PLEASE PLEASE WRITE IT ALL DOWN

Make notes, keep a notebook or make a sheet per day!

Have a great idea – then make a note!

 

Decide to do something, then make it a To-Do

for your day!

 

Your internal commitments in thought
will be hugely strengthened

by writing it down!

TRY IT!

TRY THIS SIMPLE THING!

DO A GOOD DEED!

Hardly an hour passes, let alone

a day, before the chance presents itself to help

someone we do not know or to spurn that chance.

It could be in the street.

It could be when we are driving and

letting someone in ahead of us, or

it could be by making sure they cannot.

It could be holding a door for them, or

by letting it shut in the face. Or

it could be by carrying a bag

up or down some stairs for them, or by simply ignoring them.

We share the same world in our time,
when it is their time too.

It costs nothing to make it a better time.

Try it, and I swear you will make the weirdest discovery!

In totally unrelated situations, you will find other people

increasingly doing it for you.

Most important, feel the emotional power within you for
having treated Life as an interconnected endeavour with others,
even if only for a few moments in your day!

HAVE FAITH!

IF YOU HAVE FAITH, PRAY,

BUT IF YOU DON’T, 

THEN APPEAL TO

THE HIGHER ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE

This can be a sensitive issue but I believe
it should not be.

If you have a Faith,

however dimmed by lack of practice,

I would encourage you to awaken it.

In so doing you awaken your connection with greater powers than your own.

Most Faiths have a peaceful
and spiritual emphasis which serves to connect us

with “our neighbour.”

If you do not have Faith,

then ponder on the infinite scale and order of the universe,

on its power to put our own issues in perspective.

But reflect too on how

when we grasp a good intent and we promote it,

extraordinarily and coincidentally,

helpful things happen

towards achieving that good intent!

Gerry Neale Two Minute Briefing Update: No 1

Action On Focussing On Your Future

( i ), Make your first Goals clear and easy to achieve
( ii ), Set Time lines to achieve them
( iii ), Set them for your benefit and not others
( iv ), Set them because you WANT TO and don’t HAVE TO!
Watchwords!

“Where I am, is where I have got myself to be!”
Think Well Today and Think “Action!”
Good Luck!
Gerry Neale

Why Is My Goal-Setting Not Working: What Am I Doing Wrong?

If you want a great book to help you review your childhood and connect you with the "You" of today then read " You Can Change Your Life" by Tim Laurence. ISBN 978-0-340-82523-5.

Remember, you can think you have chosen a goal in the belief that you want to achieve the end result you have visualised. Yet the reality can be very different! A parent or a teacher can have laboured the point in your childhood that you are useless at it or would never make the grade and you mandated that in your mind at the time.

So what have you done? You have set a goal, not so much to achieve the desired outcome for yourself, but to prove the parent or teacher wrong! Every-time you fix your mind on the goal, then inadvertently and sub-consciously you raise the spectre of the adverse comments made all those years ago. One goes on giving those comments air-time. Tim Laurence in his book will show you how to disassociate from that childhood memory and then you will be able to commit to the goal entirely on its own terms.

But if nothing else, if I have identified the source of the your problem, then that will give you chance to dismantle the longstanding criticism resident in your mind. You can reflect objectively, as you are now, on those remarks made years ago and then tell yourself over and over that they may have been well-intended remarks but they were quite simply wrong then and are still wrong now.

Good luck

BBC Research Shows Computer Games Do not Advance Our Thinking!

It always fascinates me how much of this research is restricted to the ability to think better logically. Rarely does it cover the impact on our self-esteem or sense of self-efficacy. I have not the slightest doubt that while learning new complex computer games does not aid our our overall thinking ability, it has a dramatic effect on the way we think and feel about oursleves.

Doubts we we could have nursed about our ability to master  computing skills could be banished and could leave us much more willing to try new tasks with the belief we can master them too.

Another feature of computer games rarely referred to is the need for sustained concentration. One of my grandsons has had reports of limited concentration at school. Yet put him in front of a computer game and he demonstrates powers of concentration second to none!

We can learn to live happier and more effective lives based on how we think about ourselves




GN

New eBook On Goal-setting to be published by Gerry Neale

An eBook is due out within the next four weeks, providing a Seven Day Tutorial on Goal-setting and making things happen. It will be hosted by Psychology Simplified and be available via ClickBank. 

Helpful Articles

Most weeks, new articles are written by Gerry Neale. These are mostly on Cognitive Thinking issues and are submitted to the principal article directories. If you would like these emailed to you, there is an Ezine Articles box which when completed will cause the articles submitted to them to be sent to you automatically. You may also find interesting additional material on a sister blog, which seeks to simplify Psychology for easy application in every day life. http://psychologysimplified.blogspot.com

If you want to learn more about the art prints, more information is available by clicking on them.

