"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it."
- Epicurus
"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."
- Paul Boese
"When you affirm big, believe big and pray big, putting faith into action, big things happen."
- Norman Vincent Peale, clergyman
"No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, if we do it well, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things."
- Channing Pollock
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
- T.S. Eliot
"Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open."
- Alexander Graham Bell, inventor
"You promote yourself every time you take on a new responsibility."
- William Gore, executive
"Knowing thyself is the height of wisdom."
- Socrates
"I believe in me more than anything in this world."
- Wilma Rudolph, Olympic runner
"The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success comes only later."
- William Jennings Bryan, attorney
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
- Bill Cosby, Comedian
"The value decade is upon us. If you can't sell a top-quality product at the world's lowest price, you're going to be out of the game."
- Jack Welch, Executive
"Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities."
- Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer
"Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman
"I never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president
"The most important thing about goals is... having one."
- Geoffry F. Abert
"I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity."
- John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist
"All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work."
- Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. president
"When I thought I couldn't go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck. "
- Estee Lauder, entrepreneur
"If you're not making mistakes, your'e not trying hard enough."
- Vince Lombardi, football coach
"What holds so many employees back is an unwillingness to pay the price, to make the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort."
- Orison Marden, writer
"You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities."
- Barbara Bush, first lady
"Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within."
- Thomas Paine, statesman
"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged and increased constantly, or it vanishes."
- Peter Drucker, management expert
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Moderate Drinking Helps Heart
One or two alcoholic drinks a day can help healthy people — and heart patients — live longer, new research confirms.
But the two new studies — one of nearly 250,000 U.S. adults, the other an analysis of eight previous studies of more than 16,000 people with heart disease and other problems related to clogged arteries — also show that drinkers who exceeded recommended limits for alcohol consumption saw no heart health benefits.
"No question, heavy or binge drinking can have adverse health outcomes," Dr. Simona Costanzo and colleagues from Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, warn in their report.
However, they add, doctors should tell their patients with heart disease and other clogged artery-related problems, together known as cardiovascular disease, that moderate alcohol consumption — a drink a day for women, two for men — "should not be harmful to their health."
There is considerable evidence that moderate drinking helps reduce the risk of heart disease and death from heart-related causes, likely due to the fact that drinking alcohol is linked to higher levels of "good" cholesterol.
However, questions have been raised about how research on alcohol and health is done, Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his team, the authors of the other study, write.
To address these issues, Mukamal and his colleagues looked at nine years' worth of data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1987 to 2000, including 245,207 people in all. Census bureau employees perform the survey in person every year, sampling a representative group of around 20,000 to 40,000 U.S. citizens.
The researchers correlated the information on alcohol consumption with data from the National Death Index up until 2002, identifying 10,670 deaths from cardiovascular causes among survey participants.
The risk of dying due to heart disease or stroke was about the same for people who had never drunk, meaning they had less than 12 drinks in their lifetime; people who drank infrequently, meaning they had more than 12 drinks in their life, but never drank more than 12 drinks in a given year; and ex-drinkers, who had more than 12 drinks in their lives and had consumed more than 12 drinks per year in the past, the researchers found.
But for light drinkers, defined as men or women who had three drinks a week or less, risk was 31 percent lower than for non-drinkers.
Among moderate drinkers (women who had three to seven drinks each week and men who had three to 14 drinks a week), risk was 38 percent lower than it was for abstainers.
Heavy drinkers, meaning women who had more than seven drinks a week and men who downed more than 14 drinks weekly, had the same cardiovascular death risk as non-drinkers.
Mukamal and his team also found that people who had two drinks on days when they consumed alcohol were "consistently" at lower risk than people who had three or more drinks per drinking day.
The study's strengths include its size, the fact that it included a broad sample of the U.S. population, and its ability to separate people who had never drunk or only rarely drank from those who had drunk previously but quit, Mukamal noted in an e-mail interview.
"Our results suggest that even in this well-designed study, the lower risk linked to moderate drinking remains," he told Reuters Health. "However, it also clearly confirms that the benefit is lost for excessive drinking."
People with cardiovascular disease get mixed messages on whether moderate drinking is OK. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises people with heart disease who drink alcohol to quit, but guidelines from the American Heart Association say they can drink in moderation, Costanzo and her colleagues point out in their report.
