Happiness and success are two concepts intertwined with one another. These are two of the most important ingredients that would eventually define a person’s life.
If one would think about it, happiness and success are two things that are relative to a person’s point of view since these are dependent on one’s ideologies. Happiness and success relate to a target or reference point.
A person may say that he is happy because he just finished his studies or he just met a fine woman. A person may say he is successful because he was just promoted to a higher position. When one talks about happiness and success, a certain goal or perhaps an achievement is always the reference point.
A person will constantly ask himself if he is happy or if he can consider himself successful. Many people become depressed because they cannot seem to make sense of all the things that are happening in their lives. The most important thing to remember, when evaluating one’s happiness and success, is that people need to limit their assessment using their own personal standards.
Often times, depression comes about because people rely so much on the expectations of others. Have you heard college students who don’t do as well as they could because they don’t like the course which they are in? They say that they don’t really like the course because they were just forced by their parents or they had to take it for some other reason than because they liked it. Professionals also experience this kind of depression. Oftentimes, the workplace becomes a battleground wherein people live their lives according to the expectations of other people.
Again, happiness and success depend on one’s own views. Let us look at a musician’s point of view regarding happiness and success. A musician would love nothing more than to create music that comes from his soul. Depending on his ideologies regarding music, he can say that he is successful and happy with what he is doing.
A true musician wouldn’t care less if his records sold millions or not, as long as his music stays true to its original intentions when the records were made. A musician can also look at happiness and success in terms of the number of people who patronize his music, if he truly believes that music is nothing if no one hears and appreciates it. It really depends on one’s ideologies.
The only thing that we can infer from these two concepts is that these are mutually intertwined. One can say that success brings happiness and happiness is an essential ingredient towards Success (i.e. Being happy with one’s work will bring beautiful fruits of labor).
Happiness and success are two things that all people aspire for in life. There can never be a single definition for both of these concepts. Even dictionaries wouldn’t dare give exact definitions for these words.
Perhaps, only the human heart can define these concepts. You will know when you are happy or when you can call yourself successful if your heart says so.
This is why the heart should always be consulted when making important decisions in life. Yes, of course, this is just a metaphor but we all know that the heart speaks reasons that the mind can never comprehend.
Moni Arora
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/concepts-of-happiness-and-success-103416.html
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How often do you feel that 24 hours a day is no longer enough for you to finish up your chores? The clock is ticking at the usual pace but you still have loads of jobs waiting on your desk.
This indicates that you need better time management skills to improve yourself. As simple as typing “time management skills” on the internet search toolbar, you’ll find tonnes of self-help websites that provide good time management skills.
Majority of the self-help websites will first teach you how to identify your time management skills – whether you are procrastinating, or you simply have too much task to handle per day.
List down your daily routine and match your schedule with the examples stated in the website. Pinpoint on what is causing you to have poor time management habits and read on for further improvement tips.
Take out another piece of paper and scribble down your desired schedule. Include the time needed to rest, work and spend time with your family.
Divide the 24 hours to a reasonable ratio and you have just formed a new schedule. If you still have time-scarcity, question yourself on the root cause and try to be more realistic in dividing up your time and compromise by allocating more time to that particular task.
Do not procrastinate – this is another strict rule to follow. Some of us tend to delay our tasks to a different day and when we do so, the task gets accumulated.
That is when people start to complaint that they have too much work and too few hours in a day. Learn the best time management in the workplace skills so that you can finish your daily chores and have a chance to start all fresh again the next day.
As Helene Malmsio from Time Management in the Workplace website says “Ensure that you have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish in your working day and be realistic! You will do yourself no favours by trying to complete a week’s worth of work in one day. All you will accomplish if you try this technique is a big ball of stress in your stomach and a headache to go with it.”
Learning time management in the workplace is actually not a difficult. It may take time but once you’ve mastered the necessary Self Help skills, you will feel less pressured and be able to work much better.