Author Ranking on Ezine Articles

Gerry Neale is now ranked in the top 40 article authors on Psychology on Ezine Articles. Currently he is ranked in the top 50 on Achievement and in the top 60 on Goal-setting. He has focussed mainly on Cognitive Thinking issues but has writtten articles on starting an on-line business, on success, on painting mixed media ink pointillism and watercolour picures. Some of his art prints are featured on this blog and by clicking on them you can obtain more detail on how they are created, if you wish to discover.

Psychology Simplified About The Sub-conscious Mind And Making Our Future by Gerry Neale

All manner of accounts have been written over time about the nature of our sub-conscious mind. Distil any five articles or descriptions into one and there is no doubting the result comprises an extraordinary picture of this feature of human beings. Among the almost unbelievable complexities thrown up by research are some simpler truths available to us. They shine out like gold nuggets in the dim light. And they point to equally simple actions we can take for our own benefit.

Let’s try to contemplate the future for a moment, and our own future within it.

Do we instinctively view it with dread or with excitement? If we are normal, we would almost inevitably say, some of both. If one was pressed more and asked what proportion of both, what would be our response?

My first guess is that most people would have to think about the question for more than a moment or two. My second guess is that in so doing, anyone looking to answer the question would become clearer on how our picture of The Future and of our own future within it can affect our confidence, our aspirations and our happiness.

If The Future looks terrifying to us, seems to be devoid of any certainty, chaotic and full of dread, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell us just how defensive and reclusive that thinker could become.

Equally, suppose the view of The Future was the opposite, wouldn’t our suspicions be aroused by such a thinker? I have in mind someone who sees life ahead as amazing, fantastic, a wonderful and exciting dream, an absolutely perfect place to be and certainly way, way better than where we are now or have ever been before! Again we’ve no need for the rocket scientist to be able to see that such a thinker has little likelihood of realistic and practical roots in their present or the past.

Yet in both cases the sub-conscious has been asked and has responded with a picture. So what does that mean for us? Where is our sub-conscious mind trying to position us as we contemplate our own future?

With a little too high a dose of doom and gloom, won’t we shrink back and become mildly defensive and even a little reclusive ourselves?

If we then try to compensate for this stance, sub-consciously or consciously, don’t we need to start constructing control systems to reduce the chaos we perceive ahead? Won’t doing this perhaps fool ourselves into believing that we are managing our lives well. Won’t this authorise our subconscious to contrive and invent on-going control systems which will rule out and all but smother chance encounters and opportunities?

On the other hand, what happens if consciously we increase the dose of Optimism? Immediately we trigger within us more positive perceptions of the future.

Let’s agree with ourselves that we have done pretty well to get to this point in Life. Let’s further agree that here in our own present moment, we can claim justifiably to have learned a lot from our past which equips us for our future. There is much to be positive about!

Now! Can the World around tap into this private, more positive, upbeat but practicable approach forming in our mind? Personally I believe it can and does. But what does undoubtedly tap in this new view of ourselves and our future is our sub-conscious mind! Feed ourselves with more upbeat messages, assessments and aspirations and our sub-conscious goes into overdrive to find even more.

The simple truth is our sub conscious does not have, and is not, a mind of its own. Its resource base is the sum total of all that we have fed it since birth. But feed it with a different diet of information, and yes, the nature of its resource changes.
And Yes! Yes! Yes! Its extraordinary creative powers are fired into action, causing us to behave to our new view of the future.

“Learned Optimism” is a skill! Read the book of that title!

Good luck but remember we can also create our luck!

Self-Talk Part 1: Be Your Own Best Friend:

This is an aspect of goal setting and resolution-making we need to take head on, but few people do! This is the Joker in our personal cognitive pack of cards housed in our minds. Just like the Joker on the card table, in cognitive terms our self-talk can count as a beneficial high value card, or - just as easily - a devastatingly low card!

I am assuming that you are disconcerted by your self-talk, for if you were not, why read this article.

So then, we need to apply some real self-discipline at this point. We need to work together to create the most effective strategy for you to harness this feature of ourselves so it works for you rather than against you.

Let’s put Self-Talk in a clear context for a moment. Clearly you have noticed the incessant chatter going on in your head! What is actually going on, you ask? And whose opinion is this inner voice expressing?