To better understand the risks and potential benefits of alcohol for cardiovascular patients, the researchers identified eight studies including 16,351 patients with cardiovascular disease. They analyzed the relationship between alcohol consumption and death due to cardiovascular disease among study participants, as well as the association between drinking and overall mortality.
The Italian team found a similar benefit pattern to the one Mukamal and his colleagues identified: Heart patients who drank were less likely to die than abstainers, and the maximum benefit was seen for those who consumed between 5 to 10 grams of alcohol a day. A standard drink — 12 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine, for example — contains about 14 grams of alcohol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But people who drank more than about 25 grams of alcohol daily had overall mortality and cardiovascular death risks exceeding those of abstainers, and the more they drank, the higher the risk.
"Cardiovascular patients should be informed that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption (1 drink/day for women or up to 2 drinks/day for men) should not be harmful to their health," Costanzo and her team say. However, patients who don't drink regularly shouldn't be encouraged to start, they add, and those who drink heavily should be encouraged to quit or at least sharply reduce their alcohol intake.
"The risks of moderate drinking differ by sex, age, personal history, and family history," Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, California, notes in an editorial accompanying the studies. While the case for alcohol's heart benefits is "compelling," he adds, "as is often the case in medical practice, advice about lifestyle must be based on something less than certainty."
He concludes: "What is required is a synthesis of common sense and the best available facts."
Courtesy: NewsMax Health Newsletter
But the two new studies — one of nearly 250,000 U.S. adults, the other an analysis of eight previous studies of more than 16,000 people with heart disease and other problems related to clogged arteries — also show that drinkers who exceeded recommended limits for alcohol consumption saw no heart health benefits.
"No question, heavy or binge drinking can have adverse health outcomes," Dr. Simona Costanzo and colleagues from Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, warn in their report.
However, they add, doctors should tell their patients with heart disease and other clogged artery-related problems, together known as cardiovascular disease, that moderate alcohol consumption — a drink a day for women, two for men — "should not be harmful to their health."
There is considerable evidence that moderate drinking helps reduce the risk of heart disease and death from heart-related causes, likely due to the fact that drinking alcohol is linked to higher levels of "good" cholesterol.
However, questions have been raised about how research on alcohol and health is done, Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his team, the authors of the other study, write.
To address these issues, Mukamal and his colleagues looked at nine years' worth of data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1987 to 2000, including 245,207 people in all. Census bureau employees perform the survey in person every year, sampling a representative group of around 20,000 to 40,000 U.S. citizens.
The researchers correlated the information on alcohol consumption with data from the National Death Index up until 2002, identifying 10,670 deaths from cardiovascular causes among survey participants.
The risk of dying due to heart disease or stroke was about the same for people who had never drunk, meaning they had less than 12 drinks in their lifetime; people who drank infrequently, meaning they had more than 12 drinks in their life, but never drank more than 12 drinks in a given year; and ex-drinkers, who had more than 12 drinks in their lives and had consumed more than 12 drinks per year in the past, the researchers found.
But for light drinkers, defined as men or women who had three drinks a week or less, risk was 31 percent lower than for non-drinkers.
Among moderate drinkers (women who had three to seven drinks each week and men who had three to 14 drinks a week), risk was 38 percent lower than it was for abstainers.
Heavy drinkers, meaning women who had more than seven drinks a week and men who downed more than 14 drinks weekly, had the same cardiovascular death risk as non-drinkers.
Mukamal and his team also found that people who had two drinks on days when they consumed alcohol were "consistently" at lower risk than people who had three or more drinks per drinking day.
The study's strengths include its size, the fact that it included a broad sample of the U.S. population, and its ability to separate people who had never drunk or only rarely drank from those who had drunk previously but quit, Mukamal noted in an e-mail interview.
"Our results suggest that even in this well-designed study, the lower risk linked to moderate drinking remains," he told Reuters Health. "However, it also clearly confirms that the benefit is lost for excessive drinking."
People with cardiovascular disease get mixed messages on whether moderate drinking is OK. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises people with heart disease who drink alcohol to quit, but guidelines from the American Heart Association say they can drink in moderation, Costanzo and her colleagues point out in their report.
