5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Deadlines

Setting and meeting your deadlines is a huge part of whether or not you are productive or not. Setting deadlines and achieving them is an art that you can learn with some patience and practice. However, common mistakes can quickly derail your productivity and leave you struggling to meet your deadlines. Here are five common mistakes you want to try to avoid when setting deadlines.

Not Writing the Deadline Down

It's no big secret, that what we don't see, we often forget. It is vital if you want to meet your deadlines, to write them down on a calendar or somewhere you can see them on a daily basis. If you have a lot of deadlines to meet, it will work well for you to have a big calendar where you can write down the deadline on the day it is due. It is essential if you want this to work that you have to review your calendar daily.

Failing to Research the Options

If you have a deadline, you need to research all of your options before you finalize it. For example, if you have a big work presentation, make sure you do your research before you tell your boss when you can make the presentation. You might think that it will take you no more than a week, but after researching the topic, you may realize that it will take you more than two weeks to be thoroughly prepared.

Setting Unrealistic Deadlines

While you may have a ton of motivation, if you set deadlines that are unrealistic, you’ll do nothing but stress yourself out. When you have plenty of time to complete a task, there will be no need to rush. You will never be able to accomplish any tasks successfully if you are always rushing to finish it.

Having Too Many Deadlines

If you find yourself too stressed out, it may be because you have too many deadlines looming. You may have to take a look at each of your deadlines and either choose a different deadline or see if you can delegate the task. It is just not feasible, long-term, to be an overachiever because it is just too stressful. Learn to keep your goals balanced and create realistic deadlines for them.

Lacking the Steps to Reach Your Deadline

Divide your project into smaller chunks and mark a new deadline for each smaller task until the final project is completed. Dividing projects into smaller, bite-sized pieces is a much more feasible way to keep your momentum going.

Setting deadlines is an essential aspect of life. Without them, we tend to procrastinate. Take these tips into consideration so you can start to meet your deadlines and increase your productivity.

4 Reasons Why You Need to Utilize Time-Boxing to Improve Your Productivity

If you find it difficult to manage your time and get your tasks done during the day, you may need to start utilizing a time management technique known as time-boxing. Time-boxing requires you to allot chucks of time to each of your tasks. Once your allotted time for a task is up, then you need to move onto the next task. Here are four reasons why you need to utilize time-boxing if you want to become more productive.

To Prioritize Your Tasks More Effectively

If you have trouble prioritizing your tasks, then time-boxing is a technique you'll want to utilize. Time-boxing forces you to decide how you will spend your time. Since your tasks are contained and can't be done at the same time you have to choose which tasks have to be completed today versus tomorrow, or even in a week.

To Increase Your Focus

Part of being more productive is finding your focus. Time-boxing is a great way to increase your focus. When you permit yourself to work without interruption, great things can happen. Time-boxing allows you to settle into your work, approach a problem, hone your skills, practice your creative thinking, and get more done.

Know How Much Time You’ve Spent on Something

Have you ever wondered how much time it took you to respond to your emails, write a blog post for your company, or to shop for your mom's birthday present? When you time-box your tasks, you not only create a finite set of tasks to accomplish within a specified period, but you also create a record of how you spent your time. This information can be beneficial if you need to enter detailed information into time sheets at work, or if you want to better manage your time in general.

Never Set a Deadline

Deadlines drive the very nature of time-boxing. You set a specific timeframe for completing a task or project as you go. If you have trouble setting deadlines for larger projects and tasks, you might want to start out small by time-boxing your daily tasks. This will give you more and more practice reaching your deadlines on a regular basis, eventually allowing you to translate this towards completing your more significant projects and tasks.

Learning how to utilize time-boxing to complete your tasks can help you significantly increase your productivity.

3 Simple Ways to Use a Calendar to Increase Your Productivity

There has been plenty of discussion about how a calendar can fit into one's productivity system. The general rule is that you add scheduled appointments to your calendar, and your tasks should be placed into the task management system that you use. However, what often isn't discussed is precisely what appointments you should be putting in your calendar to maximize your time best and ensure you're staying productive. Here are the three types of appointments you should add to your schedule to create an effective productivity system.

General Appointments

These are the regular appointments that you may schedule throughout your week. These would be appointments for the doctor or business lunches. They are relatively general regarding defining an appointment, so they need to be treated as such. These kinds of appointments can be moved if needed, given enough notice is provided, and both parties can make it happen, though you should try to avoid moving them in most cases.