The part of you that wants to achieve the goal you have set for yourself, is quietly convinced you can attain it and remains quiet about it..But the other part of you, the part that is certain you will fail or at least is far less convinced of your success, won’t shut up!

But why does part of you think that? And why does it drip feed your mind with these incessant negative messages?

Almost certainly it is because your sub-conscious mind remembers that you have failed before and has never forgotten it! Or maybe it cannot find any evidence you have not done anything similar before and it could simply be because your sub-conscious is not comfortable with your intention to stretch yourself so far. Therefore it tries to discourage you in order to protect you against the risk of failure and disappointment

. ”Ah! My Dad always said I would always buckle under a challenge”. Or “ My English Teacher always said etc etc.”

Yet not a single word has been uttered by you out loud! All this goes on merely in your head, re-playing these thoughts the moment your mind falls idle.

The lesson to be learned from Part 1 is we need to accept that everyone has this type of conversation going on inside their heads. It is not just you that has this problem! We all have it, but what separates the successful from the less so, has a lot to do with the way they manage their self-talk.

We all know how helpful self-talk can be sometimes and yet how parallelising, insidious and de-motivating it can be at other times. Controlling it and directing it is vital for us to be more effective. We need to learn how to think of ourselves as our best friend

I will get on to that in Part 2.

Self Talk Part 2, Be Our Own Best Friend

We may indeed have decided that we really do want to achieve our stated goal. But unprepared, the self-talk going on in our head can still blast us out the moment we hit the first obstacle. But it can be changed!

All too often we can hear not one but two voices within us arguing with each other, particularly when our dilemma over something is acute! If the negative voice wins out, the speed with which the doubt created by our self-talk can strike is both formidable and of crippling effect.

Even suppose our picture of our goal is vivid, convincing and carries our over-riding commitment. Unless we keep telling ourselves that it is definitely and totally what we want and that we are up to the challenge, our ship is cognitively holed below the water line by the inner voice!

Now try this exercise! Make time to listen to people talk around you and you can hear so often the same dilemma you have within, being discussed by them out loud. You can hear family members, friends or employers talking up those around them and encouraging the best in them. Or you may hear the same people talking apparent opportunities down, and worse, talking others down and reinforcing the worst in them.

The truth is we each already know instinctively the part we can play so easily in this. We can help a conversation to become positive or negative. Surely one mini goal we should all have is never knowingly to talk anyone down, least of all ourselves.

It is a fact that the more that we talk others up, the more we are likely to talk ourselves up too. It is a frame of mind! Just reflect on some of the damning things you know you say to yourself about you under your breath sometimes. Imagine!

If a friend said the same things to you about you with the same conviction and out loud, just how long would you stay friends with them! Not a minute longer! So why do we do it?

But what is happening inside our heads when this is all going on under our breath.

Each time we do it, we feed the same deep-seated, damaging self-image of ourselves. Instead of feeding it, we should be killing it off by starvation!

So be your own best friend in terms of everything you say to yourself.

Stop maligning yourself, doubting yourself and undermining constructive moves you make.

If you want to look for example of how to do this, again you have to look no further than sports stars in the top echelon of their sport. Interviewed after a below average performance, they never run themselves down and they are already reflecting positively in regard to their next encounter.

The greater, the more complex and challenging your goal is, then be prepared to be even more of close friend to yourself Why, because the sheer scale of the challenge can make it more likely that it is the self-doubt that will kick in and set the negative self-talk in motion. The key to this is finding and directing our preferred mental mind game to fend off the negative messages, neutralise and even silence them.

So now you know, will you just go and do it? If only if it were that simple! You will need to practise and practise. I am afraid it is a skill to be acquired as well as understood.

Try it before reading more in Part 3

Self Talk Part 3 Be Your Own Best friend.

I hope you have been practising hard, avoiding the negative talk and looking for the constructive between finishing Part 2 and beginning this part. Before you exclaim, Oh No! Not this positive talk rubbish. Let me say, that is exactly what it is! What is more, it amounts to a very simple choice for each one of us.

The choice will come as no surprise! Talk to ourselves and we subtract from our effectiveness. Whereas if we keep positive in our thinking we add to that effectiveness.

There is a book called the Attitude Factor which shows the benefits even to one’s health of being ones own best friend.

But if you found practising it difficult, you may like to use this computer metaphor to help you.. When the thrust of a negative thought appears on the screen in your mind, quite simply you click on a metaphorical “Select All” button in your head and with the whole negative thought captured, then press “Delete!”

If you don’t like that, then audio machines allow us to delete material on CDs and DVDs, so you may prefer the mental imagery of that. Similarly, just imagine your negative thoughts are now on tape and that you simply record positive ones over them.

