Inspirational Quotes

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards. – Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish Dramatist/Novelist/Poet

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. – Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, English Politician/Author/Nobel Prize Winner

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it. – Lou Holtz, American College Football Coach and Motivational Speaker

 

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890-1969, 34th President of the United States

Regret for wasted time is more wasted time. – Mason Cooley, 1927-2002, American Aphorist

Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised. – Denis Waitley, American Author/Speaker/Peak Performance Expert

 

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted. – Deepak Chopra, Indian-born Physician and Spiritual Author

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. – Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, 28th President of the United States

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes...but no plans. – Peter F. Drucker, 1909-2005, Austrian-born Management Consultant and Author

Peoplewho bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. – Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983, American Social Writer

You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain. – Leo Durocher, 1905-1991, Hall of Fame American Baseball Manager and Player

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death. – Omar N. Bradley, 1893-1981, American Army Field Commander during World War II

In Search of the 50 Self-Help Classics

I never went in search of motivational or self-help reading, but at some point I did begin to notice these books. I knew that none of my circle of family or friends read them, or at least owned up to it, but as any normal person would I found the promise of two of the titles particularly attractive: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Awaken The Giant Within. I finally plucked up the courage to buy these two titles and found them unputdownable. But they did not change my life suddenly - I still went back to work every Monday morning.

In 1995 I took the books with me to the UK, embarking on a Masters program at the London School of Economics. I knew that coming to London had been a sort of escape from a perfectly good, if uninspiring, life back home. But as the year unfolded, a mixture of laziness and personal upheavals saw me all but give up on my assigned academic reading lists. To the amusement of friends I spent my money and valuable studying time on a growing pile of glossy self-help tomes.

I realized I was at a career crossroads. I didn¡¦t really want to go back to being a government adviser, but what else could I do? A seemingly way-out idea niggled at the corner of my conscience: could I make reading and writing about inspirational books my work? The possibility of there being keys to a better life, laws of greater effectiveness, secrets to greater fulfillment, had got me thinking as few other things had. Here was a genre wholly ignored in terms of literary review but packed with ideas that could change and deepen a life as much as any fictional or academic work. Some of these books had been around for decades and still selling, while new titles continued to appear that struck deep chords with the contemporary reader.

Self-help and motivational books, I readily admitted, were considered by most people as being low brow, but couldn't there be a list of standout works that defied fad and fashion? What if I could identify the classics in the field?

I scraped through the degree, went back to see my family in Australia and spent time in the Outback. One day I set off into the desert near an Aboriginal settlement where I was staying. Armed only with some water, a notebook and Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth, I sat down on a rock under a tree to just think. Campbell's message was that many of us are trying to climb a 'ladder of success', only to find at the end that we had our ladder up against the wrong wall; the alternative is pursuing ideas that fire our imagination, even if we are dead scared of where they may lead us. By the time I wandered back that evening, my mind was made up - I would spend the next few years searching for the great works in self-help, whether they were written last year or centuries ago.

The result of my rather enjoyable time in the wilderness is 50 Self-Help Classics.

* * * * *

The self-help phenomenon

The self-help book was one of the success stories of the 20th century. Self-help as an idea may have been around a long time, but only in the 20th century did it become a mass phenomenon. Books like How To Win Friends and Influence People (first published in 1936) and The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) were bought by people wanting to make more of their lives, willing to believe that the secrets of success and well-being could be found in a paperback.

Maybe the genre took on its lowbrow image because the books were so readily available, promised so much, and contained ideas you were unlikely to hear from a professor or a minister. Whatever the image, the genre took off. An exact number is impossible to calculate, but worldwide sales figures for the genre would run to the hundreds of millions.

The books and their authors

Dale Carnegie was a poor farm boy who didn't see a train until he was 12, but after stints as a salesman and actor found his niche running hugely successful YMCA courses for businessmen on how to communicate better. The courses became a book with an initial print run of 5,000, but quickly became a bestseller. How To Win Friends and Influence People has now sold more than 17 million copies in its various editions.

