Motivation – Page 3

How to Turn Fear into Positive Energy

Fear is a natural response that all of us have. We get afraid because of something we see in real life that might hurt us. Additionally, there are emotional fears like facing painful realities or just the fear of the unknown. Whatever the fear is though, it can be transformed into positive energy. In the following article, we will explore eight ways to do just that.

01.Breathe Deeply and Relax

When you start to feel fear, your breathing gets very shallow. It’s almost like you have hit a panic button and you intake too much oxygen as a result. Rather than short, exhausting breathes, try instead to do five seconds in, hold for a second, and then release. This way, you will stop the fear response but get the positive, relaxing benefits of getting more oxygen.

02.Take a Break to See What Thoughts Are Behind your Fears

They say that the unexamined life is not worth living. This saying applies well to your fears as well. You might see that you have irrational fears about the future. Rather than succumbing to hidden fears, you should explore why you are afraid. Knowing the truth really does help you start to process everything before it becomes a phobia.

03.Avoid Fighting and Begin to Admit

Fighting that you are afraid is just a state of denial. I understand this because a lot of the time I just put on a brave face. However, your fears can break through that facade. They can even lead to states where you hermit yourself. You must admit that you are afraid to begin the work of overcoming.

04.Think Up the Choices Available

I understand that freaking out seems to be the easiest option available. However, you will be a nervous wreck if you act like this all the time. There are other choices out there, like getting therapy or even talking to a friend.

05.Eat Well and Get Good Sleep

Make sure that you do not neglect the basics of your health. Everyone needs these basics and they are important in order that you don’t go into emotional states due to lack of the necessities.

06.Enjoy Supporting People

We are supposed to be social creatures. It can feel harder due to COVID-19, but we need to work on getting out there to help others. There’s always someone who is in a worse state than you are that needs a friend. If you go out for coffee or over to someone’s house, just chatting about mutual struggles can help.

07.Visualize Your Impending Success

A visualization is a powerful tool. It will help you to see a better time. Even if you are not doing that well, just sit down and imagine what your life could look like without your fears. It can be an inspiring exercise.

08.Ask Deep Space for What You Desire and Afterwards Let Go of the Outcome

You need to throw your request out there. After you do this, trust in a higher power to procure an outcome.

8 Secret Habits of Smart Women

We all know some of them, and some of us hope we’re in the category. These are smart women, of course, and they got that title for a reason. In this article, we’re exploring the eight secret habits of smart women.

01.They Get Their Sleep

Nothing is worse for your beauty and your brawn than not getting your beauty sleep. Smart women decide to get their sleep whenever they can. If this means napping when their kids do, then so be it.

02.They Read

Every smart woman that I’ve ever known has read books. In fact, they’re probably those women who are posting books on their Instagram and even cracking the pages to show quotes. This proves they’re actually delving into the material that they purport.

03.They Exercise

Intelligent women know that they’re never too busy for exercise. In fact, exercise is one of the fundamentals of life. You will see a smart woman at the gym or even by the side of the road, sweating it out. Not only does it make them happier, but they will also have healthy hearts.

04.They Don’t Nag

There’s never something for annoying that a woman who just always has to find something wrong. There’s a crumb on the table, and there’s hell to pay. Smart women know this is no way to live life. If something needs doing, they just do it themselves and then go sit on the couch as a reward.

05.They’re Nice to Their Friends

Smart women know that they’ve been there too. They don’t abruptly cut off their friends that have made a mistake. They listen and they try to understand. They know that forgiveness is something that everyone needs. If their friend has a problem, they let them know nicely. Smart women make good friends because you can trust them to be truthful and yet compassionate.

06.They Marry Nice Men

Leave the bad boys to the trashy girls. A woman who knows one’s worth knows how to find a classy man. This doesn’t mean she marries a fake nice man out of pity. She knows that sometimes the nicest seeming men really just are as selfish as the rest. She finds a real man. So maybe we should slash out nice and just say real. Smart women marry real men.

07.They Clean, Cook, and do Whatever it Takes

Nothing is worse for people than fast food or even restaurant food. A smart woman will cook because it just needs to be done. Nutrition is a priority so she will meal prep even if she has a busy work schedule. Also, she cleans and if she’s too busy, she’ll hire a maid. If she has no money and no time, she’ll try to find a better job so that the cooking and cleaning at least get done.