These self-help websites comes with a lot of information that will help people to improve themselves, and most of them do not require you to pay a single penny!
Effective management is now just a click away!
Chris Cornell
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/use-self-help-website-to-learn-time-management-skills-1299545.html
Having a clear understanding of your personal values is critical to your success. Without this knowledge you won’t know what really matters to you, what motivates you and why you are doing what you are doing. You’ll be in conflict with what you really want and your life will be unfulfilling and stressful.
If you want to be successful you need to make sure your personal values and your goals in life are aligned. If they aren’t you will struggle to find motivation and sustain the enthusiasm and energy you need to travel the road to success!
You also use your personal values to evaluate your actions, or other peoples actions, after they have taken place. When you use values in this way they can have a profound effect on your feelings. For example, if you do something that is in direct conflict with your personal core values it will leave you feeling bad about yourself.
DEFINE PERSONAL VALUES FOR ME?
Personal values are those things that are most important to you, those things that must be true for you to lead a happy and fulfilled life. Your values are also those things that really motivate you. When you are living in accord with your personal values you find life fulfilling and satisfying.
Values are not set in stone, they usually don’t change rapidly like beliefs can, but if you think back over your life, you will be able to trace the development of personal values.
Think back to your childhood – are exactly the same things that were important to you as a child also as important to you now as an adult? How about 5 years ago, 10 years ago?
When you were a child your values probably came from parents or other significant adults. Later on, you picked up values from your peers, your social environment, and other influences you allowed in to your life. As an adult the development of personal values continues for you. However if you have values that are not serving you well, it is possible to change them!
HOW TO LIST PERSONAL VALUES
Your personal values can be in many different areas: your values in life, work, family…
The best place to start to list personal values for you is to look at your values in life, you can look at other, more specific areas later on. Examples of life values are things like: honesty, integrity, family, freedom…
You have already seen that the definition of personal core values is simple – but discovering your personal values is much harder.
It’s so easy to confuse values with other things like beliefs. It is also very common to feel you should value something as a result of pressure from your parents and your friends when in fact it is just not a value for you.
The key is to remember that you define personal values as the things that are important to YOU…
So just sit down quietly with a piece of paper and repeatedly ask yourself the question:
“What is really important about life for me?”
Just keep asking and answering as honestly as you can – don’t answer as you think you ought to. Write down your answers.
Once you’ve written down your answers then you can try a second exercise:
Think back to a time when you were really motivated to do something, anything – go on a journey somewhere, propose to your spouse, help someone who was in difficulty, climb a mountain…
Think back into that time, imagine where you were and how you felt as you became motivated until you can discover the feeling you had at the moment you were motivated – maybe it was a desire to discover something new, love for your future spouse…
That initial emotion is almost certainly one of your core values… Write it down!
Go through these two exercises a few times until you have 10-20 values written down. Then look at them carefully. Are these really your personal values, do they represent who you really are?
Now compare them with each other, ask yourself “is this value more important to me than that value”. By doing this you will be able to arrange them into an order of importance.
DO YOUR PERSONAL VALUES ALIGN WITH YOUR PATH TO SUCCESS?
Now you’ll know both what is really important to you in life AND where your priorities are! This puts you streets ahead of anyone who has never taken the time to do this exercise:-)
Finally ask yourself:
“Am I living my life according to my values and priorities?”
If you answer “no”, you need to work out what you are going to do to make sure you are living congruently?
… You can read more about congruency in my article: “Why You Must Bring Congruency Into Your Life”
Kevin John
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/are-your-personal-values-aligned-with-your-path-to-Success-127584.html
Could you recommend any self-help books for someone who is terrified of committment?
I’ve never even been a relationship; i don’t mean committment, as in marriage….
screw you annie…get a life.
Try M Scott Peck the road less travelled. Also maybe read Men are from Mars for relationship.
Both helped me understand a lot about reluctance to commit in myself.
thankfully Annie M hasnt written either of them!
and as far as i know both are written by fully fledged medically qualified therapists with years of experiece.
