Personal Productivity

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5 Super Tips How To Handle Criticism

If you are human, you’ll have to learn how to handle criticism.

No matter who you are, the president, a doctor, a teacher, a student, a salesman, an athlete, etc., you’ll come across criticism in your life.

You should know that if you want to be successful in your life, you must not criticize others. However, even if you don’t criticize others, others might criticize you.

Thus, you need to learn how to handle criticism in order to be productive in your life. Don’t be discourage when others say that you’re stupid. Or don’t be angry at it because if anger fills in your head, all you do is counter.

So here are 5 super tips that I think can help you handle criticism in your life…

1. Keep An Open Mind

You have to understand that this is something very common. When your boss criticize your work, it is normal. Everyone has been criticized by others in their lives.

Like I mentioned above, no matter who you are in this world, you will get criticized by others. You just cannot expect everyone to think just like you.

Even Superman is criticize by others because some people think that he is wearing his underwear on the outside, haha!

So just keep an open mind about it.

2. Enjoy It

Yes, you have to enjoy it. When others are criticizing you, just smile and listen. Even if they may think that you’re out of your mind and crazy, just let them be. Even better, you may break their pattern and help to turn the situation around.

If you think about it properly, why do people criticize you in the first place? It is because they care about you. If they don’t care about you, they won’t criticize you.

It is just that the way they express themselves are inappropriate.

Thus, just enjoy it when people criticize you.

3. Distinguish Between Feedback And Insult

People are not criticizing you most of the time. You have to understand and know to differentiate feedback from insult.

Usually, people will give you feedback, but because you have been conditioned in such a way that you think you are right, so you’ll treat their feedback as criticism or insult.

Just like if you believe now is the right time to invest in the stock market but your friends don’t think so. What you need to do then is just treat their opinion as feedback, find out more information about what they have told you, do research and validate if what they told you is correct.

Feedback is what will help you to get forward in your life, and you need feedback to improve and achieve your goals.

4. Consider The Source

Just consider the source when someone criticize you. If someone says that you look ugly, don’t get discourage by him or her. Just consider the source. Is the source something qualify to say so?

For example, if your parents are telling you that investing is risky, will you listen to them? Do you think they qualify to say so? Yes if they are great investor. No if they don’t do any investment.

When you consult a doctor and the doctor prescribe you the medicine, do you believe in him? Will you take the medicine? Chances are, most of us do, because it is the doctor who said so. The source is a qualify source?

If you go to a pet store and a parrot yells at you, “you’re ugly and stupid!” What will you do? Feel sad about it? Feel angry and would like to kill that parrot? Or will you think, “wow! This is a cool parrot! However, I don’t believe in what you said because you’re just a parrot”?

Can you see it now? Consider the source when someone criticize you.

5. Just Let It Slide

This is the easiest tips of all. When you’re down, focus on something that will make you happy. Just like when you’re feeling stressed, take a walk in the garden, do something else that will take away your attention from the criticism and you’ll feel better.

Don’t think about the criticism, instead, think about something else. And don’t tell your mind to not think about it. This is because when you do so, you’ll focus your thought on it.

Just like if I tell you don’t think about the color red, what will come into your mind? The color red!

So what you have to do is to focus on some other things. Divert your attention to other stuff so that you’ll forget about it and feel better after you come back for it.

These are the 5 super tips how to handle criticism. I hope these are going to help you in your life. What do you think about these super tips? Let me know in the comment section.

Posted by Shawn on February 23rd, 2010

3 Simple Tips How To Deal With Failure

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Failure, one of the most feared topics by people. If you’re having difficulty in dealing with failure, this will be the perfect post for you.

What I’m going to share with you here today are the 3 simple tips how you can deal with failure successfully.

I know that this is a very common problem that most people will face in their life. Unfortunately, most people are not doing anything to cope with it. Instead, they let their fear of failure causes them to fail.

Let’s dive right into the meat, I know you want to learn these tips right now…

1. Is It The Actual Failure Or The Fear Of Failure?

When the feeling of failing struck you, ask yourself this question, “what am I afraid of, the failure or the fear of failing?”

“I’ll do what I fear and fear will disappear” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Understand this, people experience the fear of failure because it is what is happening in their mind. The failure itself is not fatal. It is the fear of failure that causes most people to fail.

