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Functional Self Confidence

Friday

Time Management and Stress

Stress that is related to work are often brought about by lack of proper time management skills. With too much activity, one never have enough time to attend to work responsibilities within the alloted time, thus resulting to a stressful working environment. This applies on either small or complex projects, therefore careful planning of your schedule is crucial.

Therefore, for individuals who had to constantly hold projects and manage their schedules are ones often subjected to a lot of stress. Plus, there are several factors involved in the planning method that are uncontrolled or cannot be prevented. All these add up to the level of stress that one had to go through. Therefore, stress management and time management are typically addressed side by side one another due to their interrelation with one another.

Avoiding Time Wasters

When you talk about stress concerning proper time management of your activities, it is usually about your aim to increase productivity, whether at the office or school. Although stress is often a good stimulus to have in order to drive you towards achieving more, you need to also look at managing your time properly for higher productivity.

Below are some factors you need to avoid if you want to make the most out of your time and reduce stress at the same time:

• As with anything, there will always be a source of interruption. Learn how to deal with those interruptions effectively to save you time and you can get back to doing what you had to.

• Make sure to carefully plan out what you need to do and how you do it. This will make it more convenient for you later on when you have to execute your plans.

• If you are working with other people on a project, having proper delegation skills is crucial. This involves your ability to share the workload to people. But more than just sharing workload, it also involves your ability to determine which people are best suited to perform specific tasks for higher efficiency.

Symptoms of Poor Time Management and Stressful Life

Effective time management can definitely do so much to change a stressful life and also boost your level of productivity. To get started on an efficient time management technique, one must find a strategy that he or she can use then adapt for a few days until he or she has become accustomed to it. Eventually, you will find it second nature once you got used to your new schedule.

But the more important step towards making that change is recognizing whether you have poor time management skills that can lead to a stressful life. Here are tell-tale signs that you need to revise your time management methods:

• When you easily become irritable in the middle of doing your task. • When you constantly end up feeling over-fatigued. • When you have trouble concentrating on what you need to do. • Inability to track your activities and keep in tab. • Inability to sleep well at night due to anxiety or unexplained worries.

Improving Time Management and Productivity

Proper management of your time often directly translates to increased productivity. Therefore, this should be one of your priorities if you want to reduce the level of stress you have to deal with on an everyday basis. Try out the strategies below and see if it fits you.

• Plan your daily activities. When you list down the set of activities you had to do for a given day, rank them according to the most important ones to avoid rushing your work. • Never agree to doing other works when you have already scheduled other important activities prior to that. • Practice the ability to delegate tasks properly so you would not have to do the major chunk of work. • In between your tasks, take time to evaluate whether you are spending your time efficiently. If not, then switch to another more effective plan...and quickly! • If possible, avoid any form of distraction. • Give yourself a break. This will reduce stress and increase your productivity.

Thursday

You open your eyes and started looking around. Everything seems to be in the same order as you left it a while ago but there seems to be something different. As you slowly stretched your arms and legs, you have this feeling of a relaxed or calm dispo

Now, if we base our definition to the Buddhist and Christian approaches, we have a spiritual awakening rooted on the enlightenment or awakening of the consciousness and knowing their true or their original self. It is a higher form of awareness where the consciousness is able to see past the more obvious physical self. It is being aware, sensing and feeling one’s very existence that accounts for a spiritual awakening.

Perhaps among the more obvious signs of enlightenment is having a certain level of calmness. People who have awakened spirits have proven to be more focused in attaining their goals. They seem to have reached a degree of calmness where experiences, memories, events, issues, problems, and even desires are no longer causing confusion and interruptions. It is like, every distraction have been set aside and stored away resulting to a having a clear path from the start to the finish line. And just like the song: “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.”

Among the signs of spiritual awakening is having self control. When one reaches the level of spiritual enlightenment, he not only exercises free will but knows what bad things need to be cast aside and choose only the right path based on proper wisdom and good judgment. Those that offer temporary pleasures are no longer entertained since these acts or things often lead to suffering in the long run and only provide momentary and earthly happiness.

