Home Work - Wisdom Behind the Monster

Is home work really such a bad thing, a monster to be feared, an act to be condemned? I don't think so, for the fact that it is the "home work", that really teaches one "to be there - in that instant", for our ever wandering aimless mind. Teachers / Lecturers / professors ( call what you may !) who religiously gave home work were never in the good-books of students and parents alike. He/ She was always scorned for "passing the buck" , and washing his / her hands off the responsibility of "teaching". Little does the parents ( past , present and most likely the future too) realise that "Home work is also a part of the learning process". Now, Isn't that supposed to be a teacher's final objective.?. How can he / she be blamed for "doing the job"?

Few things happened in the past week, that triggered these thoughts in my mind.Basically, I am not surprised by emails, especially those who request information and guidelines to be an independent freelancer. I am only too willing to help them.For this i have set up an Orkut Community, for open sharing of concerns. Yet many prefer to be anonymous.Please be assured,all the freelancers can 'grab' an average of 5 projects a month, and still there will be projects waiting in queue to be awarded. Freelancing is a huge sector, where every skill has a market, and there is a client for every market.

Normally, when I receive a request form a reader (read aspiring freelancer), I try to provide relevant links and referrals so that he / she knows where to start. I also make a point to tell them that it is important they do an extensive Google search on the industry they are familiar with / have expertise on. Being a Virtual Assistant, I am able to share the "aspects" in being a freelance VA , but i may not be the right person to answer industry specific technical queries with respect to Virtual Assistance.

After the initial pleasantries , mail requests takes a turn saying ,

"I have done [Edu.Qualif], I am working in [ This industry] for the [n] years and I also know [Some application / etc]. Can you help me with what kind of jobs I can do online as a freelancer. Then I can also become a freelancer like you."

Now, correct me if I am wrong, isn't this sender asking me to send job profiles along his way ? ( oh! By the way . . . you can recruit a VA to do just exactly this for you.)

This is where the 'concept' of Homework kicks in. Having the desire to do something off the beaten track is good. But unless this desire is fuelled by the inherent urge to seek answers.( ie without waiting for the answers to drop on your lap), there is no room for development.

As I said earlier "Home Work" is a part of the learning experience. So, don't harbour the tendency to shy from homework. Google throws more than what we ask for. Now how hard it is to sit through the rubble and sift for something that could be an answer to your question.

I am a freelance Virtual Assistant from Bangalore.

Contact me at http://deepagovind.blogspot.com/2008/01/get-quote.html with your requirement, and I shall get back to you with 1 business day. I am sure, we will be able to work things out together.

Leo Tolstoy

Reaching Your Goals

Have you ever wanted anything? Have you managed to reach your goals sometimes and other times you failed? Well, if you would like a step by step guide to help get you reach your goals and enjoy greater success than this article will come as a pleasant surprise.

These 7 powerfully effective steps towards making progress and greater success fall into two categories.

A. Awareness

B. Action

Taking action without awareness can lead to much wasted time and frustration. People hate when they find they have been walking in circles.

Having awareness without taking the necessary action can lead to over analyzing and
usually points to some blind spot about yourself. That blind spot could be denial or distraction from the REAL issues. That lack of self awareness renders all of your external awareness almost useless.

Or perhaps there is something known or unknown ( in your subconscious mind? ) that is holding you back.

So by being more aware of who you are, what you want and how you may be changing along the way you can take the necessary steps to reach your goals. Also, by tracking your progress you can
feel secure that you are getting closer to your goals or that your goals are changing.

Knowing your strengths as well as realizing your weaknesses can help you to assess the best plan of action. It can also help to motivate you to take that first step.

Some people want to know all the steps required before they will take the first step, while others simply want the first step and after completing it they want the next step spoon fed to them.

Most people fall somewhere between these categories and so can benefit from the steps and tips in this article and know that they can always contact me for more personal professional guidance. Choices equal power and knowing you can chose makes most people feel very, very good.

1. Know who you are. Are you a person who is willing to do anything to reach your goals? Does that include doing things that could harm others? Where do you draw the line?
Know your core principles and values because these will most likely stay the same, even as you yourself change.

2. Know what you want. Have a clear goal and work backwards as if you already reached it. What steps did you take to get there? Or if you prefer you can start with "what is the first step I can take right this minute that will help get me closer to my goal."

There are benefits to both of these variations and for more details you can contact me. However, for this article this information is more than enough to get you started towards greater success and more reliable results.

3. Be prepared for possible obstacles in your path. Find yourself seeing obstacles as challenges so that you either deal with them as needed or even find
yourself looking forward to overcoming these obstacles and making use of them.

4. Learn from those obstacles and experiences so you are even better prepared. Imagine that your future is spread out in front of you like a magic carpet ride and your past is lit up with the lessons you have learned. So that even in the darkest coldest night there is some warmth and comfort and light to help guide you from where you have been, as you move towards better and better things to come.

5. Develop your perseverance and reward yourself for following through on your objectives. The first steps can help you to do this along with meditation, hypnosis, chi gung, yoga and other types of mind/body exercises that help you use and harness this extra intelligence and energy.

