Stress And Personal Mastery

Stress is an emotional and physical response that we show towards different pressures from the workplace, school and other institutions. Stress reactions would include inability to focus, concentrate, headache and fast heartbeat. Almost everybody develops stress, but how we deal with it is important. Personal mastery is something that can be done to deal with stress.

When overcoming stress with personal mastery, it is important to recognize first the stress in a present force in whatever career we choose. But stress can be dealt with. If you are handling a business team, then you should learn that stress can affect the productivity of workers.

The work environment can be a major stressor, but this is something which you may not be able to control. But instead of trying to control the work environment, you can try to work out of it. You can take one step at a time towards your goals. The question is, how do you work around stress?

You can reduce the risk of stress by seeing things in a new perspective. What are examples of these perspectives? An example would be learning to let go of situations where cannot have any control over it. Stress over these things which you cannot control should be transformed instead to positive energy. You can just focus your energy to other things which you can control.

Personal mastery also helps you to be familiar with your emotions and learn how to control it. This attitude could also help a lot in overcoming and managing stress. There are things which you can change, while there are things that are beyond our control.

Actually there are simple steps and tips that you can do to deal with stress. Failing to deal with stress during its starting stage can eventually lead to chronic stress. Chronic stress is one of the reasons for frequent headaches, ulcers, indigestion, high blood pressure and heart issues.

• Saying no to commitments that would require time and energy. • Regular exercises, especially stretching and breathing exercises. • Meditation • Eating healthy food • Asking help from other people to lessen the burden.

To deal with stress, you can reduce the stressors in your life to avoid feeling the effects of stress. Aside from stress reduction, you can also stress prevention. Stress prevention removes the possibility of stress to happen. With this two methods, it is important to identify which emotions are attitudes stress or irritates you the most. You can isolate the following attitudes or learn how to react to this stressors.

You have to know and understand your limits. After understanding your limits, you would have to learn how to say no. It is different that you know your limitations, but still accept whatever other people say to you.

Succeeding with personal mastery would help individuals to work and focus their mind and spirit on their work and other things. They remove stress and encourage peace, tranquillity and spirituality within them. You can incorporate stress reduction and prevention in daily life.

Some people would turn to medication to deal with the symptoms of stress. Since it could be severe or disabling, there are people who take medications but fail to address the real issue. Yes medication would the effects, but it is more likely that it would reoccur. But with personal mastery, you change your entire outlook and perspective in life that this guides you to avoid anything that could stress and wear you out.

Business Networking and Marketing Ups and Downs

The last couple of days have been beautiful, the weather near perfect and some of us are suffering from spring fever while others are simply struggling with the pollen levels. This time of the year reminds me that summer is coming and things are about to slow down – in networking. I would like to take just a moment and discuss this trend and what I believe may be the cause of it.

Let’s begin in the fall. At this time of the year we are working feverishly trying to procure new business because we realize that around the holidays things will slow down. As December draws near, some of us become preoccupied with things like parties and shopping and our attention turns from building our business. Others find it increasingly difficult to make contact as people begin long vacations.

Then the holidays pass. We put our marketing and networking efforts into high gear, going to several meetings a week, trying to get things cranked up again. The result is increased business and increased profits. Have you ever noticed that in the early part of February that things begin to pick up almost at a maddening pace? When this occurs, unless we are prepared for growth, we start to back off on our promotions as we scramble to complete the work that has been generated by our marketing efforts.

In effect, we stop networking. We lose contact with those we have been making and asking for referrals, and they begin to feel as if we are not interested in them any longer. When this happens, they may look for someone else to refer when that target prospect comes along.

By early to mid summer, we are starting to crawl out from under the workload and we again look for opportunities. Unfortunately, the vacations have started again as children are released from school for the summer. Thus it is very difficult once again to find the contacts that were out there just before our business picked up again late last winter.

By mid August, school is back in session and people are coming back out into the networking world again. Of course we are seeing some of the same people that were there before, but there are also a lot of new faces as well. Because we had slacked off from our promotion efforts, we were not there to greet the new faces as they started their new business. So the people who have a balanced networking and marketing strategy are there to greet them.