Self-Appointments

These are the appointments that you make with yourself. They can be in the form of blocks of time that you schedule so that you can work on projects and tasks without interruption. You can transfer these kinds of appointments, but it is more beneficial if you can try to create a framework so that they stay as static as possible.

You want to pick a time during the day when you can work in 90-minute intervals on a regular basis so you can create a habit and improve your productivity. Break up the time with breaks where nothing is set in stone. You might even want to take larger blocks and break them down into smaller chunks using The Pomodoro Technique so that you can move from task to task. You want to keep these time blocks nimble enough that you can move them to other hours of the day if needed.

Team Appointments

Team appointments are for when you need to bring a team together. The best way to get these scheduled is once you’ve already locked in the other two types of appointments on your calendar. While doing this can make it more difficult to plan these kinds of meetings, you can use tools like Doodle, Google Calendar or Tungle.me to pick optimal times where most of the team can be present.

When you can keep in mind the three types of appointments that you have at your disposal, your calendar will become a tremendous tool that will allow you to create time and space for yourself and improve your productivity.

A Dozen Ways to Successfully Deal with Stress

Stress is what happens when you have so much to deal with emotionally or physically, and the burdens overwhelms you. This is why you can deal with many stressors and then all of a sudden something minor like dropping a glass of milk makes you start crying or feels like the final straw.

When you let stress build, it can feel as if it’s all too much to handle so you end up doing nothing. Or worse, you start trying to deal with the stress by using alcohol or other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Dealing with stress head on is always best and here are a dozen ways that you can effectively do that.

Use Meditation

By using visualization or other forms of meditation, it can help relieve the pressure of stress building up. You don’t have to be an expert to get started with meditation, either. You can use self-help books, online tutorials, guided imagery podcasts or other means.

Meditation takes your mind out of the middle of the stress and allows you to focus your thoughts. While you’re meditating, the constant badgering you sometimes get from stress will be eliminated because it won’t have center stage in your thoughts.

This practice can be done anywhere at any time and it doesn’t take long to reap the benefits of using meditation to deal with stress. Your mind and body will align and relax while using meditation.

It helps you let go of the negativity brought on by stress and instead keep your mind set on what’s good, what’s peaceful and what’s helpful to you. Meditation gives you a coping skill that helps you eliminate the effects of the flight or fight response that occurs when you’re under stress. You’ll be able to lower your blood pressure and feel the weight of your stressors lift from your shoulders.

Know Your Stressors

Sometimes people aren’t prepared for handling stress because they don’t know exactly what it is about their life that’s causing the stress reaction. By understanding what causes you stress, you can manage and eliminate it.

Fear and anxiety is a stressor. You can feel this kind of stress when you start playing the what if game - what if you lose your job, what if you can’t your bills, what if your partner breaks up with you, what if you get sick, etc.

This is projection thinking that takes you out of the present day and causes your mind to live in a state of what “could” happen in the future. It’s worrying about something that hasn’t happened and may never happen.

Issues with relatives can also be a stressor. You could have people in your life that you simply don’t get along with. Or you could have family members who are involved in situations that are bad and you feel the stress from that.

Leaving your normal way of life can be a stressor. This includes things like taking on a new job or leaving one, moving to a new home or new state, ending a relationship or starting one, going to college or graduating or having a child or having a child move out.

It’s anything that shakes up how you routinely live your life. Health issues can be a stressor. Whenever you not feeling well or you’re dealing with a chronic health problem, it can cause stress.

You feel the stress more when the health issue gets in the way of you being able to handle your day to day activities or your job. Job performance, both good and bad, can be a stressor.

When you do well at work, you may feel the stress and pressure to continually outdo yourself. When you do poorly, you may fear the boss’s reaction or the loss of your job.

Work and family balance is another stressor.

You can feel pulled in two directions and feel like your life isn’t balanced. This can cause you to feel stressed that you’re not able to do your best at work or at home because your time is being stretched too thin.

Track Your Stressors

You can’t fight what you can’t see coming. But when you write down what you’re going to be handling that day, it helps you deal with stress. It does this because you’ll be identifying all the situations for that day and what the potential stressors are going to be.