08.Know that Life Isn’t all About Money

People who think that life is about material goods end up miserable. A nice TV doesn’t keep you warm at night. Neither does marrying your grandpa for his money when you don’t even want to touch him. Smart women see that there’s a balance and if you’re blessed with that extra wealth, that’s just a bonus.

How To Discover Your Life Purpose

Life purpose simply defines what you live for. Finding your life purpose is the gateway to achieving inner peace and healthier life. You may have a good-paying job, a big happy family, and many friends but lack a life purpose.

It can be a daunting task to tr and find your life purpose. It especially a daunting task for people in their 20s to find their life purpose. This is because most are advised that their life purpose and not pay should guide their career paths.

Finding your life purpose involves self-scrutiny, soul searching, mastering the art of listening, and the discovery of your passions

Here are some strategies to help you find meaning and purpose in your life:

01.Discover your Hobbies

Which activities make you forget about eating or pooping? Is it a sporting activity? Is it video games? Is it reading? Whichever it is, it is your hobby.

The cognitive principles you apply behind your hobbies should be equally invested in your business and towards self-improvement. Once you do this your life starts to have some kind of meaning.

02.Invest your time, money, and talent in a just cause

Have you ever done a kind deed and felt happy about it? Well, have and it made me feel like my life had a meaning. That my purpose is to help others in the ways that I am able.

You can help others by volunteering to do community work and donating money to a just cause such as an orphanage. You can also offer to host events of your community.

This will greatly aid you in discovering your life purpose. Being a giver and helping others is strongly linked with one having a purposeful life.

A kind gesture will always make you feel like you have a purpose in life.

03.Try new things

Learn to embarrass yourself. The fear of embarrassment denies a lot of people the opportunity to discover their life purpose.

When you are worried about what others may think or say about you it limits your level of exploration. This can also be linked to the fear of “failing your parents”.

To discover your purpose and meaning in life you need to avoid this herd mentality.

04.Think About your Death

I know, sounds absurd, doesn’t it? A lot of people freak out when they think about dying. It however has a lot of positive outcomes.

If say you consider that your death will occur within a year, you will start thinking of what is and what is not important in your life. You will then focus on the important things and invest your time in them.

Remember life is the moment you are living right now.

05.Engage New People

Sometimes we feel like we have enough friends. How about the next time you are on that bus or commuter train you engage a new person? I know what you are thinking. They probably don’t want new friends.

Engaging new people does not necessarily mean they will be your full-time friends. However, you can learn a lot in that short period that you converse with them. This starts to give your ideas on what you want your life to be like.

Conclusion

Finding your life purpose needs you to do it step by step. It cannot be rushed as it’s not a one-day, week, or month thing. Your purpose in life can also change with time.

You can have several life purposes. You are not limited to one.

10 Honest Tips to Beat Procrastination Holistically

We all put off important things because we may not feel like it. However, there are ways to beat this habit of procrastination. In the following article, we will explore ten honest tips to beat procrastination holistically.

01.Bribe Yourself

This may sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes you just need to make yourself a special beverage, like a latte, and then power through. Whatever your treat may be, it may be the catalyst to start you motoring along.

02.Shop First

They say that you should make your money first, and then go shopping. However, there’s no harm in browsing online for those bigger ticket items that you want. When you do this, you are essentially incentivizing yourself to do the hard work you’ve been putting off.

03.Streamline Your Schedule

Your procrastination might come from the fact that you are simply overwhelmed. You should look at your schedule and find ways to pare it down. In this way, you will find you have more time on your hands to get your work done.

04.Jump in Feet First

Sometimes, there is no better way to nip the procrastination bud but to just jump in feet first. Don’t dip your toe in and see if you like it. Take a proactive approach to starting by actually just beginning with an honest effort.

05.Don’t Ruminate on Past Failure

A lot of us hate criticism. We get and it almost disables us. All you need to do with criticism is learn from it. Sometimes the critic doesn’t even know what they’re talking about. Instead of letting yourself wallow in bed and have sleepness nights, just take the criticism and then forget it.

06.Follow Your Passions

Sometimes we are just not passionate about what we do on a daily basis. This can actually be draining. See if you can look into the type of work that recharges your batteries instead of wipes out your spirit.