To better understand the risks and potential benefits of alcohol for cardiovascular patients, the researchers identified eight studies including 16,351 patients with cardiovascular disease. They analyzed the relationship between alcohol consumption and death due to cardiovascular disease among study participants, as well as the association between drinking and overall mortality.
The Italian team found a similar benefit pattern to the one Mukamal and his colleagues identified: Heart patients who drank were less likely to die than abstainers, and the maximum benefit was seen for those who consumed between 5 to 10 grams of alcohol a day. A standard drink — 12 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine, for example — contains about 14 grams of alcohol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But people who drank more than about 25 grams of alcohol daily had overall mortality and cardiovascular death risks exceeding those of abstainers, and the more they drank, the higher the risk.
"Cardiovascular patients should be informed that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption (1 drink/day for women or up to 2 drinks/day for men) should not be harmful to their health," Costanzo and her team say. However, patients who don't drink regularly shouldn't be encouraged to start, they add, and those who drink heavily should be encouraged to quit or at least sharply reduce their alcohol intake.
"The risks of moderate drinking differ by sex, age, personal history, and family history," Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, California, notes in an editorial accompanying the studies. While the case for alcohol's heart benefits is "compelling," he adds, "as is often the case in medical practice, advice about lifestyle must be based on something less than certainty."
He concludes: "What is required is a synthesis of common sense and the best available facts."
Courtesy: NewsMax Health Newsletter
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Make Your Life a Masterpiece
March 21, 2010
By Brian Tracy
This is the age of achievement. Never have more people accomplished more things in more different fields than they are accomplishing today. More people are becoming successful at a faster rate than at any other time in history. There have never been more opportunities for you to turn your dreams into realities than there are right now.
The Seven Ingredients of Success
Your ideal life is a blending these seven ingredients in exactly the combination that makes you the happiest at any particular moment. By defining your success and happiness in terms of one or more of these seven ingredients, you create a clear target to aim it. You can then measure how well you're doing. You can identify the areas where you need to make changes if you want your life to improve.
Peace of Mind
The first of these seven ingredients of success, and easily the most important, is peace of mind. It is the highest human good. Without it, nothing else has much value. In corporations, peace of mind can be measured in terms of the amount of harmony that exists among coworkers. The wonderful truth about peace of mind is that it is your normal natural condition. It is the basic precondition for enjoying everything else.
Health and Energy
The second ingredient of success is health and energy. Just as peace of mind is your normal and natural mental state, health and energy is your normal and natural physical state. If you achieve all kinds of things in the material world, but lose your health then you will get little or no pleasure from your other accomplishments. So imagine yourself enjoying perfect health, and think of how you would be if you were your ideal image of physical fitness. Then strive for your mental goal of fitness and health.
Loving Relationships
The third ingredient of success is loving relationships. These are relationships with the people you love and care about, and the people who love and care about you. They are the real measure of how well you are doing as a human being. At almost any time, you can measure how well you are doing in your relationship by one simple test: laughter. This is true for companies as well. High-performance, high profit organizations are those in which people laugh and joke together. Examine your relationships, one by one, and develop a plan to make each of them enjoyable and satisfying.
Financial Freedom
The fourth ingredient of success is financial freedom. Achieving your financial freedom is one of the most important goals and responsibilities of your life. A feeling of freedom is essential to the achievement of any other important goal, and you cannot be free until and unless you have enough money so that you are no longer preoccupied with it. When you decide exactly what you want your financial picture to look like, you will be able to use this system to achieve your goals faster than you might have imagined possible.
Worthy Goals and Ideals
The fifth ingredient of success is worthy goals and ideals. To be truly happy, you need a clear sense of direction. You need to feel that your life stands for something, that you are somehow making a valuable contribution to your world.
Self Knowledge and Self-Awareness
The sixth ingredient of success is self-knowledge and self-awareness. To perform at your best you need to know who you are and why you think and feel the way you do. It is only when you understand and accept yourself that you can begin moving forward in other areas of your life.
Personal Fulfillment
The seventh ingredient of success is personal fulfillment. This is the feeling that you are becoming everything that you are capable of becoming. It is the sure knowledge that you are moving toward the realization of your full potential as a human being.
Action Exercise
Take the brush of your imagination and begin painting a masterpiece on the canvas of your life. It is for you to decide clearly what would make you the happiest in everything you are doing.