Another one would be an imaginary form of zapper - rather like the remote control for a TV. Or if the metaphor of putting your mental phone on “divert” works well, then try that.
Going back in your mind to an unrelated past experience filled with success and positive images for you could be yet another.

Think up a strategy which allows you in your own private idiom to zap negative thoughts. This is exactly what professional sports men and women and those in the Armed forces are trained to do to raise their game. There is nothing untried or speculative about it. Practise and it works. Don’t and it doesn’t

Does it begin to work immediately? Yes, certainly with smaller things, but you can get better and better at the bigger issues the more you address negative self-talk head on.

Should you never listen to these negative thoughts?

Well not entirely. Listening only for constructive criticism which can give ourselves great value is to ignore our own potentially valuable warning signals. If the thoughts warn of dire consequences, merely ask yourself, “Does this make sense?” Is the anxiety based on real facts or does it rely merely on instinctive subconscious fear? Just do not give the time of day to the insidious, negative mindless stuff we can sometimes inflict on ourselves all too easily.

And stay with your vivid picture of your unfulfilled new goal. Never lose the opportunity to go making it even more vivid using by reinforcing it from data you obtain. See yourself all the more clearly in the picture and able to reflect on your achievement as though you had already got it done.

Good Luck. Keep your inner voice positive. And if your intellectual good sense still finds it difficult to win over the panic and anxiety, we still have Part 4 left to practise a more structured solution.

Self Talk Part 4 Be Your Own Best Friend

So everyone has this inner voice to a lesser or greater effect. And it can be harnessed and trained to be more helpful. To do this, one needs to adopt a cognitive trick to channel out needless and senseless self-talk.

If there is one recurring negative thought still bugging you, then research it, turning your mind to focus on it. Try to seek out its origin from among your past experiences. See the threat it seems to represent in the total context of your life and your new goal. As the same negative thought reoccurs, tell yourself how less and less it squares with the new image and information you have.

There is another excellent book by Tim Laurence called ‘You Can Change Your Life’ and based on the Hofman Process of improving your Self-Awareness. It suggests another solution. Laurence advocates that where your emotions kick in hard and your inner voice begins to drown out all reason, that we should try his clever suggestion.

Visualise the two parts of you. First see your emotional self designed to warn you of all and any danger to life and limb. Then envisage the other part, your intellectual and considered self. Whenever the emotional side goes on a rampage yelling at your intellect and constraining it from doing calmly and calculatingly what you think would be best to do, listen to the ideal, imaginary conversation between them.

Listen to the emotional rampage for a moment. Then hear the Intellect very calmly thank the Emotional part for bringing the caution and warning. Hear it go on to promise to the Emotional part that the Intellectual part will take heed in future of the anxiety, while it considers the most effective way ahead to complete the task.

Many people are simply not aware of the sheer scale of research on human thought and behaviour. This has been occurring extensively across the world, particularly in the last three decades.

In the context of Self Talk, what has been proven is the great influence our relentless inner self talk has on the relevant self-image we have of ourselves. This appears to be true in any particular aspect of our lives. Self-talk can talk up that relevant self-image and in consequence increase our resulting performance. In so doing it can create a wonderfully strong virtuous circle. Equally, it can talk our situation down, lower our ultimate achievement level and become a vicious cycle of negativity.

But there is even more to this!

Research has shown that in the absence of any other influence, we meet and deal with challenges, not according to our actual ability but according to our perceived level of our ability - our self-image in that situation.

In other words if we think we can do it well we can even exceed our actual current ability, by performing, as it is sometimes said, ‘out of our skins’. But if our view of ourselves is poor, then we perform well below that inherent ability we have.

So, at the end of this four par article, some concluding questions for you to ask yourself on
Self Talk and some resolutions to make.

“Am I fully aware of both the value as well as the potential downside of my self-talk?”

“Doesn’t everyone benefit from it or suffer by it, as they choose?”

“Shouldn’t I desist right now from giving myself verbal abuse? Which mental strategy of those listed am I choosing to “delete” or “divert” this abuse?”

“Shouldn’t I be my own best friend in terms of everything I say to myself?”

“Isn’t it time I identified and applied my own strategy to screen out my destructive self talk?”

“Instead of running myself down, let me advise me, counsel and encourage me
constructively.”

“I will keep in the forefront of my mind the fact that we meet and deal with challenges not according to our actual ability but according to our perceived level of our ability - our self-image as represented by our Self Talk.”

Think well and be your own very best friend.