Think about it, before you actually do something, you afraid that you’re going to fail. This shows that it is your fear, your thinking, your feeling and your emotion that is creating the feeling of fear.

Or maybe after you have tried something else and you failed. Now, you developed the fear of failing and you don’t dare to take any actions anymore. The same thing is happening here.

It is the fear, the feeling and your thinking that is causing you to feel the fear, not the event or the ‘failure’.

Whenever you understand this, you can better handle the fear because it is something that you created by yourself. The fear is created in your mind and your thoughts.

Therefore, what you need to do in order to deal with it, is to deal with yourself, your mind and your thoughts.

2. Ask Yourself These Questions

Take the example that you are afraid of public speaking, but deep down in your mind, you got a burning desire to be an inspirational speaker.

Every time when you face the crowd, you will freeze and start shivering. Well, now you have only two choices, either you give up to be your favorite inspirational speaker and running away, or you can choose to conquer your fear.

When this happen, ask these questions…

What is the worst that could happen?

If you were to speak in front of a crowd, what is the worst that could happen? They could laugh at you or think that you’re an idiot. You might stutter and forget what you’re suppose to say and get embarrassed.

But let me tell you one thing, nobody will remember how worse you are once you’ve succeed. People will only think of your good thing, trust me.

Think about Thomas Edison, he failed more than thousand times, but when you ask someone about Thomas Edison, people will only told you that he is a great inventor.

If the worst were to happen, could he live with it?

Oh well, sure you can live with it. Take it as you’re making jokes in front of the public. You won’t get killed you won’t die if the worst were to happen. So start thinking clearly, and you will banish the fear feeling.

If the worst were to happen, will you lose anything?

If the public laugh at you and think that you’re an idiot, or if you did get stucked and forgot what you supposed to say, will you lose anything?

Not really, maybe your pride will hurt a little, but you’re not going to lose anything permanently.

Maybe you will lose a little self-esteem temporarily, but if you really think of it clearly, if you have conquer the feeling of fear, you’re actually building up your self-esteem!

What is the best possible outcome?

For the case here, you could inspire thousands of people, you could motivates people to a better life. You could then hone your skill and grow more self-confident and therefore speaks more convincingly in the future.

Compare the worst possible outcome with the best possible outcome.

If the worst result is that you stutter or forget a few things or even have people laugh at you, while the best outcome is that you inspire and motivate people to live a better life, and you will turn to a professional speaker, you will say that the best outcome far outweigh the worst.

Maybe you could think of it this way, if you could conquer fear then all of your dreams will come true, isn’t that your dreams come true is much more interesting? So what are fears? They’re nothing but just a feeling that lies in your mind.

Based on all the facts, what is your most likely outcome?

You will only get nervous get worry if you focus on yourself, but if you take it as you’re here to serve people, to help people, your nervousness will disappear.

You could create a mental slide show of yourself on stage, with all your facts, interesting points and stories, and see yourself done the presentation successfully.

You will do very well speaking, will expect as much, and will prepare in advance and practice to make this happen easily and effortlessly.

See, by analyzing your fears, you can discover amazing way to push through them. And you must remember this, the feeling of fear only exist in your mind.

3. Use Positive Affirmations To Bring Back Motivation

After you have went through the first 2 tips, you can use positive affirmations to bring back your motivation and never to fear failure anymore.

Positive affirmations such as “I’m good enough, in fact, I’m great!” or “I’m destined for great success!” are amazing in keeping you motivated.

And here’s a famous affirmation that you can use…

“SW SW SW Next - Some Won’t, Some will, So What, Next!”

Just think about Thomas Edison, Wright Brothers, Sylvester Stallone and Henry Ford, how much rejections and failure they’ve faced before? A lot more than ordinary people.

In fact, the more you get rejected, the more success you are!

And what do you remember of them? Only their successes. So you see, people will not remember about your failure, people will only remember your successes, your amazing results.

Posted by Shawn on February 3rd, 2010

3 Positive Self-Talk That Will Overcome Procrastination

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Do you want to learn how to overcome procrastination? Are you putting things off?