Courtesy: Brian Tracy Newsletter
By Brian Tracy
This is the age of achievement. Never have more people accomplished more things in more different fields than they are accomplishing today. More people are becoming successful at a faster rate than at any other time in history. There have never been more opportunities for you to turn your dreams into realities than there are right now.
The Seven Ingredients of Success
Your ideal life is a blending these seven ingredients in exactly the combination that makes you the happiest at any particular moment. By defining your success and happiness in terms of one or more of these seven ingredients, you create a clear target to aim it. You can then measure how well you're doing. You can identify the areas where you need to make changes if you want your life to improve.
Peace of Mind
The first of these seven ingredients of success, and easily the most important, is peace of mind. It is the highest human good. Without it, nothing else has much value. In corporations, peace of mind can be measured in terms of the amount of harmony that exists among coworkers. The wonderful truth about peace of mind is that it is your normal natural condition. It is the basic precondition for enjoying everything else.
Health and Energy
The second ingredient of success is health and energy. Just as peace of mind is your normal and natural mental state, health and energy is your normal and natural physical state. If you achieve all kinds of things in the material world, but lose your health then you will get little or no pleasure from your other accomplishments. So imagine yourself enjoying perfect health, and think of how you would be if you were your ideal image of physical fitness. Then strive for your mental goal of fitness and health.
Loving Relationships
The third ingredient of success is loving relationships. These are relationships with the people you love and care about, and the people who love and care about you. They are the real measure of how well you are doing as a human being. At almost any time, you can measure how well you are doing in your relationship by one simple test: laughter. This is true for companies as well. High-performance, high profit organizations are those in which people laugh and joke together. Examine your relationships, one by one, and develop a plan to make each of them enjoyable and satisfying.
Financial Freedom
The fourth ingredient of success is financial freedom. Achieving your financial freedom is one of the most important goals and responsibilities of your life. A feeling of freedom is essential to the achievement of any other important goal, and you cannot be free until and unless you have enough money so that you are no longer preoccupied with it. When you decide exactly what you want your financial picture to look like, you will be able to use this system to achieve your goals faster than you might have imagined possible.
Worthy Goals and Ideals
The fifth ingredient of success is worthy goals and ideals. To be truly happy, you need a clear sense of direction. You need to feel that your life stands for something, that you are somehow making a valuable contribution to your world.
Self Knowledge and Self-Awareness
The sixth ingredient of success is self-knowledge and self-awareness. To perform at your best you need to know who you are and why you think and feel the way you do. It is only when you understand and accept yourself that you can begin moving forward in other areas of your life.
Personal Fulfillment
The seventh ingredient of success is personal fulfillment. This is the feeling that you are becoming everything that you are capable of becoming. It is the sure knowledge that you are moving toward the realization of your full potential as a human being.
Action Exercise
Take the brush of your imagination and begin painting a masterpiece on the canvas of your life. It is for you to decide clearly what would make you the happiest in everything you are doing.
Courtesy: Brian Tracy Newsletter
Saturday, March 6, 2010
In What Direction Are You Moving?
(By popular request)---more potent Quotes to light our Way...Enjoy and Benefit!
Jacques
---------
'The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court justice
"Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down."
-- Jimmy Durante, Singer/ Comedian
"The most common cause of executive failure is inability or unwillingness to change with the demands of a new position. The executive who keeps on doing what he has done successfully before is almost bound to fail."
- Peter Drucker, management expert
"Losing is a learning experience. It teaches you humility. It teaches you to work harder. It's also a powerful motivator."
- Yogi Berra
"The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery, and tenacity."
- Mahatma Gandhi, Statesman
"Careful planning helps us maintain a sense of perspective, purpose and ordered priorities."
- Stephen Covey, Author and Speaker
"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman
"Success is 99 percent failure."
- Soichire Honda
"Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect springs."
- Joan Didion
"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties."
- William Bradford
"Never let yesterday use up too much of today."
- Will Rogers, humorist
"In calm water every ship has a good captain."
- Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th U.S. President
"You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world."
- Charlie Chaplin, Actor
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."
- Michelangelo, Artist
"In business, words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality."
- Harold Geneen, industrialist
"What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet
"Everything you reprove in another, you must carefully avoid in yourself."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman
"To succeed in life in today's world, you must have the will and tenacity to finish the job."