These are the people who have businesses that seem to be growing. They have a marketing and networking plan that is consistent year round. When many businesses are experiencing that new business rush in the spring, these business owners are ready to absorb the new business with new employees or temporary help. They realize that to maintain growth means to be ready for any upswing in the economy that could propel their business to the next level.

So how do we accomplish this? First plan for growth. Have a system ready for when you have more business than you can handle so that there is help you can call. This is managed by building relationships with temp agencies, headhunters, and placement firms. Hire people on a contractor basis if necessary. This saves money on benefits and salaries when thing are a bit slower. It also reduces the amount of paperwork when it comes to payroll processing and taxes.

Next, develop a plan for networking that is manageable. Set a goal for the amount of meetings that you would attend when business is just OK and stick to it when business gets better. Attend functions year round, even during the holiday seasons.

Plan vacations when necessary, but don’t assume that everyone is going on vacation simply because it is summer. Most people have to accommodate the schedules of others and entire companies usually do not go on vacation at the same time. Notice that larger corporations always have staff on hand to do business while an employee is on vacation. Also take note that large corporations do not stop promoting just because it is the month of July or December. They are consistent year round.

The lesson here is that, if you want to grow into a large company, take a look at what large companies do. Emulate them if they are successful and you may be able to duplicate their success. You must be constantly marketing, networking and promoting to ensure consistent business year round. If you decide to slack off now because business is good, I guarantee that when autumn comes you will be working twice as hard to get things going again. If, on the other hand, you keep on consistently marketing the way you did when times were slow, you should be able to experience the growth of both your company and your bank account during the entire year.

Dealing With Stress In Your Everyday Life

What is Stress?

Stress is a response produced by your body when you are subjected to various types of demand, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. Contrary to what most people believe, stress is not associated with the negative only since excessive positive emotions can result to stress as well. When something that takes place or is about to take place in the environment is producing stress in a person's body, it results into the release of certain chemicals into your bloodstream.

On the positive side, these chemicals can be utilized to produce more energy or added strength. This is helpful when the cause of your stress is something physical. But when you are dealing with emotional stress, it can cause a negative effect on your body since there is no outlet for releasing that extra boost of energy and strength. Therefore, stress results to various types of emotional or physical responses because each individual's body respond differently to the stimulus.

Types and Causes of Stress

Whether you admit it or not, stress is a part of everyday life. Whether you are at school, at the office, or just about anywhere you are forced to deal with people and the environment. Hence, the types of stress is closely associated with its cause. And because your physical body is closely connected to your emotional and mental state, you will notice some connection to their effects when you begin to experience stress. This is also the reason why it is important to combat the cause of stress since it affects several vital aspects of your body in order to function.

Here are some of the most common sources of stress that must be dealt with on an everyday basis.

Internal Stress

There are times when you constantly worry about certain events without having enough control to determine its outcome. Internal stress is also one of those kinds of stress that needs to be addressed quickly. Most of the source of stress is rooted in the person's mind, which makes it difficult to manage and would entail more work to get rid of. Oftentimes, people suffering from internal stress subconsciously puts themselves in stressful situations or feel stressed out about things that aren't stressful to begin with.

Survival Stress

This type of stress deals with the danger, mostly physical, that an individual is subjected to. It can be prompted by an attack made by either human or animal that could potentially hurt you in the process. Therefore, your body releases this burst of energy that you need to utilize to respond quickly about the situation at hand whether to confront it or escape from it.

Environmental Stress

This type of stress is your body's way of responding to changes or activities in your environment that could produce stress, such as extreme levels of noise or pressure from work. As compared to the other types of stress already mentioned above, this one is a lot easier to deal with. The best way to get started combating this stress type is to determine the source. Once you have identified the source of environmental stress, find a way to avoid them.