Norman Vincent Peale was a minister in New York where his sermons were so popular people queued around the block to hear him. His classic, The Power of Positive Thinking, with simple anecdotes on how to overcome adversity through strong faith, received more than 30 rejection slips from publishers before going on to be one of the most successful non-fiction titles of all time.

These titles arose from the authors' life experience, but contemporary self-help literature is more conventionally scientific, a lot of it derived from motivational and cognitive psychology. Titles such as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, Martin Seligman's Learned Optimism and David Burns' Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, have reached a new audience who may not have previously considered reading self-help books.

Yet validation by science has never been essential to the most successful self-help titles; what matters is whether the ideas and techniques work. Anthony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within and Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People continue to be massive sellers, the former based on powerful techniques from the mind science of neuro-linguistic programming, and the latter a suprisingly old-fashioned return to the idea of developing good character based on deeply-held but consciously-created values.

Self-help also covers the gamut of new age ideas and spirituality, from M Scott Peck's pioneering The Road Less Traveled (first published 1978), which mixes Christian ideas such as grace and sin with modern psychology, to superguru Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, a guide to achieving prosperity through stillness and non-judgement.

Other prime examples of the breadth of thinking include Paulo Coelho's inspirational novel about following your dreams, The Alchemist, Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love and the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness. Each of these are derived from Eastern and Western spiritual traditions but incorporate new twists that bring them closer to the modern reader's experience.

In contrast to its lightweight image, the genre contains a wealth of 'deeper' material. Consider ex-monk Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul, a New York Times bestseller inspired by the thinking of Renaissance men Ficino and Paracelsus, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves, a tour of the feminine spirit based on archetypal psychology and indigenous storytelling. And no self-help section should be without Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl's account of his time in Nazi concentration camps, where he struggled to find reasons to live, and the psychotherapeutic method he developed based on his experiences.

One of the perverse pressures of our time (at least in rich countries) is the expansion of choice. Many contemporary self-help works, from Phil McGraw's Life Strategies to Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star, deal with the paradox that the more choice we have, the greater our need for focus. Common to many recent self-help works is the conviction that the most satisfying and rewarding careers and lifestyles come from appreciating your uniqueness and capitalising on it. This is in contrast to the idea that life is a competition in which we all struggle for the same prizes. As people become more concerned about fulfilling their potential, expect this link between uniqueness and success to become even stronger in self-help writing.

What is self-help?

The literature covers a broad range of topics and may be difficult to define, but if there is something that links it all together, it is perhaps the refusal to accept ¡¥quiet desperation¡¦ or even mild unhappiness as the lot of humankind. Many self-help classics are the distillation of a difficult experience, but the basic premise of the literature is that we cannot be determined by genes or environment or fate, that there is always some room to make our own path or become someone new. In this sense self-help writing may be described as the literature of possibility - not necessarily promoting great success and achievement, but a life of greater meaning and richness, lived on our own terms.

Modern self-help grew partly as a response to the lessening of importance of traditional religion and the extended family in people's lives. Many still see it as a weed, but throughout history people have needed someone or something to have faith in them, to validate their desire for self-improvement. The best self-help writing provides this.

Like any genre, it has its fair share of the mediocre, but it has a significant number of classics that deserve to be highlighted and rediscovered. 50 Self-Help Classics also includes older works, because the self-help ethic has been with us through the ages. The Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, for example, may not have been thought of as self-help before, but at root they are about the improvement of the self and the idea that a person, by transforming themselves, can change a little bit of the world.

Tom Butler-Bowdon, 2003.

Author's Bio

Tom Butler-Bowdon is a passionate advocate of the power of positive self-help, what he calls the literature of possibility. He has spent five years researching and writing 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life, published nationally by Nicholas Brealey (pbk, 303 pages, $18.95, 1857883233). His inspirational self-help classics website is at www.butler-bowdon.com

The 100th Human

Book Review:

As the end of the long-count Mayan calendar comes to it's 5000 year terminus in 2012, and the mystery of the ancient symbols are revealed, we discover what the end of time really means. "The 100th human" is a kinder, gentler apocalyptic story.

"The 100th human" is a fast-paced fictional journey that unites Jack, Alana and Apu in a remote Mayan region of Mexico and propels them onward together. From Mexico, they travel throughout the western United States searching desperately for the keys to save humanity while the Veni Victus, a fraternity dedicated to keeping the keys secret, closes in. The characters are relatable and the story is gripping.