- Chin-Ning Chu
"A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner."
- English proverb
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes."
- Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister
Jacques
---------
'The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court justice
"Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down."
-- Jimmy Durante, Singer/ Comedian
"The most common cause of executive failure is inability or unwillingness to change with the demands of a new position. The executive who keeps on doing what he has done successfully before is almost bound to fail."
- Peter Drucker, management expert
"Losing is a learning experience. It teaches you humility. It teaches you to work harder. It's also a powerful motivator."
- Yogi Berra
"The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery, and tenacity."
- Mahatma Gandhi, Statesman
"Careful planning helps us maintain a sense of perspective, purpose and ordered priorities."
- Stephen Covey, Author and Speaker
"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman
"Success is 99 percent failure."
- Soichire Honda
"Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect springs."
- Joan Didion
"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties."
- William Bradford
"Never let yesterday use up too much of today."
- Will Rogers, humorist
"In calm water every ship has a good captain."
- Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th U.S. President
"You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world."
- Charlie Chaplin, Actor
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."
- Michelangelo, Artist
"In business, words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality."
- Harold Geneen, industrialist
"What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet
"Everything you reprove in another, you must carefully avoid in yourself."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman
"To succeed in life in today's world, you must have the will and tenacity to finish the job."
- Chin-Ning Chu
"A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner."
- English proverb
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes."
- Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Relax and Recharge Completely
By: Brian Tracy
Regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness. Here are some techniques for relaxing physically that are used by the most successful and highest paid people in America.
Take Time Off Every Week
First of all, work only five or six days per week, and rest completely on the seventh day. Every single study in this area shows that you will be far more productive in the five or six days that you work if you take one or two days off completely than you ever would be if you worked straight through for seven days.
Get Your Mind Busy Elsewhere
During this time off, do not catch up on reports, organize your desk, prepare proposals, or do anything else that requires mental effort. Simply let your mind relax completely, and get busy doing things with your family and friends. Maybe work around the house, go for a walk, engage in physical exercise, watch television, go to a movie, or play with your children. Whatever you do, discipline yourself to shut your mental gears off completely for at least one 24-hour period every seven days.
Get Away on Mini-Vacations
Second, take one three-day vacation every three months, and during that time, refrain from doing any work. Do not attempt to catch up on even a few small things. If you do, you keep your mental gears in motion, and you end up neither resting nor properly doing work of any quality.
Take Big Chunks of Down Time
Third, take at least two full weeks off each year during which you do nothing that is work-related. You can either work or relax; you cannot do both. If you attempt to do a little work while you are on vacation, you never give your mental and emotional batteries a chance to recharge. You'll come back from your vacation just as tired as you were when you left.
Give Yourself a Break Today
If you are involved in a difficult relationship, or situation at work that is emotionally draining, discipline yourself to take a complete break from it at least one day per week. Put the concern out of your mind. Refuse to think about it. Don't continually discuss it, make telephone calls about it or mull it over in your mind. You cannot perform at your best mentally if you are emotionally preoccupied with a person or situation. You have to give yourself a break.
Go For a Walk in Nature
Since a change is as good as a rest, going for a nice long walk is a wonderful way to relax emotionally and mentally. As you put your physical body into motion, your thoughts and feelings seem to relax all by themselves.
Eat Lighter Foods
Also, remember that the process of digestion consumes an enormous amount of physical energy. Therefore, if you eat lighter foods, you will feel better and more refreshed afterward. If you eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, your digestive system will require far less energy to process them.
Be Good to Yourself
Since your diet has such an impact on your level of physical energy, and through it your levels of mental and emotional energy, the more fastidious you are about what you put into your mouth, the better you will feel and the more productive you will be. We know now that foods high in fat, sugar, or salt are not good for your body. The lighter the foods you eat, the more energy you have.
Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, plan your weeks in advance and build in at least one day when you will relax from work completely. Discipline yourself to keep this date.
Second, reserve, book and pay for your three day vacations several months in advance. Once you've paid the money, you are much more likely to go rather than put it off.
Third, decide that you will not work at all during your vacations. When you work, work. And when you rest, rest 100% of the time. This is very important.
