Self Help ebooks and audio programs to improve YOU and Your Life.

Are you satisfied?

This can be a loaded question. Satisfaction in your current life might be hard to gauge. When you step back and take a look at your life, do you feel as though you are on track and doing what you’re supposed to be doing?

Naturally there are many things that can set back your progress: having children, changing jobs, or falling ill, to name a few. Do you feel, however, that your life is where it should be?

Satisfaction can be attained in your life, even if don’t feel as though you are satisfied with the way things are going right now. It is the greatest dream to live a fulfilling life, one in which you feel satisfied with your daily dealings and accomplishments. And, although it is clear that a life like this does not come automatically, if you keep working towards it, it is certainly attainable.

Are you content?

Being content is a little different than being satisfied. You might feel satisfied with the money you make from your job, but does your occupation bring you contentment? Do you feel as though you are a valuable member of society… a person who makes the world a better place?

Some would argue that contentment in life is harder to reach than satisfaction, and this may be true, but there is no reason why someone can’t alter his or her life in order to reach a state of true contentment.

Start by simply asking yourself this question: “What would make me happy and content?”

When you realize the answer, start figuring out what you need to do to get to where you want to be. The end result will bring you closer to true contentment.

The above is an extract from the book “Get a life: A guide to make your life better one step at a time.“

Think about it! There are many things you could be doing right now. Yet, you have to choose a task and focus on that task in order to get something done! If you consider ‘procrastination’ at its most basic level, you are no doubt procrastinating when you choose that ONE thing to do and ignore the other options.

So, if procrastination can be a good thing – keeping you on track for the important things and postponing the less important things – then how can we make the best decisions as a procrastinator?

You make choices every day. Basically, there are three options for how to spend your day: You can do nothing, do something, or focus on something important. When you focus on something important, you are ‘putting off’ the less important things, so in a sense, you are procrastinating. But it is GOOD PROCRASTINATION!

Some of the most brilliant people in the world, e.g. artists, research scientists, and writers, procrastinate by putting off the things they perceive as unimportant to focus on a major project. Hence, they often forget to eat, fail to comb their hair before they go out for the day and even forget to sleep or bathe.
 
Good procrastination postpones the mundane in favor of doing the all-important. Consider this: You have a test at school tomorrow, or perhaps a big presentation at work, but you choose instead to shower, or perhaps dye your hair or talk on the phone with a friend?

Why?

Certainly, that phone conversation is not as important as your being prepared for your big presentation. Perhaps you are nervous about the task at hand? By putting off this preparation, you are postponing the thoughts and worries about the event. But, are you? No, not really! Your mind keeps churning and so you keep procrastinating, hoping it will become easier if you wait longer. That is NOT good procrastination.

Good procrastination is when you consider calling your friend and then decide to work on that speech or study for your test. Write your friend’s name on your calendar so you don’t forget to call him tomorrow when you have some free time!

There are some smaller things you will have to focus on because they DEMAND attention. Things like replacing that broken window before the predicted rain storm on the weekend, or taking your car in to check out that annoying squeal in your brakes. These are not major items TODAY, but they can become a problem if you don’t get to them soon.

That’s where the planning comes in. If you focus on the major projects or problems for MOST of the day, and knock off an hour early to get those other nagging problems solved before they become BIG problems, you will be in fine shape. CONSCIOUS procrastination – in other words, you know you need to do it, but you know you DON’T

CONSCIOUS PROCRASTINATION can also include postponing things for another day, even when you know that task will probably take you longer to complete if you don’t do it now. Let’s say you run your business out of your home, and you are preparing for a big presentation to a client in hopes of getting a project you really want. But you also have to do laundry.

If you analyze your time on THIS day and decide that your time is better spent working on the presentation then, even though you will have MORE laundry to do next week of you put it off today, you will still come out the winner.

Think about it this way: If you DIDN’T work on the presentation, but instead did your laundry, you would run out of time to work on your presentation. Tomorrow you would be standing in front of a lot of people making a fool of yourself and maybe losing the project you need to pay your bills over the next 3 months.
 
Years ago, Richard Hamming of Bell labs wrote a book in which he addressed procrastination by suggesting that every day you ask yourself the following questions:

1.            What are the most important problems or issues?

2.            Are you working on at least one of them?

3.            If not, why not?

If the project or problem you SHOULD be working on is large or long-term, you may find it hard to focus on this because it will take so much of your time and you aren’t sure that the outcome will be successful. We all need gratification and fulfillment so we can keep going with confidence.