Stress Due To Work and Fatigue

Another common type of stress and probably the most prevalent. This one though does not happen in an instant, but rather builds up over time. When you are spending too much time working or forced to deal with excessive amount of work, then it can take its toll on your body. To deal with work stress, you need to make sure you have enough rest and relaxation in between so your body can recover from the tremendous amount of work. There are relaxation methods that you can apply in order to find relief from stress.

All Faith Needs Feet

A subscriber recently wrote to me:

A friend of mine is on a fixed income and has maxed out his credit cards (nearing $10,000). He has started a new business, but currently has no customers or prospects.

He is affirming that he is already successful and debt-free. What is the best way for him? Should he write checks to pay his bills as they arrive, even though the money may not be in his account at the moment? Wouldn't these concrete actions demonstrate his faith?

My Answer:
Faith is a wonderful thing - and very necessary. There are, however, approaches that may look like faith but lead us in risky directions.

Please tell your friend that he needs to pay close attention to "real" actions and concentrate on learning to provide a service to other people that they want. (Note the emphasis is on what "they" want.)

Paying bills with rubber checks isn't an act of faith. It's desperate gambling. I know from hard experience that it's nearly impossible to get the right mindset for real faith or confidence when you're circling the drain.

Your friend needs to get his feet firmly under himself with real money -- even if he has to go tend bar or wash dishes for the extra income for a bit. Honest, it's no disgrace (unless he stays there).

Remember that all faith needs feet. If you're in an airplane on its way down in a power dive, you put on your parachute first. And THEN you do affirmations.

The old biblical phrase "faith without works is dead" means just that - belief needs to be connected organically with action. Productive action. If it's not, then it's not true belief, it's only an attempt to con yourself and the gods.

Too many people hope that they can do affirmations or pray or ASSERT, and this will save them from having to make a decision and take action. But that's not the way it works. Action and affirmations must be bonded together as a single unit and support each other like two legs. Neither faith nor action can stand alone.

So you might want to tell your friend that positive thinking is good (and absolutely necessary), but positive action is also an essential ingredient.

Simply put, he'll never pray himself up a hill.

When he's willing to take action, with all the stops out, his faith will bring the lucky breaks, the synchronicities, and the chance meetings with just the right people at the right times to help move him forward. But it's the action that anchors all that potentiality into reality. ACTION.

Otherwise, it's all vapor.

"Willing to take action with all the stops out" ... some folks call that enthusiasm, others call it commitment. But it sure boosts the octane.

It's often hard to get people to see that taking a detour on the way to their goals is not a "wrong turn." It's just another way of getting where they're going. Whatever it takes.

Just remember that you don't have to give up on your dreams and goals when some little thing comes along (or not so little). The goal is what's important, not every little step it takes to get there (as long as we remember to TAKE the steps).

I'd guess that the old gremlin of impatience has killed more dreams than any other single influence. It's so common to think, "If I'm not getting there RIGHT NOW, then that's it; I'll never make it."

It might help to think of your vision of your future as a very penetrating stare. It penetrates anything that may seem to block your path. As long as you keep seeing what's in your future, you won't become stalled by the stuff that crops up in front of you today.

This may all sound trite, but it's true, every bit of it. And I learned it all the absolutely hardest way. I lived through it over and over and over and...

But eventually, even a super-dense guy like me can learn, proving that anybody on earth can do it.

Attract the Universe and Achieve Your Goals

The Universal Law of Attraction can be a very effective tool in making you achieve your goals and practically everything else you want to have in this lifetime. You will realize that desire should always start from within, and the world will just obey your thoughts, actions and ideas. Here are some guidelines on how to get your objectives just the way you want.

Ask the Universe

According to the Universal Law of Attraction, ask the universe and it shall give to you. However, to achieve your goals, you have to truly have an idea about what kind of thing or event you want to happen in your life. There are plenty of items that you can ask from the world. The most common are superficial things such as money, a new car, a new house, etc. More meaningful items include better relationships with your family or wife, happiness in your job and life, etc. All of these can be given to you at the time you want and in the extent you need.