07.Approach Your Work Comfortably

It can be that you are working too hard and not being productive enough. Try to see if there is a more comfortable way to approach your work. You might feel guilty, but a lot of successful people use this approach. It’s all about maximizing your time. Sometimes to maximize your time, you have to slouch a bit.

08.Try Aromatherapy

Now that a lot of us are working from home, you can try using a diffuser to heighten your senses. There are plenty of energizing scents out there like peppermint blends that can get you in a productive frame of mind again.

09.Remember That Talk is Cheap

You might be tempted to have a conversation with everyone you know about why you don’t want to be doing what you should. However, talk is cheap and in the time you took to make your phone calls, you could have been just getting down to it.

10.Love Your Life

We could all use a little bit of reframing in our lives. Start by looking at all the reasons why you are grateful for where you are in life. This can be a powerful reframing tool to make you see that what you are procrastinating really isn’t that horrible in the grand scheme of things.

5 Amazing Tips on How to Have a Fresh Start

There comes a time in life when everything seems not to be working out, and all that you really need at such a moment is a fresh start. It may be that you’ve just quit something, either by being forcibly ejected or willingly. Could be you’ve been working on something and you can’t seem to get where you want to be. All these are examples of moments that make you want to hit the “reboot” button and start over.

When such times arise, there is usually the excitement that comes from the possibility of new possibilities ahead. At the same time, however, you may experience “fear of the unknown” – the possibility of not being able to land on your feet. Whatever happens, there is always something you can do to get up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. To get a fresh start today, you should consider using the following tips to your benefit:

01.Don’t avoid regrets; manage them instead

If something fails to work out as we probably thought it would, regrets can come our way, especially if there was action or inaction that led to failure. In the majority of cases, the regrets are severe if the failure was as a result of failing to do something that would have averted the failure.

When such regrets arise, most people wish they can just do away with the regrets and start over. The right thing to, however, is understanding your regrets and using them to your benefit. By studying your regrets, you can try to make sense of where you have been, then use that to inform your future decisions and actions to avoid making the same mistakes.

02.Try to control your rumination

After failure, rumination can arise and you feel like you have no control over what you think about. The simple truth about rumination is that it won’t get you anywhere – it does not help in getting solutions to your problems. Instead, you remain in an endless cycle of worrying and getting stuck.

To avoid rumination, try not to be alone, as staying in your own world fuels negative thoughts. Instead, be around friends who can talk you through your worries and do whatever they can to bring up your high spirits. You can also assign yourself some “worry time”, but try to make it as short as you can. Use that time to worry about your problems but in a way that is close to meditation.

03.Get enough sleep

Getting a fresh start is not always about failure. It could be that you just want to recover the sleep you lost when you were out on BBQ parties, camp-outs, or maybe even work. Whether or not your ‘reboot’ is being necessitated by failure, take some time to get enough rest. By doing that, you will give your mind some time to ‘reset’ so that it becomes easier to get new ideas that could be useful in various ways.

If getting that much-needed sleep is not something you can do with ease, consider meditating or stream of consciousness journaling right before tucking yourself into the sheets. Once you’re able to establish a stable sleep cycle, you’ll come out feeling like a new person.

04.Get your mindset right

There are two kinds of mindset: the deliberative mindset, and the implemental mindset. The deliberative mindset makes it possible to think about your choices and strategies, while the implemental mindset is all about action.

By being able to switch between the two kinds of mindset, it becomes easy to take the right path depending on the circumstances. If, for example, your approach towards a certain problem isn’t working even though you’re doing your best, that’s a great sign that you may want to switch from the implemental mindset and get to the deliberative mindset so that you can rethink all available options.

05.Forgive

There is something so magical in forgiving. It may be that someone wronged you and caused you a lot of pain that makes you want to start over again. Perhaps you want to feel like you’ve not been the best version of yourself and would use some forgiveness. Whatever the case, forgiving yourself or others unties you from bonds of negative energy that holds you back from progressing in life. That way, you can successfully start over again and repair what’s broken.

In a nutshell,

We all need a fresh start at some point in life. Whether it’s as a result of something good or bad, you can always do a couple of things to reset your life and make things right. The ideas discussed in this article should go long way towards making it easier for you to get a fresh start towards a journey of unveiling the greatness in you.

