be genuinely interested in other people you meet. Of course, you are not alone in focusing on yourself. People's favourite subject is often themselves. But if you can shift your attention outward, then here lies a strong power and possibility. If you focus on the one(s) you are talking to then you'll be an exciting exception. Much has been written about shifting the focus to the other person. Dale Carnegie, for instance, found this great benefit of doing just that: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.” Make it relatable In a conversation focus on what the other person is interested in. Ask question, listen – actually listen to what they are saying, don't just wait for your turn to talk (another skill that might take some time to develop) – and make a mental note of topics they bring up and seem interested in and then use those topics to continue the conversation. When you bring up a topic that the other person isn't not that interested in, then try to talk about it in a way that lets them relate the topic to their lives. By that I mean you can take your interest and talk about in a way that connects to anyone's life instead of going on about it in way that the other person will have a hard time relating to. If you, for example, are a banker then you may not want to talk too much about your new computer system or your day to day routine. Instead, you can for instance talk about how the changes in economy will affect a regular person and what he/she can do to get a positive result out of those changes. Make the topic interesting by making it relatable to the person you are talking to. Or drop the subject reasonably quick. Reinforcing the connection Another thing you can use to reinforce the connection and put the focus on the other person is to use their name. Also try to use words like you, me and I – or possibly even we and us – instead of indefinite, wishy-washy constructs like “one might”. This makes the conversation more personal and direct. Don't overdo it though or they might start to be reminded of overly personal and phoney salesmen that they've encountered. You can reinforce that you are actually listening by later reconnecting with what the two of you were talking about. An example where you do just that in a later conversation with a third person: “That's kinda like the thing you told me earlier about your job at the cruiser last summer”. Try to empathize by using full sentences “that must hard/fun for you“ instead of just using umms, oks and ahs. This can lead to a more active conversation and it kinda just feels better for however is talking. Also, you may want to be a bit careful with offering solutions if someone has a problem. Sometimes they just want to talk and receive empathy. All of this does – most of the time – not lead to hours and hours of you listening, empathizing and asking questions. The need to reciprocate is strong and if you show a genuine interest in people they'll soon start to return that interest. And the conversation becomes more balanced and interesting. But to still keep much of your focus outward in conversations also has added benefits that you may already have read about them in How to Make a Great First Impression . If not, here's what I wrote then: “The problem with an inward-focused meeting – where you focus on what you just said, how you look and what the other person thinks of you right now – can reduce anyone to a bumbling, second-guessing, fidgeting shadow of their former self as the self-consciousness becomes almost paralyzing.” Focusing outward is maybe a bit counter-intuitive. Reasonably you should try to focus the attention of everyone towards you to win respect, influence, friends and to find a lot of joy in communicating. But to instead focus outward, toward the one you are talking to, is a more useful way to gain and experience such benefits and to have great conversations.

A few days ago I stumbled upon a great little story. Who wrote it? No-one – at least reachable by Google – really seems to know. Update: It was written by Heinrich Ball. And there does seem to exist a few variations of it. Maybe you have heard it before. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and that you take a couple of minutes to reflect upon where you are going in life. An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked. “Only a little while.” The Mexican replied. “Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked. “I have enough to support my family's immediate needs.” The Mexican said. “But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then, senor?” The American laughed and said, “That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.” “Millions, senor? Then what?” The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Like everyone else I've spent some time thinking about why some people are so successful in life . And what factors in success that are under more personal control than others. Successful people might be intelligent. Or have had a socially well connected upbringings. Or be naturally energetic and open and positive. But a lot of the factors that make some people more successful at almost anything in life are very much under their control. And much can be improved in anyone's life by learning from the people that have gone before us. Here are some of the thoughts on success that I've come up with from reading/watching documentaries throughout the years about people such as Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry Ford. The following factors of success are just a few and I'm quite sure there are a lot more. 1. They make decisions and take action. Right or wrong action, they take it. Either way it's always better than making no decisions and taking no action at all. As Franklin Roosevelt said: “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 2. They do things even when they don't feel like it. I think this is a pretty huge factor. A lot of us back down when we don't want to do something, even though it may eventually bring us to a wonderful experience or goal. Successful people may not always like doing some of the things they have to do. But they do them anyway. And in the longer run that makes all the difference. 3. They do the most productive thing right now. Instead of trapping themselves in doing productive but not so important tasks or projects they realize what's most important and do that. And after they're done with that they do what's most important again. Instead of just doing a lot of things, they think and plan before they act and try to focus as much as possible of their thoughts and actions on those few very important things. 4. They do one thing at a time. Many of them don't seem to multi-task. Some reasons for avoiding that may be that it creates internal confusion, wastes time and spreads the multi-tasker too thinly. Instead, they do one thing and focus on that until it is done. Then they do the next thing until it is done. Focusing 100% on one task at a time will get it done quicker and better. 5. They have a positive attitude. A negative attitude can be very damaging and limiting to one's life. A positive one can open new doors every day. It can open your mind to new ideas and input and create or sustain great relationships. It helps you through the hard times as a successful person often sees an opportunity within what others would merely see as a problem. 6. They have redefined failure. While a lot of people see failure as a way to rationalizing the feeling of wanting to giving up or as a sign that it's actually time to do something else successful people tend to see it more as useful feedback. They may not like to fail, but they don't fear it – or at least they have little fear of it – and they know that if they fail they've been there before and they can start over again and succeed. This is of course a very useful belief and keeps successful people going while the rest have already given up. 7. They don't let fear hold them back. They overcome fear and slay that dragon whenever they face it. Or they may have defined or redefined reality so that fear is substantially decreased or even gone in some areas of their life. Doing this enables you to take action on your thoughts. This pulls down the barriers in the mind and create new roads and opens up to whole new possibilities. 8. They have found a purpose in life They are internally driven rather than externally driven. They do what they have a burning desire to do rather than conforming to what others think they should do. Even if what the others think may be positive and successful stuff. The Michael Jordans, the Edisons and the Stephen Kings have figured out what they want to do in life and are doing it (or did it). The purpose, I think, is largely why they can keep on going and be motivated while others may tire or just go and do something else that they find more purposeful. The successes love their purpose and when they aligned with it then it seems to push them forward with enthusiasm and energy through life. 9. They don't get distracted. When others get too caught up in everyday life to do what they really want to do the successes don't. They can really focus on actually doing what's important and what needs to be done. Again, this seems to go back to having a purpose and more clear sense of direction in life. 10. They value their time highly and plan it out well. A lot of people don't value their time that much. Successful people have a purpose in life and therefore they do. They have so much they want and an inner urge to do it and therefore need to plan well to use their days effectively. 11. They've got awesome communication-skills. So very much of what we do in life has to do with other people. So it seems quite obvious that to be successful you'll probably have to have good or great communication-skills (or hire someone that has such skills). People skills is fortunately something anyone can improve and develop. Have a look at Do You Do these 10 Mistakes in a Conversation . 12, They have an open mind and are willing to learn. Successful people take the time to study and learn – and often seem to really like doing it – what is necessary to improve their skills. They are open to thoughts, suggestions, solutions, new information and change rather than thinking they already know everything, that there is not much more to learn and that everything should be as it has always been. What to focus on? Now, what factors are the most important ones, where should one focus the energy? I am currently focusing on improving my ability to take action, doing what I may not feel like doing and doing the most productive thing right now. To me it seems like these three factors are very important and since they are pretty interconnected they are easy to combine. I think what you should focus on varies a lot. And it's up to everyone to figure that out for themselves. But if you're anything like me you probably already know what areas you need to work on.

First impressions can be quite important. Everyone stereotypes everyone on first impression, even if we are reluctant to do it. We all get a first impression of a new person that creates a mental image of his or her personality in our minds. That image of you often lasts and can affect the relationship that follows . Another thing is that we often play different roles in relationships. With our parents we play one role, with friends another, with someone we are interested in/in love with a third, when shopping for clothes in a store a fourth. And so on. A good or great first impression can create a positive role in the minds of the new people we meet. When we meet them again, we are often drawn back into this role. Sometimes it happens almost unconsciously until you after a few minutes notice that you have fallen into your old role – like when you meet friends you haven't seen in years – in that dynamic once again. You may not always be drawn into that role. But if you do it sure is better to have a positive than a negative role saved for you. Here are some of the things I've learned about improving first impressions. Of course, different environments like business meetings with suits and ties or parties with umbrella-drinks come with different goals and expectations so figure out what's appropriate and useful in each meeting. Act as if you are meeting a good friend If you just imagine that the person you have just met and are talking to is one of your best friends you'll probably adjust unconsciously and start to smile, open up your body-language to a very friendly and warm position and reduce any nervousness or weirdness in your tone of voice and body-language. Don't overdo it though, you might not want to hug and kiss right away. The nice thing about this is that you may also start to feel positive feelings towards this new person, just as you do with your friend when you meet him/her. This is a pretty good starting-point for getting them to reciprocate and for developing a good relationship. Keep you body language open Smile. Don't cross your arms or legs. Turn your body towards the people you're are shaking hands with or talking to so that your body language is friendly and open. Make relaxed eye contact – don't stare – when talking or listening. Don't look the person in the eye all the time. When you break eye-contact try to do it kinda slow, don't let your eyes just dart away. Making eye-contact can be a bit hard or scary but if you work at it you'll get used to it. For more tips, you may want to have a look at 18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language . Stand up straight Keeping a good posture certainly improves on the impression one makes. Don't slouch. Sit or stand up straight. Be positive Sometimes you can go in all positive in a first meeting. Sometimes it may not be the best approach to go in too positive as it can be seen as bit abrasive or inappropriate. A better way to convey a positive attitude in a first meeting can then be to read the mood of person(s) before you start talking – by just watching them – and then match it for a short while. Then – when you have an emotional connection and the other person feels you are similar to him/her – you can let your positivity arise a bit more. Regardless if you start out positive from the get-go or a short, short while into the meeting, be sure to positive. If you, for instance, start a first meeting by complaining, there's a big chance the people you meet will mentally label you as a complainer or a negative person. Don't think too much Try, as much as possible, to stay outside of your head and focus on the people you are talking to rather than focusing on yourself. Mentally rehearse before you even enter the room Visualize how great the events will unfold – see and hear it – and also how great will you feel at this meeting. See yourself smiling, being positive, open and having a great time. See the excellent outcome in your mind. Then release by visualizing that it has already happened, that the meeting is over with the desired result. This is surprisingly effective and will get you into a great and relaxed mood before even stepping into the first, second or twentieth meeting. You may also want to check out the ever-popular Do you make these 10 mistakes in conversation? for more information on stuff like listening, hogging the spot-light, what to talk about (and not to talk about) and the very common need to be right. What you say isn't that important I'd say that mental rehearsal followed by acting as if you're meeting a friend are the most important parts of all of this. They often solve the rest of pointers in this article unconsciously and automatically and keeps your thoughts focused outwards instead of inwards. The problem with an inward-focused meeting – where you focus on what you just said, how you look and what the other person thinks of you right now – can reduce anyone to a bumbling, second-guessing, fidgeting shadow of their former self as the self-consciousness becomes almost paralyzing. Also, as long as you try to use the first and the last point it doesn't really matter too much what word or phrase you use to start the conversation. The words are only 7 percent of your communication. 93 percent is in your tone of voice and your body-language. So, a simple “Hi!” may do just fine. And more of your time each week with people who are trying to improve themselves and/or are living a good life in a positive, healthy and relaxed way. You may also like: 120 New Beginnings Quotes to Help You Get a Fresh Start 101 Courage Quotes That Will Motivate and Inspire You 201 Short Quotes and Sayings about Life

