Stress Free Living – Using Self Talk To Conquer Fear

Fear of failure, fear of change, even fear of success can hold you back from creating a   life by design.  Uncertainty and doubt can and will erode your  self confidence and lower your  self esteem.  The one thing in life you can be sure of,  is we all have fear.  Being afraid is a normal part of living but letting fear hold the key to your happiness will undoubtedly affect your joy for living.

The first step to eliminating fear is identifying the cause. Self talk is ineffective unless you understand the root of the problem. When fear overrules your life it effects both your   mind and body.

We talk to ourselves all day every day.  Except most of the time we say negative things to ourselves.
“Nobody likes me”
“I can’t get anything right”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me”
“I’m so dumb”
Does any of this sound familiar?
Self-talk is more then just positive thinking and positive talk.  Thinking about something and never taking action is just thinking.  Yes you’ll feel better but it will have a limited impact on your life unless you take that thinking and add a quotient of action.

So when you look at it that way, self-talk at least effective self-talk, is action talk.  You can say to yourself all day everyday for a year “I’m successful”  but if there’s no action behind the words it’s pretty meaningless.

Do not let fear control your life. Self-talk will help you to do anything you want when your use positive thinking. Some people are afraid to climb over a fence. To overcome this fear of going over the fence, tell yourself you can do it. Face it and force yourself to go over the fence to the other side. Overcoming a fear systematically and self-talk your way through each step will help you to accomplish this fear. Think positive you can and will do it to succeed.

The key is to talk small steps every day.  When a negative thought comes into your mind reverse it with something positive.  And most importantly take an action step to reinforce the positive self-talk.

You are in control of your own desitiny, by the actions you take each and every day.  Be self-aware, and  self-confident to improve your self-esteem.

Stress Free Living with 10 Daily Management Tips

Time management isn’t a seminar you attend or a book you read. Time management is a process that must be engaged every day to be effective. Some of the most frustrated, disorganized people in any office are the ones with the most time management books on their shelves.

It’s not that these books were ineffective. Rather in their frantic workday, these people “didn’t have time” to read the time management books! In the interest of keeping it simple, these tips could set you on the way to getting serious about time management as you see the value unfold:

1. Get a day planner and use it faithfully. No more sticky notes with reminders and appointments scattered around your desk, car and refrigerator at home. Keep all appointments and reminder in just one place, your day planner.
2. Create a daily “to do” list. If you do this on your computer, you can easily move around items as you prioritize the day. If on paper, you can code the items with numbers or letters for: Urgent, Need to Do Today, Can Do This Week.
3. Read your To-Do list first thing in the morning. Don’t touch newspaper, open email or answer the phone until you see the road map for your day.
4. Review your To-Do list at mid-day and end of day to see what was accomplished and what remains to be completed.
5. At the end of the day, transfer the items remaining to tomorrow’s or Monday’s list. If possible, remove any items that are not significant.
6. Delegate as much as possible to an assistant, colleague or associate. If you work independently, consider hiring a Virtual Assistant for a few hours per week. The price is right and there’s no obligation as with hiring an employee. This is particularly effective if you travel or spend much time outside the office.
7. Attend only the meetings that are absolutely necessary to do your job. Avoid any meetings that you can. Unless a meeting is run well with an agenda, there is usually wasted time chatting.
8. Close your door when you are focusing on a task or put up a sign on your cubicle asking people to stop by later when you are finished with this work.
9. Let voice mail answer your phone while you are focusing on an important task.
10. Say “no” as often as possible when you have reached your work limits. That means saying no to overtime or taking work home. When you are mentally or physically exhausted you don’t do your best work and you need to say so.

It’s easy to stay on track with time management once you commit to changing your daily habits. Just put the above tips into action and you should see more free time throughout your day.

Stress Free Living – 7 Signs You’re Experiencing Time Management Stress

Living stress free requires time management skills.  The most difficult part of time management is to resolve that you actually do want to manage your time. In life, you quickly learn that your days fill up incredibility fast. You find yourself hurried and rushing to do all that you have on your to-do list. Constantly putting out fires, dealing with last minute crisis, and taking care of the unending details leave you little spare time for anything else and quite frankly exhausted and unable to think clearly.

If you never seem to have enough time to get anything finished you might feel constant, chronic stress. Have you ever seem to notice an hour might fly by like it’s five minutes or crawl by like it’s three hours. Sometimes your workday is over in a flash, and sometimes it feels like 5:00 P.M. when it’s only 11:00 A.M.

Fortunately, managing your time more effectively is something you can learn. Maybe you don’t experience time-related stress. Let’s find out. Take a look at the following list and check off what seems to describe you.

1. I feel that I don’t have enough time for myself, my family or my friends
2. I feel I waste too much time
3. I find myself always rushing
4. I find I don’t have the time to do the things I really enjoy
5. I find I frequently miss deadlines or late for appointments
6. I find I procrastinate too frequently
7. I virtually never work with some type of priority or to-do list

Stress Free Living- 7 Signaling You’re Experiencing Time Stress

Checking off one or two items on this list indicates your time management skills require a tune up. If your time is organized and you are able to devote your full concentration to one task at a time, times seems to expand in quantity and quality. You get something finished. You feel a sense of satisfaction. The time won’t creep by, like it does when your enduring something painful.

Learning how to manage time efficiently takes some practice, but if you have a plan, time management is easy.

1. Begin Small
2. Identify your time management issues
3. Concentrate on your top three
4. Just say no
5. Let it go

You can begin living stress free today.

Managing Time Or Doing Time

Managing your phone time especially when your doing business online at home can be a date with disaster. No matter what type of business you’re in, you’ll find a number of reasons you need to use a telephone.  You may need to reassure a client who needs to hear a real human voice or  talk to a colleague about a situation that requires more immediate attention. The problem is, however, that phone use, can be stressful and cause you plenty of problems, especially if you let it get out of control.

For many of us, nothing seems simpler than calling someone up to chat.  While we may intend for the call to be short and professional, there is a good chance that you’ll spend a lot longer on the phone than you thought you  would, and before you know it, the day has sped by and your efficiency has gone out the window. The work you intended (your intentions are always good in the beginning aren’t they?) to get done is put off until later.  Have you ever experienced this?  Most of us don’t think about the phone as a source of stress.  But if it’s effecting your business and the bottom line then the phone use may be out of control and a cause of stress.

How much time are you spending on the phone?   When you’re on the phone, you’re breaking your concentration. Once you finish the call and head back to the task at hand, it takes about a half an hour to refocus on what you were doing prior to the call.  If you put together all the time you devote to calls during the course of the day, from getting the number, to talking on the phone, to getting back to work how long does it take?  The time that you actually spend “on the phone” just might surprise you.

If you have to be on the phone to do business i.e. call prospects frequently just the opposite is true.  You can evaluate your productivity by how much time is spent avoiding the phone. Even if you live with your phone in what seems like attached to your ear. In order to combat the time wasting telephone and start making your phone calls and make your other tasks more productive for your business, try putting this practice into place:

• Determine how often do you take calls
• Are the number of call detracting you from your work or contributing to your bottom line
• Does the phone ringing distract you and you feel the need to find out who’s calling

Here are some tips control phone use:

• Turn the ringer off if the phone ringing is distracting
• Set up the times when you will make your calls
• Set up a rough call time limit based on your average call time
• Make sure you know  what topics need to be discussed before you call

The phone is a tool to make your business more productive.  If that’s not happening, it’s time to develop a better use of this invaluable tool.   Remember, your time is precious and your business is important, so don’t let the telephone distract you anymore than it has to.