While "the 100th human" is a true page-turner, this novel offers so much more. The real treasures to be found within its pages are the keys to shifting one's consciousness and how each personal change can affect the rest of humanity. These keys are woven into the narrative, revealed one by one through the characters' interactions with the gatekeepers whom they identify, by solving riddles along the way. Beginning with Living on Purpose, Fenwick dream-builds with the reader, exposing a counter-perspective to the lives we lead. In the second key, she attempts to introduce the reader, through the characters, to Hearing the Silence and all the power, peace and possibility that exists within its depths. The third key is Infinite Possibilities and the hope that emerges from relinquishing our past and future. With the fourth key, the unsuspecting character, Jake Jenkins charmingly explains how We Are All One; interconnected, inter-related and not alone.

"The 100th human" continues to enlighten us with practical lessons to ponder while gently urging us to integrate them into our daily lives. The fifth key delivers the essential message of being Correctly Identified with God versus identifying with anything or anyone else of this world. The sixth key focuses on a topic near and dear to the human heart: Freedom = No Fear. Gentle Ida, compassionately illuminates the origin of fear and how to truly be free. The seventh key dives straight into the multi-layered depths of Gratitude and explains how a change on this front can immediately change one's world. The eighth and final key is Love's Transcendence and is the culmination of all the keys, confirming how love is not the means to the end, but is the beginning, middle and end - all. Through humble forgiveness and overwhelming connection, the characters demonstrate the transformative power of love and what an evolutionary shift could actually look like, in this world - now.

In this novel, Chris Fenwick successfully explains such complex scientific theories as critical mass, zero point, wave functions and punctuated equilibrium, making them accessible and even important to our daily lives. This tale melds the teachings of the Kabbalah, the Vedas and Christ, fusing the universal concepts of purpose, gratitude, consciousness and love into one compelling story of hope, but also of responsibility.

Author's Bio

Chris Fenwick, a consummate optimist, artist and entrepreneur, has traveled the globe learning from societies, scientists and sages alike. Following the birth of her third child, she was captured by the story of the 100th human and not released until its successful publication in 2006, a year and a half later. She is a co-owner in three companies and lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

The Most Courageous People in the World

Who are the most courageous people in the world? Armed services? Coastguards? Astronauts? Firepersons? Explorers? Mountaineers? ……Sports? For us, the most courageous people in the world are those who are committed to discovering how they can get the best out of themselves. Individuals, who are committed to learning about and changing, their habits and beliefs in order to fulfil their dreams. Individuals, who are fighting the dreaded disease of complacency.

Complacency is one of the deadliest diseases you face in your life. It stifles growth. Kills companies. Destroys the economy of your Country. Changes and destroys your relationship with your partner, friends, children and colleagues.

If you:

have a feeling of self-satisfaction.

find you are low in energy and enthusiasm.

have become unaware of danger, trouble, or controversy in your life.

find it difficult to accept positive criticism and acknowledge your mistakes.

take ages making a decision, especially those that will change your future or may be unpopular.

go through the day with an attitude of ‘ that’s good enough’ or ‘that will do’.

Then, in a nutshell, complacency has you in it’s hands and is destroying you.

Complacency is taking away your spirit.

How do you overcome complacency? What’s the treatment?

Napoleon Hill says the treatment is: Control Your Own Thoughts. “You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and you have the key in your own hands, and you make use of it the moment you learn to control your own thoughts.”

The magic key is NOT to focus on and control your negative and wasteful thoughts but to develop your necessary and positive thoughts.

Negative and wasteful thoughts, like blame and worry, have no useful purpose. Their job is to reduce your energy and your potential. To make you weaker than you really are. Therefore DO NOT concentrate your thinking on your weaknesses because the more you think negative and wasteful thoughts the further and further you will get from your potential. You cannot change negative thoughts to positive ones.

So, what can you do?