Courtesy: Brian Tracy newsletter
Regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness. Here are some techniques for relaxing physically that are used by the most successful and highest paid people in America.
Take Time Off Every Week
First of all, work only five or six days per week, and rest completely on the seventh day. Every single study in this area shows that you will be far more productive in the five or six days that you work if you take one or two days off completely than you ever would be if you worked straight through for seven days.
Get Your Mind Busy Elsewhere
During this time off, do not catch up on reports, organize your desk, prepare proposals, or do anything else that requires mental effort. Simply let your mind relax completely, and get busy doing things with your family and friends. Maybe work around the house, go for a walk, engage in physical exercise, watch television, go to a movie, or play with your children. Whatever you do, discipline yourself to shut your mental gears off completely for at least one 24-hour period every seven days.
Get Away on Mini-Vacations
Second, take one three-day vacation every three months, and during that time, refrain from doing any work. Do not attempt to catch up on even a few small things. If you do, you keep your mental gears in motion, and you end up neither resting nor properly doing work of any quality.
Take Big Chunks of Down Time
Third, take at least two full weeks off each year during which you do nothing that is work-related. You can either work or relax; you cannot do both. If you attempt to do a little work while you are on vacation, you never give your mental and emotional batteries a chance to recharge. You'll come back from your vacation just as tired as you were when you left.
Give Yourself a Break Today
If you are involved in a difficult relationship, or situation at work that is emotionally draining, discipline yourself to take a complete break from it at least one day per week. Put the concern out of your mind. Refuse to think about it. Don't continually discuss it, make telephone calls about it or mull it over in your mind. You cannot perform at your best mentally if you are emotionally preoccupied with a person or situation. You have to give yourself a break.
Go For a Walk in Nature
Since a change is as good as a rest, going for a nice long walk is a wonderful way to relax emotionally and mentally. As you put your physical body into motion, your thoughts and feelings seem to relax all by themselves.
Eat Lighter Foods
Also, remember that the process of digestion consumes an enormous amount of physical energy. Therefore, if you eat lighter foods, you will feel better and more refreshed afterward. If you eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, your digestive system will require far less energy to process them.
Be Good to Yourself
Since your diet has such an impact on your level of physical energy, and through it your levels of mental and emotional energy, the more fastidious you are about what you put into your mouth, the better you will feel and the more productive you will be. We know now that foods high in fat, sugar, or salt are not good for your body. The lighter the foods you eat, the more energy you have.
Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, plan your weeks in advance and build in at least one day when you will relax from work completely. Discipline yourself to keep this date.
Second, reserve, book and pay for your three day vacations several months in advance. Once you've paid the money, you are much more likely to go rather than put it off.
Third, decide that you will not work at all during your vacations. When you work, work. And when you rest, rest 100% of the time. This is very important.
Courtesy: Brian Tracy newsletter
Monday, February 8, 2010
Set Higher Standards For YourSelf in 2010
"Set higher standards for you own performance than anyone around you, and it won't matter whether you have a tough boss or an easy one. It won't matter whether the competition is pushing you hard, because you'll be competing with yourself."
- Rick Pitino
"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next year for better."
- Edgar Howe
"Make the workmanship surpass the materials."
- Ovid, Poet
Succeeding is not really a life experience that does much good. Failing is a much more sobering and enlightening experience."
- Michael Eisner, executive
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."
- Phillips Brooks
"As long as a person doesn't admit he's defeated, he is not defeated-he's just a little behind, and isn't through fighting."
- Darrell Royal, football coach
"You must do the things today that others will not do so that you can have the things tomorrow that others will not have."
- Anonymous
"There's been nothing but discipline, discipline, discipline all my life."
- Celine Dion, singer
"The most critical thing I think business leaders and future business leaders need to understand is to stay focused on the things that you can control and influence, and then execute, execute, execute."
- John Chambers, Cisco CEO
"Imagination grows by exercise and, contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."
- Paul McCartney, musician
"As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and-above all-how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform."
- Don Shula, Football Coach
"A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself."
- George Bernard Shaw, Writer and Critic
(JACQUES' NOTE: What with the 2010 Winter Olympics going on in B.C., Canada---the above quote is quite timely---) :o)
"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."
- Oprah Winfrey, talk-show host
"The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help."