Sometimes stress and negativity in general becomes so powerful that we almost feel like we can't deal anymore. We may temporarily or no so temporarily become angry, sad, depressed, apathetic over even burn-out and become unable to do what we used to do for weeks, months or even years. Finding ways to release the negative tension and stress becomes crucial to not only handle life but to live a happier and more meaningful life. Recently I've thought quite a bit about these things and done some brainstorming-sessions. Here are some of the ways I've come up with so far on how to live a more relaxing life. 1. Prioritize, reorganize and remove – One of the big problems with a life filled with stress is that it's filled with too much stuff to do and think about. Another big problem with a life filled with stress is perhaps not that it's filled with things to do but that a lot of those things are stuff you really don't feel like doing. You may feel that it's just something that you should do. Do you really have to do all things in life? Or are some of them just things you do by habit, not knowing really why you are doing them when you think about it? Or are you doing them because someone else thinks it's important? Or do you think that friends, neighbours or just people in general will look down upon you if you don't do it? I have found that using the 80/20 rule – also know as the Pareto Principle – to be effective when trying to figure out what's important in your life and what's not really that important. Basically what the 80/20 rule says is that 20 percent of what you do accounts for 80 percent of the value. I have found that as a rule of thumb, this is often pretty accurate. In your personal life or at work there are a few very important things that you can do. Try to figure out what's really important in your life. What those 20 percent are. Then do as much of that as you can. Try to figure out what isn't that important of the 80 percent. Minimize the time and effort it takes in your life or if possible remove it. Then use your “new” time to do more of those really important things. 2. Declutter your outer world – A cluttered environment can split your thoughts ten ways and make it hard to relax – or focus – as your thoughts shift all the time thanks to, for instance, constantly discovering new stuff on your desk (bills, candy, reports, mail your forgot to reply to etc.). Less clutter in your outer world creates less clutter in your mind both at work or at home. 3. Plan on paper then work in the now – Write everything down so you don't have to worry about forgetting something. Putting your plans outside of yourself in some kind of organizing-system to frees up mental RAM and allows your mind to work on other stuff than just trying to remember things. One of the reasons GTD – the organizing-system from David Allen's Getting Things Done – has become so popular is probably because it not only it keeps everything organized and helps you actually getting things done but also because it keeps you working in the now by using a organizing system outside of your head. Since you keep your plans and the future on paper or in an organizer-type of program and only do things one step at a time your mind doesn't have to spend much time, on a emotional and psychological plane, thinking and thereby worrying about what will happen next or this afternoon. This reduces fear, procrastination and stress while creating a flow in your work. 4. Always arrive early – I was reminded of this very commonsensical advice while reading this post about the grandfather of 93-year old blogger Don. Simply, always arrive at meetings and appointments 5-10 minutes early. 5. Find a good listener and just talk – If you have troubles one great way to release that negative energy is to talk about to someone about it. They don't have to come up with a solution to your problem. The point is just for you to talk about it and them mostly to listen. After you've poured it out it feels easier. Later, you can return the favour when they need a listener. 6. Meditate – I have had excellent results with guided meditations. I've tried Paraliminals from Learning Strategies. They have given me a very relaxing effect with almost no mental chatter for up to 24 hours. And the upside is that they are extremely easy to use. All you have to do is lie down, close your eyes and relax. And both products gave me a very noticeable result on the first try. There is of course a lot more to meditation and lot of other different and free meditation-techniques to try. Just google it and explore. 7. Watch/read your favourite tv-comedy, movie, book or websites – Laughter is awesome to release tension and just relax for a while. Since I like American Tv-Shows some of my recommendations are The Simpsons, Arrested Development, Frasier, Futurama and the Daily Show. 8. Breathe – The last few weeks I've started doing belly breathing exercises which has brought me both clarity of mind and a sense of calmness. 9. Exercise – Perhaps the most obvious advice of all. Exercise does not only release tension but also, over time, provides you with more energy to handle anything that might come up in your life. And there is a lot of good information online and you can find well filled authority-sites and helpful forums on most subsections of exercise. Again, just google around a bit and see what you find. 10. Fix the rest of the fundamentals – Perhaps the advice providing the largest impact on your life if applied. So, eat and sleep better. Stop or at least reduce smoking and drinking. And you'll not only feel more relaxed but better in almost every kind of way. 11. Redefine your problems – Are your problems really as big as you think they are? Or are you perhaps blowing them up to scary proportions in your mind? Often we build up our problems, just like fear and anger, in our minds. And then they quickly lose all proportions compared to the problem at hand. It's common to dwell on your problems 80 percent of the time but to only think about a solution 20 percent of the time. This, of course, magnifies any problem. Me, I've taken some good advice and started to flip those numbers around and try to spend 80 percent of my time focusing on a solution rather than the problem. Having a problem finding a solution to your problems? Maybe you haven't come up with enough solutions yet. 12. Find the opportunity hidden within the problem – Another thing about problems is that we often focus on the bad part of them. But there is almost always a good part too. Or at least an opportunity within the problem. Perhaps it teaches us to be more patient, how to live more frugally or become more empathic. Finding this more positive part of the problem reduces it's negative emotional impact and you may even start to see the situation as a great opportunity for you. When you are faced with a problem ask yourself: What is the good thing about this? What can I learn from this? And what opportunity can I find within this problem? 13. Surrender to your feelings – Instead of fighting your feelings accept them and surrender to them. And you'll find that the negative feelings quickly lose their power over you and fade away. Here's the practical formula, which I have written about several times before, for doing just that: When you feel a negative feeling then accept it. Don't try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life). Say yes to it. Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labeling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes. 14. Overcome or at least reduce your fears – This is of course not as easy as some of the suggestions above and can take months or years. But if you reduce some of your fears you'll start knocking down some of the walls in your life that are holding you back. When you start to reduce one fear you will to start to feel more freedom in that area of your life. That sense of freedom, the practical knowledge you acquire and knowing that you can lessen your fear dramatically, that it is possible and you have done it can start to seep into other parts of your life. And being able to do what you want and being able to be who you want to be and not being kept back by fear can relieve large amounts of stress and negativity and change any life in a remarkable way. For some practical tips have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear . One of the keys has already been described in this article (it's #13) but there are four more that can be very useful. Final Thoughts As usual with these larger articles with over a dozen tips: you may not want to try them all out at once. That would probably just lead to more stress and you frequently beating yourself up. Instead, just choose one or a few of the suggestions and try them out for a 30-day trial. That means using the tip every day for 30 days thereby making it a habit and something that you after a month can do more automatically and with less effort. Some of the most useful suggestions in this article, those can have a very large impact on your life, are tips like number 1, 9, 10, 13 and 14. I've still got another handful of suggestions on how to relaxify your life so I'll probably post another article with those later on.

Better breathing seems to be just about the simplest lifehack there is so lately I've been trying a couple of ways to improve that part of my life. Last year I tried one way of breathing recommended by Anthony Robbins. Basically, what you did was breathe in while counting to 1, hold your breath while counting to 4 and breathe out again while counting to 2. Robbins wrote that you should take 10 of these breaths, three times a day (morning, evening and before going to bed). I tried it for about two weeks, and I guess I might have done something wrong, but it only made feel a bit woozy and overall more tired. The last few weeks I've tried out a different approach. This one's called belly breathing and it's pretty common. The curious reader can get a lot more information by simply googling the term. So far it's been more successful compared to Robbins approach. I've noticed that belly breathing makes me feel more energized and clearheaded. It also brings a sense of calmness and sweeps away negative mental chatter. Here's how I go about it: Sit in a relaxing position with your legs apart. Put your hands on your stomach. Using your stomach breathe in slowly through your nose. If you are doing it right your stomach will expand and you'll feel it with your hands. Breathe out slowly through your nose and do it with some force so you feel your stomach pull slightly inwards towards your spine. Breathe in and out for about 30 times. Take deep and slow breaths. After you have taken 30 breaths and focused on counting them you should not only feel more relaxed and centered. Your body will also be able to continue breathing in this manner without you focusing on it. That's it. Continue with your normal day. I try to repeat this short exercise about 3-5 times a day to teach my body to eventually shift into belly breathing full-time.

