By Mary Shafizadeh & Lynnette Brown
Studies indicate that some of the most popular New Year’s resolutions year after year are: get fit, lose weight, find or get a better job, manage debt, manage stress, save money, find a soul mate, and spend more time with family and friends. Do any of these look familiar? Sadly, many surveys conclude that New Year’s resolutions have a failure rate close to 90%. Why is that? Perhaps they fall into the trap of continuously planning and never taking action. Or maybe they take action but quickly lose motivation and drive. Or possibly, they’re just confused and lost regarding how to reach their goals.
Whatever the reasoning may be, if their goal and action plans were based on their passions and not beliefs, then these statistics would conclude otherwise. They say, “Every new day is another chance to change your life.” Therefore, Conscious Strategies has a created a new method to help you change your life.
Based on the concept of utilizing your passions as the driving force behind all actions, Conscious Strategies has created a 5 step plan to help create you a new mind, body, and soul. A plan where you first identify your passions and then set all your goals around it.
How does it work?
Step 1: Identify your passion – According to Merriam Webster, passion means “a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.” Therefore, the first step to creating a new you is to look within yourself and truly evaluate who you are. What activities, things, ideas excite you? What things are you interested in and enjoy? What are you passionate about? Once this is answered, you can use your passion as the energy force pushing you to accomplish your greatest mind, body, and soul. You can base your goals around your passions and not “what you think” should be your goals.
Step 2: Passion to body – Before you work on any goal, you should work on creating the strength within. You should work on your health and wellness. For instance, if one of your goals is to lose weight, then this is the time to achieve it. However, how do you go about this? Well, the concept of weight loss is pretty simple. To lose weight you need to live a healthy and active lifestyle comprised of a nutritious, low calorie diet and exercise (both cardio and strength training). While simple, many fail due to loss of motivation and drive. For instance, they’ll partake in ridiculous diet and exercise plans, all the while looking for excuses of why they can’t continue. If however, they were partaking in something they enjoyed, the results would be different. This is why identifying your passions is so important. By doing things you enjoy, the higher the probability that you’ll stick to the game plan and reach your goals. For instance, are you an animal lover? If so, instead of hitting the gym…hit the animal shelter or community farm. Volunteer to walk and care for animals. Such activities can meet your cardio and strength training requirements as well as your heart.
Step 3: Passion to wealth – The next key to a new you is to be financially successful. Like it or not, we all need money to survive. But the way we get it and sustain it depends on our happiness. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Confucius said, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” This is so true. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or part of a corporate team, you need to be doing something you love. Once again, once you find out what you’re passionate about, use this in your benefit to create wealth. Are you passionate about living a healthy lifestyle? Then become a trainer, maybe write a book on the topic, or work for a company that revolves around your passion.
Step 4: Passion to relationship – Whether personal or professional, relationships are required to survive in society. In step 4, you need to focus on improving your communication skills with others. You need to learn how to communicate effectively and strengthen relationships.
Step 5: Mind over matter – They say, “Do it! Move it! Make it happen! No one ever sat their way to success.” Unfortunately many fall into the trap of always planning on how they’ll reach their goals and unfortunately never taking action. In step 5, you must identify what prevents you from taking action. Is it lack of confidence? Confusion? Fear? If your goals were based on your passions, then this wouldn’t be a problem. Your actions will be based on things you enjoy. You’ll have the motivation and drive to succeed.
Achieving success doesn’t have to be hard. You just need the clarity to set it and the motivation and drive to succeed. You need to be honest with yourself and identify what you are passionate about. Once you know, you can use it to base your goals around.
If you’re trying to slim down and shape up, then one of the first things you must cut out is stress! We’ve all heard of the dangers associated with stress. However, do you know that stress has also been known to cause weight gain?
You see, when you’re stressed, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. Too much of it has been shown to slow down the metabolism, increase cravings for fattier, saltier, and sugary foods, as well as store excess fats in the abs. Likewise, when you’re stressed, not only do you crave unhealthy foods, but, you may emotionally eat more. Similarly, while exercise is a great stress reliever, unfortunately many can’t create the motivation to get up and exercise…thus resulting in further weight gain.
Luckily, there are many things one can do to reduce stress:
1. Identify the stress source - One of the first and most effective things that can be done, is identifying the stress source. Surprisingly, what may be believed to be the source…may in fact not be the case. For instance, quite often, Conscious Strategies works with clients who are under the impression that they hate their job and can’t stand working the same role another day. Yet, after working with the clients for just a bit, it’s revealed that the stress is not caused by the job itself, but rather the work environment that needs to be changed. In fact, they actually enjoy their career and corresponding responsibilities.