- Napoleon Hill, Pioneer of Personal Achievement Philosophy
- Rick Pitino
"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next year for better."
- Edgar Howe
"Make the workmanship surpass the materials."
- Ovid, Poet
Succeeding is not really a life experience that does much good. Failing is a much more sobering and enlightening experience."
- Michael Eisner, executive
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."
- Phillips Brooks
"As long as a person doesn't admit he's defeated, he is not defeated-he's just a little behind, and isn't through fighting."
- Darrell Royal, football coach
"You must do the things today that others will not do so that you can have the things tomorrow that others will not have."
- Anonymous
"There's been nothing but discipline, discipline, discipline all my life."
- Celine Dion, singer
"The most critical thing I think business leaders and future business leaders need to understand is to stay focused on the things that you can control and influence, and then execute, execute, execute."
- John Chambers, Cisco CEO
"Imagination grows by exercise and, contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."
- Paul McCartney, musician
"As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and-above all-how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform."
- Don Shula, Football Coach
"A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself."
- George Bernard Shaw, Writer and Critic
(JACQUES' NOTE: What with the 2010 Winter Olympics going on in B.C., Canada---the above quote is quite timely---) :o)
"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."
- Oprah Winfrey, talk-show host
"The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help."
- Napoleon Hill, Pioneer of Personal Achievement Philosophy
Friday, January 29, 2010
Eliminate Clutter from Your Life (Concl.)
De-Clutter Your Desk and Work Space
Whether you work from a home office or a tiny cubicle, there’s no way you can be totally productive in a space that doesn’t function for you. “I have never actually met anybody who is extremely successful who works in absolute chaos,” says Ellis.
Sure, everyone has a junk drawer or a messy desk on occasion, but if your clutter is taking over, it’s time to scale back.
When Nwogugu tackled her home office with a very organized friend, they compiled three separate stashes: what to keep, what to shred (sensitive information), and what to just throw away.
Follow a similar routine working from desk to files to shelves. Clear everything off and sort into appropriate stacks. Use file folders, three-ring notebooks, or magazine sorters to hold important papers. And immediately pitch what you don't need. Get creative with containers. Coffee mugs and decorative boxes hold everything from paper clips and tacks to business cards and pens.
Look toward vertical wall space as a new storage solution. “We tend to make piles,” says Ellis. But piles are hard to address and papers within them become hidden. You can’t pay a bill or return an important message if it’s hidden at the bottom of a stack on your desk.
Instead, option wall space. Set bills in a hanging bin, keys on a hook, magazines in wall hangers. Now you can see and reach items easily.
Clean Out Clothing Skeletons in Your Cluttered Closet
If closets are your nemesis and yours could rival Vogue’s accessory closet, you’ll need to spend some time getting down and dirty. The first step to cleaning a closet is to take everything out. Then you can see what you have. Often you’ll need to purchase storage boxes or organizing bins, shoe holders, or shelving. Don’t forget plastic garbage bags for trash and donations. Have a few bins or boxes for items that don’t really belong in the closet but will be moved elsewhere. Be realistic. Do you really need or want each item?
Ellis’ mantra is, “If you haven’t seen it, needed it, or worn it in one year, get rid of it.”
Nwogugu’s friend had three questions when they came to every piece of clothing: Does it fit? Have you worn it in the last 12 months? Is there some sentimental value strong enough to keep it? If the answers are no, toss it in one of three options -- in a bag for charity, to sell at a garage sale or on eBay, or for the trash heap.
Nwogugu went through the same procedure for her husband’s clothes and shoes as well as her children’s. “By the time we were done with clothing, we had over 15 hefty trash bags of stuff for Salvation Army.”
Organization Tips for Your Clutter-Free Action Plan
Here are more steps to help you clear clutter from your life:
Organize in bite-size bits:If the thought of getting organized completely overwhelms you, set a timer for just 15 minutes a day. Knowing you won't spend hours working on an organizational project might make working in small nuggets easier to manage.
Mainstream email: Instead of checking email with each ding of the inbox, read your emails on a regular basis only twice a day. When you open an email, answer it immediately and don't save it for later.
Handle snail mail only once: Create a special time and place to read your snail mail regularly. During the appointed time, open the mail and immediately take action on it. File it with bills, shred it, toss it in the trash, etc. Commit to touching each piece of mail immediately and only once.