Who is John Chow? Well, as far I know he's a pretty successful entrepreneur and dot com mogul from Vancouver, Canada. Apparently he rose to fame with The TechZone. But I've never visited that website, so… I am however a fan of his blog JohnChow.com . In fact it's the only semi-personal blogs that I read regularly. Mostly, I just read different niche-blogs on personal growth and blogging. John's blog is basically about the internet and blogging – often with thoughts on the business side of things – mixed up with odd ramblings about, and pictures of, things he eats. While reading John's blog for a couple of months I've learned a thing or two. Here are five of those lessons. Some are new, some are good reminders. Most are principles that apply not just to blogging but to many areas of life. 1. Be consistent – I'm, more and more, becoming a firm believer that one of the biggest keys to success is being consistent. John posts very regularly and with great frequency. The blog features a couple of semi-short posts almost every day of the week. Being that consistent is probably one of the largest factors to his blog growing so fast. Every time you visit there is always something new and – 7 times out of 10 something – interesting to read. 2. Be proactive – John's networking skills seems to be a lot more energetic and creative than that of your average blogger. He quickly expanded his MyBlogLog community by holding a competition for everyone that joined. Today that community has 714 members. He has also expanded his part of the pay-for-browsing network Agloco to an impressive 6000 members by networking and blogging about it. And he created the clever Adsense-ads that said stuff like “I love Steve Pavlina ” or “I love Darren Rowse” and placed those ads on their blogs. Almost every week John reminds an amateur blogger like myself about the importance of being proactive to be successful. 3. Keep optimizing – John often writes about new plugins for blogger-software WordPress or about other new opportunities for bloggers. But he doesn't just blog about it but actually tests things out and, after a while, reports back. He seems to constantly be experimenting to optimize his blog and business. Every little bit counts in every part of your life. And those little bits soon add up to vast improvements. 4. Mix it up, lighten up and have some fun – One of the big factors that always keeps me coming back to John's blog is that he writes well and, pehaps even more importantly, keeps a light mood in all his posts. I like how he manages to share a bit about his dining out-experiences and other personal stuff once in a while and not make it dull or that incongruent with the rest of the posts. For some reason it seems like his mouth-watering pictures and restaurant-reviews fit right in with rest of the site. And that mix plus the consistency in tone and mood makes the reading a whole lot more fun. 5. Give. Sooner or later you shall receive – In a few short months John has gone from making zero bucks on his blog to making a couple of thousand dollars a month. Not bad. And even though he's the “self-proclaimed root of all evil” John seems to be a pretty good guy. He does nice write-ups about interesting sites once in a while, like this post about 12 year old blogger Paris Spence-Lang. John also donates all his blog-earnings to his church and other charities. I think John's sharing and giving attitude certainly is a big factor in his quick blogging success (and probably earlier successes too). What goes around always seems to come around. Sooner or later. This was a part of John Chow's Review my Blog project. This is also the second article in the on-going series – and category in the right navigation column – “Lessons I have learned from…”. If you like, you can read the first article called 9 lessons I have learned from George Costanza. It's actually 9 lessons plus 1 bonus lesson because I fumbled with the title. :)

What is stopping you from getting what you want in life? Your friends? Your family? A sense that failure – or success – might change your life and that feeling uncomfortable? A sense that the people around you might disapprove of you aiming for what you want, of you succeeding or failing. Essentially it boils down to fear. The big roadblock, sometimes the massive wall in the middle of road that keeps you from getting what you want. How to overcome it? Here's some useful ways I have found so far. 1. Taking small steps This is good for fear that can seem overwhelming at first. For instance the strong feeling – it can almost feel like a flight or fight-response – just before doing public speaking or asking someone out for a date. If you're for instance nervous socially you might not feel able to ask people out on dates right away. The fear of being rejected and that others might think less of you if you get turned down can make many of us feel unable to ask the question. A solution is to take small steps instead . Steps like first just saying hi to people. Or starting to talk more to people online via forums and Instant Messaging. And then trying to be more involved in conversations to exercise your conversation-muscles. I guess one could say that you gradually de-sensitize yourself to social situations or whatever you are afraid of. Or, seeing it in a more motivating way, building courage and expanding your comfort zone in this part of your life (which is something that often bleeds over to other areas of life too.) So, identify your fear. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort. 2. Getting some concrete, positive motivation Getting to the stage where you really feel that you need to stop waiting – or need stop reading one personal development book after another – and take action can take some time. One way to get moving is to replace some of your negative thoughts – that creates negative feelings – with clear, positive reasons to get going. Take 5 minutes. Take out a piece of paper and a pen. And write down all the wonderful ways you can come up with how making this change will improve your life. Lack of motivation can get you stuck while contemplating how much your life sucks. If you don't become clear on you motivation it can become hard to get going and knowing why you are actually need to change. Writing down all the wonderful things you will gain in your life by overcoming this fear can be powerful. Focus on those positive things to get motivated and inspired. Revisit your page of paper when you feel discouraged, uncomfortable or afraid. Even if it loses it's inspiring effect gradually, it can be the initial trigger to unstick you. The spark to get you started to take those first actions that sends you into an upward-spiral of thought and action. 3. Seeing failure and rejection in a new light Often it's easier to not do something because we fear failure and rejection. We may fear failure when starting on a new career-path. And rejection from friends, family and the people around us if we fail. Or we might be afraid of being rejected when asking someone out. However, as I have written before, the definition of failure we are brought up with in society might not be the best and most useful to have. If you look at the most successful people you quickly notice that they have a different response to failure than the more common one. They don't take failure or rejection that seriously. They know it's not the end of the world if they fail. Instead they look at each failure and see the good part about: what they can learn from it and improve next time. They have an abundance-mentality. They know that if their first business-venture fails it feels like crap for a while but it's OK in the long run. They learn from it and then they try again. If they are rejected for date, do they give up? Probably not. They know that next week or the week after they might find someone else that's interesting and ask them out. They know that there are a lot of good people out there. That there are a lot of good business opportunities out there. But they have also learned that to become successful at anything you have to fail perhaps 5, 10, 20 times or more. The morning of day when you learned to ride a bike you fell of it time and time again. But you just brushed yourself of, perhaps cried for minutes or two and then you got up on the bike again. And towards the afternoon, or the next day, you probably started to become pretty good at riding your bike. The same applies here. You have work on your skills to sharpen them. See failure or rejection not as something incredible negative that might end your life if it strikes. Redefine it in your mind to lessen the negative emotional impact and the fear. See failure simply as feedback on what you need to improve on . Listen to the advice the failure gives you and you will improve. And success will come. 4. Being in the now What this means is to keep yourself steadily in the now. Not letting your thoughts and emotions run away to the future or the past. That doesn't mean that you don't make plans, of course. You might think about asking someone out. You make plans on when to do it or perhaps what to say. But being in the now means to not getting your mind stuck in a kind of psychological and emotional headspace that is placed in the past or future. It means not dwelling on what has gone wrong before and what could go wrong tonight or tomorrow. Such thinking will only create and ramp up your fear to the point where you feel unable to do anything. And just feel like running away. Instead, make your plans. Then just be and don't think about the future. Focus on the now and what needs to be done now. The future will be the now soon enough. And when you're arrive there it will be much easier to get things done when you have created a minimal amount of stress and fear within your mind. Whenever you feel fear, your mind is often dragged into a hypothetical, future scenario where you think you might fail. Your brain is over-analyzing a possible situation , which leads for many of us, to a negative, downward spiral of thoughts. This expands and empowers your fear to the point where you become almost paralyzed. So, how do you beat the fear in such situations? You stop fighting. You surrender. How to surrender: Let me explain. By surrender, I don't mean that you should give up and go home. Instead, when you feel fear then accept the feeling. Don't try to fight it or to keep it out (like many of us have learned throughout life). Say yes to it. Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labeling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes. I've mentioned this technique in several different articles already. And, yeah, I'm still amazed of how well it works. :) As you surrender to the fear instead of fighting it the negative energy will pass through you and your body will release it. And you can return to focusing on the now once again. Focusing on the now not only reduces fear but also increases the chances of you succeeding as your mind is focused, your confidence ain't shattered and your thoughts become clear. It also makes it easier to succeed because when you are in the now you are not that self-conscious – something that quickly can lead to insecurity – but instead focused on the outside world and people you are interacting with. 5. Redefining you, me and reality To change yourself and overcoming fear you have to be prepared and willing to redefine yourself. You have to be willing to try these things out for yourself and keep practicing. No one can do it for you. But if you do that you can make what may seem to you to be big progress pretty quickly. And when you get used to it and these things become more and more habitual you will start to do them naturally. But since it seems that just about everyone is addicted to their own personality, consistent change in behavior will still probably be kinda slow and gradual (with some epiphanies). An addiction to positivity can lessen the fear in your mind of what might happen in a new, unfamiliar situation or how someone might respond to what you are saying. A negative view of the world can create fear and hold you back. But if you, for instance, become more positive – try the Positivity Challenge! – many of the people you meet will respond in a similar manner. In general, no matter how you think about the world, people are often like a somewhat of a mirror for you. Change will be hard if you deep down still think: I am this shy or negative or scared person. “That's just who I am”, you tell yourself. “Always have been, always will be”. And will be the truth for you as long as you think it's the truth. If you are prepared and ready to change, you can however rewrite what you perceive as the truth about yourself and your personality, thoughts, actions and emotions. Something I've recently started to think about and apply is what's called Subjective Reality. Although I don't fully understand it yet – I think – basically what it means is that there is no separation on the world. There is no you and I separated from each other (like in the more common worldview many of us are accustomed to). Instead we are one. You might not fully understand it or internalize it – I haven't yet – but just going into a conversation with perspective that you and the other(s) are connected and really just one can be very useful. When you apply this perspective on the world it's a lot harder feeling fear. Or being mean or unkind. Just like it's hard to do those things to yourself. Without the perspective of separation it seems like you – almost automatically – become calmer, kinder, less fearful and more open. It feels like you are naturally connected to the rest of the world. Steve Pavlina has written a lot about Subjective Reality, so if you want to explore that further I recommend this link . As for now and for me, I am focusing mainly on numbers 4 and 5. And I believe I'm just beyond getting started. I can probably deepen the understanding and application of those two points for months and years. A replacing such deeply – socially and habitually – ingrained beliefs and ways of thinking will probably take some time. So, I'll get back to my thoughts on and experiences with fear in the future. Now, what are your tips for overcoming fear?