If that is the case with your procrastination problem, simply break your big project or goal into smaller parts with short-term due dates, with each task advancing you one step closer to your long-term goal. That way, you won’t be so tempted to procrastinate, and your answer to Richard Hamming’s first two questions will ALWAYS be ‘yes’!

If you pay careful attention to the successful people, you’ll notice it’s more than what they know, but who they know and who knows them. That is, among other things, the success people network with other people.

Yet the most effective networkers are not ones who’ve got the largest number of business cards in their collection, but the ones who manage to develop good quality relationship with their contacts.

So what is it that the successful networkers do differently to have good quality contacts? Well, here is the secret. They know there is more to just knowing their contact’s name and face. They know there are some crucial information that they need to know about their contacts and they will share the same information about themselves. This is how they to turn a stranger into a valuable person.

Below is the list of what the savvy networker does. When you network with someone do likewise.

1. Exchange your job title and what your job involves.
   

2. Find out what his or her major goals, concerns, issues and problems are.
   

3. Let the person know how you can be of help.
   

4. Find out how this person can be of help to you.
   

5. Find out if the person’s goal, needs or interest conflict with yours. If so, find out how to overcome it.
   

Finally, and this is important, when talking with someone you don’t know very well use lots of open ended questions.

Now think about it, how much do you know about the same of your coworkers, managers, or customers? If you want to improve your own worth to others, let others know you how you may be of help to them.

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Do you stress about your work or find your work a chore? Here are 7 tips on how you can make yourself love the work you have.

1. Decide to love your work. What is your attitude towards your work?  When you change your view about your work and your work will seem very different then. If you think your job will be difficult, it will be, if you think it will be easy, it will be too.
2. Take time to plan your work carefully. The lack of organization creates the feeling of stress. Get organized and eliminate this source of stress.
3. Be careful about wanting to do everything at once. The time exists for a reason, you know? You have to manage it and learn to just take your time. Working under a sense of constant hurry only makes you more prone to making mistakes.
4. Be relaxed. You’ll be more productive when you feel relax and in control of your work rather than feeling overwhelmed.
5. Commit yourself to never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. The accumulation of tasks left undone just makes the job more difficult. So be up to date.
6. Be proactive. It is always better and cheaper to do the right things than to fix things.
   
7. Share those tips with your friends.  Stressed colleagues are a source of stress in itself. Help them relieve their stress and you’ll have a more pleasant workplace.

If you’ve loved those tips, please comment or share this blog post with your friends.


You’ll find more tips on time management in this ebook:

How to get ahead at work

Who doesn’t like to be handed some cash for doing what you like to do as a hobby? The reality for most of us is that we are not making any money from our hobby because we don’t know that we can.

Over these past months I have discovered several ways to earn money while doing what I love to do as a hobby. Actually if you are resourceful you can easily find that you may earn some money from anything you do as a hobby.

Let me share with you some hobbies I’ve found that can earn you some decent extra cash and how.

I’ll name 3 here:

•    Writing

•    Photography and graphic design

•    Making video and video editing.

I’ll talk about photography and video in another blog post. First, let me expand on how you can earn money through writing.

Do you have a passion for writing? Even if you just enjoy writing, what I’m going to share with you may ignite your interest for writing. Even if you feel writing isn’t for you read on.

First method to earn money while writing as a hobby is through blogging. I’m sure you know what blogging is. If not, well you are reading my blog right now. Blogging is a simple way to have your own web presence and where you can write about almost anything. Most people blog as a hobby, but if you add certain key elements to your blog, you may earn money from your blog. This is by putting advertising materials on your blog. The simplest form of advertising on your blog is by putting Google Adsense on your blog. I know of one blogger who is earning as much as $20,000 per month by just blogging.

 I have personally helped several people to set up their blog. If you would like me to help you set up your own blog or add Adsense to your existing blog please contact me.

The second method to earn money from writing is freelancing. What kind of freelance writing? Note, I am not talking about writing a novel or journalistic writing. I am talking about writing short articles of about 500 words. Yes, there is actually a big demand for such articles at the moment, especially by Internet marketers – people who operate an online business. You can check what type of articles I’m refering to on websites  like www.Ezine.com and www.goArticles.com.

Also check this video below to learn more about article marketing:

Now, if you feel inclined to try bloging or freelance writing and don’t know where to start check http://www.yoursuccessebooks.com/self-improvement/Freelance-Writer/

There is also another excellent course that will instruct you through several videos how to become a freelance article writer and where to find those jobs posted. Note there is a long video that you need to watch before you can see the order button.

http://www.instantonlineincome.com/g.o/getsuccess.