How to Overcome Distractions in Life

Well, we have all been at that point when we are tempted to join social media when we should be working on an assignment or studying. And then there are those notifications we ache to see once there are notification sounds on our phones or the emails you keep on checking every 5 minutes so that you don’t miss any important message.

Well, distractions are here to stay, and research shows that they lower your productivity at home, school, and work. Therefore, if you want to avoid distractions, it’s essential to incorporate structure in your lie by managing your time properly and removing distractions. These few changes will enable you to overcome distractions and improve your productivity in your tasks.

Top 4 ways of overcoming distractions in your life

01.Avoid Electronics

The top way of eliminating distractions is putting away that smartphone, tablet or computer. They should be as far away as possible and powered off. Or better place them in the drawer or a room it will be hard to access them. If you’re using the device at work, then limit those apps that will lower your productivity.

Also, don’t forget to turn off notifications on your phone as social media apps can easily distract you for a longer time. Only turn on the important notifications, and you can utilize the “Do Not Disturb” feature that is available in many smartphones to avoid these notifications. Later on, you can check them when you’re finished with the current task.

02.Set Clear Objectives Each day

If you design many objectives, then you will feel overwhelmed and fail to achieve them all together, even before starting. But you can easily accomplish more and avoid distractions by listing only three objectives you want to accomplish each day. Write them on a note that you can easily access anytime. By listing a few daily goals, you will clearly define what you want to start working on. And you will focus more on these tasks; thus, your mind will less likely stray anymore.

When you wake up each day, ask yourself of the most important goals you want to achieve and note them down in a to-do list. Once you accomplish the most critical tasks, you can handle the rest later.

03.Give yourself a shorter time

If you have more hours, then there is no guarantee that you’ll accomplish more. This is because you give workers more time, then they will find ways of accommodating the remaining time with distractions. That way, if you don’t dedicate some extra time to other activities, then you will be tempted to play a video game or watch some YouTube videos. But when you have less time, you will avoid distractions and figure a way to complete the task on time. Therefore, with a short deadline, getting distracted will be more challenging.

04.Reward Yourself

Finally, it’s essential to reward yourself to ensure you keep the spirits and motivation high. By bringing in rewards, you will make it more enticing to complete a particular task. For example, if you reward yourself with a cup of tea, a television show, or internet time, then you will tend to avoid distractions as you’ll think of the reward you’ll get by avoiding it.

Avoiding distractions is the best way of hastening your productivity in different environments. Luckily, with our guide, it will be easier for you to avoid the distractions coming across your way.

How to Let Go of Anger

Life sometimes becomes too much for our inner self to handle and one of the ways we lay out this stress is through anger. Although anger can occur naturally, we always have reasons, including frustrating experiences and feeling like someone hurt us. Additionally, there are two kinds of persons when it comes to anger; those that get angry often and those that show a burst of rage when seriously annoyed.

Our body works by tricking us that we need anger to reverse an unpleasant experience or feeling. If we allow this to happen, the signs of annoyance may escalate to the point that we cannot control them. If you are struggling with anger and would want strategies to let it go, keep reading through the following tips:

01.Change your perspective

Learn to view problems in your life as critical lessons in a typical growth journey. Although it may be hard for you to overlook your problems for the first time, this strategy becomes more effective after assuming many minor life problems.

02.Take slow deep breaths

Breathing is a mind to body activity that can help trigger your entire system to calm down. Provided you change your breathing pattern, you can quickly come to terms with your relaxed state as you await full healing. To take good deep breaths, find a comfortable seat to relax on, breathe in through your nose and for a while and exhale heavily though your mouth to let off the breath and the frustration.

03.Meditate

If you are dealing with chronic anger, this might be the perfect solution for you. With meditation, you change how you view things around you, including people who have annoyed you. This kind of satisfaction is the number one anger killer for many down to the gut. Hold the breath people.

04.Forget awful past events

As mentioned in the beginning, life will never be fair for everybody and unpleasant events will always be there. However, it would help if you learned to move on even after an awful happening to keep anger away and live happily. An effortless way to help you forget things that made you mad is focusing on the good thing about the subjects that hurt you.

05.Keep yourself physically active

Any physical activity that will shift your focus from concentrating on the wrong side of your emotions can help keep anger at bay. Actually, with physical exercise, the tension will be over within a concise time and you can right away regain your joyous mood.