Helping Us Understand And Change Ourselves

There is so much we can do improve our effectiveness as people. If we want to change and are willing first to understand what the issues are, then we have made a great start. The next step is to apply us willingly to the process. Posted on this blog are observations from me and helpful articles from various authors to set you thinking. If I can help you further do leave comments on the Blog. Gerry Neale

Want to Write a Book? Five Tips to Set and Achieve Your Writing Goals

If you want to write a book, or tackle any other important writing project, then setting clear, powerful goals can put you on the path to success. No matter what you hope to accomplish, the following five tips can help you get there.

1. Define Your Goal

The first step in setting and achieving goals is to determine what exactly you want. Strong goals are specific goals. For example, "I want to devote more time to writing this year," doesn't have as much meaning as, "I will spend one hour a day writing my book." "Devoting more time to writing" offers too much flexibility. Spending one hour a day writing is much more specific and easy to understand. So be clear about what you want if you really want to see a difference.

2. Give Yourself a Deadline

Putting a deadline on your goals gives you a target to aim for and allows you to gauge your progress with a timeline. For example, if you want to write a book this year, you might give yourself an intermediate deadline for completing the first draft and a final deadline for completing your revisions. This timeframe will help you moving forward and give you checkpoints to aim for on the path to success.

3. Be Realistic, but Stretch Yourself Too

Overly lofty goals are often unattainable, which can be frustrating and disappointing. If you aim too high, then you risk giving up on your writing goals. So make sure your goal is something that you can reasonably achieve in the timeframe you've established for yourself. At the same time, don't set your goals too low. Stretching yourself a little will make your success that much sweeter-and you'll feel empowered to accomplish even more!

4. Write Your Goal Down

We've all heard that if you want to make something happen, you have to write it down. And it's true-writing down your goals gives them more power. Writing your goal in an important place that you can revisit often will help you stay focused, as opposed to writing it on a napkin or scrap of paper that eventually gets thrown away. So write your goal in your journal or on an index card that you carry with you all the time.

5. Envision Your Success

If you really want to achieve your goal, then imagine what it will feel like when you've already done it. Imagine the satisfaction you'll feel when your book manuscript is completed and polished. And imagine how wonderful it will feel to see your name on the cover of your book. Revisit this feeling of success and satisfaction every time you sit down to write, and before you realize it your dreams will come true!

To Your Success

Writing a book, or completing any other writing project, is easy when you are clear about what you want and you take steps to make it happen. With these five strategies, you can achieve any writing goal you want. So what will you accomplish?

Melinda Copp is a ghostwriter and writing coach who helps self-employed professionals, speakers, entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants who struggle to write in a way that attracts new clients and grows their business. If you want grow your business by writing and publishing, visit www.WritersSherpaPrograms.com to get a special report on the secrets of writing to sell and a video on three written pieces that will bring you new clients and prospects FAST!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Melinda_Copp

Melinda Copp - EzineArticles Expert Author

Psychology Simplified - Improving Self-Esteem By Gerry Neale

Simplifying Psychology to improve Self Esteem is not difficult if one follows some simple steps. That anyone of us can think ourselves out of the game, unable to accomplish something and therefore all in all to want low esteem, is not an earth shattering discovery. We all know people who have a lower self-esteem than us and ones with higher. Yet we can change.

However many of us making any assessment of self-esteem, whether our own or someone else, can make a significant mis-judgment. If they assume that our calculation of our self-esteem level should be the sum total of all our abilities and disabilities and somehow averaged, they would be mistaken.

In fact, each of us is a walking bundle of self-esteem assessments, often arrived at very arbitrarily.

Let me explain. Ask a golfer what his or her handicap is and most will tell you quite authoritively what it is. The Game has a well tried formula.

Not many activities have this feature. So suppose we are given a list of activities and asked to assess our effectiveness. What do we do! Actually we call on our sub-conscious to give us the rating on each one!

So imagine this. You are given a list of 10 activities and ask to give yourself a rating (1 being really good and 50 needing a lot of improvement. I would like you to do score yourself in your mind as you read and note what happens. Ready?

Ball room dancing - cooking Thai style - Tennis - Drawing - Writing short stories - Singing - Eating sensibly - Using the Internet - Remembering birthdays and anniversaries - Public Speaking.

Do you notice how some you score highly; others you are a bit down on yourself and the remainder you are damning of yourself.

Why? Either because you are good at it or your parents or teachers told you were wasting your time even trying, or because you never done them and feel a bit inadequate.!