2. Take on a minimalistic lifestyle – There’s more on this at http://consciousstrategies.com/blog/how-to-simplify-your-life.html. But in short, reducing the clutter in your life (physical, mental, and environmental) and focusing on only necessities will allow you to reduce/eliminate your stress causers and in replace maintain the aspects of your life that you enjoy.
3. Live a healthier and active lifestyle – Grant it, stress causes one to eat unhealthy foods and diminishes motivation to exercise. Nonetheless, you must be stronger and smarter. Switch out the availability of unhealthy food options with healthier choices like almonds, edamame, fruits, and vegie sticks to munch on. Correspondingly, switch out traditional forms of exercise with those that’ll help reduce stress, such as dancing, martial arts/boxing, or outdoor running.
For more on stress and weight gain, check out this video by Dr. Oz http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/stress-weight-gain. And if you still need help identifying your life stressors and reducing it, contact Conscious Strategies at (424) 888-4140 or email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Refer to this article for a free intro session.
In order to live a fulfilled life, you should enjoy your job. I know, this may be easier said than done. But that’s why I work with clients to build successful businesses based on their interests and passions. As past articles have revealed, a successful business can generate revenue from such sources as:
- Selling products – Your own products, others’ products, or affiliated marketing
- Creating a content rich site, building an audience, and charging advertisers for ad space to reach this audience
- Creating a content rich site and charging your audience a membership fee
Once the business concept is established, it’s time to market. To get it up and rolling, try the following 5 Conscious Strategies Marketing tactics:
(1) Send out a press release – Press releases provide an opportunity for businesses to encourage the media to develop promotional news pieces about them. While many assume a PR firm is required, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. You can write and send out your own release:
1. Write It – For format guidelines, visit http://www.webwire.com/FormatGuidelines.asp 2. Create a list of press contacts (these include media outlets and top industry bloggers)
3. Create a section on your website to display the press release
4. Send a personal email to the press contact providing the link to the press release as well as a snapshot to what it’s about and why it’s news worthy
5. Send out a single follow-up email, without being a nuisance
(2) Write a news piece – Unlike press releases which are promotional in nature, news pieces are factual and content rich. As the author, you’ll be portrayed as a subject expert and subsequently increase your credibility and your business’. To write a news piece (i.e. article or column in the local paper), contact the media outlet’s editor. Pitch them your article and why it would be of interest and value to their readers. Once the editor agrees, submit your article (meeting their guidelines). Other outlets to submit articles to include:
1. Ezine - http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
2. Hubpages - https://hubpages.com/signin/?s=high&url=%2Fhubtool%2Fcreate%2Fname%2F&explain=create%20a%20new%20Hub
3. Squidoo - http://www.squidoo.com/wizard/start
(3) Link Exchanges – Link exchanges are great for marketing purposes and SEO. For those that aren’t aware, a link exchange is the idea of displaying the link to a related website on your site, and in return, the particular website displaying your link on theirs.
(4) Banner Exchanges – Similar to link exchanges, banner exchanges is the concept of displaying another’s banner ad on your site and displaying your ad on someone else’s. Banner ad exchange services include Banner Network, E.Banner.com, and click4click.com. The basics remain the same. Every time your site displays 2 ads from other site, the service will display your banner on one’s site.
(5) Improve Search Engine Placement – Improving SEO is based on a number of factors:
1. Utilizing strong keywords
2. Having other credible and industry related sites link back to yours
3. Submitting your URL to the top search engines (i.e. Google & Yahoo) and the Open Directory Project (a network of volunteers manually adding sites to the directory – DMOZ.org)
I’m not saying simultaneously try all 5 strategies. Rather, choose one tactic and give it a try. Before you know it, your business based on your passions, will increase in success and therefore your happiness.
 Most of us try to keep our homes neat and tidy, but what about your lives? Our life, much like our home, gets cluttered with uncompleted tasks, unfinished relationships, incomplete ideas, etc. Just like a home, they require routine cleaning. Be it mental, physical, spiritual, or environmental, a routine cleaning is definitely recommended.
Mental Cleansing: One of the main causes for mental clutter is stress. Identify what aspects in your life stress you out. Then brainstorm different options on how to eliminate such stressors. Is it work? Is it the negative folks around you? Is it your financial situation? Believe it or not, all stressors can and should be eliminated or modified to help declutter the mind.
Physical Cleansing: Living a healthy and active lifestyle is not easy, but it’s truly worth it. Examine your current physical situation. Do you think you can eat a bit healthier? Incorporate a bit more exercise? Sleep a little longer? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you should set simple goals and a game plan to create the needed changes for improving your physical life.
Spiritual Cleansing: An aura, or the radiant quality surrounding you, must also be cleansed. Whether you’re facing difficult times, sadness, and/or destructive emotions, such as negativity, you must create positivity and strength. Both meditation and positive affirmations are wonderful techniques.