The Way You Ask

The way you ask the universe will also matter. Keep in mind that the universe will immediately hear and respond in the manner you believe in. Your first thought might go, 'I want a brand new Ferrari.' The world will then respond, 'Your wish is my command.' However, other thoughts can still enter such as, 'But it may still be when I'm in my 40's.' or 'But it will happen when I get the promotion.' or even 'It can't happen.' The world will just say yes to everything you inject in your thoughts.

The time, extent, severity and other details of your wish will be determined by your mind alone. If you have any doubt or disbelief about the power of the universe to provide, then it will truly give to you accordingly. Make sure you clean your thoughts thoroughly so that you set your goals straight and allow the universe to perform the best way.

Your Actions

Once you have set your goals and asked from the universe, your mind, thoughts and body will start acting automatically to lead towards the goals and objectives. You will subconsciously accomplish small tasks and open up a wide array of opportunities that are meant to direct you to the ultimate mark. Renew your goals each morning as you wake up and your body will just function immediately towards these.

Work both consciously and subconsciously. Remember that it also requires effort and discipline on your part to receive the best things in life. Do not expect everything to just fall into place. If you want to land that promotion, then you should start going to work early, volunteer for projects and show that you are prepared for bigger responsibilities.

Staying Positive

The Universal Law of Attraction helps you achieve your goals, as long as you remain positive. Always believe that the universe is capable of providing immediately. Anything can actually happen, in the time you have set. Always be optimistic in the face of adversary. It is not impossible that you will encounter a few problems along the way, but what's more important is how you relate to the situation in a positive light. Be conscious about what's happening and act to alleviate the effects.

How to Achieve Your Goals If Youre Born to Lose

How to Achieve Your Goals If You're Born to Lose

Some individuals are just born losers, which mean that these people are bound to fail more than others. If you think that you belong in that category, then you a change of pace to start enjoying life more fully. There are some approaches that have been tried and proven by the experts and pros. You might find that you're not such a big loser after all.

Understanding Yourself

Take a pen and paper and give yourself a brief evaluation. Write down the things that you believe are your strengths and weaknesses. It is very likely that you have more items in your weakness list compared to the ones in your strengths list if you are a born loser. Next, try to write down the reasons why you have the strength or weakness. For example, if you listed down "Patient" in your strength list, put some more specific details such as "I am willing to wait several months to save for a new mp3 player" or if you wrote down "Lazy" in your weakness list, you can correlate by stating "I do not like to wake up until after 10 in the morning."

Knowing the specifics of your strengths and weaknesses can help you become more adept in improving the hindrances. It is vital that you know and understand how you can use your strengths as foundation, as well as turn your weaknesses into strengths gradually. You can aim to change one to three weaknesses at a time.

Changing Your Weaknesses

You need to give yourself time to improve on your weaknesses. Be specific in your action plan by creating steps toward your goal. For example, if you are "weakened" by "Lack of focus", you can start enhancing in that area by doing activities like "Reading more books about the matter for at least 30 minutes a day" or "Listening to a person talk for at least 1 minute before losing focus." Improve in the activities regularly by increasing the time frame and adding more challenges.

Learning from Winners

It is recommended that you stick with individuals who are successful and born winners. This way, you can adapt their habits and personality that will, in time, lead to nonstop success. Winners and leaders have great traits that you can follow, such as perseverance, critical thinking, stability under pressure, competence and the aspiration to never give up. Adopt these qualities as your own and use the individuals as your role models.

Read about people who have successfully made it in their chosen fields of interest. One of the reasons why you may fail constantly is because you are choosing the aspects where you are worst at. Try to ask yourself the things that you truly care about or even study and review without anyone needing to tell you to. These are the features that you are most likely talented in.

Remembering Success

Should you encounter success or achieve your goals, use these as motivational tools to remind you that you are always capable of gaining bigger benefits from larger tasks. Look back on your previous accomplishments and use these finished objectives to lead to your ultimate goal. It is also wise to expect failure once in a while, but you should use this as a way to learn. Failure should always be an opportunity for you to do better the next time.