One of my favourite snippets of movie-dialogue is this one from the 1999 film Three Kings. In this scene Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) wants the small team to save a fellow soldier and steal Saddam's gold just after the war in Kuwait has ended. The young soldier Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) has his doubts about the plan: Archie Gates: You're scared, right? Conrad Vig: Maybe. Archie Gates: The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it. Conrad Vig: That's a dumbass way to work. It should be the other way around. Archie Gates: I know. That's the way it works. I think many things in life works just about like that. Of course, watching other movies, reading the paper and books or watching our favourite sit-com for a couple of decades conditions us to think it's the other way around. Someone does something because they are simply courageous. Someone creates something awesome because they are just that inspired. That certainly happens. But I think it's often better not to wait for that perfect day or moment when you feel courageous or inspired as such times can come sporadically to say the least. It's better and more effective to just get going. But it can seem as a lot harder. Often, though, it only feels really hard and difficult before you start and during the first few minutes. Once you confront what you have to do then the tension releases, melts away and the inspiration or courage starts to seep in. I have often had troubles getting going with writing a blogpost these last few months. I procrastinate by surfing aimlessly, checking the Pavlina forums, optimizing functions on the blog and checking my email. I like writing and sometimes I feel inspired and almost pounce on my chair to start tapping the keys. But many times I have a hard time getting started and being as productive as I could be. It's pretty much the same thing with times I when have had to be courageous. It's like in Three Kings – but seldom as scary or dangerous though. But you have force yourself and when you're get going (or in some instances, when you are done) you get the courage you would wished for before you started. When it comes to these kinds of situations I find it easier to get going by simply not thinking to much about what you are about to do. Over analysis can, and will often, create a hell of a lot more fear in your mind than the situation warrants for. So, I've started to give up waiting. When it comes to inspiration I just force myself to sit down and open one of the couple of dozen ideas for an article I have laying around. And lo and behold, after a few minutes words just starts pouring out of my fingers. And as a bonus a few ideas for other posts always start popping up in my head. So, if you want to get some inspiration or courage, just force yourself to get started (something that I'd like to add gets easier every time you try it). It might not be sexy, cool, complicated or just like in – most of the – movies you've seen. But it works.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anais Nin I think that one of the most effective ways to improve your life is simply to think in a more positive way. This is of course nothing new and not that simple. If it was, well, then at least most of us would already be doing it. So, why aren't we more positive? I can think of a few reasonable reasons. We think it is like it is. It's easy to confuse what has happened to you, the story of your life, with now and the future. The past does not necessarily equal the future. If you believe it does then it does. But if you don't if you believe it does then it doesn't. If you change your way of thinking you can change your behavior, habits and your life. Social programming. A big reason many think that things are like they are and will always be that way is because no one ever told them that there was an alternative. The school, newspapers and other influential forces tells us we have a life and an identity that is us throughout our lives. And at least in much of the media, negativity is the normal filter to view the world through. We hear this every day when we are young and very impressionable. Then we continue believing it and it becomes a part of our sense of self . And we continue our lives on that path. Lack of energy. Changing the many negative and neutral thoughts in our day to day life to positive ones can take quite a bit of energy. If you are stressed out by work and your personal life, if you aren't eating and sleeping well and don't take time to exercise there will be a lack of energy. And with that lack it's easy to just feel too damn tired to change your thoughts, to just give up and revert to the familiar way of thinking. Too reactive and mindful of what others may think. You may think, if I change and become more positive, what will other people say? That I'm weird, hyper, over-compensating or unhappy on the inside? Will they laugh, mock me and question this change in outlook on life? Or perhaps, they will actually like it and it will give me new opportunities down the line. Maybe it will bring success and my relatively comfortable life will be shaken up and change. Yeah, such worries can be some scary thoughts . Lack of motivation. Not knowing exactly what's in it for me on a personal and beneficial level. Wanting to be right. Most of us have an ingrained sense that what we believe is right. Even though a belief we have might not be that useful. Or makes our lives out right miserable. It can be hard to give up a belief because then we have to give up being right. We tried but failed (once or twice). Throughout our lives, in school and society we are taught that we should not fail, that it is bad. This can make us very reluctant to take chances and keep trying beyond the initial attempt. A lack of knowledge/too much disempowering information. You will most likely fail several times at first. You will make mistakes. You may be met with negativity or disinterest. It may take more than a weekend to get the success you envision. It may take longer than you think, perhaps months. And that is ok, that is normal. Not knowing how the world (most of the time) works can discourage you. And the information about how the world works that you get from media, the people around you and society may not always be that accurate and effective. Instead, seek out relevant information for yourself to set your expectations to a reasonable level. Get information from a variety of different sources. And get it from people that have experience and knowledge about what you are interested in. A good starting point can be your local library, bookstore or amazon.com. 10 reasons why you should become more positive You will create a better world around you as your surroundings will become affected and change due to your positive thoughts and actions. You will make better first impressions. Everyone stereotypes, whether they want or not. A positive first impression can mean a lot in many situations and have a lasting effect throughout your relationship with that person. You will focus on the good things in people. Not their faults. This will make things much better overall and improve all kinds of relationships. It's easier to become more successful when you stop laying obstacles in the middle of the road in the form of negative thoughts. Work becomes more fun. Everything becomes more fun. You become more attractive. People like positive people. Positive people make other people feel good about themselves and they don't drag the mood down. Also, a positive attitude is an indicator – and source – of high self-confidence, a quality that just about everyone is attracted to. Being negative has very little concrete advantages and is not a very empowering way to look at life. It opens up your mind to focus on other ways of looking at things. Sometimes wonderful new ways you might not ever have thought about or experienced before. It puts the Law of Attraction to better use. The Law of Attraction basically says: whatever you think about you attract into your life. As you replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts you will start to attract more positive opportunities and people into your life. You'll waste less time. Negativity can be like a self-feeding loop. First you think one negative thought. It leads you to three more. And then you start examining your life in deeper detail through a depressing lens. When you get into a vicious cycles like this it can eat up hours, weeks and years of your life. It can drain a lot of your energy whilst trapping you in paralysis by analysis. And you probably won't become that much wiser in the process. “Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.” – Viktor Frankl The Positivity Challenge is this: For 7 days you will try to only think positive thoughts. Whatever happens to you will see the good side of it and what positive things you can learn and take away from it. By the end of the week you will have started to discover the very real benefits of a positive thinking, how much negative thoughts there are both in you and the world (you might be surprised) and begun establishing a new habit to replace your old, less constructive one. And then you can continue from there. What I suggesting here is not a mindless kind of positive thinking where you pretend everything is OK whilst the house and your bed is actually on fire. Instead it's you noticing a situation or stimuli and then choosing a positive and useful response to it instead of reacting in a knee-jerk way. It's you focusing on what could be a more positive and useful solution for you. Or even better, what could be a win-win situation if the situation involves other people (which many important situations in our lives do). A win-win solution is more often an even more satisfying and beneficial solution than the one where only you win. Now, how to go about it? Here are three tips for the first week. Cut the negative threads quickly. Only allow yourself to go on a negative thread of thought for a set time-period, perhaps 30 seconds or a minute. Then just cut it off, drop it and think about what positive things you can get out of this situation. Don't feed the negative thoughts with more energy or you might trap your mind in a downward spiral of overthinking and anxiety for quite a while. If you start going down a negative thread of thought it is important to cut it fast. Realize that it is possible to choose what you think about and how you react. You don't have live your life in reaction. Being reactive to everything is not very empowering. You have a choice. But it might take some time to make this click in your mind. Even though I understood this intellectually pretty fast it took a longer time to understand and accept it emotionally and on a deeper level. Focus on the gap between stimuli and reaction. The more you think about this and try to use it by consciously choosing, over time (for me it was months but it can surely be achieved quicker) the gap will appear larger and larger and that will make the process easier. Accept your feelings, don't deny or refuse them. Although it's often possible to just quickly cut off negative thoughts sometimes it might not be enough. Negative emotions can build up within you over time or you might feel be overwhelmed by a certain situation. Then you can try the counter-intuitive way and not keep the feeling out by fighting it. Instead, accept the feeling. Say yes to it. Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without judging it. If you just let it in and observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes. It sounds weird but give it a try. In addition, here's a bunch of other suggestions – some of them you might not be able to use fully within a week but instead over a longer time-span – to make this challenge easier and improve your life. Get the physical fundamentals down. If you don't have time to sleep a healthy amount of hours, eat properly and get exercise then you need to reprioritize. If you don't do this it will be harder to become and stay positive. If you do reprioritize, your general sense of well-being will increase, you will feel stronger and have more energy. Act as if. Smile to feel happier. Move slower to relax. Use positive language. Act as if you are a positive person and you will start to feel and become more positive. It might feel weird at first, but it really works. Start your day in a better way. Check out these five tips for a better beginning to your day. Limit your time with really negative people. Some people feed on negative energy and whatever you try it never pleases them or changes their sour minds and moods. If nothing you do works then finally you might have to cut them out of your life or at least limit your time with them. Model positive people. Find positive people in your surroundings or anywhere in time and space (through documentaries, biographies etc.) and learn from them. Find out how they handle everyday life, problems, setbacks and compare it to your own thoughts and how you would handle similar situations. Focus on the now and future, not the past. A lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about on the mistakes they made in past. A better way is to think about the mistake you made and what you can learn from it. Then stop wasting your time and shift your focus to the present and the future where you can actually make a change. Redefine “failure” and “proof”. You don't have to learn much about successful people to realize that one of their key-strengths is that their way of looking at failure is widely different from more common one in society. As Michael Jordan said: I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Also, in a similar vain, thinking one example represents the whole world might not be the most helpful belief to hold. Yes, someone may have cheated on you, treated you badly at work before you were fired and your first business venture may have gone down in flames. But applying one or two bad examples to the whole world and the rest of your life will cause suffering for you long after those hurtful events happened. And could set you up for even more pain and disappointment through self-fulfilling prophecies and the Law of Attraction. I don't think these all these words are the truth about how the world around you and me works. Just as a pessimistic (or realistic) view of the world is not the truth either. I don't believe there is one truth, but rather that the world changes due to the beliefs you have about it and the actions you take based on your beliefs. I do believe that this is a more useful model of how to view and interact with the world than a pessimistic one and that it's a more enjoyable way of thinking. It is a way of thinking that increases happiness and joy in life. Something I think just about everyone wants. “Though I might travel afar, I will meet only what I carry with me, for every man is a mirror. We see only ourselves reflected in those around us. Their attitudes and actions are only a reflection of our own. The whole world and its condition has its counterparts within us all. Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change.” – Kirsten Zambucka