Humility and selfless love are other signs of an awakened spirit. Part of having an awakened spirit is the eagerness to learn, understand, and work for the well being of not only one’s self but of others as well. Pride and arrogance are not really marks of a good person to begin with what more a person with an awakened spirit. The same thing goes with unconditional love. With an awakened spirit, people will begin living in harmony with both nature and other people. Compassion and love would be equal regardless of race, nationality, culture, and the like.

Genuine happiness, non-attachment, having the right intuition and feelings of non-attachment are other signs of spiritual awakening. If you find any of these signs present in you when and after you accomplished a session meditating, it would be prudent to ask consider that you have actually experienced this deep, philosophical enlightenment.

Tuesday

When we are dealing with pain, whether it is physically or emotionally, we are unable to think clearly. Having clouded mind would mean that we are having difficulty getting in touch with our inner self, spirituality and ascending to enlightenment.

We need holistic spiritual healing to deal and attain spiritual awakening. Spiritual healing can be a bit weird coming from an age of modern medicine and technology. But it is difficult to ignore the fact that there is a Supreme Being, God or Allah, that are behind every things’ existence.

In a survey published by USA Today last October 8, 2008, 55 percent of American adults regardless if they are agnostic, atheist, or religious, believe that there is a guardian angel or similar entity that protects them from harm. This only shows that spirituality and its acceptance has significant importance on a person’s life.

In spiritual healing, it is said that physical healing depends on how the spirits heals. With spiritual healing, it treats not only the body, but the mind and the spirit as well. Spiritual healers, uses the concept of “light and love” to relax the body. Aside from relaxing the body, it also has several benefits like it releases tension and anxiety. Relieving these negative thoughts would increase the stimulation of self-healing.

The basic principle with spiritual healing is that you would get a connection with God and at the same time, secured and safe feeling. Patients would get the strength from the fact that they are not the only one who are experiencing what they are feeling. This would teach or give patients security and confidence to seek somebody for help. In a nutshell, spiritual healing is about paying attention to life and the living.

So what are the methods of spiritual healing?

Spiritual healing can be performed in different religions. It can be performed through prayer, visualization, devices that transmit healing forces, concentrations process and advance levels of it, and personal spiritual realization. These kind of methods would help patients recover from illnesses or slows down the effect of illness trough self-healing.

Counselling sessions are reinforced with spiritual healing. Spiritual healing is done with full rational understanding of its principles and not by blind faith or superstition. Undergoing spiritual healing with full understanding would provide you the awakening and enlightenment that would benefit you in the future.

The Kabbalah is a school of though concerned with the mystical aspect of Judaism. According to Kabbalistic teachings, the body is the vessel or the ship for the soul’s expression and if the connection between the soul and the body is broken, diseases and disorders can happen.

To maintain the connection between the soul and body, here are some tips that can be done easily: • Eating a balanced diet and regularly exercising • Express yourself. • Feel your surroundings. • Never give up. • Do not be afraid to ask for help. • Spend time with friends and family. They would provide you the support and intimacy you would need to heal. • Make sure to remember that you have a purpose and you are the one who create the meaning of your life.

With the help of a spiritual healer, not only would you attain a holistic better health, you can also dig deeper to your feelings and start your journey to spiritual awakening. With the help of breath work, creativity and experiential mind and body, your body can release the pain and start its journey to healing.

Sunday

It will start with some small incident like forgetting the birthday of a colleague. Then you will start to forget the birthdays of people close to you. After that, it will be the turn of the directions to your favorite restaurant and then god forbid,

Although we are not all blessed with a photographic memory, there are ways to at least improve what we are given and make us a little less forgetful. This is especially true with people who are already growing older. As we age, the neurons in our brains also age. Some die while others perform slower than usual. This is why people who are older have faultier memories than their much younger counterparts.