But some fascinating scientifically proven facts about us and the psychology behind self-esteem have emerged in recent years. Follow this simple formula and see how immediately you begin to feel better about things:

* Remind yourself of something you are good at now,
* Then recall what character traits you employed to get so good at it.
* Didn't you wanted to do it,
* Didn't you find out how.
* Didn't you apply yourself and learnt some then alien skill.

So we can rightly deduce that if we apply ourselves in the same way for another activity, using our proven character traits, then hey presto we can excel in any new skill we want to. Each skill will have its oddities to start with but, so what! we have mastered oddities before!

Simplifying the personal psychology involved immediately improves our sense of self-esteem and shows how we have a stack of eminently transferable character traits.

Select a new simple challenge and try it. You will be amazed.

Mentoring Tips - Because We All Need a Good Mentor By Delia Robinson

Our earliest mentors are usually family members. We go to them when we need advice, guidance and help. As we grow up, we still need support, even if we don't like to admit it. Workplace mentors are often part of your induction training, designed to give you personal support as you take on a new position and new responsibilities.

A mentor helps you on a one-to-one basis, rather than in a formal training program. They are there to guide you, give you advice and help you when you need it. A good mentor will not tell you what to do, or do it for you, but rather they will question, challenge and prompt you to work out solutions and make decisions for yourself. A mentor is usually older than you, but is always someone with more knowledge and experience in the position or industry you are in. Whether your mentor is helping you at work or in your personal life, there are a few points to remember that will help you gain the most from your mentoring relationship.

1. Mentoring is a confidential relationship

Whether it's embarrassing or incriminating, what you share with your mentor is confidential. You need to be able to share your fears, concerns and problems with your mentor, without fear of it becoming office gossip. The relationship therefore must be based on mutual trust and open communication.

2. Mentoring is about communication

In order for your mentor to be able to guide and advise you, he or she must know what you are thinking, what your concerns are and what obstacles you may be facing. Honest, open communication is vital to any good relationship, and mentoring is no different.

3. Mentoring is about accepting help

People are often reluctant to accept advice from others. As a child you were encouraged to be independent, to do things and solve your problems yourself. Now you're all grown up, you've got to accept help again! Often, people don't want to accept help because they think it will be seen as a sign of weakness or lack of capability. Your mentor wants to help you - and they have the experience to know when you need it, so let them do what they are supposed to do.

4. You will be challenged

A good mentor will challenge you to extend yourself beyond your comfort zone. This will be uncomfortable for you, and even a little scary, and you may resent being pushed. However, rising to the challenge allows you to grow, develop and learn.

5. Be willing to learn

Accepting that you do have things to learn, about life, people, the job or the industry, will help you to accept the guidance offered by your mentor. As you learn, you will develop the confidence and skills you need to accept the new responsibilities. After all, if you knew it all already, you'd be the mentor!

6. Mentors come from all walks of life

Workplace mentors, and personal mentors in particular, may be people that you did not realize had so much to contribute to your development as a human being. Many personal mentors start out as friends, because friendship builds the trust required in order for you to confide in someone and take their advice. Life lessons can be learnt from the homeless man in the park, if you just stop and listen.

Having a good mentor can guide you through many areas of your life. Every change in your life, whether personal or work related, demands new skills, new knowledge or new experience from you. Whether you're getting married, having a baby, starting a new job or opening your own business, advice from people you trust, whose knowledge and experience is greater than yours, can only be of benefit to you.

There are several online mentoring programs that can help you progress and overcome the obstacles you face. I've benefited from the guidance I received from iDuplicate. Check out my website http://www.deliarobinsonlive.com for more information about iDuplicate.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Delia_Robinson

Psychology Simplified: Improving Self-Esteem By Sir Gerry Neale

Simplifying Psychology to improve Self Esteem is not difficult if one follows some simple steps. That anyone of us can think ourselves out of the game, unable to accomplish something and therefore all in all to want low esteem, is not an earth shattering discovery. We all know people who have a lower self-esteem than us and ones with higher. Yet we can change.

However many of us making any assessment of self-esteem, whether our own or someone else, can make a significant mis-judgment. If they assume that our calculation of our self-esteem level should be the sum total of all our abilities and disabilities and somehow averaged, they would be mistaken.

In fact, each of us is a walking bundle of self-esteem assessments, often arrived at very arbitrarily.

Let me explain. Ask a golfer what his or her handicap is and most will tell you quite authoritively what it is. The Game has a well tried formula.

Not many activities have this feature. So suppose we are given a list of activities and asked to assess our effectiveness. What do we do! Actually we call on our sub-conscious to give us the rating on each one!

So imagine this. You are given a list of 10 activities and ask to give yourswelf a rating (1 being really good and 50 needing a lot of improvement. I would like you to do score yourself in your mind as you read and note what happens. Ready?