This is part 4 in the series How to double your productivity. Here's a couple of thoughts and questions I have found to be quite effective when trying to determine the potential value of an activity, task or action. Using them can enable you to reach more clarity in your decision-making and to set the priorities in your life straight. Check the future impact This small tip takes the focus away from short-sightedness. Before you do something, simply to ask yourself: What would be the future impact in my life if I did this? Note both the negative and the positive consequences of your potential choices. This can save you many hours of doing pointless things that leads nowhere. The things you do find holding positive possibilities for you are the ones to pour energy and time into. See it from the future. And then even further out. Here you're using the perspective of time once again to see the potential impact of your choices. When you think about a larger decision (or perhaps not such a large one), close your eyes. Then visualize yourself and your life 5 years from now. First, imagine that you didn't make that decision. Ask yourself this: What have I missed out on by not making that decision or taking that action 5 years ago? What are the feelings, the people, the experiences, the results I have missed out on? And really try to visualize and feel it. Then, with your eyes still closed, imagine this: You made that decision or started that activity 5 years ago. Ask yourself: What did it bring me? What were the feeling, experiences, results and people has it brought into my life these past 5 years? How much has my life changed by me doing what I did? Then, if you wish, try imagining yourself 10 years from now. Ask yourself the same questions again. Gauge the extent of the positive and negative consequences. By putting things in a longer time-perspective it can become easier to find what's really important to you. If I knew then what I know now. I first heard about this one from Steve Pavlina and it concerns the now rather than the future. It checks the course you are already on and the choice you have already made to see if it's something you still want to do. If it's something that aligns with the person you are today. Ask yourself: Knowing what I know now, would I ever have gotten started with this project, career etc. if I had to do it all over again? If the answer is no, perhaps you should stop whatever you are doing. You don't have to stick with things until the bitter end and always finish what you've started. If what you're doing no longer gives you the results you want, then maybe it's time to try and find something better for yourself. In the next few days, part 5: on finding and working from your values.

This is part 3 in the series How to double your productivity. Here's a thing I wish they taught us in school. Or maybe they did and I wasn't listening. In 1906 the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the income in Italy was received by 20% of the people. This was later developed into the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80-20 rule and the law of the vital few) by quality management guru Jospeh M. Juran. It goes something like this: In many cases and for many phenomena 20% of the causes accounts for 80% of the consequences. This means that 80% of the causes only accounts for 20% of the consequences. So, focus your time and energy on those important 20% of tasks and activities that will give you 80% of the results. Identifying those 20% is often not that hard. If you write a list of ten things you have to do today or right now and order them, from top to bottom, in order of importance then the first one or two things at the top of the list will most likely account for 80% of the value in your life. It's worth the time to take a few minutes and try to figure out which of all the things you feel you have to do that are the really crucial ones. Today, for me, such a thing is to study for tests in school next week. Some other things I also have to do are to go food-shopping, do the dishes and get some new light-bulbs. Getting the first thing done will obviously have much higher value and consequences to me than the other three. I've also used the principle in another way in school. Since, in some courses, lectures don't provide much value to me I have skipped a lot of them. I found that I could both learn and get the grade I wanted more effectively by focusing on reading the books for the course. It was more effective for me. For others it might be more effective to keep the main-focus on the lectures and less on the books. When writing an article for a paper or a blog, the first 20% of the text will often account for 80% of the number of readers. Meaning: focus a lot of time and effort on the headline and possibly the first 2-3 sentences. For headline-tips, I suggest reading the excellent copyblogger.com. To have a successful blog (repeated over and over again in numerous “How to build a better blog”-lists everywhere), the important 20% seems to be to fill your blog with useful and valuable content. In the end, that's what your readers want and what will make them come back over and over again to your website. I find that keeping the Pareto Principle in mind during the day keeps my mind on what is most important thing I could do right now. It keeps the mind on track and your own priorities from getting screwed up by all kind of things, thoughts and people. It brings a kind of clarity into your life, since it keeps you focused on the important things and alleviates the stress of feeling that “you have to do” many of the less important things. It frees you from rules such as “I have to attend every lecture” and lets you make your own rules. It makes life easier and often gets you where you want to go faster and smoother. Before you do something, ask yourself: does this belong to the 20% group? A problem when trying to use this principle is that the crucial 20% is often things we procrastinate about. It might because sometimes it's hard work. And these few activities can have a big effect on our lives and change can be uncomfortable. You could have a look at 7 ways to move beyond procrastination to get started. The most effective thing though might just be to see the results of focusing on those few important tasks and activities. When you start to see some real, positive feedback it can really make a difference in the way you feel and think. Finally: think of the Pareto Principle as a rule of thumb. It's not an exact measurement. In some case it might be a 90-10 ratio instead of 80-20. In some cases it might be less. Now, in what ways can you use the Pareto Principle? And what 20% of your life brings you 80% of the value? In the next few days, in part 4: Some additional ways to tell if what you're doing is really the best thing to do.

This is part one in the series How to double your personal productivity. One simple way to get an increased sense of well-being is to declutter your life. What declutter means is just to remove all those things that you don't really need. Since clutter and procrastination is closely tied together I've started using the Make a small deal with yourself-technique: Promise yourself that you'll work on something for just 5 minutes. After those 5 minutes you can do something else if you want to. But make a note on your schedule when you will come back to the task and work another 5 minutes with it. Not matter how unpleasant a task may be, you can often talk yourself into working 5 minutes on it. And the thing is, you often don't have to schedule another 5 minutes that day. Decluttering often takes just 5-15 minutes. And when you have done your first 5 minutes you'll most likely feel that you should just get it all done. The important thing is to get going. Often it starts to feel good going through all that old junk and cleaning it out. If not, then break it down into 5 minute parts. If there is a lot of clutter everywhere don't get overwhelmed and fall into procrastination-mode. Do 5 minutes in one room a day. Or start by doing one small task a day. Declutter your old receipts or your old magazines. Do it every day and pretty soon it's all decluttered. I've found it helpful to put all the stuff you want to get rid of on the floor in the middle of the room. I put it all in piles and start going through it. The messiness of it all makes it easier. You just want to get rid of that annoying pile. Get a couple of boxes or bags. Put the things you want to save in one of them, the stuff you want to sell/give in another and get a trashcan for the junk. Use your trashcan liberally. If you're unsure if you should throw something away, think about how much you have used it in the past. Then think about how much use you'll have from it in the future. Then you'll probably want to throw it away. Declutter your workspace I find it very satisfying to remove old coffee-cups from my desk, sort my stuff and throw out what I don't need. A decluttered and ordered workspace brings clarity and order to the mind. Avoid putting post-its all over your screen and desk. Use a program that collects all those thoughts and reminders. I use My Life Organized. Using 5 minutes a day to keep your workspace clutterfree not only makes you happier and more efficient. According to a series of interviews that Brian Tracy cites 50 out of 52 managers would not promote a person with a messy desk. Even if the person was doing a good job. They couldn't trust a position of responsibility to someone who couldn't keep himself organized. Take a look at you workspace and see what it might reflect about you as a person. You might want to look into the Getting Things Done-system (often refered to as GTD). It will keep you better organized and reduce the clutter in both your physical workspace and your inbox. The book you want to get is called Getting Things Done and is written by David Allen. Declutter your home One way to have a more clutterfree home is to bring less stuff into the house. If you buy a lot of things on impulse and then just use it one time you might want to reconsider that habit. Pause and think before you put something in your shopping-cart. Don't bring junk-mail into your home. I've started to move that kind of mail directly from the mailbox to the nearest garbage can. Give away all the stuff you don't need. Or to take a couple of minutes to check Ebay. Whatever things you've collected throughout the years could actually be something people are willing to pay a surprising amount of money for. Got old furniture no one uses? Put an ad in the paper for it. Take 5 minutes to do the dishes, take 5 minutes to fold the laundry and put it where it's supposed to be. Don't let these things pile up. Getting those small tasks done will bring you a sense of relief. Use boxes to store magazines, toys and other random things that otherwise just lies around. If you have a system with written or mental labels then it will be easier to keep things organized and in their right place. Declutter your computer and online habits Declutter your RSS-feed. Just keep the ones that really gives you value. Remove the rest. Declutter your bookmarks. Go through it and remove bookmarks you never use. Organize the rest into categories. It will make it a lot easier to find what you are looking for. Remove bookmarks that you click impulsively but really doesn't provide much value. These can be real time-hogs and easily break your concentration countless times each day. Shut of your Instant Messengers to avoid interruptions. Don't put of answering emails for days or you might forget them. Clean out the ones you don't need. Defragment your computer, remove the programs you never use, use a program to remove spyware. And clean up your desktop, delete what you don't need and organize what you need in folders. Declutter your life TiVO your favourite TV-shows and fast-forward through the commercials. Limit the number of shows you watch and only watch the ones you've decided on in advance. Cancel subscriptions of magazines that you never get around to reading anyway. Always carry a pen and paper. Write down every important thought. Getting it out of your head not only frees your mind to think about more important things. It also reassures you that none of those excellent ideas and must-dos are forgotten. Time is one of your most valuable resources. Don't do something or keep something just out of old habit. What value does this thing or habit hold for you today? What would the impact in the future be if you did it/kept it? If the habit or thing doesn't hold much value or won't have an important effect on your future then consider removing it from your life. And fill that space and time in your life with something better. Learn to say no. If you constantly say yes you'll be out of spare time before you know it. Much of your time will be spent doing things for others that you may not really want to do. And stress and unhappiness will ensue. Think about a suggestion and before you say yes ask yourself; do I really want to do this? What is the value in doing this? Do I really have the time to do it? Sometimes you have to do it anyway, but not always. You might want to be kind and helpful to people. But being overstressed and eventually burning out will not help you or anyone else. Ask for help. See what advice your friends and co-workers have to give. If you know or meet someone who keeps their workspace, home or other part of their life clutterfree ask how they do it. Try their advice and see if it works for you too. Making decluttering a, for the most of the time, small but significant habit doesn't just increase your productivity. A couple of minutes a day let's you rediscover those pieces of interesting stuff you forgot in the piles of junk. It can make you money. It allows you experience the joy of giving and others the joy of receiving. It helps you shed layers of confusion. And as your outer world influences your inner world your mind becomes calm and clear. Check back tomorrow for the next part on How to double your personal productivity.