I believe that everyone faces the challenges of procrastination in their daily life. No matter who you are, a doctor, an engineering, a super successful businessman, you’ll face with issues with your personal productivity.

And I believe that to deal with procrastination, you will have to find and cure the source.

What I mean is, you need to know what is causing you to procrastinate and how you procrastinate before you can prevent it.

Most personal productivity books will just tell you that to be more productive, you need to create a to-do list, organize your tasks, do the most important task first and so on.

However, this will not help you overcome procrastination. These techniques can help you to be more productive and get more things done, but they never deal with the source of procrastination within you.

The source of procrastination is deep within you, in your mind, and you work it out as a habit.

I found self-talk a powerful strategy to overcome procrastination. Whenever you want to get a task done, you will ask yourself questions before you proceed to do it.

So if you can deal and act before you actually procrastinate, you will be able to put yourself into action and do the task.

Some people will talk to themselves like, “should I really do this?” “God, I hate this part.” “I’m going to spend all my time here, what a boring thing to do.”

What if you talk to yourself positively before doing the task? What if you tell yourself, “How am I going to enjoy with this today?” Or “Where can I start today?”

Do you think this is going to help you overcome procrastination? You bet! The answer is a BIG yes!

So here are the 3 positive self-talk you can use to help you avoid procrastination in your life…

1. Tell yourself you’ll enjoying doing it.

When you have to get your task done, ask yourself, “how am I going to enjoy doing this now?” This is going to interrupt your pattern because this is not the way you use to act.

And if your pattern gets interrupted, you will never focus on how boring or mundane the task is. What you’ll do then is that your brain will start to search for answer of how you can enjoy doing it.

Try it, it really works. Even before I’m typing this post here, I’m thinking about how am I going to enjoy and share this great tip with you.

2. Tell yourself that you can accomplish a small step.

Many people focus on the big task instead of the small task that they should get it done. When you focus on the big task, you’ll feel your mind with fear. You’ll fear of the massive amount of time you’re going to pour in. You’ll fear if you cannot get it done by the deadline. You’ll feel the fear and feel overwhelm.

Confucius has a very interesting quote on this, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Yes, no matter how big the project is, you will have to start by taking one small step at a time.

You cannot build a house at once. You cannot write a book in a day. However, you can start by designing the house, pour the concrete, laying the bricks, and so on and so forth. It is the same for everything in life.

You can take just one small step to accomplish a big project right now. Maybe you can draft a plan for your project, maybe it is a phone call, or maybe it is saying “hello” to somebody.

So ask yourself, “what one small step can I take today?” This will help you to avoid putting things off.

3. Tell yourself, “I wish to” instead of saying “I should” or “I have” to.

In the world of psychology, the word “I have to” or “I should” creates the emotion of unwillingness to do it.

When you say that you have to do it, you are telling yourself that you need to get it done, but you feel like don’t want to do it.

So change the word to “wish”. Say to yourself “I wish to study tonight” instead of saying “I have to study tonight”.

You can try this little change right now and feel the change in emotion and feeling in you. Close your eyes and imagine all the task that you need to do in order to achieve your goals.

Think by using the word “have”. For instance, you can think, “I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to…”

Now, change the word to “wish”. What do you feel?

Try to use this word and make it a habit to use it.

And these are the 3 positive self-talk strategies that will help you to overcome procrastination.

Posted by Shawn on January 20th, 2010

7 Keys To Produce More And Better Results In Life

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Do you want to be more productive in your life?

I’m going to share with you the 7 keys to living a productive life that I learned from Brian Tracy. Well, if you want to get more and better results, here are the 7 keys that can help you…

1. Working Longer And Harder

Working longer hours and harder definitely is going to help you increase your result. Successful people all are willing to work longer hours and work harder. This is why they are able to produce more and better results than ordinary people.

One of my favorite quotes is from the marketing legend, Jay Abraham…

“I used to be a workaholic and monstrously committed. I had tremendous capacity to accomplish work, I’d work 1 hours a day, seven days a week, and have meetings at 2 in the morning.”

I don’t know about you, but if you know the story of this marketing legend, I’m sure you’ll be inspired by him. Success does not come easily. And because of the hard work and effort that Jay committed to put in, he is now a marketing legend that nobody in the business world never heard of.