Ball room dancing - cooking Thai style – Tennis – Drawing - Writing short stories – Singing - Eating sensibly - Using the Internet - Remembering birthdays and anniversaries - Public Speaking.

Do you notice how some you score highly; others you are a bit down on yourself and the remainder you are damning of yourself.

Why? Either because you are good at it or your parents or teachers told you were wasting your time even trying, or because you never done them and feel a bit inadequate.!

But some fascinating scientifically proven facts about us and the psychology behind self-esteem have emerged in recent years. Follow this simple formula and see how immediately you begin to feel better about things:
• Remind yourself of something you are good at now,
• Then recall what character traits you employed to get so good at it.
• Didn’t you wanted to do it,
• Didn’t you find out how.
• Didn’t you apply yourself and learnt some then alien skill.

So we can rightly deduce that if we apply ourselves in the same way for another activity, using our proven character traits, then hey presto we can excel in any new skill we want to. .Each skill will have its oddities to start with but, so what! we have mastered oddities before!

Simplifying the personal psychology involved immediately improves our sense of self-esteem and shows how we have a stack of eminently transferable character traits.

Select a new simple challenge and try it. You will be amazed.

Mentors -- 5 Strategies to Choosing a Mentor for Motivation, Inspiration and Success By Christopher Scott Smith

Mentors aren't just for students considered at-risk -- or for entrepreneurs at risk of failure. In fact, a quality mentoring relationship is valuable to any student, whether the student is engaged in academics, a new business or wants to focus on the business of a meaningful life. Mentors can help students of all types set goals and visualize them, and provide inspiration and guidance. Mentors can also help students recognize setbacks, overcome them, and give laurels for mastery and achievement.

Mentors can also ease the uncertainty of transition -- a phase of most new learning endeavors, whether it's going back to school, learning a new trade or developing new personal talents and disciplines. And since most new endeavors mean new people, projects, practices and new goals--even a new lifestyle--it's easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when attempting to go it alone. With the support and companionship of a mentor, transitions are smoother. Likewise, endeavors become more certain.

School, along with independent business and learning ventures, usually provide a set structure of goals, procedures, best practices and even deadlines. Nevertheless, without inspiration, motivation and guidance, a student's goals can go unrealized. Too often, the student is clueless as to why. A meaningful relationship with a mentor can change that, and optimize options and opportunities for academic, business and personal growth -- self help for real success.

Choosing a Mentor

Consider the Chinese proverb: 'When the student is ready, the teacher shall appear.' So it just makes sense that the student must first know what she is looking for in a
mentor. Making the right decision is key to realizing inspiration, support and guidance from a mentor and the mentoring relationship. That's where visualization comes into play.

Visualization may sound odd, but it's something people do all the time. Whether delivering a virtual valedictorian address to a graduating class, crossing the end zone before an uproarious crowd or scoring high on an important mid-term or job interview, our minds are constantly at work, playing out our aspirations. We visualize our test grades, the types of clients that will grow our careers and businesses in the direction we foresee. Likewise, we visualize our companions and friends -- the people who share our values and goals. Visualization is a powerful determiner of success, so visualize the mentor you envision -- and visualize a perfect fit!

Once you visualize a mentoring genie, consider what influences, values and attributes they'll have that will be important to your goals.

According to the self-help program LifeManual, a "Proven Formula to Create the Life You Desire," mentors play a crucial role in helping people reach their goals. "The job of a mentor is to befriend, challenge, guide and applaud -- providing affirmation in times of success and inspiration when success seems far away," says Peter H. Thomas, LifeManual founder.

"The best goals are aligned with one's personal values, and the best mentor is someone who shares these values," Thomas adds. And it helps if the mentor has completed goals similar to the student's. Consequently, the mentor becomes a role model personified -- a guide with wisdom, firsthand knowledge and expertise.

So how does a student go about choosing a mentor? LifeManual offers five strategies that prove to have a positive impact on the most meaningful mentor-mentee relationship:

1. Personal is Paramount: Respect is in the eye of the student. And respect is personal. Don't rely on other people's opinions of an individual's importance or worth. Choose a mentor whose life path, accomplishments and way of relating to people personally inspires you and motivates you. Choose a mentor that you respect because the mentor respects the goals you envision and the values you honor.

2. Older is Better: Ideally, a mentor should be at least 15 years older than the student. This age difference helps assure that the mentor will have already tackled and achieved goals that are parallel to the student's. The student will benefit from the mentor's wisdom and experience, especially when it comes to setting goals and developing action steps. In all likelihood, an older mentor will furthermore have no interest in unhealthy mentor-mentee competition.

