A Lifestyle of Time

One of the greatest single problems of people today is “time poverty.” Most people feel overwhelmed with responsibilities and activities, and the harder they work, the further behind they feel. This sense of being on a never-ending treadmill can lead to reactive lifestyle; Instead of clearly deciding what you want to do, you continually react to what is happening around you. And soon, you lose all sense of control and your life begins to run you, rather than you running your life.

Meanwhile, you have to stand back and take stock of yourself and what you’re doing regularly. You have to stop the clock and do some serious thinking about whom you are and where you are going. You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace.

Taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure. Your ability to think is the most valuable trait that you possess. Improve the quality of your thinking and improve the quality of your life.

Time is our most precious resource. It is the most valuable thing that we have. It is perishable, irreplaceable and cannot be saved. It can only be reallocated from low value activities to high value activities. All work requires time. Taking a moment to think about your time before you spend it will really improve your time management.

I used to think that time management was only a business tool, like a calculator or a cellular telephone. It was something that you used so that you could get more done in a shorter period of time and eventually be paid more money. Then I learned that time management is not a peripheral activity or skill. It is the core skill upon which everything else in life depends.

3 Major Goals for Time Management

Personal time management begins with you. It begins with your thinking through what is really important to you in life. And it only makes sense if you organize it around specific things that you want to accomplish. You need to set goals in three major areas of your life.

1.      Family and personal goals.

These are the reasons why you get up in the morning, work hard and upgrade your skills, worry about money and sometimes feel frustrated by the demands on your time.  Achieving these family and personal goals are the real essence of time management, and its major purpose.

2.      Business and career goals.

These are the “how” and “why” goals. How can you achieve the level of income that will enable you to fulfill your family goals? How can you develop the skills and abilities to stay on top in your career? Business and career goals are absolutely essential, especially when balanced with family and personal goals.

3.      Personal development goals.

You can’t achieve much more on the outside than what you have achieved on the inside. Your outer life is only a reflection of your inner life. If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and your career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development. You must build yourself if you want to build your life. According to Brian Tracy, “The greatest secret of success is that you can become anything you really want to become to achieve any goal that you really want to achieve”. But, you must work on yourself and never stop.

Having listed your goals, organize it by priority. Your time management will only begin for you once you decide very clearly your priorities. You must decide on the most important things that you could possibly be doing to give yourself the same amount of happiness, satisfaction, and joy in life. On the other hand, note those things that are important but not urgent and squeeze time to do them before they become urgent.

How to Manage Your Calendar

I know that your calendar is full and you have no spare time. True. Your time is extremely valuable. Therefore, for you to do anything new, you will have to stop doing something old. In order to get into something, you will have to get out of something else. In order to pick something up, you will have to put something down. Before you make any new commitment of your time, you must firmly decide what activities you are going to discontinue in your personal life. If you want to spend more time with your family, for example, you must decide what activities you currently engage in that are preventing you from doing so.

There is a principle of time management that says hard time pushes out soft time. This means that hard time, such as working, will push out soft time, such as the time you spend with your family. If you don’t get your work done at the office because you don’t use your time well, you almost invariably have to rob that time from your family. As a result, because your family is important to you, you find yourself in a values conflict. You feel stressed and irritable. This is common in our lives, watch it!

3 Time-check Questions

There are three key questions that you can ask yourself continually to help maintain your personal life and time balance.

1.      “What is really important to me?”

Whenever you find yourself with too much to do and too little time, stop and ask yourself.

2.       “What are my highest value activities?”

In your personal life, what are the things that you could do that will give greatest value to your life?

3.       “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”

Since you can only do one thing at a time, you must constantly organize your life so that you are doing one thing, the most important thing, at every moment.

In all, time management enables you to choose what to do first, what to do second, and what not to do at all. It enables you to organize every aspect of your life so that you can get the greatest joy, happiness, and satisfaction out of everything you do. It is not a skill you should possess, it is a lifestyle.

15 benefits of a Mastermind Group

A mastermind group is a group of people who come together to mutually assist each other in their pursuit of success. The idea is that the members of the group each provide vital skills and knowledge that other members may lack. They bounce ideas off each other and offer help and advice so that they all may become successful.   

15 benefits of a Mastermind Group

1.             You discover more things compared to when you work alone.

2.            You can easily leverage and share partners.

3.            It gives you access to share customers and cross promote.

4.            You create ideas, share ideas, improve on ideas and combine ideas.

5.            It enables you to enlarge your views.

6.            It gives you room to improve your mission and strategy.

7.            It will help you know things you never knew before.

8.            It will help you realize useful ideas and things you’ve always thought to be useless and unimportant.

9.            You will learn lessons and caution your errors.

10.          You will learn about your defects and qualities.

11.          You will get quality feedbacks from your partners on your products and services.

12.          You can share ideas from your various mentors.

13.          You stand to get good testimonials about your products and services from your partners.

14.          You also stand to get quality support from your partners.

15.          Every meeting stands to give you a new idea you can inject into your business or career.

Being a part of a successful Mastermind group is an enriching experience that will accelerate you professionally and personally in ways you can't imagine. You don't have to be a lone ranger and you don't have to figure things out on your own. No man is an island. So, don't wait to start or join one!