Identify what it is about the situation (or the person) that’s going to be in your day that’s causing you to feel the stress. For example, if you have to attend your child’s school for an event and the ex you don’t get along with is going to be there, you should know ahead of time how to handle the negative emotions that will rise up.

Maybe you can strategize a way to minimize interaction, too. Know ahead of time that when you feel the anger, you’ll practice meditation deep breathing exercises – because this can help you keep the situation and yourself calm.

Discover the Power of No

One common cause of stress is being too busy saying yes to others that you end up saying no to yourself. Know your limitations and don’t exceed them. Every day you’re going to be bombarded with people and situations that want you to say yes and give your time and energy.

But being a consistent “yes” person is the road to stress. You can’t take time for yourself or what you really want to do if you don’t practice using the power of no. Most people refrain from saying no out of fear that they’ll appear selfish, but saying no to someone isn’t selfish.

It’s practicing the art of self care. When you have a problem telling other people no, or even telling yourself no to things, you add to your workload and can over-do what you’re capable of.

You’ll end up - not only stressed - but your immune system can take a hit as well since stress lowers your body’s immune system defenses. Learning to say no can free you from the guilt that comes along with saying yes.

Many people only agree to something because they feel guilted into it or they guilt themselves into it. Just keep in mind that by saying no, you’re taking care of your body and that’s a good thing.

When you say no, let that be your one word explanation. If someone asks, “why not” in response to your no, recognize that as a boundary issue. You don’t owe anyone a reason. By saying no, you free yourself from overextending your own time and causing yourself unnecessary stress.

Get Enough Sleep

When you don’t get enough sleep, it can cause a delayed reaction time in situations such as driving or trying to do your job. It also causes memory problems, weight gain, and can lead to serious health issues.

But not getting the right amount of sleep can cause stress and worsen the stress you may already have. A lack of sleep causes your decision making ability to be affected and you end up making poor choices that increase your stress.

This happens when you get tired and you end up not really wanting to deal with whatever you’re trying to handle. So you end up saying no to good opportunities and yes to bad ones.

The lack of sleep can cause a cycle. When you don’t get enough rest, it causes stress, which in turn causes insomnia. With each feeding into the other, it can make your stress level increase and reach the point where you find it difficult to deal with even minor problems.

Stop Ignoring Problems

You might believe that it’s better not to deal with an issue that’s causing you stress - that if you don’t handle it, you’re protecting yourself. But what you’re doing is actually making your stress worse.

Common problems that people don’t like to deal with yet cause stress are: home repairs, car repairs, financial problems, children or teenage behavior, arguments/issues with your spouse, family problems, environmental problems or fear of world problems.

When a problem arises, deal with it as soon as possible. If you put it off, the problem can only get bigger and when it grows, it’ll take more of your energy and resources to fix.

Problems don’t ride off into the sunset just because they aren’t dealt with. They linger, quietly nagging at the back of your mind even while you’re trying to ignore them. This internal nagging is at work building your stress. Face your problems, deal with them head on, and free yourself from stress.

Lower Your Expectations

One of the reasons that people have stress is because their expectations are out of whack. They have high expectations for other people and for themselves. So when things don’t work out as they expected, they feel not only disappointed, but stressed as well.

You can tell if your expectations are causing you stress if you think that your life wasn’t supposed to turn out the way that it has - or if you think your partner wasn’t supposed to behave the way he or she did.

It causes you stress because you were expecting something you didn’t receive. You feel disappointment that the picture in your mind wasn’t painted correctly in reality. Relief from stress is found by having realistic expectations for yourself and for the others in your life as well.

Learn to accept yourself for who you are, and others for who they are. When you consider your life, rather than feeling stressed for what hasn’t worked out, focus on the good that has. Stop putting the pressure and stress on yourself to do more or to be more.

Find a Hobby You Enjoy

When you find something you like doing, it acts as a stress reliever because it gives you an outlet.  A hobby can be a way for you to release the anxiety and pent up emotions that go along with dealing with stress.

You can get involved in music such as finding new songs or new bands. You can check out the local music scene where you live and attend free music festivals or shows for singers and bands just getting started.

Painting and other creative things such as sketching or coloring can be a hobby that works as a stress outlet. There’s also journaling. You don’t have to be good at writing to journal.

It’s just putting words down that are talking about how you’re feeling or what’s gone on during your day. Some people get into gardening. You can do vegetable and fruit or flowering gardening.