Can you improve your conversation skills? Certainly. It might take a while to change the conversation habits that's been ingrained throughout your life, but it is very possible. To not make this article longer than necessary let's just skip right to some common mistakes many of us have made in conversations and a couple of solutions. And if you want more in-depth training then join us in my 12-week, step-by-step Smart Social Skills Course where I share the very best things I have learned in the past 8 years about improving social skills and relationship habits. 1. Not listening. Ernest Hemingway once said: “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Don't be like most people. Don't just wait eagerly for your turn to talk. Put your own ego on hold. Stop being lazy in a conversation and learn to really listen to what people actually are saying. When you start to really listen, you'll pick up on loads of potential paths in the conversation. But avoid yes or no type of questions as they will not give you much information. If someone mentions that they went fishing with a couple of friends last weekend you can for instance ask: Where did you go fishing? What do you like most about fishing? What did you do there besides fishing? The person will delve deeper into the subject giving you more information to work with and more paths for you choose from. If they say something like: “Oh, I don't know” at first, don't give up. Prod a little further. Ask again. They do know, they just have to think about a bit more. And as they start to open up the conversation becomes more interesting because it's not on auto-pilot anymore. 2. Asking too many questions. If you ask too many questions the conversation can feel like a bit of an interrogation. Or like you don't have that much too contribute. One alternative is to mix questions with statements. Continuing the conversation above you could skip the question and say: “Yeah, it's great to just get out with your friends and relax over the weekend. We like to take a six-pack out to the park and play some Frisbee golf.” Or you can say: “Nice. We went out in my friend's boat last month and I tried these new lures from Sakamura. The blue ones were really great.” And then the conversation can flow on from there. And you can discuss Frisbee golf, the advantages/disadvantages of different lures or your favourite beer. 3. Tightening up. When in conversation with someone you just meet or when the usual few topics are exhausted an awkward silence or mood might appear. Or you might just become nervous or worried not knowing exactly why. Here’s three things you can do in such a situation: Be on top of what’s happening out there. Leil Lowndes once said: “Never leave home without reading the newspaper”. If you're running out of things to say, you can always start talking about the current news. It's also good to stay updated on current water cooler-topics. Like what happened on the latest episode of Lost. Use your surroundings. Comment on the aquarium at the party, or that one girl's cool Halloween-costume or the host's mp3-playlist. You can always start new conversations about something in your surroundings. Assume rapport. If you feel nervous or weird when meeting someone for the first time assume rapport. What that means is that you imagine how you feel when you meet one of your best friends. And pretend that this new acquaintance is one of your best friends. Don't overdo it though, you might not want to hug and kiss right away. But if you imagine this you'll go into a positive emotional state . And you'll greet and start talking to this new person with a smile and a friendly and relaxed attitude. Because that's how you talk to your friends. It might sound a bit loopy or too simple. But it really works. 4. Poor delivery. One of the most important things in a conversation is not what you say, but how you say it. A change in these habits can make a big difference since your voice and body language is a vital part of communication. Some things to think about: Slowing down. When you get excited about something it's easy to start talking faster and faster. Try and slow down. It will make it much easier for people to listen and for you actually get what you are saying across to them. Speaking up. Don't be afraid to talk as loud as you need to for people to hear you. Speaking clearly. Don't mumble. Speak with emotion. No one listens for that long if you speak with a monotone voice. Let your feelings be reflected in your voice. Using pauses. Slowing down your talking plus adding a small pause between thoughts or sentences creates a bit of tension and anticipation. Learn a bit about improving your body language as it can make your delivery a lot more effective. Read about laughter, posture and how to hold your drink in 18 ways to improve your body language . 5. Hogging the spot-light. I've been guilty of this one on more occasions than I wish to remember. :) Everyone involved in a conversation should get their time in the spotlight. Don't interrupt someone when they are telling some anecdote or their view on what you are discussing to divert the attention back to yourself. Don't hijack their story about skiing before it's finished to share your best skiing-anecdote. Find a balance between listening and talking. 6. Having to be right. Avoid arguing and having to being right about every topic. Often a conversation is not really a discussion. It's a more of a way to keep a good mood going. No one will be that impressed if you “win” every conversation. Instead just sit back, relax and help keep the good feelings going. 7. Talking about a weird or negative topic. If you're at a party or somewhere where you are just getting to know some people you might want to avoid some topics. Talking about your bad health or relationships, your crappy job or boss, serial killers, technical lingo that only you and some other guy understands or anything that sucks the positive energy out of the conversation are topics to steer clear from. You might also want to save religion, money and politics for conversations with your friends. 8. Being boring. Don't prattle on about your new car for 10 minutes oblivious to your surroundings. Always be prepared to drop a subject when you start to bore people. Or when everyone is getting bored and the topic is starting to run out of steam. One good way to have something interesting to say is simply to lead an interesting life. And to focus on the positive stuff. Don't start to whine about your boss or your job, people don't want to hear that. Instead, talk about your last trip somewhere, some funny anecdote that happened while you were buying clothes, your plans for New Year’s Eve, your new blog or podcast project or something funny or exciting. Another way is just to be genuinely interested. As Dale Carnegie said: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.” Knowing a little about many things or at least being open to talk about them instead of trying to steer the conversation back to your favorite subject is a nice quality. Meaning: talking for what seems like hours about one topic. Topics may include work, favorite rock-band, TV-show and more work. Opening up a bit and not clinging desperately to one topic will make the conversation feel more relaxed and open. You will come across like a person who can talk about many things with ease. As you've probably experienced with other people; this quality is something you appreciate in a conversation and makes you feel like you can connect to that person easily. 9. Not reciprocating. Open up and say what you think, share how you feel. If someone shares an experience, open up too and share one of your experiences. Don't just stand there nodding and answer with short sentences. If someone is investing in the conversation they'd like you to invest too. Like in so many areas in life, you can't always wait for the other party to make the first move. When needed, be proactive and be the first one to open up and invest in the conversation. One way is by replacing some questions with statements. It makes you less passive and makes take a sort of stand. 10. Not contributing much. You might feel that you don't have much to contribute to a conversation. But try anyway. Really listen and be interested in what the others are saying. Ask questions. Make relating statements. Open your eyes too. Develop your observational skills to pick up interesting stuff in your surroundings to talk about. Develop your personal knowledge-bank by expanding your view of interesting things in the world. Read the newspapers and keep an eye on new water cooler-topics. Work on your body language, how you talk and try assuming rapport to improve your communication skills. But take it easy. Don't do it all at once. You'll just feel confused and overwhelmed and start to doubt yourself . Instead, pick out the three most important things that you feel needs improving. Work on them every day for 3-4 weeks. Notice the difference and keep at it. Soon your new habits will start to pop up spontaneously when you are in a conversation.