There are two strategies that you can adopt to be successful:

1. Focus on your necessary and positive thoughts. Necessary thoughts: those that keep your life working naturally and Positive thoughts are those that move you forward with the intention of forming win/win relationships. Both are invaluable. They bring you energy and success. They are your seeds to a successful life. They drive your feelings, words and actions. The more you can think in the positive the more your feelings, words and actions are positive and you are successful.

2. Stop asking yourself ‘why’ whenever you don’t get the results you want.. ‘Why’ only causes you to respond with ‘because’. And any sentence starting with ‘because’ means that you are now defending your past behaviour and change is impossible. Instead ask yourself; ‘what caused it to happen’ or ‘how did it happen’. Now you have something strong to base your future on.

These strategies are the antidote that finishes complacency and give you freedom.

You have the freedom to choose your behaviour. You don’t have to continue following others and what others say to you. All you have to do is focus on your natural and positive thoughts. These give you power and enable you to find what you are truly capable of.

The most courageous people in the world are those who overcome the disease of complacency and strive to be all they are capable of being.

"Only those who risk going far can possibly find out how far one can go" (TS Eliot 1888 - 1965)

By Graham Harris

A Few Simple Things You Must Do If You Want To Be Wealthy

Making money is easy when you move to cause rather than living out effects.

Let me draw a simple analogy to clarify my point.

Imagine standing before a huge waterfall. You’re thirsty and the water is fresh, clean, and pure. You can take as much as you like.

How much can you take home with you?

It all depends on the size of your container.

You can take a thimble, a small cup, a gallon bucket, a barrel, or even a tank truck.

Similarly, the amount of money in the world is like this fountain of abundance. Trillions of dollars circulate around the world. The fountain is abundant.

Some people can hold billions, others millions, others hundreds of thousands, others tens of thousands, others thousands, others hundreds, and yet others only a pocketful.

These things are actually only the effects.

Effect is what you see in the visible world. They are the results of a wealth building strategy that worked.

What, however, are the causes? How are people able to build wealth in the first place?

Cause is what happens in the invisible world before the effect becomes apparent in the world of the senses.

The cause of money is thought, and the amount of money in your life is based on only one thing: the size of your thinking. This is the most fundamental wealth knowledge you need to change your destiny.

If you’re a small thinker, you go to the fountain of abundance with a small container. It may be a tin can to hold enough change to keep you alive. It may be a bucket that gives you enough to survive in some comfort…but not enough to be happy.

If, on the other hand, you’re a big thinker, you go to the fountain of abundance driving your tank truck and you live really well, with all the necessities of life easily taken care of for your generation and maybe one or two generations after you. You’re even in a place to share wealth. You’re a master at some wealth building system.

Then, of course, there are the really big thinkers. They don’t just have a tank truck--they have a whole fleet of tank trucks lining up before the fountain of abundance. They can, if they choose, buy small islands.

Your thinking decides the size of the container you use to earn money.

How do you expand your thinking to be bigger?

The first thing you do is use your imagination. If you simply practice learning how to think in bigger and bigger amounts, you’ll find a better size to hold the abundance that you want to have in your life.

The next thing you’ll want to expand is the size of your heart. The more you can give of value and the larger the amount of people that you can serve, the more money that you’ll make.

This is why the higher up you are in an organization, the more people you serve, and, consequently, the higher your salary.

But, of course, an even better way to make money is to work for yourself. When you work for yourself, then your pool of people is almost unlimited. The greater the benefit that you offer others, the more people you will find to accept that offer.

Finally, when your imagination and your heart have been stretched enough, you’ll begin to seek ways to acquire knowledge of your field and before you know it you'll be a highly-paid expert.

The amount of money in the world is like this fountain. Trillions of dollars float around the planet. Creating wealth is a skill that many people and nations have learned.

It is my sincere hope that I have given you some valuable ideas to mull over. When you consider how much better your life will be when you are in charge, you may want to look even deeper into how you can expand your imagination, your generosity, and your knowledge of your industry or profession.

By Saleem Rana

Make Every Day A Masterpiece

We need to remember that we only have so many breathes to take in this life. So many heartbeats to use. So many seconds, and minutes, and days that are ours before everything becomes a memory in someone elses life. None of us live forever, and none of us have forever, and each of us has to use our time wisely to find happiness, and peace, and joy, and love.We need to invest our time wisely, as it is the only time we get. I find many people who are older and miserable because of how they invested their time. It is never to late to change things and start moving in new directions, and it is certainly never to late to find happiness.