2. Work Faster And Get Things Done Faster

Spending more time into your work is good, but how much time do you have? Therefore, you have to learn to work faster and get things done faster. You need to learn the art of becoming productive in life if you want to be successful.

Everyone has 24 hours a day, this is a fact that you can never change. Thus, what you can do to be more productive is to work faster and get more things done in the same amount of time.

3. Do Important Result-Oriented Task First

If there are two tasks at your hand that you need to get them done right now, both tasks are important, but one will give you the most results, which one you’re going to get it done first?

The answer is obvious, whenever you have the option, try to get the task that will give you the most results done. Most people never do this, they spend eighty percent of their time into something that gives them only 20 percent of the results.

On the other hand, successful people focus in getting the 20 percent of work done that will give them eighty percent of the results.

4. Focus On What You Are Better At

If you don’t have enough time, try to focus on what you are better at and try to outsource or delegate the task that you have no interest or skill in.

For example, if you want to create a website and you’re not talented in graphic design, you can outsource this task to experts. They will get the job done in a faster manner and get the job done more effectively.

However, if you’re trying to get it done by yourself, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time to learn how to do it and actually get the job done.

5. Branching Your Task

Whenever you have a big task, try to break it down into small and manageable task. And after that, get those small little tasks done.

It is the same in goal setting. If you set your goal too big, you must break it done into small goals, and then further break them down into small and actionable steps.

Successful people will never focus on the big chunk of work, they will focus and get the smaller task done that will give them the big results that they desire.

Remember how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

6. Continuous Improvement

I always stress about committed to never ending improvement. This is the ultimate key to living a successful life. If you want to make your dreams come true and achieve all the goals you set, you must continuously improve yourself all the time.

7. Prepare For Every Task

Yes, you must prepare for the task you’re going to get it done before you actually do it. It is just like you need to plan for tomorrow before you sleep tonight.

This is exactly what every successful people will do. They know that if they want to be more productive and get more things done, they’ll need to develop the habit of preparing for every task.

Preparation is one of the most important keys to successful living.

With the 7 keys to produce more and better results in life, what you need to do now is to apply these 7 keys into your daily life right now.

If you feel overwhelm by them, just apply one key at a time until you make it a habit before you start to apply the others. Make sure you follow through.

Posted by Shawn on January 19th, 2010

The Secret How To Create Results And Avoid Procrastination Now!

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Do you want to learn the secret of how you can create results and avoid procrastination?

The secret to achieving this is not something difficult. In fact, most people can do it, but not all of them are willing to do it.

And this is what separates the ordinary people from extraordinary people who create outstanding results they desire in their life.

Today, this post is going to be short. However, it is a powerful post if you apply what you’re going to learn here.

One of the most powerful key in this secret is that without this secret, you will never create ANY results. You will never achieve your goals or make your dreams come true no matter how clever or how much skills you have.

Can you see it now, it is not the skills that you have or the cleverness that you have that will determine how successful you are.

Becoming successful has nothing to do with what you know or does it has anything to do with your knowledge.

This can be proven by the success stories of all the school dropouts who are still able to create amazing results in their life.

Actually, what you know only amounts a little to being successful and achieving your goals.

You can be a health expert, or you can be a doctor, but you can still be fat and unhealthy if you’re not practicing what you know in your life.

You can be a business student who graduated with first-class degree, but if you are not using the knowledge you have gained from your schools, you’ll be the same like every other people.

You can be an expert in investment, but if you’re not going to apply your strategies or your knowledge, you’ll never produce amazing results that an expert deserves.

Obviously, what you know does not count in achieving what you want. Knowing or having specific knowledge about how to get things done is an added advantage, but it will never determine your success.

Therefore, the real secret to create results and avoid procrastination is this… Take immediate action and do it consistently!

If you’re not taking any action, there’s only one result you will get, which is ‘nothing’.

The moment you take action, you’re creating the future that you want and you will be able to avoid the procrastination that you always make.

It is true that success requires planning and thinking, but too much of it will cause you to be paralyzed. This is what most people are suffering in, analysis paralysis.

It simply means that you think too much and plan too much that you don’t put in time into taking action.