There is no specific advice on how to use your body language. What you do might be interpreted in several ways, depending on the setting and who you are talking to. You'll probably want to use your body language differently when talking to your boss compared to when you talk to a girl/guy you're interested in. These are some common interpretations of body language and often more effective ways to communicate with your body. First, to change your body language you must be aware of your body language. Notice how you sit, how you stand, how you use you hands and legs, what you do while talking to someone. You might want to practice in front of a mirror. Yeah, it might seem silly but no one is watching you. This will give you good feedback on how you look to other people and give you an opportunity to practise a bit before going out into the world. Another tip is to close your eyes and visualize how you would stand and sit to feel confident, open and relaxed or whatever you want to communicate. See yourself move like that version of yourself. Then try it out. You might also want observe friends, role models, movie stars or other people you think has good body language. Observe what they do and you don't. Take bits and pieces you like from different people. Try using what you can learn from them. Some of these tips might seem like you are faking something. But fake it til you make it is a useful way to learn something new. And remember, feelings work backwards too. If you smile a bit more you will feel happier. If you sit up straight you will feel more energetic and in control. If you slow down your movements you'll feel calmer. Your feelings will actually reinforce your new behaviors and feelings of weirdness will dissipate. In the beginning easy it's to exaggerate your body language. You might sit with your legs almost ridiculously far apart or sit up straight in a tense pose all the time. That's OK. And people aren't looking as much as you think, they are worrying about their own problems . Just play around a bit, practice and monitor yourself to find a comfortable balance. 1. Don't cross your arms or legs. You have probably already heard you shouldn't cross your arms as it might make you seem defensive or guarded. This goes for your legs too. Keep your arms and legs open. 2. Have eye contact, but don't stare. If there are several people you are talking to, give them all some eye contact to create a better connection and see if they are listening. Keeping too much eye-contact might creep people out. Giving no eye-contact might make you seem insecure. If you are not used to keeping eye-contact it might feel a little hard or scary in the beginning but keep working on it and you'll get used to it. 3. Don't be afraid to take up some space. Taking up space by for example sitting or standing with your legs apart a bit signals self-confidence and that you are comfortable in your own skin. 4. Relax your shoulders. When you feel tense it's easily winds up as tension in your shoulders. They might move up and forward a bit. Try to relax. Try to loosen up by shaking the shoulders a bit and move them back slightly. 5. Nod when they are talking. Nod once in a while to signal that you are listening. But don't overdo it and peck like Woody Woodpecker. 6. Don't slouch, sit up straight. But in a relaxed way, not in a too tense manner. 7. Lean, but not too much. If you want to show that you are interested in what someone is saying, lean toward the person talking. If you want to show that you're confident in yourself and relaxed lean back a bit. But don't lean in too much or you might seem needy and desperate for some approval. Or lean back too much or you might seem arrogant and distant. 8. Smile and laugh. Lighten up, don't take yourself too seriously. Relax a bit, smile and laugh when someone says something funny. People will be a lot more inclined to listen to you if you seem to be a positive person. But don't be the first to laugh at your own jokes, it makes you seem nervous and needy. Smile when you are introduced to someone but don't keep a smile plastered on your face, you'll seem insincere. 9. Don't touch your face. It might make you seem nervous and can be distracting for the listeners or the people in the conversation. 10. Keep your head up. Don't keep your eyes on the ground, it might make you seem insecure and a bit lost . Keep your head up straight and your eyes towards the horizon. 11. Slow down a bit. This goes for many things. Walking slower not only makes you seem more calm and confident, it will also make you feel less stressed. If someone addresses you, don't snap your neck in their direction, turn it a bit more slowly instead. 12. Don't fidget. And try to avoid, phase out or transform fidgety movement and nervous ticks such as shaking your leg or tapping your fingers against the table rapidly. You'll seem worried or nervous and fidgeting can be a distracting when you try to get something across. Declutter your movements if you are all over the place. Try to relax, slow down and focus your movements. 13. Use your hands more confidently. Instead of fidgeting with your hands and scratching your face use them to communicate what you are trying to say. Use your hands to describe something or to add weight to a point you are trying to make. But don't use them to much or it might become distracting. And don't let your hands flail around, use them with some control. 14. Lower your drink. Don't hold your drink in front of your chest. In fact, don't hold anything in front of your heart as it will make you seem guarded and distant. Lower it and hold it beside your leg instead. 15. Realize where you spine ends. Many people (including me until recently) might sit or stand with a straight back in a good posture. However, they might think that the spine ends where the neck begins and therefore crane the neck forward in a Montgomery Burns-pose. Your spine ends in the back of your head. Keep you whole spine straight and aligned for better posture. 16. Don't stand too close. One of the things we learned from Seinfeld is that everybody gets weirded out by a close-talker. Let people have their personal space, don't invade it. 17. Mirror. Often when you get along with a person, when the two of you get a good connection, you will start to mirror each other unconsciously. That means that you mirror the other person's body language a bit. To make the connection better you can try a bit of proactive mirroring. If he leans forward, you might lean forward. If she holds her hands on her thighs, you might do the same. But don't react instantly and don't mirror every change in body language. Then weirdness will ensue. :) 18. Keep a good attitude. Last but not least, keep a positive, open and relaxed attitude . How you feel will come through in your body language and can make a major difference. You can change your body language but as all new habits it takes a while. Especially things like keeping you head up might take time to correct if you have spent thousands of days looking at your feet. And if you try and change to many things at once it might become confusing and feel overwhelming. Take a couple of these body language bits to work on every day for three to four weeks. By then they should have developed into new habits and something you'll do without even thinking about it. If not, keep on until it sticks. Then take another couple of things you'd like to change and work on them.

Another morning. The sun is barely up, you drag yourself from the bed to the shower to the closet. You sit down at the breakfast table, you eat some toast, drink some coffee, read your morning paper. It's not always fun waking up. You feel tired and lousy and the snooze-button sure seems tempting. What can you do? Well, here are a couple of ways to improve your mornings. You are most likely already incorporating one or a few of them into your morning routine. In that case, take the others out for a spin. Maybe you'll find something that really makes a difference. Ask your morning questions. I really like this one and first heard about it from Tony Robbins (on Personal Power II). Here's what you do; every morning ask yourself five empowering three-part questions in this way: What am I ______ about in my life right now? What about it makes me _______? How does it make me feel? Put in your own value in the blank space. For instance, a couple of my questions are: What am I happy about in my life right now? What am I excited about in my life right now? It's important that you really feel how it makes you feel. When I think about the last part about what makes me happy right now I really feel it. These morning questions are great because a) the way they are set up makes you recognize things you take for granted b) and then they really get you to feel those positive feelings. And they work in the afternoon or evening or whenever you need them too. Start your day by not reading the newspaper Instead, while having your breakfast: Listen to a personal development-cd or read a couple of pages about self-improvement. Pull out your dvds and watch an episode of your favourite sit-com. Read some of your favourite fiction. Listen to a couple of your favourite songs. Get a positive start on your day. Don't let the news get you down as soon as you are out of bed. At the moment my breakfasts are accompanied by this excellent time-lag video and a bunch of other stuff. Actually eat breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. You have heard a million times before from your teachers and your mom. It's easy to associate a good breakfast to a slightly nagging feeling from your childhood. Don't let that drag your day down. Time to refocus. Some of the advantages of eating breakfast: You stop being hungry and your mood and energy most likely improves. It might make you slimmer. It will refuel your brain and improve your concentration. You might not feel like eating breakfast, maybe you aren't that hungry in the morning. But you might also feel tired and fatigued a few hours later. Know yourself and plan ahead. If you think you can get by without a breakfast just try to eat a good one anyways for week. Maybe it will make you feel even better and more energetic? But eating a nutritious breakfast doesn't have to mean eating bark and gravel in a bowl with a bit of milk on top. Your body might like it but you probably won't be in a good mood. Find a balance and eat something both healthy and tasty. Think the night before Pack your bag for school or work. Sort all the papers you need for the morning meeting, presentation or class and make sure they're in the bag. Doing all these small things the night before reduces stress in the morning and gives you better results (meaning: you won't forget that one important thing while running around in the morning with coffee cup and the toothbrush trying to get organized). Make it a small 5 minute habit in the evenings and your mornings will feel a lot easier. Create a flow This one might not apply to everyone. But if you are a student like me, it's easy to not get your day started at all (or it might take a few hours). Maybe you don't have any classes some days or you might not find some of them all that useful. I find it good to create a flow early each day so you don't waste it all away. To get started I use the all the things above. And even if you don't have anything to pack it can be good to use 5 minutes each evening to go through what you could, should or must do the next day. You could write it down using pen and paper for different lists. I did that for a while. I wrote down a new list every evening on what I should do the next day and once a week I revised another list of more long-term tasks and goals. It quickly became too much paper. And when I couldn't get at quick and easy overview I started to procrastinate or forget stuff I really had to do. Now I use My Life Organized instead. So far it's a whole lot better.

Almost everyone is held down by what some call the silent killer. Procrastination strikes everywhere. We all want to avoid the pain or discomfort of doing something we feel is boring, stupid, pointless, hard, complicated, risky, possibly really emotionally painful and so on. But even though we know that we will have to do it eventually and that we're just deluding ourselves we still put it of. Often with reasons we know deep down are weak and we really just made up. We get stuck in a vicious circle of doing too little of both what we want and what we don't want. We get stuck. Here are 7 ways to squash procrastination and move forward. 1. Recognize that there is more pain in procrastinating than not. If you have procrastinated a lot (like me) you might have discovered that: You procrastinate to avoid doing something that is boring, hard or something like that. You want to avoid that pain. But after having some experience with procrastination you'll probably realize that procrastination itself causes your more pain than actually just doing what you were supposed to. Realizing the true amount of pain in the two choices will make it easier to get things done. 2. Force yourself to do it before you really absolutely have do. And your self-esteem will go up. And the next time you feel like procrastinating remember that you forced yourself, but that you felt better when it was done. There was a nice reward when you were done. Whenever you feel like procrastinating remember this to get you to start moving forward. 3. Create a flow. Instead of doing nothing, begin with doing something. Clean your desk, take out the garbage, wash the dishes. Just stack a couple of simple actions to create a flow, a momentum. When you're in the flow, in that forward motion, getting started with what you have to do will be much easier. Also, cleaning up can get you too feel more motivated. A messy work-environment seems to often reinforce procrastination. 4. Get some leverage. Sometimes we procrastinate on things that aren't just dull tasks in the office or school. Maybe you are stuck, not able to take the next step fearing some deep personal pain. If you are thinking about changing jobs or career or taking a next step in a relationship you are probably focusing on what could go wrong. Instead, get some leverage to both push and pull yourself forward. How to: Take a pen and a piece of paper. Write down as many things as you can come up with that you will miss out on, not just now but the next few years if you don't take this step now. Really dig down into yourself and feel that pain that you will feel not just tomorrow but in a year and the next five or ten years. Then write down all positive and wonderful things you will experience if you take this decision and move forward to where you want to go. Think about them and write down all those things you will experience and feel, not just in the next few days but in one year, in two, in five years or ten. Get the stick and the carrot to work for you. And put the problem in a longer time perspective to really give it an emotional punch. 5. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time… Don't look at everything you have to do. One of the common sources of procrastination is feeling overwhelmed. Break it down into smaller tasks. Write them down as a list on a piece of paper. Focus on just getting that one small task or part of the big thing done. Then move on to the next. Take it one step at a time and don't think about the rest. Before you know it you'll be half way there. 6. Change your beliefs. The problems that repeatedly put you into a procrastinating state might disappear if you change your view on reality. Examine your beliefs. Ask yourself if you could see things in a more beneficial and effective way for yourself. Realize you can choose you beliefs about yourself and the world. The past is not the future. You don't have to hang to limiting beliefs based on past experiences if you don't want to. You are here right now and you choose and can change your habits. 7. Make a small deal with yourself. Here is an effective one I first heard from Ed Bliss (well, actually now that I think about it I probably first heard it from a teacher back in school about ten years ago. It kinda rings a bell). Here's how you go about it: Promise yourself that you'll work on something for just 5 minutes. After those 5 minutes you can do something else if you want to. But make a note on your schedule when you will come back to the task and work another 5 minutes with it. As Bliss notes, not matter how unpleasant a task may be, you can often talk yourself into working 5 minutes on it. I've found this one to be effective to make a dent in those tasks you have put of for a longer while. After you're done with those first 5 minutes the next 5 minutes will feel a little easier. And after that the next 5 minutes will feel even easier. Or maybe you raise the bar to 10 minutes of work. Getting some actual work done on that task, if only for 5 minutes, gives you a rush of exhilaration. Making a game out of how much work you can get done in those 5 minutes can also be a small but in its own way fun challenge.