Learn to live each day one at a time, and as though it were the last day of your life, and remember to make each and every day a masterpiece. The story of your life is a very personal one. No one else lives your life and has your experiences. No one else feels what you feel. Of course, we all share similar emotions and such, but no one else feels them from your perspective and your mind and your heart. Remember to make each day and each moment of your life count. Make sure it moves you closer to what you want and who you want to be. Especially make sure it moves you closer to being able to find happiness and joy in your daily life.

Are you currently living a life that is worthy of you? Do you do things on a regular basis that allow you to feel happiness and accomplishment? Are you regularly involved in projects and activities that allow you to feel a sense of purpose and drive? Have you created a life up until now that is worthy of you, and if you haven't are you willing to start today? If you can't say yes to any or all of the questions above, try to remember that it's never to late. The only time it is to late is when you take your very last breath. Until then, there is always time to start moving in new directions.

Life is such a valuable thing, and so many people waste it on a regular basis. They plop themselves down in front of the brain sucker, sorry, television and waste their entire night there. I am not saying that people shouldn't watch television or that taking time to relax is a bad thing. What I am saying is that few people take the time to find a purpose for themselves or things to devote themselves to. Many people don't even put much energy into their relationships which are things that should be a source of joy and happiness on a regular basis. But we must work on everything for it to give us any type of reward. We cannot just fall in love and expect it to bring us joy and happiness. We have to put energy and effort into it in order to get something back. The same is true for everything else in the world. So what would bring you joy and happiness, and are you starting to move toward those things? If not, then right now would be a good time to do so. If you don't know what those things are, then right now would be a good time to start figuring it out. Go forth and find your happiness and joy in this world, because you deserve it, because it is a much better experience than misery and sorrow.

By Dwayne Gilbert

Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively - 'Execute this technique well' is a much better goal than 'Don't make this stupid mistake'

• Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

• Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.

• Write goals down: This crystallizes them and gives them more force.

• Keep operational goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today's goals from larger ones.

• Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing more dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control. These could be bad business environments, poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and draw satisfaction from them.

• Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (employers, parents, media, society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. Alternatively you may set goals that are too high, because you may not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

Personal Goal Setting

Goal setting is a powerful process for personal planning.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course.

More than this, properly-set goals can be incredibly motivating, and as you get into the habit of setting and achieving goals, you'll find that your self-confidence builds fast.

Success - 3 Keys To Staying Motivated

If you are like most people, there will be times in your life when you need help to stay motivated. Sometimes you may only need a little motivation and at other times you may feel like you need all the motivation in the world. No matter what kind of motivation you need here are 3 keys to help you stay motivated.

1. Read or watch something that will inspire and motivate you.

It’s good to be able to read or watch something that shows you that other people, just like you, have had rough times in their life but that they just keep pressing on and in the end they came out victorious. Many times you will find the inspiration, motivation, or even the key that will help you achieve your goals and dreams in life.

2. Seek advice or counsel.

Sometimes all you need is to get the advice or counsel from someone. At times just a word of encouragement from a friend will do. At other times you may need to seek someone out who has achieved something similar to what you are trying to achieve and ask them what sort of obstacles they faced and how they overcame them. You will be amazed how much this can motivate you.

3. Write things down.

This may seem strange but I encourage you to try it. By writing down how you are feeling and what you are going through, it allows you to clear your head to be able to think clearer. Many times while you are writing the very thing that you need to help you get past your slump will pop into your head. Writing your thoughts on paper or a laptop is a great way to clear you head, relieve stress, and find the motivation that you need.

By Jason Osborn

Ten Terrific Self-Motivating Tips

No one can motivate anyone to do anything. All a person can do for another is provide them with incentives to motivate themselves. Here are ten very effective strategies to help you get up and get moving toward actualizing your enormous, untapped potential.

* Be willing to leave your comfort zone. The greatest barrier to achieving your potential is your comfort zone. Great things happen when you make friends with your discomfort zone.

* Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Wisdom helps us avoid making mistakes and comes from making a million of them.

* Don't indulge in self-limiting thinking. Think empowering, expansive thoughts.

*Choose to be happy. Happy people are easily motivated. Happiness is your birthright so don't settle for anything else.

* Spend at least one hour a day in self-development. Read good books or listen to inspiring tapes. Driving to and from work provides an excellent opportunity to listen to self-improvement tapes.

* Train yourself to finish what you start. So many of us become scattered as we try to accomplish a task. Finish one task before you begin another.

* Live fully in the present moment. When you live in the past or the future you aren't able to make things happen in the present.

* Commit yourself to joy. C.S. Lewis once said, " Joy is the serious business of heaven."

* Never quit when you experience a setback or frustration. Success could be just around the corner.

* Dare to dream big dreams. If there is anything to the law of expectation then we are moving in the direction of our dreams, goals and expectations.

The real tragedy in life is not in how much we suffer, but rather in how much we miss, so don't miss a thing.

Charles Dubois once said, " We must be prepared, at any moment, to sacrifice who we are for who we are capable of becoming."

By Mike Moore

Is Procrastination A Habit Or A Disorder

So many people fall into the trap of procrastination and so many continue to call this behavior a bad habit that needs to be kicked. Though, we are going to be looking into the term procrastination and whether it really is a bad habit or now recently it's being addressed as a disorder.

Looking further into procrastination, let's first define the word procrastinate. The true definition of procrastinate is to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. While this definition suggests that procrastination is a carelessness habit, others are debating this, that procrastination is a disorder.

After researching this question of whether procrastination is a habit or disorder? The results for yes, procrastination is a habit and yes procrastination is a disorder, were found. Let's just look a little deeper into both suggested ideas.

Procrastination is a disorder: until now few but some psychologist are taking this standpoint. Some research has shown that procrastination can be linked to a physical disorder and or injury in the brain primarily located in the frontal lobe. This section of the brain controls and processes cognitive (i.e. organization, thought process, planning, attention spam, etc). This section is the most developed part and gives the person the ability to make and achieve goals in a proper manner.

This is not something you learn, but is something installed in our prefrontal cortex (PFC). So the suggestion by doctors is if the PFC is dysfunctional, and causes some problems with distractions, attention spam, organization, etc. than the underlining factors of procrastination could be a disorder of your PFC. And others are suggesting that PFC could be science's proof of legitimate procrastination disorder.

Though, many will still argue the fact that procrastination is just a lazy man's habit. Procrastination is not a disorder, but more of a self-handicap starting with the person themselves. For example, the person that continues to blame problems, failures, and other non-pro-activity for not succeeding. This is nothing more than lack of discipline, disorganized, lack of self-control, making excuses, and the list goes on. Therefore many will argue that procrastination is a habit.

Whether procrastination is a habit or a disorder, we do know it is a major issue in our culture and society today. The attitude you bring towards procrastination is the one that you feel is more convincing. Bottom line is we all need to overcome the obstacles that lets procrastination creep ever so slowly into our lives. We tend to find ourselves getting busier, working more, and always adding more to our life.

No matter what you want to call procrastination, the fact of the matter is, if it's your life you need to work on putting an end to a habit or solving the disorder. To overcome procrastination starts with committing yourself, setting goals, and sticking to your goals. Only by doing this will you than become the person of action towards your goals.

By Matt Ryan

Motivation & The Expectations Of Others

Someone told me the other day that they loooove my wardrobe. Funny enough, I love my wardrobe too, although I feel I could expand it quite a bit! My appearance is something I cultivate and care about, especially when it comes to looking well-groomed and professional.

The point is, this reminded me of a funny human tendency to try and live up to expectations. I remember some years back my flight instructor was a former hairdresser, and so I'd always show up with fabulous hair in order to avoid potential negative comments or judgement about it...I look back now and that seems strange to me because I no longer worry about what others will think of me, and I would also say I think more of myself - my OWN opinion matters more to me.

The lesson here is that IF we think others have certain expectations of us, we will often adjust our behaviour. (Even if the expectation is 'bad' - for example we hear that someone thinks we are not very nice - we may try to avoid the certain expected behaviour and go overboard trying to be the opposite.)