But hey, as mentioned, there are ways to improve memory. Here are some of them:

1. Use visuals or sounds Depending on what kind of learner you are, people can either use visuals and sounds to remember something. For instance, if you are trying to remember a to-do list, all you need to do is stare at the paper and you will be able to see in your mind the list. There are people however who need to hear the list of their to-dos before they can remember everything that they have to do. To find out which technique will work for you, try remembering how you memorize in school. Do you read the words silently or read them out loud?

2. Use associations Our brains also need help when it comes to remembering things. The easier we make the remembering task for the brain, the better it will be able to remember the information. This is where associations come in. Associating information with things that we already know or things that we can see is a technique that has been utilized in improving memory. For instance, have you heard of mnemonics? When memorizing a set of words, we often take the first letter of that word and then form a sentence or words from those letters. Associating the word that we are trying to memorize with the first letter makes it easier for our brain.

3. Visualize it Do you ever wonder why photographic memory is the term use for people with really excellent memory? This is because people who really memorize well or have great memories do not see one item or one information when committing them to memory. They see a picture of the words in group. For instance, a person with a grocery list will usually memorize the items one by one but people who learned to improve their memories will memorize it as a whole. They will look at the list and visualize it as a whole until they can see the list in their mind’s eye.

4. Eat right Another important way to improve memory is to check what you eat. Your diet will factor a lot in your ability to memorize things. Eating nutritious foods will help your brain perform better and faster. This is especially true when eating known brain foods like tofu, milk and fish.

There are many ways to make your memory better but the most important thing is to commit to the task and promise to improve it no matter what.

Secrets on Finding Your Passion at Work

Finding your passion at work is the key to ensure lifelong happiness, contentment and good health. When you love what you do, it matters less how much money you have in the bank. You look forward each day that comes with zest and excitement. You feel your work and everything else in life is full of adventure, opportunities and satisfaction. You are at your best health, you sleep well, and you feel rejuvenated and inspired.

Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky had similar opinions on this effect on a working individual. While he was in prison for expressing negative views against the authorities, he was moved by the misery of prisoners who were tasked to transfer a huge pile of sand all day. He had observed that this group of prisoners was the one who tried to escape thru the electrified barbed-wire fence or committed suicide. The other group of prisoners on the other hand was tasked to build a railroad. They appear to be happier and satisfied, in fact he had heard them singing while at work.

To find passion at work, you must be in the right job where you are given the freedom to become a better and wiser person than you are at the present. And to find the right job, you must be honest with your feelings and thoughts. You must know the things that matter to you and that will really make you happy and content. Take time to incorporate your thoughts and feelings, your sense of individuality, your weaknesses, strengths, the thing that annoy you, excites you, and what you do effortlessly and naturally. Knowing what you want and having the courage to go for it helps your mind and feelings accomplish your objective.

You must also make sure that the work you have provides your needs. Many people quit their jobs because they feel unappreciated, too busy and drained (signs of poor boundaries), unchallenged, and more. It is important for you to examine your needs as it is similar to having the right nutrients in your diet. Fine-tuning your personal needs with the rewards of work gives you security and contentment. Thus, making you more inspired and motivated.

A work with passion is a work that expresses love. This love is not the romantic love but the love that is conduit to expressing goodwill to others and the community and yet you get paid at the same time. When your work is one that spread the love to others, you feel prouder of yourself. To find passion at work, you can re-examine your roles and how it contributes for greater work. Then, remind yourself of those thoughts every now and then.

Some fears are born from abuses and mistreatment we have received from our parents, teachers, former employers, co-workers and other people. These fears oftentimes restrict us to become completely happy and passionate about our work. A lot of people feel empty because they are guilty of the past. They feel there is no possibility of finding the work they love and thus, they only give half of their hearts to it. Finding your passion at work also means letting go of the monsters of the past. When you liberate yourself from negative thoughts out of unpleasant past experiences, you will become more open to experiences that will transform you to a more mature individual – someone that is willing to accept responsibility of changing her life thru her own hands and cooperate with positive people to achieve mutually desirable goals.