Environmental Cleansing: If you haven’t noticed, physical clutter creates life clutter. Therefore, take some time and organize your home and any personal place that you spend much time in (i.e. your car or office). Get rid of anything you don’t use or haven’t used. Further, look into Feng Shui to improve the energy around you.
Ideas on how to cleanse your life are endless. What ideas do you have? If you’re in need of assistance on how to spring clean your life, contact Conscious Strategies at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
 Confidence is more than just a state of mind when walking into a room, it’s a belief, a mindset! It’s belief in yourself and all of your abilities. There's no one more important to have believe in you than you. Unfortunately, many lack confidence and therefore create their own life obstacles by doubting themselves and their capabilities. To help increase your confidence, I’ve listed 15 Conscious Strategy tips below:
1) Create a confident alter ego. This is one of my favorite strategies. First think about how and who you want to be if you placed all inhibitions and obstacles aside. Then create that alter ego with these traits. In fact, name it. Now, each time you feel like you need a boost in confidence, act as this alter ego. Face the situation not as yourself, but as this created ego that can go out and tackle anything with confidence and grace.
2) Don’t waste your energy on worrying. When problems arise, ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Take a deep breath and look for solutions, take actions on what you can, and minimize risks on what you can’t.
3) Focus on your self-image. When you look good, you feel good. Therefore, if you need to workout to slim and tone, so be it. If you need to trim the hair, go for it. If you need to get a new wardrobe, hit the stores. Whatever it may be that makes you feel proud of your looks…pursue it.
4) Recognize and tackle insecurities. What is disempowering you about yourself? Is it your look? Your knowledge? Identify it. Then get honest with yourself – will having a smaller nose truly make you feel better about yourself? Or is it toxic thoughts you have focused on over and over throughout the years that made you believe you need plastic surgery to “feel” better about your nose & yourself? Then focus on finding a solution for it or stop worrying about it. Remember…no one is perfect!
5) Be appreciative of what you have. Many times people lack confidence because they are unsatisfied with a particular aspect of their life. Therefore, be thankful for what you do have and make a plan to create what you desire but may not yet have.
6) This is a no brainer, but I thought I had to list it. Gracefully accept compliments!
7) Eliminate feelings of chaos and confusion by simplifying your life and your surrounding. When life is cluttered, stress is increased. When stress is increased, doubt is created. When doubt is created, confidence is decreased. For more on simplification, please visit How to Simplify Your Life.
8) Increase your knowledge and competency. The internet, books, magazines, experts, etc…are all around you. Utilize such resources to learn and subsequently empower yourself. And remember, there is no greater way to learn than experience. So dive into what you want to learn about, and experience it first hand.
9) If you get scared when doing something for the first time, imagine that you’ve done it before. Imagine the experience and outcome. Then when you actually go out and do it, your mind will think you’ve done it before. This is a trick that Olympic coaches have used to instill success in their athletes – it works!
10) Discover who you are, what you want to be and do. Then set small goals to accomplish them. When individuals focus on achieving big goals they feel discouraged when it’s not accomplished within their set time frame. Take baby steps and celebrate each step towards success. A great tool to help achieve this is a to-do list. Check out How to Write a To-Do List for more information.
11) Stand tall, focus on posture, and walk with energy and purpose. When one is slouched, that’s a sign of low confidence to others. This is one of those tools you can utilize and before too long you will have shifted your energy to what you are exuding outside. So, when you walk or stand make sure you are standing tall, chin up, and chest out. Don’t look tired, down, or unhappy. Act with energy and drive and you will have precisely that.
12) Speak slowly. Those lacking confidence sometimes speak rapidly to get through what they have to say. Perhaps because they do not think what they are talking about is worthy enough for others to hear. If that’s you…change it. Talk slowly so that you know that every word you speak is valuable and heard exactly in that manner.
13) Think and stay positive. Life has it’s fair share of obstacles, so when a challenge comes your way, replace negative thoughts with the question of “how” you’re going to solve it. Look for solutions. Think with motivation. Move outside of your usual thinking or “box”. Act with confidence.
14) Stand-up for yourself. Don’t allow others to walk over or take advantage of you. If you disagree with someone, respectfully say so. If you don’t want to take on something others throw your way…say no. Stay strong in your beliefs and intentions.
15) Create a 30 second commercial. If you don’t know what a 30 second commercial is…it’s a short elevator speech. In other words, it’s your answer to the question, “tell me about yourself.” Create a 30 second speech about who you are, your strengths, your successes, and what value you bring for others. Not only will the act of creating such, increase your confidence, but as you say it more, your confidence will also rise.
“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” ~ Sven Goran Eriksson
|
|