You can do a mixture of all three. Taking up knitting or crocheting is a great hobby that can help you deal with stress. You can learn a new skill such as a second language. Or you can learn how to play an instrument.

You can get involved in community theater or take acting classes. Going for regular hikes to explore new places is a great way to deal with stress. So is volunteering. By investing yourself in someone else, it successfully manages stress.

Create a To-Do List

You might wonder why creating a to-do list can help you manage stress. The answer is because when stress hits, you feel like everything is going wrong. You feel like nothing is within your ability to cope.

This feeling of being out of control can increase your stress level. Sometimes stress develops because people feel like they have so much to do or to overcome that it causes action paralysis, which then worsens stress.

By creating a to-do list, it helps a person prioritize the important things and they’re able to focus on getting one thing at a time accomplished. Rather than focusing on what they have to do in its entirety, which can make stress rise, they’re able to get through the day by choosing bite size action steps.

When you have a step-by- step to-do list it allows you to feel like you’re in control. This works well even if you don’t necessarily have a lot on your plate to handle. A physical list takes the pressure off your mental checklist.

Find Your Support System

One of the worst things about stress is when you try to keep it all inside. When your job isn’t working out well, your partner isn’t being helpful, and your kids are constantly pushing your buttons, you need a way to come to terms with the stress that you’re feeling.

If you don’t let it out, the stress pressure builds. You need to have someone to talk to about what you’re going through. This someone may not be able to do anything to change your situation.

But by simply being there to listen, it relieves you of the buildup you’re feeling. Talking through what’s happening with you and what’s causing your stress makes you feel better even if the situation is still present.

Your support can be a trusted friend, a relative, a romantic partner or a trained counselor. Sharing how you’re feeling relieves the emotional toll such as anxiety and depression that are often linked to stress.

Create a Strategy

Every single bit of stress in your life can be traced back to a trigger. It’s always cause and effect. Something happens and there’s a mental, emotional or physical reaction. There are consequences or changes that led to the stress.

For example, your boss gives you a better position. You make more money. Now you’re stressed. Not because you got the position that you wanted, but because there are more responsibilities.

It might be more time away from home. You might feel worried that you’re not up to par.

What you have to do when stress hits is trace backward to get to the root of your stress. When you find that, you can create a strategy to eliminate the stress.

If you take the new position at work, have a plan to enlist more help at home or hire outside help. If you’re worried you’re not knowledgeable enough about the new position, ask for help such as more training or take a course. Your strategy should make you proactive and show you what you need to do to help you deal with your stress.

Let Go

You must reach the place where you realize that despite how hard you try, there are some things you just can’t solve. By wasting time worrying and trying to find a fix for the unfixable, you’re just creating stress.

You can’t fix a coworker who’s lazy or is a jerk. You can’t force a loved one not to break up with you. You can’t order every event in your life to be as you wish it to be. You don’t have any control over things that are outside your ability to change.

What you have to do is accept what you can’t change and make peace with it. When you waste energy striving to try to force things to happen that are beyond your scope, you end up frustrated and stressed.

Accepting that you’re powerless to change everything that affects you is a hard thing to do but it’s necessary in order to deal with stress. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re strong enough to move on with your life rather than remaining stuck.

Success Mindset for Achieving Your Goals in Life

The world is made up of three kinds of people. Those who are successful, those who are not yet successful and those who will never be successful. You can see this simply by looking at people who try and try and just never seem to make it even though it’s clear that they possess the knowledge they need.

So why are there people in this world who dream big and have hopes for a successful future, but it all comes to nothing? The answer is that their mindset held them back just like the mindset of the successful propelled them to greater heights and the achievements of their dreams. If you want to make it in anything, you must have a success mindset.

Why a Successful Mindset Makes Your Goals Achievable

Having a success mindset is an important tool because what you think is in control of what you’ll do. If you think you can’t, you won’t. If you think you’re a failure, you are. If you think dreams come true for other people and not for you, then you’re right.

You’re creating your own version of mental roadblocks that then lead to physical roadblocks because you develop the mindset of “Why bother to try when you’re only going to end up failing?”

You think this way because you haven’t yet realized the power of mindset. It can guide or affect everything you do in your personal or professional life. The reason that it has this power is because you are the fuel that feeds into the belief.