Avoid horizontal piles: When possible, avoid putting paper in horizontal stacks in your home or office. Save time and frustration by categorizing and finding a home for paper as soon as it comes through the door.
Purge regularly: This applies to every room in the house but don’t forget the kitchen and bathroom. Check expiration dates regularly on medicines, vitamins, supplements, and cosmetics. Stick to the “when in doubt, throw it out” rule. If you can’t remember when you purchased it, let it go.
The first day after Nwogugu de-cluttered she walked around her apartment, remembering why she loved it. She no longer felt the need to escape. She looked forward to writing. "All around, I feel much better,” she says.
Courtesy: WebMD.com Newsletter
Whether you work from a home office or a tiny cubicle, there’s no way you can be totally productive in a space that doesn’t function for you. “I have never actually met anybody who is extremely successful who works in absolute chaos,” says Ellis.
Sure, everyone has a junk drawer or a messy desk on occasion, but if your clutter is taking over, it’s time to scale back.
When Nwogugu tackled her home office with a very organized friend, they compiled three separate stashes: what to keep, what to shred (sensitive information), and what to just throw away.
Follow a similar routine working from desk to files to shelves. Clear everything off and sort into appropriate stacks. Use file folders, three-ring notebooks, or magazine sorters to hold important papers. And immediately pitch what you don't need. Get creative with containers. Coffee mugs and decorative boxes hold everything from paper clips and tacks to business cards and pens.
Look toward vertical wall space as a new storage solution. “We tend to make piles,” says Ellis. But piles are hard to address and papers within them become hidden. You can’t pay a bill or return an important message if it’s hidden at the bottom of a stack on your desk.
Instead, option wall space. Set bills in a hanging bin, keys on a hook, magazines in wall hangers. Now you can see and reach items easily.
Clean Out Clothing Skeletons in Your Cluttered Closet
If closets are your nemesis and yours could rival Vogue’s accessory closet, you’ll need to spend some time getting down and dirty. The first step to cleaning a closet is to take everything out. Then you can see what you have. Often you’ll need to purchase storage boxes or organizing bins, shoe holders, or shelving. Don’t forget plastic garbage bags for trash and donations. Have a few bins or boxes for items that don’t really belong in the closet but will be moved elsewhere. Be realistic. Do you really need or want each item?
Ellis’ mantra is, “If you haven’t seen it, needed it, or worn it in one year, get rid of it.”
Nwogugu’s friend had three questions when they came to every piece of clothing: Does it fit? Have you worn it in the last 12 months? Is there some sentimental value strong enough to keep it? If the answers are no, toss it in one of three options -- in a bag for charity, to sell at a garage sale or on eBay, or for the trash heap.
Nwogugu went through the same procedure for her husband’s clothes and shoes as well as her children’s. “By the time we were done with clothing, we had over 15 hefty trash bags of stuff for Salvation Army.”
Organization Tips for Your Clutter-Free Action Plan
Here are more steps to help you clear clutter from your life:
Organize in bite-size bits:If the thought of getting organized completely overwhelms you, set a timer for just 15 minutes a day. Knowing you won't spend hours working on an organizational project might make working in small nuggets easier to manage.
Mainstream email: Instead of checking email with each ding of the inbox, read your emails on a regular basis only twice a day. When you open an email, answer it immediately and don't save it for later.
Handle snail mail only once: Create a special time and place to read your snail mail regularly. During the appointed time, open the mail and immediately take action on it. File it with bills, shred it, toss it in the trash, etc. Commit to touching each piece of mail immediately and only once.
Avoid horizontal piles: When possible, avoid putting paper in horizontal stacks in your home or office. Save time and frustration by categorizing and finding a home for paper as soon as it comes through the door.
Purge regularly: This applies to every room in the house but don’t forget the kitchen and bathroom. Check expiration dates regularly on medicines, vitamins, supplements, and cosmetics. Stick to the “when in doubt, throw it out” rule. If you can’t remember when you purchased it, let it go.
The first day after Nwogugu de-cluttered she walked around her apartment, remembering why she loved it. She no longer felt the need to escape. She looked forward to writing. "All around, I feel much better,” she says.
Courtesy: WebMD.com Newsletter
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