Self Improvement Information

There are many ways to build a business life.  Whether you work in your own entrepreneurial business or as an employee in someone else’s business. Some people work hard and the fruits of their labor come with extreme amounts of pressure and stress.  They work long hours.  They have little time to enjoy family, hobbies, and relaxation.  As soon as they stop, due to illness or misfortune, they seem to be swept up by an invisible force that seems to carry them away.  They spiral into more health problems or financial ruin.

A few months back, I was sitting next to a gentleman at a seminar.  The relationships side of my personality took over and I just had to make a new acquaintance.  Hoping to find areas of commonality, I asked him what he did for a living.  He explained that he was a Yoga instructor with his own business in a nearby town.  Being interested in Yoga and knowing that it can be a competitive field for instructors, I asked him how that was working for him.  His response was, “quite well, I have more business than I can handle”.  I asked him how he got his clients and he responded, “they just come to me”.

I have observed businesses that function similar to the first and, also, to the second examples. I have puzzled over it.  How can some folks have an almost effortless experience building their business like the Yoga instructor, and some people always seem to be swimming upstream against a waterfall of adversity.

We would all like to be part of a business that grows, with what seems like effortless ease.  Most people don’t have a problem with the part of the equation that calls for working hard.  That is not where the challenge lies.  It is the mindset, or being in “the flow”.

I have been on a quest to answer the question, how do we get to “the flow”?  I have been making considerable headway on answering that question.  As the quotation says, “when the student is willing the teacher will appear.”  I stumbled into this video from “Engage Today 2009″ which was a conference held in September of 2009.  This conference had some heavy hitters, in the success arena, in their line up of speakers.  A 16 CD set will be released on January 28, 2010 with all of these speeches.  Looking at the line up of speakers this should be a great investment.  You can check out the preview videos here.

The 9 minute video I am showing you today, which is just a teaser, is bits and pieces from a speech given by Vishen Lakhiani from Finer Minds.  Even in this preview video he gives some interesting answers to the question about how to get into the flow.  If you enjoy this post please re-tweet.

Christmas time, what a wonderful time of year!  An evening drive around the city is eye candy.  Spectacular light displays, Christmas cards, music we hear only once a year, parties, and getting together with loved ones.  If this time of year is so full of wonderful things, why are more people stressed and depressed?

This has been a tough year on a lot of people with the economy and job losses.  Money can be tight this time of year.  People are trying to spread themselves thin with all the holiday activities.  How can we enjoy the seasonal activities and still keep our sanity?  Here are few tips and techniques that might come in handy.

1.  Get enough rest.  When we are battling fatigue our nerves can become very close to the surface.  For most people 7 – 8 hours a night is optimal.  The holiday season, before Christmas to after the New Year dawns, is a time when our usual time commitments can be added to very easily.  It can feel like the entire family is going all directions, running 100 mile an hour with their hair on fire.  Being well rested can help our stress levels.

2.  Learn to say no.  It can seem like adding one or two extra volunteer projects should be easy enough.  But, one or two more things can stretch the already busy schedule to critical mass.  Think it over carefully before volunteering for each project.

3.  Decide to enjoy Christmas!  For someone that has lost a loved one near Christmas, or family can’t make it home to celebrate the season, this can be a long and lonely holiday season.  Try out a few new holiday traditions.  Most of all, especially when  grief is involved, be kind to yourself.  It is OK to be sad when you’ve experienced loss.  That is a natural reaction.  Try not to block yourself off from others.  If you are alone for the holidays, this would be a good time to find others that are in the same situation.  Fill that lonely time by being of service to others.  The homeless shelter might need help serving Christmas dinner, or volunteer to deliver Christmas baskets to the poor.  There are trees in hospitals and grocery stores that have children’s names and ages and suggestions for gifts that you might enjoy shopping for them.  Seeking out the company of other people might give a small reprieve from the sadness. If it becomes unbearable, seek out a professional who has been schooled in dealing with grief and talk with them; clergy, doctors, or mental health professionals.  Don’t be ashamed.  Everyone needs a little help at times.

I have included a link to an article that goes into more detail and could be helpful to you.  May you have a blessed Christmas season!

Image by HaPe_Gera via Flickr

There will always be stress in our lives.  Stress can be good or bad.  Most people would say, “I don’t know of any good stress in my life!”  Ah, but there is positive stress which takes the form of excitement and anticipation.  I think we would all agree that kind of stress is a good.  But, on the flip side of that coin, the stress that is not good for us is responsible for 90% of the health challenges that plague our society.  It has grown to be the #1 health problem facing our country today.  Would you agree that stress holds us back from complete enjoyment of life?

Each one of us has a unique way that our stress manifests in our bodies.  We develop headaches, stomach aches, increased heart rate, grinding our teeth at night, just to name a few.  Continued stress can do permanent damage to our body in the form of heart conditions and cancer.

Where did stress come from?  Stress was originally designed to be our fight and flight response that kept us out of the way of danger.  It took care of us and helped us survive.  We don’t face as much danger, in this day and age, where we would need to fight our way out of it or run away.  We have now transmuted those responses into the form of anger and fear.

How each of us deals with stress is a learned response.  Our response to stress is taught to us by our families, friends, and from past experiences and beliefs.  Since, how we deal with stress is a learned response, wouldn’t it make sense that we could learn a different tactic that would be healthier for us?

Here are a few ways to change our negative patterns of reaction…aka stress habits.

1.  Meditate daily.  Meditation is an amazing tool to alleviate stress.  It is easy to learn and can be used any where you don’t have to be alert.  Driving in your car meditating is never a good idea.  Meditation relaxes.  It is physically impossible to be stressed when we are relaxed.  Meditation has many health benefits attached to the continuous practice.  Here is a link to a site I trust and that helped me learn meditation.

2.  Stop thinking about what you don’t want to happen.  People get confused thinking that they aren’t manifesting.  Manifestation is not the problem.  We manifest all day long.  We can’t help ourselves.  We manifest the breakfast we have, the coffee we drink, the clothes we wear.  The problem is that we aren’t manifesting what we think we want.  We make this a lot harder than it really is.  If we would occupy our minds with what we want and not entertain those thoughts of what we don’t want, our manifestations would be the things we want in life.

3.  Take control of ourselves.  Stop thinking that something outside of us is what makes us happy or sad.  We are the ones that choose to attach those emotions to events.  Nothing outside of us has the ability to make us happy or sad.  It is us that applies the label or perception to what happens in our lives.  We can start to change this by recognizing the thoughts we are thinking.  Where in the body are we feeling the stress?  When we start to feel the stress, stop and pinpoint what our fear is.  Imagine ourselves as being OK and after the situation is over, no matter how bad it is.

These are just a few things you can do to learn to deal with negative stress in a more positive way.  I have included this 6 minute video for your enjoyment and to relieve some stress with some good old fashion humor.  Feel free to pass this on to your network of people.