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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Goal-setting and How to get lucky!

Hey there everyone,

Sorry about not posting recently, I've had a stupid eye injury that made it very difficult to look at a screen.
For those of you who live in Charlottesville, stay save this weekend and if you plan on being home to avoid the heat like us - it's a great opportunity to listen to our Radio Show tomorrow 10 AM on !07.5 FM!
The subject will be how to get lucky and then how get your Goals in Life. Tune in to get motivated for the coming week! You can listen online through www.WCHV.com as well.

We'll have a download prepared for you to get once you're done with the show and you can get that one here.

Have a wonderful Weekend!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

How to rid yourself from Negatives


“It makes no difference to your mind, if you are thinking positive or negative thoughts. It makes all the difference to you.” John Kehoe


There is a distinct difference I notice when asking individuals what they wish for in their Future. The ones who usually reach their Goals know what it is they want. The ones who have difficulty are usually people who focus more on what they don’t want.

When you think about what it is you want, you usually notice thinking of a picture or idea of what it would look like. When you think about what you don’t want, all you can picture is the negative scenario. This just creates more of a negative rut and brings your mind back to the elements you want to avoid.

Whatever you look for in life - you’ll get what you concentrate on most. Everything grows with the attention we give to it. The more focus and attention we put toward goals and tasks, the more successful they turn out.

Therefore thinking of things you want to avoid will just give you more to avoid. So no matter if you want to loose weight, improve your relationships or get a promotion - shape your Goals in terms of what it is you want your ideal to look like.

Your mind doesn’t know the difference between a positive thought and a negative one. So you when you think about how you don’t want to be overweight anymore, or you don’t want to fight with your partner any more - all you think about is being overweight and fighting with your partner. A positive vision of a healthy ideal or healthy relationship is all it takes for you to know what you want and build the motivation.

Avoid:

don’ts
can’ts
won’ts

How do you think of what it is you want in life? Do you think a lot of what you don’t want? How do you formulate your Goals in your thoughts?

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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

How to motivate Yourself and Others

It is difficult to motivate yourself or others because everyone is motivated by different things, right? Not necessarily.

After some years of research, Anthony Robbins determined 6 human needs that we all strive for. He uses those needs as his primary tool to help clients change and delete old destructive habits. Everyone basically values those six needs, however each of us has 2 primary needs that drive them.

The six needs are:
Connection/love
Uncertainty/variety
Certainty/security
Significance
Growth
Contribution


Which needs motivate you the most? Do you value Security over Variety/Adventure? Do you love to contribute to others or maybe connect to people?

It might take a little contemplation to understand which ones motivate you. Usually you’ll notice that you’re drawn to the same ones whenever you read the list. Once you understood what your two primary needs are, you can find the leverage to change yourself to whatever you wish to be. Lets say you value Growth and Variety the most. Then when you need to work on a certain project, you can focus on those two aspects and find a way to keep variety and growth in the project.
You’ll also notice that while talking to other people, you can hear out what their primary needs are. This will help you understand the motivation of others as much as your own!

So which needs are most important in your life? Are you seeing areas where your drive is fulfilled? What do you think are your friends and family motivated by?

Monday, June 25, 2012

How to make yourself happy in 15 Minutes

Happy Monday!

No matter if you’re enjoying a beautiful day or you feel like you got up on the wrong foot - this is the right article for you to read!

Dan Gilbert teaches students at Harvard about Happiness. Not only does he do so with a lot of research and experiments, but also with an entertaining funny nature. I’m posting here his short talk about the surprising things that really make us happy and how we are often mislead. This video has been amazingly helpful for my understanding of motivation and I have been quoting elements of it many times throughout the years since I've watched it. So I definitely encourage you to watch - it's free and it'll make a difference in your life!

A great short video which will make you smile, raise your eyebrows and teach you something fascinating about your own Happiness!

Enjoy!


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Friday, June 22, 2012

Words that become our Filter in Life

Did you know we speak on average between 7 000 and 20 000 each day, which doesn’t even count all the thousands of additional words we are thinking? 

With so many spoken words, most of us don’t pay attention to the way we communicate, the words we choose and the messages we get across. Speaking comes so natural that it's easy to forget your awareness and loose yourself in communication with friends and family. For every situation there are possibly hundreds of ways to describe it, and there are distinct reasons for why you choose to describe it your way. How you tell others about a situation shows what your focus is own and which emotions you live with. If you want to change the way you feel and think, the first things you need to be aware of are the words that leave your mouth.

The most important words that leave your mouth are the words I like to call spinal words. Those are words that describe the way you live your life and the words that become your outlook in life and your filter to any situation. There is a simple and easy way to detect your spinal words: Whichever phrases you use at least 3  times a week make up your outlook on life. For example: You probably know someone who describes each situation with : “It’s not easy...” or “Its difficult for me..”, “I know it’s stupid but”. Of course it unreasonable to think everything could be easy, however it is just as unreasonable to think everything must be difficult. Even though we speak thousands of words a day, there is very little variety in the words a person uses. You might notice that of the thousands of thoughts you think every day, 90% of them stay the same each day. This is the biggest obstacle to change because as long as you think the same way, you will live the same way too.

Depending on their experiences and fears, people's words reflect their inner world. Just like habits, spinal words reflect the backbone of your life - how strong we think we are, how easy you think things come for you and where you see yourself struggling. Try it out and observe the people that are talking to you - which words do they frequently use to describe situations? Where do they pause because of something feeling slightly emotional?
Use eyes and ears to understand others and yourself - because the words we use describe the world we live in. Our way of giving words to thoughts materializes feelings and gives them a meaning we choose to live with.

How do you describe the situations in your life? Which phrases do you use many times - possibly without thinking?

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A Roadmap to Happiness


Positive Psychology is the latest movement of researchers finding out what makes you happy and fulfilled. Instead of thinking of people as sick, now there is more research getting into how to make us even happier so we can increase our life satisfaction. In order to make it a science, psychologists call Happiness now "Psychological Well-being". One of my favorite psychological well-being concepts from the time I studied Positive Psychology is Ryff’s model. It provides a great map for me to work with my clients and it can help you create Happiness in your own life! 

We all know it's easier to improve our life if we have specific ideas to which areas we need to work on. Direction is the crucial key when it comes to focusing your energy on becoming happier and more fulfilled. Carol Ryff did a great job on telling us what you need to achieve Happiness. In her opinion, Psychological Well-being aka Happiness is made up of six elements (for the exact model scroll down):

Autonomy
Self-acceptance
Purpose in life
Positive Relationships
Personal Growth
Environmental Mastery


These elements are a great road map for you to see how satisfied you are in each of the areas. Do you feel like you have accepted yourself as who you are? Do you have determined a temporary or constant Purpose in your life? Would you consider the Relationships in your life positive? When do you fell you have the most autonomy?

We all need to feel like we grow and get better in order to be happy with ourselves. I am attaching the model here for you to print out and map yourself. To take action, you could give yourself a rating of 1-10 on each of the elements. It’s a great direction if you’re not quite as happy is you wish to be. You’ll feel like you are in control the more you take actions to find out what it is you need to be fulfilled.



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