Then you will act according to your mindset. You’ll act like a failure or you’ll act like a winner. You’ll act defeated or you’ll act triumphant. You might not have the same education as the next person.

You might not have the same level of talent. You might not have a lot of money. You might not have the same outgoing personality. But that doesn’t mean that your chances of success are any lower, because your mindset will determine that, not your station in life.

If you don’t believe that, do a quick search on people who became millionaires or who build a successful business from nothing. Your circumstances aren’t the chains that hold you back.

Your mindset is. But it doesn’t have to be. Only you can give it that authority. Once you step up and take control of your mindset, your days feeling like and acting like a failure are over.

Developing a success mindset leads to a change in how you see yourself. You’ll stop having a negative attitude about who you are and what you’re capable of. You’ll stop the thought track in your mind that tells you that you can’t succeed, that you don’t have what it takes.

Stopping that track then boosts your self-esteem. Whatever negative thought or belief that you allow to grow within your mind will grow and flourish like weeds choking out even the tiniest speck of good that you might believe about yourself.

When you develop a success mindset, it allows you to overcome self-criticism. This enables how you view everything to change. It changes your perspective, your ideas, bolsters your goals and gives new and fresh meaning to what you want to achieve.

How do you know if you have a success mindset? You view any failures as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than as stopping points. Every success that you want is doable by having a success mindset.

When you have that, your perspective shifts. You see obstacles as challenges. You believe you can overcome whatever obstacle is thrown at you. When you view problems, you might not automatically know the answer to them, but you believe that you’ll get the answer.

The vision that you have for your life shifts when you have a success mindset. It creates a determination within you that propels you forward and allows you to succeed regardless of the effort it takes.

You don’t quit until your goals are accomplished. With a success mindset, you don’t see circumstances that hold you back. You see chances to grow. You develop a strong can do attitude that allows you try where previously you might have allowed circumstances to keep you stuck at the starting line.

You have to remember that a success mindset envisions triumph, which improves your ability to reach the goals that you set for yourself. Think of your mindset as a gate that either opens for opportunities or closes to them.

Change Hopeless Negativity to an Optimistic Success Mindset

One of the reasons that people develop a sense of hopeless negativity is because they view their life goals, their relationships, their dreams and their needs in light of what should have been instead of what is.

They feel a sense of disappointment that things haven’t worked out the way that they want, so they begin to close ranks around possibilities. People with hopeless negativity fail to see life as it can be and only focus on the bad or what’s prevented them from succeeding.

People who think this way don’t see their situation as ever improving. Their belief is that everything is bad. They live day to day expecting the worst to happen. It usually does because mindset leads to behaviors or habits that create the existence they believe.

So they end up not trying and they settle for the kind of life they don’t want, failing to see that the one they do want is only a mindset change away. Changing your hopeless negativity to an optimistic success mindset isn’t difficult.

It just takes some practice. Learn to view every situation though a positive lens. You can do this by seeking the positive in the situation, in the person or in your thoughts. What happens when you do this is it shifts your mindset away from what’s not good and puts it on what is.

Take the time every single day to reflect on the good that you experienced. If you look for the positive, you will find it regardless of whatever is going on - regardless of what did or didn’t happen.

You have to stop dwelling on the immediate and keep your view settled on the outcome. Every positive journey will have negative parts to it. If you stay focused on the negative, you can miss the bigger picture.

Your mindset can get so clouded over by the negative that you completely miss the good things that are waiting for you to take hold and move you ahead toward your success.

You can change hopeless negativity, but not holding onto those thoughts or attitudes. These are things that you usually dwell on. And wherever your attention is, your mindset follows.

For example, if you continually dwell on all that needs repairing in your home, you’ll start to dislike where you live. You’ll feel miserable and start wishing you could move. Then you’ll start thinking about how you can’t afford to move and you’ll feel trapped.

So the one negative thought mushrooms and becomes this huge thing that makes you feel hopeless. Then you feel helpless to change your situation - all because your mind says there’s nothing you can do.

But if you look at the repairs in your home as an opportunity to fix it up the way you want it to be, or to make improvements that you like better, you’ll notice that your attitude has changed about it.

The attitude changed because the mindset did. Examine any negative or hopeless thought that comes into your mind. Take charge of it and ask yourself what opportunities are hidden in the situation.

Then find them and focus on those instead. Make it a habit to seek the positive and let it be how you start and end your day. Begin your day by thinking a positive thought. It can be something about it being a beautiful day or something like you get to have your favorite cup of coffee.