6. Remain flexible so that your steps can change as needed and so that as YOU change you are aware of these changes. Is this really my goal or the goal of someone else? Am I still the same person I was when I first took up this journey? Have I changed so much from my experiences along the way that my goals have also changed? This is one reason why I stress the use of journals.

The military would call this a sit/rep and a business may call it a progress report. Whatever you wish to call it you can make use it of it to help keep you on track.

7. Magnetize your goals and yourself so that you can barely tell whether you are being drawn closer to your goals or if your goals are being drawn towards you as you become more successful. Either way, you seem to effortlessly improve. This is the step that seems to require more coaching or personalized attention for most people. However, this is more of an extra step that makes everything flow more easily.

Michael Twomey is a Success Coach and Professional Hypnotist in NYC. He has helped many people to change their habits, beliefs and improve their lives. He lives with his beautiful, loving and talented wife, Maggie in NYC.

http://www.nycprimehypnosis.com
http://www.AdventuresinTrance.com

Keep Believing in You

January is just about done (can you believe it), time waits for no man. I hope everyone is following their plans, guidelines or whatever you label your project to be. I know it can be overwhelming but if we want to get to our goals we just have to woman/man up and do what we have to do. That's were changing your mindset comes into play.

Since to the beginning of the New Year I have just been taking it one day at a time, everyday I'm doing something that relates to my business, even when I don't feel like doing it, because if I don't do it it will just sit there waiting to be taken care of. Whenever you get that thought in your head to go take care of whatever project you may have going on, that's when you go tackle it and take care of business (you don't have to get it right you just gotta get it going).

Changing your mindset does not mean you stop being who you are as a person its just means you are looking at things in a different light, you now believe in your dreams/goals, you know that you deserve nothing but the best, You basically giving yourself an upgrade on the inside a makeover on the inside your mind and heart.

I'm am so happy and excited of this New Year 2009 because I feel the change in myself, I'm really proud of the accomplish Ive made in the past 5 months not just with my business but with myself.
I want you to have the same changes I'm having, and to feel the changes within yourself that you are headed in the right direction.

This is your friend DawnW wanting nothing but the best for you, I love and appreciate you have a wonderful week.

God Bless
Dawn W

Dawn is a part-time Network Marketer, she shares her marketing skills, and business oppurtunites with others who are looking to change their mindset and really learn how the Online Marketing industry works, so they can take their business to the next level.

http://MeetDawnW.info

http://imdawnw.com/classroom.aspx

Weight Loss Instrument of Torture and Demotivation

When we are trying to lose weight there are many things that can so easily demotivated us. Our motivation can be tripped up by a throw away remark, a negative thought of a craving for the things we tell ourselves we shouldn't have.

There is one thing though that is guaranteed to demotivated most people, far more than it ever motivates - the weighting scales. How many times do you hop on the scales in a week, or even a day for that matter?

Weight is the measurement on which your motivation depends if you possess that terrible instrument of torture - the weighing scales! Used daily it does more damage to the psyche than any other instrument. If it does not deliver the expected weight loss you want, the effects are devastating...

~ Emotional turmoil;

~ A feeling of failure;

~ A reinforcement of the belief you are 'Not Good Enough';

~ Increased unhappiness and stress;

~ A reversal of healthy eating for comfort eating;

How crazy is that? We even allow ourselves the experience of public weighing sessions in an attempt to motivate ourselves to lose weight. This weekly ritual at the local slimming club only lasts, as a motivator, for the period our weight loss meets our projected expectations. We can so often feel demotivated even when we have lost weight. When that 1 lb loss is less than the expected 2 or more pounds even the weight loss consultant can tell us we need to try harder!

Isn't it time to start...

Measuring life by happiness and not weight;

Measuring size by inches not pounds;

Measuring health by energy and fitness not BMI;

Eating for love of self and not for comfort?

What would it be like to rule our lives by the use of a scale of happiness? We would certainly feed on life experiences that brought us joy. We would look for more things each day to fill us up with joy. We would search out the people in our lives that brought us joy. We would appreciate our lives far more and live them to the full.

Gone would be the focus on weight and food. The remarkable thing is that you can still lose weight by this change of focus. How? Well, the fact is that when you are happier your motivation stays high and there is no need to comfort eat.

So, really can find the weight you were born to be without the instrument of torture - the weighing scales!

Chrissie Webber is a published author and weight management motivation coach. Through her online company http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk/ she offers support, motivation and re-parenting to the 95% - 97% of dieters who are still struggling to find the weight they were born to be. Her web site and blog http://www.chrissiewebber.co.uk/ offer motivation 'Keys' that help children, parents and adults discover a life without guilt, shame and self-loathing. To learn/relearn the skills of 'Conscious Eating' and how to live in harmony with food and nature become an online member today: http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk/

Do You Live Life on Default Or Do You Participate in Your Life

It's incredible the number of people who do very little or no planning in their lives. Who is in charge? What is there to be gained from wandering about life from experience to experience without having any idea of where you are going? I like to think of it as though there is an auto-pilot flying your life - sometimes you'll get something that you really want or arrive somewhere you really want to be, but most of the time, you are simply going to get what you get.