Being able to manage and change your feelings is one of the most important things in personal development. You might have all the logical and rational reasons in the world to do something, but then your emotions can just sweep in and pull everything to a grinding halt. Having your feelings for work you instead of against you can have a massive effect on your life. There are many ways to change how you feel. Here are 10 ways that don't include chocolate, pain or alcohol and that actually work. All of them might not work right away, it's a bit like learning to ride a bike. You don't learn it by reading about it and the first times you try you might fall. But remember when you were a kid learning to ride a bike. You just got up of the ground, brushed yourself of and got on that bike again and again and again. 1. Relax. This one is easy but just remembering that you can relax when you feel all tensed up can work wonders. You might realise that much of that tension was something you just built up in your own mind. In “A guide to the the Huna way – mastering your hidden self” King Serge Kahili writes this about effort and relaxation: “When people are trying to change a habit of thought or behaviour, they often complain that it takes too much effort. Others may criticize them for not having a strong enough will. What actually happens is that such people are trying to force a habit to change by using their muscles against it, and this is true whether the habit is physical or mental. This kind of forceful attempt creates tension that locks up the body's energy and makes people feel worn out. They end up literally fighting themselves, which is rarely effective. All you really have to do is make your decision by your will, relax your muscles, and direct your attention in the way you want to go, until the new habit is established. If you ever feel that using your will is an effort relax and Start over.” 2. Ask different questions. We are always asking ourselves questions, but they might be questions that aren't really that good. Instead of asking yourself: “why must I do this?”, ask yourself “how can I make this more fun for me?” or “how can this help me?”. Don't ask yourself “will I be able to do this?”, instead ask “how will I do this?”. Ask better questions that empowers you. Questions that presupposes that you have the power over your own life. Questions that directs your focus to solutions and opens your mind to new possibilities instead of questions that just makes you feel trapped and lousy. 3. Smile. Smiling gives you a boost of happiness. Try forcing yourself to smile for thirty seconds right now. The great feelings that make you smile works in reverse too. By making yourself smile, no matter how you feel, your body will start releasing all those wonderful chemicals that makes you feel happy. Try it right now and feel the difference. 4. Appreciate things. This is one of the most simple and effective ways to just feel so much better. Just look around yourself. Appreciate the good food you're eating, the hot woman or man walking past you, the kids playing and just having fun in the mud puddles, all the possibilities in your life, all the great things about your friends and your family, the birds singing. Ok, so perhaps it sounds a bit corny. But it really works. And it's great to try to change your mindset to one where you appreciate the things in your everyday life instead of taking them for granted. 5. Interrupt your thought pattern. You might be feeling down or you are procrastinating. Maybe nothing is working out for you today. You just want to go home and go to bed. Here's where you might want to interrupt your thought pattern. And you do that simply by doing something unexpected and totally different from what you are doing now. Some suggestions; take a glass of water, throw it in own your face. Or jump up and down ten times singing the chorus from “We are the champions” by Queen at the top of you lungs. Or imagine your negative inner voice sounding like Goofy. Do something that totally breaks your thought pattern. Something humours is nice because it's often the opposite to a depressed or anxious state that you would like to break out of. And laughter and smiles breaks tension too. When you have done that you might not be able to able to find your way back to that previous train of thought. Much like when you have a conversation, someone comes up to you and asks a question and then when you turn around again back to you friend you can't remember what the two of you were talking about. You feel confused and your state has changed. Make up five things to do that really breaks your pattern and try them out. You may also want to try and find a couple that you can do among other people too without being labelled as crazy. 6. Use an external stateboost. On one of his audiotapes Tony Robbins mentions that before one of his guest-speakers or coaches goes up on stage they watch videos with Eddie Murphy. It puts them in a great state before performing. As you might have guessed, that tape wasn't recorded this year or even this century. Eddie's been in a slump for a while. This is a great idea and you probably already using it to some degree. Anyways, here are some suggestions. Change and boost your emotional state with some of your favourite music, maybe a couple of YouTube-clips, an episode of the Simpsons (or your favourite sitcom), personal development-cds, – books or websites. Or perhaps Eddie Murphy's “Delirious” or “Raw”. That's some side-splittingly funny stand-up. 7. Eat. But not too much. Or too little. If you feel tired and frustrated maybe you just need to eat to get your energy back and your blood sugar up to a more healthy level. But don't eat too much or you'll feel tired and lazy. Don't eat to little either or pretty soon you'll feel just as bad as you did before you ate. Also, it you're sitting most of the day, take it a bit easy on the carbs and the size of your portions. You may have been raised to eat large and healthy meals, but maybe your father and mother had more physical jobs. 8. Create a physical anchor. Ok, this one might take a while but it seems to work for many people. Basically you stand up, close your eyes and imagine an emotional state that you want to able to snap into on command. As an example I imagined a time when I felt really powerful and confident. I stood, I breathed and I moved the way I did that one time. Then while I was back in that state both physically and mentally I snapped the fingers of my right hand. Over and over. Over and over and over again. The theory is that you link up that emotion with the physical act of snapping your fingers. Did it work? Yeah, actually it kinda does. When I snap my fingers I get an emotional boost and go into that state again. However, the effect is not 100%. It doesn't feel as good as it did that one time. But it's my first anchor and by practicing more, I think especially by trying to visualize and feel that state even more intensely, the anchors are likely to become more and more accurate. Anchoring is based on Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with dogs and bells but has been developed by people in the field of NLP (neurolinguistic programming). 9. Open yourself up to other possibilities that are more beneficial to you. Have some faith that the way you view work, relationships, money, exercise, life and those other things are not the only way to see them. Having the feeling that you are right about something and “know how things work” can feel really good. It's instant gratification and gives you security and comfort. But it also limits you by closing your mind to other avenues of thought and personal development. Seek out a couple of experts' advice in the area that you are having problems with. Use google and amazon, just dive in to the subject for a while to get a basic understanding. Most likely there are things you can do both to remedy the problem and to change you perspective on this trouble area. There are often more solutions than one or two to a problem. 10. Recall your positive experiences and memories. It's easy to be overcome by negative internal chatter. “I can't do this, what if they think I'm incompetent, God I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail and this why did I take this shirt, it's so ugly. And so on. When preparing for a meeting, a job interview, a presentation, asking someone for a date or anything that makes you really nervous recall your positive memories from similar experiences. Think back to when you were funny and charming in the bar. Remember the times when you were confident and relaxed during previous meetings and interviews. Let a few of your best memories wash over you. Let them drown out your negative thoughts. This will make you remember the positive and wonderful sides of yourself. The qualities and your inner possibilities that are always there but we often forget about them when we get caught up in a cloud of negative thoughts and feelings. Focusing on these positive experiences instead of those negative ones that always seem to be closer at hand can make a big difference. Learning to direct you feelings more and more have implications beyond feeling better. By feeling better you will more constantly start to see the world in another way and you will start to see other, more beneficial options. And your feelings will start to work for you instead of stopping you when you want to take action. And try to use these suggestions from the perspective of yourself when you were a kid trying to learn to ride that bike. If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself of and try again.

A smile is one of the most simple, inexpensive and wonderful things in the world. Still, often we forget about this one powerful action while we get lost in the details of today and tomorrow. We feel tired and we got too much to do at work and we got to pay the bills and why did I get the grumpiest cashier at the supermarket. Here are 5 reasons why smiling as often as you can will put more positivity into your life. 1. You will get a boost of happiness – try forcing yourself to smile for thirty seconds right now. The great feelings that make you smile works in reverse too. By making yourself smile, no matter how you feel, your body will start to release all those wonderful chemicals that makes you feel happy. Try it right now and feel the difference. 2. A smile changes your state – if you feel frustrated, angry or bored a smile changes your emotional state. And a positive state is not just more fun but also opens up to other possibilities in your mind. You will see the world differently through a happier lens. And then you can start building on that to have a string of positive actions and interactions with other people throughout the day. 3. A smile changes other people's state – walking into a room or up to the counter in a store with a smile on your face can make a world of difference. People will smile back at you and be more helpful and any social tension or awkwardness will melt away. And your interactions will be more open, relaxed and filled with fun and possibilities. 4. Well, why shouldn't you smile? – when choosing between a frown, a blank expression or a smile the last choice seems to be the most productive and positive choice, doesn't it? Sure, often you will forget to smile or maybe you just don't feel like it. But if you try to remember it and use it more often you will soon develop a new habit. 5. It's easier to smile than doing the opposite – you actually use less muscles while smiling than while frowning or making an angry face. Well, that's probably what you have heard at least. Barbara Mikkelson over at Urban Legends Reference Pages reaches a more uncertain conclusion. But still, if you start smiling more your smiling muscles will soon become stronger than your frowning muscles. And it will become easier and easier to smile than doing the opposite.