You don’t need the perfect plan to get started or to be successful. You don’t have to wait until the best time or when there are 5 rainbows in row in the sky only to take action.

You don’t have to wait for you to have $100,000 in the bank to start your donation, you can start now.

You don’t have to wait for the moment when you are rich only to make those investments or savings, after all, this is the reason you are not rich… yet!

So harness the power of taking action today… right now!

Posted by Shawn on January 14th, 2010

Top 3 Principles How Anyone Can Create Extraordinary Results In Their Field

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Have you ever thought of want to be extraordinary in your field?

No matter what field you’re in, be it business, investment, medical, sales, education line and more. You can learn, apply the techniques and create extraordinary results there.

This is exactly what I’m going to share with you today. From what I’ve learned all these years. You can become the top 5% in your field if you apply these success principles.

No matter which field you’re in, there seems to be a group of people who are doing extremely well.

Even if it is in school, some of the students will produce great results while most of them will just create ordinary results.

It is the same in life. If you want to be extraordinary and create amazing results, you must be in the top 5% in your field.

So here are the top 3 principles how anyone can create extraordinary results in their field and in their life…

1. Passion Is The Fuel

Passion is what that is going to keep you going. Without passion, you can never have the motivation and energy to go on.

Look at all the successful people out there, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Donald Trump and more. They all possess the same criteria for success, which is passion in what they do.

Bill Gates has all the money he needs to survive in his life, but he still commits to his work. If you read the biography of Donald Trump, you’ll find that he is able to go through all the obstacles that are blocking his way because he is a man that is so passionate about what he does.

Without passion, your life is going to be boring and dull.

This is what makes passion the number one success principle that you must adopt in what you do. Think about it, are you feeling passionate in your work? If you’re not, you may want to develop the passion or to discover where are your true passion.

If you cannot find the passion or enthusiasm in what you do, don’t worry about it, simply read this post, How To Develop Passion For Success.

This is a great post that I encourage everyone of my reader here to read. Even if this is your first time here, you should read it!

I believe it is going to inspire you and change the way you look at life!

2. Constant And Never Ending Improvement

Want to be in the top 5% in your field? Learn the art of constant and never ending improvement.

You can transform your life from good to great is by simply adopting this one principle. Remember, leaders are readers.

Think about it, even if you improve by just 1% everyday in your life, you’re going to improve dramatically in your life in just a year.

You cannot change your life in just one day, but you can improve your life little by little everyday. This is definitely a doable process. However, you need persistence in doing it.

The easiest way you can improve your area of expertise or the quality of your life is by reading. Do you know that most people never read any book after they finish school?

Think about it, if you can gain just one simple idea of how you can improve your sales presentation from a book, how many books do you want to read?

The answer is as much as you can! If a book is able to improve the quality of your life by just 1%, you will be empowering your life and transforming your life in a year by reading 12 books, one in a month.

So commit yourself to never ending improvement from now on. However, you must make sure that you are not stuck in learning without taking any action. Learning itself is just a form of potential power. Applying what you’ve learned is the real power that will make you successful.

3. Persistence Is The Key

Don’t give up, no matter what you do, never ever give up.

The moment you give up, every hope vanish. However, if you keep on, there’s a slight hope of success for you. Of course, if you keep on, you’ll definitely be able to produce the results you want.

It is not just a slight hope, it is a guaranteed result!

However, make sure you change your approach whenever you face obstacles or setback in your journey. You’ll never going to achieve what you want by doing the same thing over and over again if what you do is not getting you anywhere.

If you want different results, change your approach and use other strategies so that you’ll get different results.

Are what you doing now going to lead you to your dreams? If it is not, you’d better change your approach right now because you’re not going to get anywhere if you keep doing the same thing.

This is exactly what is happening to most people. For those who hold a salary job and desire to be a millionaire, this is a serious question that you must ask yourself.

You know it very well that if you keep on doing what you’re doing right now, it is impossible for you to be a millionaire. You need other strategies that can help you to achieve this dream of yours.

These 3 principles are what I think the most important for you to create an extraordinary results in your life.

Apply these principles into your life and you’ll start to notice changes really soon.

Posted by Shawn on January 13th, 2010

The Millionaire Secrets