The ones where they call people names, talk down to people, insult and ridicule people. Seems there’s a lot of them out there especially in the beauty and relationships section.
I feel like the person that wrote it has a grudge and is taking the opportunity to indulge it. And I think it should never have been published.
When I met hubby he was delivering pizzas, and then a white van delivery driver as he did not achieve enough grades and did not have the money to go to university. He used to say he was a “street-guy” and was not made to be an academic person – but after some brainwashing from my side he got the motivation to apply for Uni and he finished it with a 2:1. He truly enjoyed studying. And we are both proud of himself.Then he started a MA but had also applied for some trainee programs with some well known companies. The competition was very hight but he got the job.The Management trainee would pay lots so he quit the overcomplicated MA which he was not completely sure he was enjoying. The trainee program proved to be very physical, long hours, work weekends, slave work conditions, and anyone without a Bachelors could perform the job, in his opinion. Everyday he gets home and complain on how tired he is and much he wants to leave this job.Problem is: I have been hearing this for over 1 year and he only applied for 6 jobs during all this time. We do not have kids and are quite free to take any risk we wish. He said the reason he does not apply for jobs is because he has no self confidence that he will be able to do them. He is not sure about his capability of working in an office, he has never done it and his first language is not English. He claims to not understand about companies and business (some call it corporate gibberish) – therefore he does not even apply. Recently he was keen to start his own business, a removal company or talked about being a taxi driver. In my opinion this shows how little confidence he has in his intellectual abilities.
more background: I am myself a foreigner in the UK and got my first job in a blue chip company struggling badly to understand what was going on , there was the language barrier and the fact that I did not know anything about companies myself . . . but I survived and developed day by day and today I can write SOP’s and train other people…. I so think my hubby can do the same and better..and I do tell him that ! I chose to love him for the street-guy he said he was and I will still love if he decides to be it…but… I do believe he can do something more intelectually challenging …
It is not as easy as motivating him to go to uni. This time is different. We are not that willing to be in the rat race, we are frugal, not materialistic. We are not even sure if being in a 9-to-5 job is a good thing. But I still hear his complaints every single day … and wish I could help his pain to go away . ..
how can I help him believe in himself ?
Accept him as he is.
Your ‘motivating’ could be counter-productive
Success is something that may seem illusive to some people. To others it may require hard work and determination without submitting to failure. What defines success for you? People who can overcome obstacles in life are usually the ones who succeed in the long run. Perseverance is the key to success. The willingness to go on despite the feeling of failure is the most important step toward success.
Successful people take action and are confident about their decisions even if they don’t know what the outcome will be. They are decisive and willing to take risks.
Successful people enjoy their life no matter what circumstances they find themselves in. They accept the small things in life and give gratitude for them. They treat every day as a gift and not take it for granted. So they do all they can do for that day. They live in the present and not worry about the future.
Learning to be flexible when change comes takes precedence over trying to change the situation to adapt to you when it seems impossible to change it. Successful people take responsibility for their own actions. They don’t blame anyone else. They look at change as an opportunity for something greater and try to use it as a stepping-stone to go to the next lever.
Never give up if you want to be successful. You must have the tenacity to overcome and move on to the next thing. Keep motivating yourself and focus on what is good rather than the bad that happened to you.
Other people are important to successful people. They reach out to others and show kindness. They are not loners because they know that people are important to their success.
Don’t entertain self-pity. Live for today, don’t look back at the past and remember that tomorrow will take care of itself. This is how successful people think and live their lives.
Successful people dream big. Their goals are big goals. They challenge themselves and focus on using their vision to keep their dreams alive.
Coaches and mentors are an asset to the successful person. They realize that “no man is an island.” They are not afraid to ask for help.
People who want to be successful are open to learn new things. They don’t mind making the huge step outside of their comfort zone. They think long-term and seek knowledge through books, tapes, coaching, and from other people that they meet.