Job Stress and Working With Problem People

At the workplace, an employee must not only deal with the workload but also with the environment, particularly the people you work with. Here, several factors come into play and contribute at producing job stress. Problem people on your job may include your co-workers, managers, or your boss. You need to learn how to properly deal with them so you can prevent stress from devastating your working experience.

Manage Stress and Problem People

Problem people are not just confined to the workplace but in other aspects of everyday life that require you to work together. However, it is more pressing to address this issue at work since the company's productivity is in the line. If you are leading a group of co-employees wherein you need to work at a given task, you have to know what to do in order to manage them properly. Or else, you'd fail to meet the task deadline and end up suffering from high levels of stress. Here are some strategies you can employ:

• Be tough. If you find that some of your co-workers or employees are not pulling their weight, you need to impose authority in order for them to realize the need to provide quality workforce. You can do this by setting standards and work boundaries for employees to live up to. • Communicate assertively. Openly discuss with the people you are working with about each of your responsibilities to a given project or task. If possible, try to approach the matter objectively and free of any emotional leverage. Emphasize your aim to produce an efficient working relationship that results to higher productivity.

About Unreasonable Demands

Most jobs entail their own set of demands. However, there are certain instances wherein unreasonable demands could arise. You need to learn how to identify one against the other in order to know which ones to attend to first. One way to do that is to analyze your job description and what type of work is expected of you by the company. If any demand outside of your work description arises, you need to know how to turn it down while focusing on your job priorities.

This is not to say that you must refuse to attend to real emergencies in the workplace. However, this must not involve just one person but everyone who is concerned. You need to work together in coming up with an effective solution to any of these problems when they arise so you can reduce the level of stress produced by that given situation.

Producing Better Teamwork

If you're serious about reducing job stress, then you need to come up with an efficient checklist system for your team design. This will enable you to raise awareness about issues or problem areas experienced by your team when working on a given project or task. One way to produce better teamwork is to encourage a feedback system. With this, you can remained focus on increasing performance and relieving team stress.

When coming up with a team design, you need to consider the following important factors:

• The number of people in your team. • Do you need to work together? Or, must you perform separate and individual tasks towards a common goal? • Does it require technical skills? • Does it require social skills? • Does your team have all the resources it need? • What is the time frame for working on the project? • How effective is your feedback system?

Proper Team Negotiation

Much of the job stress involved with working on a team project is rooted in your inability to resolve conflicts within the group. Therefore, having proper team negotiation skills will help you conquer the stress. Although neither an aggressive nor a passive approach will help your cause, you need to come up with a solution that is agreeable to both parties and one that will benefit the organization.

Different situations require different manners of negotiation. Therefore, you need to use this point to determine exactly what the source of conflict is. Is it lack of resources or lack of proper communication? Then, you can plan a solution accordingly. Once you have worked out possible solutions for the problem, then you will realize how it can significantly reduce the amount of job stress and you'd achieve a more productive working environment.

Are you homeless Does your Soul have a Home

Are you homeless? Does your Soul have a Home?

How do you feel when you see homeless people on the street? Many of us feel disgusted when we look at them and others do not even acknowledge their existence as if they’re worthless and irrelevant. Some of us even consider them as being nothing but drunks and junkies. We all have different ways of interpreting the lives of these people, but in the end, we all believe that they are less fortunate than ourselves.

Some of us already understand that perhaps something in a homeless person’s life went wrong and forced them to be where they are. Some people might even say that a homeless person became that way because the pressures of living in society drove them to it. Perhaps they felt misunderstood because they were too ‘open’ and in touch with their deeper soul essence, when unfortunately our limited society is yet unable to recognize philosophies and life ideas from the nature of a soul perspective. Those people likely ended up lost and feeling ‘out of place’ wandering around with a feeling that nothing in their lives really matters in terms of their understanding from a higher level. It can be very difficult to survive in a world where the ‘mundane’ seems to matter most.