You can also mail me if you need suggestions from me at macstands@gmail.com. Goodluck!

CREATING INVALUABLE IDEAS

In our generation today, an idea is far easier to access and utilized in almost all spheres of life compared to the days of our fathers and previous generations. This has being achieved as a result of the invention of the World Wide Web and other improved forms of effective communication. However, there doesn't seem to be many ideas on how to create ideas and maximize these ideas hence, only very few people have been able to access and demonstrate quality ideas and processes.

Here is a few ways to go about creating mind blowing ideas and businesses that can bring about a revolution in your life, career and maybe business. Read along and get to know “how” to create quality ideas and world-wide solutions.

If you are hoping that you can just sit down somewhere and after a few hours of intense mental thought, come up with a successful business idea "forget it," it doesn't work that way. But, developing the right mental attitude, not being stressed, not being in a hurry or attached to an outcome and just enjoying the process will bring results that can change your life, business and career.

TIPS TO CREATING NEW IDEAS

1.   Don’t go rushing to create so many new ideas and missing certain great ideas by putting so much pressure on you rather, create a few ideas and keep working on them.

2.   Be open to ideas and suggestions from people and their interactions, situations, events and the environment at large because you never can tell how creative your mind is.

3.   Endeavour to write down every idea that comes to your mind or the ones you get from other people and review them regularly while you brainstorm.

4.   Commence work on every new idea you conceive within 48 hours of conception else you stand to lose most of the zeal and energy to bring the idea to actualization.

5.   From time to time brainstorm and experiment combining two or more ideas to get a unique idea or concept.

6.   Always focus on few and less number of ideas at a time.

Above all, new experiences can make you rich. It will take time and persistence to be successful in this field (Idea creation) and you may have a couple of close calls before you make it. But that is what makes it so much fun, not knowing whether or not one of your new ideas will be a success yet, you kept on working on them and eventually it will become that GREAT IDEA you need to make your break and become known to the whole world.

Remember: Just the required idea may not be enough to make a hit but your determined effort to cross all hurdles. Catch you with my next article on  http://macstands.blogspot.com. Or, send a mail to macstands@gmail.com for questions. Good luck!

The Power of "I Can!"

Successful people often say that it was their drive to keep going, despite the desire to quit, that drove them to successful heights in their dreams, businesses or careers. That sentiment perfectly sums up the “I can” attitude.  In other words, even though the odds may be against you, keeping a positive mindset can give you the mental push and energy you need to stick to your plan and build your life the way you desire.

A negative “I can’t” attitude can pervade nearly every situation for you. It can affect your business plans, career track, or even personal family or social situations. If you keep telling yourself you can’t do things, eventually you’ll believe yourself and you’ll lose the desire to even try. According to one of Adolf Hitler’s general, “If you listen to a lie for more than thirteen times, you will begin to be feeling it is the truth”. So, learn to tell yourself “I can!”

Have you ever wanted to attend an event or party, but chose not to go because you didn’t know anyone? Was there ever an incredible opportunity to explore your passion, but you refused out of fear? In these situations and more, you need to face your fears, attack that negative attitude and say “I can” – especially if there are distinct benefits that could help your business, career or personal life.

Please note; Instead of getting discouraged by setbacks or failure, think about your abilities and strengths, then push ahead! Life is in cycles. Life is two steps forward and one step backward. There will always be setbacks but, have it in mind that setbacks are springboards to higher heights.

I know that trying new things involves a certain amount of risk and not all of us are risk takers. Most new situations don’t involve a life-threatening risk, but the simple fact of not knowing the outcome can paralyze one’s intention with fear. Unfortunately, fear prevents you from trying anything new and it’s often difficult to break this catch-22 cycle.

However, never allow “I can’t” be the words that eventually come out of your mouth, especially when your thoughts have been crowded by doubts, plagued by low self-esteem and confusion has over-ridden self belief. Rather, say “I can” over and over again till your subconscious mind holds it tight to be the only truth.

5 ways to combat self-doubt and become action-oriented:

1.       Don’t take criticism or mistakes personally.

No one is perfect. Learn from your experiences and prepare yourself for the next time.

2.       Find ways to improve your skills.

Take continuing education classes, e- courses, or read books to gain confidence in those skills you feel need improvement.

3.       Think about past successes.

Success is sweet and words of praise can do wonders to your self-esteem. Think about the times when you were successful and find ways to regain that feeling.

4.       Think about the problem or task logically and break it into pieces.

 This can be overwhelming, so tackle smaller goals one at a time to avoid confusion and added stress.

5.        Prioritize and delegate what you cannot do very well to other qualified experts.

Use the resources around you to help complete the job rather than tackling everything yourself.

The next time you’re faced with the chance to try something new, take a deep breath, think about the benefits you could experience from this, and say “I can”!