End your day the same way. Start a habit of writing down at least 3 good things that happened to you that day, that you learned, that you accomplished. This habit is what teaches you to notice what’s good.

When you look for the positive, it makes you feel better and it changes your perspective from one that life is happening to – to something that you’re in control of. You discover that you make your own happiness and that it’s not determined by external haves or have nots.

You must keep in mind that whichever mindset you feed is the one that grows. If you feed the negative mindset, it blooms into something that can easily overwhelm the good. If you feed the good mindset, it blooms and gains control rather than the negative side.

Becoming Sure of Your Success Mindset Until You Follow Through

It’s one thing to talk about a success mindset. Another to live it. You might want a success mindset but not be sure about your ability to achieve it or unsure if you can carry on until you do follow through and reach your goals.

Your environment can often determine your ability to follow through. The rule of thumb is always negative in, negative out. Spend enough time in a negative environment and you’ll end up affected.

If all the people you have in your circle practice a negative mindset and they seem to see the problems instead of the hope in even trying, before long, you’ll be spouting the same words they’re speaking.

You’ll see gloom and doom. You’ll see all the reasons why you can’t accomplish your dreams. You’ll think about how success is for others, not you. You’ll look at their lives and see how they too, are just like you.

They didn’t succeed, so what makes you think you can? Everyone has their own personality. They’re the sum parts of the way they were raised, the friends they have, the habits they perform.

But what carries the a lot of weight in anyone’s life are the people that you hang with. These are the people that you look to for advice. They’re the ones that you complain to on the phone.

They’re the ones that influence your decisions. If your environment is made up of negative influences, it has to change in order for you to succeed. You can become sure of your success mindset by reframing what you’re up against.

You might feel that there’s no way you can succeed. So reframe that what you’re up against isn’t something insurmountable. Instead, it’s something that’s going to offer you a learning experience.

What this does is take you out of your comfort zone and allow you to push beyond self-imposed mindset limitations. You’ll be able to see the accomplishments rather than the failures.

You must push past the limits that you’ve set for yourself in the past. As you stretch your mindset, it lets go of the mental blocks that hold your success hostage. It frees you up to take risks, to step beyond what you thought you were capable of.

Instead of thinking that there’s no way you can succeed, you’ll begin to view yourself as someone who’s in control of his success. You follow through by welcoming mistakes as an opportunity to learn and rise above the issues.

When you practice a success mindset, it lets you choose to move. It also lets you acknowledge that you need to learn with grace rather than allowing it to be the thing that holds you back.

You become sure of your success mindset when you change your thought processes. When you stop going through life saying, “I can’t” or “I might fail” and instead saying, “Good things are going to happen for me,” then by your actions, you make that positive outcome a reality.

Action Steps You Can Take to Develop a Success Mindset

Practice positive affirmations. Doing this will help you realize that you’re good enough and that what you need to succeed, you already possess. Positive affirmations can help you see yourself as worthy and strong as well as capable.

These affirmations can help you break free from a negative mindset that leads to self sabotaging behavior such as not even trying to go after success. Your brain reacts to repeated positive affirmations and accepts them as truth.

When you speak them, use the present tense. Choose affirmations such as, “I am successful and talented. I recognize my abilities and other people recognize my abilities.”

Your brain then begins to create positive thoughts based on that affirmation. Your body and your attitude then follow along. Your action steps will be based in the belief that you can achieve your goals.

Follow success stories. Find the stories that motivate and inspire you. Watch documentaries of people that have similar goals that you also want to reach. Study what they did and how they overcame obstacles.

Watching other successful people in action fills you with a can-do attitude. You start thinking that if that person can do it, then so can you. Create a vision board. When you create a board that uses a selection of images representing what your success is, it creates an image of what can be.

The board is a tangible view of what you want to achieve. When you have a vision board, you use the power of visualization to prompt a success mindset. The board sinks into your subconscious mind and lets you see things you may not have realized before.

A vision board acts as a reminder that success is yours. Having one can help you choose action when fear creeps in. It can also help you remember to believe in yourself and to keep your brain focused on the positive, which is the outcome of your goals.

The board should be a visual representation of your success story unfolding. Practice the law of attraction. Know what it is that you want to attract to your life. Believe that you have it in you to make all your dreams come true.