Do not procrastinate. Procrastination is the worst enemy of success. Being indecisive and not wanting to act quickly is absolutely unacceptable to the successful person.
Here are some quick tips to the path of your success:
1. Write your vision down. Know exactly what you want in life.
2. Set many long-term goals. Don’t worry if they seem too much for you to achieve.
3. Make immediate plans to take action. Create a sense of urgency.
4. Take a look at your vision board every day to remind yourself what is important and why you need to accomplish what you set forth to do.
5. Take at least three steps each day to accomplish your short-term goals. Your short-term goals usually get you closer to your long-term goals.
6. Discipline is one of the attributes of success. Don’t let negative people get in your space.
7. Respect and value time.
8. Be focused and live in the present.
9. Finish the entire task that you start. Do not leave unfinished business. It takes longer to complete.
10. Persistent and Perseverance are the two “P’s” that will get you to your Successful destination.
11. Give yourself a reward each time you complete a task toward getting closer to your success.
12. Keep dreaming and you will finally wake up to find it there.
Cheers to your success. It can happen to you too. Don’t think it belongs to the other person. It is yours depending on how bad you want it.
Sharon Capehart
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/how-to-become-the-success-you-desire-to-be-341827.html
These days an ever increasing number of people are moving away from the more conventional methods of medicine and seeking alternate methods be it Ayurveda, hypnotherapy or meditation. This increasing popularity is making hypnosis a practice which everyone wants to learn be it for self help or pain management. However, it is important to know the basics before you get started.
Hypnosis is a condition of relaxation when you are relaxed and comforted n by your inside feeling and thoughts, ignoring outside pressures. Hypnosis imbues a sense of peace and helps you transcend from the physical to the spiritual world. It requires a lot of concentration and practice, but if done properly, it can be an effective tool to banish bad habits and attain peace in ones day to day activities. By proper practice and using the correctmethodology, you can get stop smoking, loose weight and maintain a healthier lifestyle through hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis can either be accomplished under the supervision of a hypnotherapist or by using methods of self hypnosis. Every day at some time we unconsciously go in the state of hypnosis, for example, while watching TV, reading or driving. These activities help us relax as the make us concentrate on one thing and let us forget everything else in our lives for a brief concentrated periods of time. When you learn self hypnosis or hypnosis, you learn to direct this involuntary relaxation into controlled actions aiming to achieve some specific Self Help goals.
In the past, hypnosis has been wrongly associated with trance like conditions in which the hypnotist has complete Svengali like control of the human mind and make you behave in any way directed. However, this is a completely false view and has been refuted by recent controlled researcher. In hypnosis, one is totally aware of his surroundings and can control them if he wants to. So the idea of using hypnosis as a tool of recovering past memories and past lives along with controlling the persons mind do anything is not a primary or even realistic goal.
In command hypnosis the relationship between the patient and the hypnotherapist is very crucial. This method is generally used in medicinal practices. Promising secrecy is one of the basic ethics of this profession. Many tools can be used by the hypnotherapist depending upon the patient to make him feel more relaxed. It can be the music of his choice, reading a book or may be just a few suggestions by the therapist that can do the trick. It is important to remember that different things work for different people.
In self hypnosis, the key role is played by concentration. When you are hypnotized you concentrate on a specific memory, object or feeling blocking everything else from your mind.
As the popularity of hypnosis grows and more and more people start using it, you should be remember that hypnotherapy is a very sensitive and difficult technique to learn, and that it should be used with care and caution. And before going to a hypnotherapist it is important to get to know his history, experience and qualifications. If you follow these simple rules then hypnosis can be an experience of a lifetime and give you added benefits of weight loss or memory power.
Bill Urell
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/the-truth-about-hypnosis-for-self-help-and-weight-loss-58941.html
Scientists – General Biography & Autobiography – This large print title is set in Tieras 16pt font as reccomended by the RNIB. – Self Help (Books)