My Prostate Cancer

My friend George was trying his best to quit smoking, at the same time that I was.

While I would get de motivated rather quickly, and I often found that I was not able to resist the temptation of a quick smoke out in the garden, George continued to avoid smoking, and he finally managed to quit smoking altogether, while I struggled on still, with my now severely limited quota of a single pack of cigarettes per day.

Why did this happen? Why was George more motivated than me, and why was he able to stick to his self given guidelines? All these questions prompted me to examine the issue, and here’s what I found; maybe it will help you get motivated into doing things and remaining committed to doing them.

George confessed that he tried using motivation boosters, and it was because of these that he remained so determined until the end. He revealed the secrets to me:

• Try using music: Music is a great mood booster, and will motivate you into attaining high energy levels. You can dance away to the music, and it will definitely bring a great smile to your face. You will automatically be motivated.
• Try writing down your thoughts: Write down your thoughts, including the advantages and the disadvantages of what you are trying to achieve at the present time, no matter what it may be.
• Try to visualize your impending success: This will make the end appear much closer than it actually is, and you can redouble the efforts you put into it. Visualize your feelings of satisfaction when you actually achieve your goal: imagine the feeling of joy and satisfaction, and the feeling of self fulfillment and the boost to your confidence!

Visualize the end whenever you feel that you cannot go on any longer: it can prove to be a great motivation booster. Dieters often paste photographs of themselves when they were much slimmer on their refrigerators, to remind themselves of their ultimate goal, and to help them visualize clearly the result of all their dieting efforts.

• Achieve your Goal: Try to make sure that you recognize that achieving your goal is your top priority in life, and that your goal is within your reach. For instance, don’t dream of losing 50 kg off your body when you can’t even lose 20 kg. Attaining even small goals at a time can serve as a great motivation booster.
• Take it one step at a time, and remain confident of attaining your goal. Reassess your goals from time to time if necessary.
• Give yourself a reward! Whenever you achieve even a small part of your goal, reward yourself. This is an excellent motivation booster, and it works quickly.

I must confess that I tried these quick motivation boosters, and today, I am a non-smoker. Thank you George for showing me the way to do it.

There’s a lot of talk about what you should do to become successful, but it’s more about who you are that makes the biggest impact.

It’s the decisions we make on a daily basis, the habits we naturally form in our lives that determine the level of success we can achieve. Who we are determines how we react to life, even when we’re not consciously in the act of ‘being successful’.

So here are 10 traits that are essential for obtaining lasting success in any endeavor.

1. An Independent Nature

If we rely too much on those around us for assistance and/or support we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment in the future.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t look to others for help when the time is right, but crafting our pursuits in such a way that requires the intervention of another is like handing over the keys and getting in the back seat.

Our friends and colleagues may help open the doors of opportunity, but it is our own responsibility to take the wheel.

Read more at PickTheBrain

Why is a negotiation style important? Although you may profess to be an expert with people, and think that you know how to interact with different types of people, do you actually know the importance of a negotiating style?

Do you know how advantageous it can be if you were to know all about your negotiating style, and learn how to gauge and assess others’? It is a fact that different styles must be used with different people: what can garner a guaranteed ‘Yes’ from one person may well lead to a deadlock with another individual.

Possessing an excellent negotiating style will not only help you in building up your work relationships, but will help you in your personal life as well, and help you to build up more productive and fulfilling relationships at work and elsewhere.

Negotiation styles can be different for men and women: Negotiation styles can be different for men and women, and even if you have spent hours preparing your presentation and perfected it, you may not be able to garner the success that would have been yours if you had prepared your negotiation style with an awareness of the difference between a man and a woman’s negotiation styles.

Although one cannot state that a woman is not as good a negotiator as a man, in more cases than not, this has been found to be true. In all probability, a woman is less competitive than a man, and this may result in the lack of results.

However, this will not mean that women lack leadership abilities, or that they lack skills; all it means is that women find it more difficult than men to claim the authority to lead; a study showed that while 57% of men negotiate their starting salaries, only 7% of women do the same.

There are innate differences between the negotiating styles of men and women.

• While men assume that women are accommodating, women assume that men are highly competitive and manipulative
• While women think that men are rational and logical, men think that women are emotionally intuitive
• While men assume that women are passive and more submissive than men, women think that men are more dominant as well as authoritative than women.

These may be stereotypical beliefs, but one cannot deny the fact that some of these beliefs seem ingrained in the interactions of men and women, and therefore interfere with negotiating styles.

• Men talk for longer periods of time than women
• Men interrupt more often than women
• Men use direct language, while women use rather subtle language

All negotiation styles vary with the individual, his or her knowledge, skills, and attitudes. No matter what the style, the expected end result is successful negotiation [Negotiation Skills], and in today’s highly competitive workplace, you would do better in your negotiations if you were aware of the different styles you can use, and adapt them to suit your gender and your experience and expertise.

The only reason people ever really do anything is due to motivation. 

It may be our work, our hobbies, our relationships or even our chores, but one way or another, there is motivation that drives us to do the things we do.

This article is about finding out where this motivation comes from and how to develop it internally.

Two types of Motivation

There are only two types of motivation. You can label them whatever you like, but one type is positive and one type is negative. EVERYTHING we do, think and believe has some kind of foundation in painand pleasure.

Each person has, of course, a completely different view of what pain and pleasure is. But the same factors exist to steer and motivate us based on what we think we can get out of it.

Most of these associations with pain and pleasure are buried in our subconscious minds and, unfortunately, most people never realize this. Instead, they go through life on autopilot.

Despite this, you can easily learn to shift the associated pains and pleasures in your favor and put more attention to the ones you want to change.  So, how you do that is important to explore.

Read more at PickTheBrain

When you work with a group of people about eight or more hours a day, everyday, you do need to know that you can count on them, or at the very least, on a few of them; it can be very disconcerting and even frightening to know that you do not enjoy that bond of trust with your colleagues.

Not only will this affect your mental and physical well being and health, but it will also impact the peaceful working environment.

How do you go about strengthening and improving that bond of trust with your co-workers? Is it difficult to achieve, or can it be done overnight?

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Always remain honest and true to your word. In other words, always say what you mean, and mean what you say. This in itself will make your co-workers believe in you and trust in you, and know that you will stick by your word.
• I know that office gossip is all prevalent, and cannot be avoided completely. You can at least try to avoid the gossip, because gossip is something that can be extremely demotivating, and will end up pitting one colleague against the other. Set high standards, so that you never become directly involved in the gossip making its rounds.
• If you have just started off in your new job, make sure you know all your co-workers’ names before you enter the office. This will help you bond with your co-workers, and make them more willing to help you. Imagine how you would feel if someone forgot your name, would you be ready to help him out the next time?
• Smile. A pleasant face is definitely better than a stern and disagreeable expression, and you can make full use of the happy feeling that your smile will generate within your office.
• Become fully involved in an ongoing conversation; learn a few good conversation tips, and pay attention to what your co-worker is saying and become fully involved. Never show your disinterest in your co-worker’s complaints/suggestions.
• Adopt a neutral stance, so that you manage to develop and maintain that bond of trust with your co-workers.
• Remain consistent in what you say and do within your workplace. This will make your co-workers trust you, and know that you will do as you say, and that you are a man who sticks to his given word.
• Understand your mistakes, and try to correct them. You are not infallible, and you too can make mistakes, same as the other man, and if you acknowledge the fact, your co-workers will empathize with you, thereby strengthening the bond of trust between you.

Follow these simple guidelines, and become one of the most trustworthy individuals in your workplace, someone who enjoys the respect and love of his co-workers, and is able to get things done with a smile.