5 Tips For Reducing Distractions

Today's world is complex and intricate, socially intertwined and packed with information overloaded. The mind is working overtime and it can be incredibly difficult to block it all out and focus. Unfortunately, jobs are becoming more and more specialized, requiring that very focus we don't have. So how can we survive in the world and get things done? How do we train our brains to absorb everything around us but still remain focused on the task at hand? Here are 5 tips for reducing distractions and help improve focus and concentration in your daily life:

1. Follow your mind: While you can't always give into your mind, sometimes you have to realize that you need to rest and take some time to do what you enjoy. It's crucial that you can differentiate between when you truly need to take a break and when your brain is just being a painful distractor!

2. Periodical revision: This is the other important principle of superb focus and concentration in hypnosis. Hypnosis considers the technique of periodic review as the best thing that a man can enjoy to increase his focus and concentration. When you learn something, the periodical update of that thing is necessary to retain that information in your mind.

3. List out your goals or ambitions in a plain white paper. Write down what you want to become and the ways through which you can achieve that goals. List out what you cherish to become in big, bold and clear handwriting. This way, you can look at it and force yourself back to your task.

4. Remove your distractors: It's no surprise that you find yourself texting and calling your friends when your phone is right infront of you, buzzing away. If you really want to accomplish your goals then sometimes you have to completely remove the distractors from your life. Put your phone into another room. Block Facebook. Delete your Twitter account. Put your goals first!

5. Hypnosis enables you to reduce distraction. It provides us with the right tools to reinforce our focus and concentration. People often complain about the things in their life that they find difficult to concentrate and focus upon. This happens when you focus more on what you don't want rather than what you want. The factors that affect your ability to focus and concentration are stress, poor diet, anxiety, lack of sleep, etc. the problem of lack of focus and concentration is very embarrassing and frustrating. It can cause you lose your confidence and self-belief. The factors that can help you develop a sharp and sound memory for the perfect focus and concentration are your attention, intention and your interest in that subject.

How To Improve Your Focus

Whether you are a sportsperson, actor, student or a working professional, your performance is determined by your ability to focus properly. However, there are times times when our mind wanders away and it becomes impossible for us to concentrate on anything.. Hence, by following some simple tips, we can ensure that we always manage to stay sharp and focused.


1. MEDITATION: It will be great for your body and mind if you can manage to allocate at least half an hour everyday for meditation . But, that is not possible for everyone. Fortunately, that doesn't matter, because even when we are breathing we can practice meditation. Breath is the main source of our energy and by simply becoming aware of your breath, you can slip into meditation. That best part about this is that, you can do this anywhere and anytime.

2. KEEP YOUR GOALS SMALL AND ACHIEVABLE: It is good to dream big, but sometimes you can get distracted and lose focus. Since the dream is too big, you will fail to realize any immediate results which brings you closer it. It is best to break it into smaller portions and then slowly achieve them one by one.

3. START FASTING A BIT: Everyone knows that eating heavy slows us down and makes us feel lazy and sleepy. Fasting has lots of good benefits. It boots our metabolism process and helps to keep us sharp and focused. However, small amount of fasting is recommended only. Don't starve yourself. 

4. TAKE PART IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES: Always try to keep yourself engaged in physical activities. It helps to keep our body in a good shape and also helps us to stay focused. As per a study, 20 minutes of yoga everyday enhances the brain functions and improves our ability to focus.

5. SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH MOTHER NATURE: Sometimes it is better to just sit down and enjoy the small, beautiful things about Nature. The chirping of birds, twigs crackling, the wind blowing through the branches of the trees- just sit down and try to listen to these sounds. You will feel at peace. As a result, your focus will also improve.

6. EXERCISE YOUR MIND: Apart from taking part in physical activities, try to keep your mind engaged in different activities. Solve some puzzles or the crossword, take part in debates and discussions or involve yourself in any creative activities. In short, don't let your mind stay idle. 

7. LISTEN TO MUSIC: Music is a big stress buster and helps us to maintain our focus. However, most people listen to music while reading or exercising. Instead try to listen to the music carefully. Try to listen to the different instruments playing in the background and focus on any one of them. It adds a new dimension to your music listening experience and is also very good for your mind.

I think you will be inspired by this video aswell and so I recommend you spend those 1:40 to watch it now and let that message sink in..