06.Contact a health professional

If you find that getting rid of emotions that results in anger is challenging for you, consider reaching out to a reliable psychotherapist. Always keep in mind that anger can easily consume you and your best self within a concise time. It would not hurt to hear what people who have interacted with several other resentment cases would advise about your situation.

The bottom line

It is serious that you may never know how dangerous anger is until you have entirely lost control of your emotions and the people’s connection very dear to you. To avoid these risky outcomes of anger, you must be ready to let it go as soon as you notice that you are not in your best behavior. Follow the above tips to get rid of this powerful but useless emotion and live a happy life after that.

How to Motivate Yourself When You Feel Depressed

Depression has become quite common and is widely known as the number one motivation killer. When depressed, you lose your focus, energy, and drive, and you get a feeling that makes you want to stay out of the light and let the darkness consume you.

The reality of depression is that the individuals who face it won’t easily accept lifestyle changes that are supposedly meant to make them feel better. A common response for such changes is “Easier said than done”.

The truth is that majority of the individuals who face depression already have ideas of what they should do to make them feel better, only that they don’t know how to do it. Besides, depression is a motivation, focus, interest, and energy killer.

Even though finding motivation when depressed is not easy, these ideas should make it easy to get you started, and find your way to recovery:

01.Set the bar low

When not depressed, your functioning ability is usually somewhere between 70 to 90%, but this goes down to about 20% when you’re fighting depression. As such, you can’t set expectations for yourself that are the same as or close to what you had when you were feeling good about yourself.

If you do so, there is a high probability that you will end up feeling anxious and overwhelmed, hence fail. This will make you feel ashamed and defeated, hence worsen your condition.

Rather, you should focus on accomplishing smaller, manageable tasks. If, for example, you wanted to finish your math assignment, aim to finish one problem first, then you can raise the bar once you’ve met your goal.

If it becomes hard to raise the bar and solve other equations as well, be content with what you’ve done already since you already accomplished your initial goal. Keep in mind that setting unrealistic goals only sets you up for failure.

02.Be compassionate to yourself

No matter the situation you are in, avoid beating yourself up for being “unproductive” and “lazy”. Doing so will only make you feel worse about your situation.

Instead, try to think about how you would encourage a friend who is facing depression and practice self-compassion. You can use a mantra or the same encouraging words that you would say to a friend who’s struggling with depression.

03.Exercise

If you can, it’s always advisable to engage in physical activities that will awaken your happy spirit. Exercising raises levels of the good-feel hormone in you, making you less susceptible to depression. Your exercise sessions should take preferably 2-3 hours a day, twice or thrice a week.

04.Get support or seek help

Some, if not most of us, have trouble holding ourselves accountable even at the best of times. You can only expect it to get harder with little motivation or energy. When such times arise, it’s always advisable that you confide in someone you can trust, and get help from them

You can get a friend to ensure that you stay true to your commitment or ask your partner to accompany you to a yoga session. Never be afraid to ask for whatever support or assistance you think may help you overcome your hard times.

05.Focus on how you’ll feel after a task

When fighting depression, even the simplest of tasks seem daunting. But that’s because you more than likely are focusing on the effort involved, rather than envisioning how you’ll feel after completing the given task. That’s why you should aim to focus on how you will most likely feel after completing a task, rather than during.

06.Set rewards

If you’re able to make the effort of achieving your goals despite your situation you, definitely do deserve a pat on the back. One thing to keep in mind is that if you want to reward yourself, you should aim to earn the thing that you love to do. Rather than binge-watching your favorite show, earn each episode by completing the tasks that you need to.

A caveat that you ought to consider, however, is that you should never come up with a reward system that only ends up feeding your depression. If, for example, your depression makes you want to stay in bed all day, avoid rewarding yourself with a nap. If the show you like watching the most is a downer that will probably make you feel worse, just reserve it for times when you’re feeling better.

The goal is to congratulate yourself for making the effort to do things that you, otherwise, wouldn’t have wished to do as a result of low motivation.

Final thoughts

The truth of life is that we move at different paces, and through the process, we face struggles and moments where we feel like we can throw in the towel. One thing to keep in mind is that such moments are normal. With roughly 121 million people around the world suffering from depression, you can be sure that you are not alone in your troubles.

The good thing is that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and there is something that you can do to help you step out of the abyss. The strategies discussed above should go a long way in helping you get your life back.