It has even been discovered that some of the homeless are rich! So it is not always the case that they are less fortunate than us in a financial sense. I recall a situation that happened some time ago, a homeless man was discovered dead and they found out he had over 3 million dollars stashed away in his bank! In the end, whether they are rich or poor, these people are still homeless right now and why?

I checked the internet for the definition of the word ‘home’ and I found this interesting definition “An environment providing security and happiness”. So there are many of us in the world who have a roof over our head, yet we neither feel secure or happy. Do we think we are any more fortunate than the people living on the streets who do not have a building to live in? Are we any more human in essence than those people because we claim to own a few slabs of concrete? Tell me, don’t we still have many issues to deal with even though we have a place to live in, probably even more issues to deal with than those people who do not have the responsibility of maintaining a ‘home establishment’. As an example, what is the difference between a homeless person drinking alcohol to compensate for his or her problems and doing the same thing in the comfort of our own dwelling? If you ask me there is no difference at all, it is only a matter of status!

How do we define someone who is homeless? A homeless person is simply a person without a place to live. The number of homeless people is growing rapidly all over the world and what are we doing about it? Nothing really! It seems to be more important to us to go to the moon or mars and creates bombs worth millions of dollars! What the hell, if we can’t solve any of our problems then let’s just blow ourselves away!

In terms of the rest of us who consider ourselves fortunate for having a roof over our head, would you ever think of yourself as being homeless? I bet most of you are now saying “NO, HELL NO! What are you talking about? I have a home, two cars, a home theatre, a Nintendo machine or an Xbox, many games. I go out every week and have fun!” Let’s now consider the definition of the word ‘home’ once again ‘An environment providing security and happiness’. Now with that in mind, let me clarify my question again. With all that you have materially and aesthetically in your life today, are you sincerely happy in your life? How many times per day are you aware of a deep sense of loneliness? Do you ever feel an inner emptiness and as though there is something missing in life, yet you do not know what it is?

Most of us do feel this way on a regular basis, but are unable to determine what the problem is. We keep buying more and more stuff; we keep ourselves busy eating, drinking, smoking, entertaining and getting wasted on alcohol and drugs in order to avoid dealing with life. We can deny it for as long as we like, but in the end it is us who suffers and regardless of how we try to suppress things, that feeling that we are lonely, unhappy and that we are missing something will not go away. How many of us have bought stuff, yet in reality we don’t really have space for any more stuff in our life? How many of us are bored with life? How many of us feel a prevailing sense of lack of purpose?

The reason we came to this plane in the first place was because our Soul made the decision to do so. Then we were born. On the other hand, had your soul decided not to come to spend a life in this plane, you would not be here today. So if your soul decided to come here for a purpose and you are not living up to that and carrying out your souls task, then you will always feel you are missing something in your life. You will always feel that inexplicable void and loneliness deep inside of you; you might not feel truly happy.

What is it that prevents us from fulfilling our Souls task? It is quite simply our human limitations, our stubbornness, our fear of experiencing humility, our pride, our ego and our resistance to change that prevents us. When you try to fulfill your life with material things as a substitute for connecting to your Soul, this will never substitute for the need to look more deeply into your life and its purpose.

Making yourself appear happy on the outside in front of everyone, yet when you are alone you are as miserable as can be, serves no purpose at all. After all, is it just about appearances?? Who is getting hurt in reality? Living superficially will never bring harmony into your life for a simple reason, you are contradicting yourself. The funny part here is that many of us are somehow aware that we are living in this way, yet we still keep on doing it! My question is just how long are you prepared to keep it up? Will it be until the day you die and leave this earth life without accomplishing much of what your soul had intended in the first place? That is a waste of a lifetime.

My questions to you now are very simple. Are you homeless? Does your Soul have a home? Take a deeper look at your self, into your own being and take a good look at what you are doing with your life. Is this the life you really want to live and the path you desire to continue walking on? In reality, life is simple, yet on most occasions, we make things more complicated than necessary. From now on, just set yourself free and begin doing things for yourself and for the right reasons and always with a pure intention. Try to discover what is good for your soul and then do it! Most of all, always remember you are never ever alone!