We can use this to our immense benefit. For example, we can have certain expectations for our children and let them know. NOT as in 'I expect x, y, and z from you' but as in 'You are so great at this, and often like that, and i love how you do x, y, and z' and mark my words, if you reinforce this your kids will try and be that...it's a way of encouraging and bringing out the best in someone, just by mentioning that you have noticed it.

Also, we can use this motivational technique on ourselves. We get what we focus on, right? Thus, instead of waiting for someone else to tell you how wonderful you are, how about sitting down and deciding what personality traits the person you want to be exhibits, and then cultivating those within yourself? I'll give you a few of mine as an example:

* I am so dedicated. I make really good decisions that lead me towards my goals...I love that I can stop and question when I 'm about to do something and say 'Is this leading me further away from, or towards my goals?'
* I love that whenever I feel badly about something I choose to ask why and how did I help create this, and also how can I learn from this so I'm not triggered into feeling bad the next time this situation occurs.
* I love that I am efficient, organized and getting better all the time. I love that I hate disorganization because it motivates me to stay organized, which saves me time and helps me relax (I used to be extremely disorganized and the panic and misery that it creates are now in my past - I'm so grateful!).

These are just examples, but hopefully you can see that if I continually tell myself things like this I will try and live up to my own expectations. Now, if my parents and teachers had said stuff like that to me, I would not be on this particular journey at all - I'd already be where I want to be now!

There are definitely things about myself that I feel can improve or change, but I am focusing here on those things that I love and I'm proud of - which is what you should do for yourself, also.

What do you wish someone would tell you?...Go ahead and tell yourself!!

This is excerpted from the Breathing Prosperity blog - updated daily!

By Shauna Arthurs

Great Self-Motivating Tips

Great Self-Motivating Tips - By: Kris Koonar

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. -Bentham 1789

Motivation is the most important requirement for man to do anything. It could be as simple as cutting an apple, to as complex as learning music. The common factor here is motivation. Thus, nothing can be achieved unless there is motivation. Even as a person writes, there is the underlying motivation. Without the motivation, a writer would not even touch the keyboard. There are a number of factors that contribute towards a man being motivated or even de-motivated, for that matter. This makes it one of the most vast and complex areas of human psychology.
Some of the most successful people in the world are those who are very highly motivated. But the most ironic thing is that no one can motivate anyone to do anything.

A person can set an example for others to follow and can provide the necessary incentives to motivate. Here are some tips that could help you self-motivate:

. Leave your comfort zone- One of the greatest barriers to realizing your own potential is the comfort zone. This limits a persons ability to go out of the way and explore the self. When you step beyond, great things are bound to happen.

. Never be afraid to make mistakes- All of us are afraid of making mistakes. This comes from the fact that we were expected to be always right and were often punished for our mistakes during our upbringing. There is a kind of in-built fear in all of us about making mistakes. Wisdom helps us to avoid making mistakes, however, this wisdom comes from making a million errors. So one should never be afraid to make mistakes, but should always learn from them.

. Dont self limit your thinking- We all have a tendency to limit our thinking. We always have a feeling that what we are thinking is way too big. This has a very negative impact on self-motivation. One should always think empowering, expansive thoughts.

. Be happy- There is a direct link between being happy and being motivated. It is the feeling of satisfaction that happiness brings that leads to being motivated. Happiness is your birthright, so go ahead and be happy.

. Spend time everyday for self-development- One should spend at least some amount of time everyday doing things to develop and grow. This could include reading good books or listening to inspiring tapes. Driving to and from work provides a good opportunity to listen to inspiring messages.

. Finish what you start- So many of us go wrong by starting too many things and not finishing them, systematically. Make it a habit to finish the task that you have in hand and only then start another task.

. Live in present- By living in past or the future, we lose opportunities in the present. This holds us back from making things happen in the present.

. Never quit- One should never quit on experiencing set backs or failure, for all you know, success could just be round the corner.

Motivation is the most important requirement for man to do anything. It could be as simple as cutting an apple, to as complex as learning music.