3. Trust is a Treasure: In origin, the word trust means faithful. A faithful, trusted mentor means you can rely on his or her character, ability, truth and strength. You can talk candidly to a trusted mentor and they'll share their candid perspectives and truths with you. They provide affirmation rather than belittling your ambitions. They provide guidance rather than delighting in your challenges and setbacks. And the most faithful trustworthy mentors are usually willing to share their networks with you. Because a faithful, trustworthy mentor has this kind of courage, too.

4. Confirm the Commitment: A mentoring relationship will only work if the mentor actually has a desire to commit to you, and the time to spend with you, even if only for a few hours a month. Likewise, realize that you're also committing to the mentor, and the compensation he or she will prize is your equal commitment, too.

5. Multiple Mentors May Maximize Results: For most students, a one-size-fits-all mentor is improbable. Someone who provides inspiration in academics probably won't be the best person to guide you in the field of athletics. Or, a mentor who has excelled in business or as an entrepreneur may not be the best choice for mentoring your goals as a parent. Choosing two or even three mentors can be a very wise move. More than five will probably hinder progress and success, and make it more difficult to honor your commitment as a 'student.'

Additional Resources

--> The University of Victoria, B.C. has used Thomas' LifePilot seminar program to help link students to mentors. To further help its students, the university provides an extensive list of Mentoring Resources.

--> For tips on setting goals, visualizing them and finding inspiration and motivation to make them happen, LifeManual provides a free PDF Download or Audio File.

As vice president of LifePilot, Christopher Scott Smith oversees the organization’s operations, ensuring efficient and effective management of overall company strategy and budget, as well as the management of personnel and stakeholder relationships. The organization provides values-driven motivational products, programs and workshops for entrepreneurial success, self-help, parenting, and business leadership. LifePilot's net profits are distributed to charities through the Todd Thomas Foundation and the Thomas Foundation. Contact Chris at values@lifemanual.com. Learn more about values, motivation and Chris’ work at LifeManual.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Scott_Smith

A

Visualisation Of Success: A Vital Ingredient To Win.

The power of visualisation of success, and of a job well done or of a goal achieved are quite extraordinary in human beings. When the success eventually occurs and matches the earlier visualisation, it can make that success appear merely a natural outcome.

So is a really powerful and vivid visualisation of the mission accomplished, a guarantee that success will surely follow? I wish! There are other essential ingredients too. But what is unavoidably true is that, barring rare and quirkish coincidences, if there is no visualisation of success, then success will not occur.
What happens when we visualise an outcome vividly, we provide ourselves cognitively with a defined destination.

Most of us like to go on a journey. But just imagine, being all packed and dressed for a journey, and we turn up at a major railway or airport and ask for a ticket. What will be the question thrown at us immediately? “Where to?”

Now visualise the look on the ticket clerk’s face when we reply, “I don’t know!”

If we don’t know, who does? And if we don’t know, sadly, who much cares?

Cognitive research has produced some fascinating results over the last 30 years. We now know that we get drawn naturally to the most dominant picture in our mind. Try this:
- Settle on some visualisation technique that you like.
- Paint the picture vividly in your mind of exactly where, say, you want to
- spend your next holiday.
- Bring the other senses into play. Hear the sounds. Smell the scents - - --
- Remind yourself what this would mean to you.
- Ensure this no dream. It is an intent.
-Tell yourself when you want to achieve it.

Now watch!

We have just presented our sub conscious with a huge dilemma. It realises on the one hand that our whole cognitive system seems hooked irretrievably on the goal – not a dream – to take this holiday.

Our mental picture has become so all pervasive that the issue of the cost of this particular holiday just has to be solved and not used as an excuse. No quarter must be given to reasons why it is not achievable. As a result, our whole mental and emotional force gets drawn to the result. Heaven and earth will get moved to make it possible!

What is happening within us? Our unconscious mind which stores all our memories and all our latent knowledge and skill, has been presented with the clear picture, the blunt mandate to provide us with the wherewithal to obtain the goal. More than that it will find and create opportunities for us to complete this visualisation foremost in our mind.

The more vivid we make this vital ingredient to win, the less there is room for us fail. Good Luck in all you do.

Sir Gerry Neale has lectured as Visiting Lecturer under-graduates and post graduates at the University of Westminster in cognitive thinking. He has mentored courses for corporate strategic planning and how to position the organisation’s and the individual’s thinking in relation to them. He has conducted counselling and life coaching programmes with individuals in person and on-line.