In order to live your life with a sense of direction, you have to make some decisions. You have to decide:

• Where you are going
• What you want to be, do and have
• How active you are going to be in pursuing your goals

I'm a firm believer that there is no pre-determined purpose to our lives and that ultimately, it makes no difference if you live your life set to default, or if you take an active role in your life's direction and purpose. I do get the sense that to live our lives set to default is to miss out on some of the wonderful journeys we are able to create for ourselves. If you constantly find yourself arriving at a new destination, that you didn't pre-plan or intend to arrive at, then surely you've simply been a passenger in your life and not the driver. Ultimately though, if you understand that you have the choice to participate or sit back and let it happen, then you make the choice from an informed position. There are many people who are unaware that they do have the choice to participate in life and it is these people who have the most to gain from reading these words.

So rather than being a passenger, decide where you wish to go, who you wish to be and what you wish to have in your life, and then take action and make it happen.

Dan O'Neil offers Life Coaching and personal development training services in the UK. He specialises in helping people improve their confidence, self esteem and work-life balance. Dan also writes a popular personal development blog.

Motivation or Inspiration

In a recent conversation a colleague discussed doing motivational speaking. Then she said, "or maybe it's inspirational." That got me thinking about a common dilemma that managers and leaders face, "is it my role to motivate or to inspire?" To me, the two terms are very related but have a definite distinction.

Motivation is something that comes from within. As a manager or leader, I dont believe I can motivate you to do something, especially something that you aren't interested in doing. Motivation is completely personal.

What I CAN do is to create an environment that fosters self-motivation, based on precisely what motivates you whether that's money, responsibility, trust, empowerment, social meaning or something else.

And that's where inspiration comes into the picture, in creating that environment. Inspiration is an external factor. It's the spark that lights up an individual's motivators and sets them into action.

One of the most inspirational leaders of our time was Martin Luther King. His words and actions connected with people's internal motivators, specifically ethnic pride and social justice. He connected with people and inspired them with a vision of the future, and then showed them how they could be a part of making it a reality. Did he inspire everyone? No. There were many whose internal motivators didnt connect or align with his vision. There was probably nothing he could do to have them take action.

Think of some of the great energizing speakers or leaders that you've encountered. Did they inspire or motivate you?

One of our jobs as a leader is to create an environment that inspires individuals to connect their own inner motivators to a collective vision. Here's an example. A few years ago, I was coaching a banking executive, a regional sales leader. The collective vision of her group was to provide exceptional customer service while selling bank products and services to customers.

One of the financial specialists in her group was not meeting his goals. To motivate him, the executive kept explaining to the specialist that he was leaving money on the table, incentive money, when he failed to sell these services.

I asked the executive to tell me about the individual, and I quickly understood why this method wasn't working. She told me that the individual spent a lot time volunteering in the community and enjoyed spending time with family and friends; he had been with the bank a long time and really loved to socialize with the individuals he worked with. I explained to the executive that it didn't sound like money was a major incentive for this person and that it might be time to stop trying to motivate and start trying to inspire.

To inspire him, she needed to tap into this man's unique motivators, so I asked her to experiment by talking to the specialist about the future he was helping his customers create - the secure retirements, the college funds for their children and the first homes they were helping young couples purchase.

In a month, the specialist was meeting and in some cases exceeding goals. When the executive stopped trying to motivate with what SHE thought would work and what motivated her, and began trying to inspire the specialist and tap into their own motivators, they found a common ground. She created a vision and environment where the specialist could be self-motivated and thrive.

What motivates the people that you lead? How can you inspire them by sparking those motivators and linking them to the companys or your vision? Find these answers and you'll all succeed together.

Bill Burtch, SPHR, ACC is the President of Harmony Coaching & Consulting a management consultancy focusing on Executive/Corporate Coaching, Human Resource Management, and Training Design & Delivery. For more information on this topic or for information on Bills services you can contact him at 901-272-7390, bburtch@harmonycc.net or visit him on the web at http://www.harmonycc.net

Strategies for Surviving the Pit of Life

Does it seem as if life has presented you with situations where you have been knocked down and knocked around? Are you facing a barrage of obstacles, challenges, issues, and problems? Do you feel as if youve been knocked into a pit?

I define the pit as a state of being in which you feel helpless, hopeless and unable to succeed. Your energy is low, your actions are stagnant, and your faith is weak. Overall, you lack the ability to motivate yourself to take action.

I have found that once you fall in the pit, it is sometimes hard to come out. You struggle and cant get a grip. You slip, you slide, you fall flat on your face. Worse yet, you feel as if you cant see, and there seems to be no one around to help.

What I have come to realize, however, is that self-motivation is one of the most crucial resources to surviving the challenges of life. Self-motivation is when you can see beyond your current situation in order to move yourself into action.

Even though we all have self-motivation as a tool to increase our chances of avoiding lifes pitfalls, I have observed that there are those of us that find it extremely hard to remain motivated in living life daily. And worse yet, Ive realized that there are some who completely rely upon other people to motivate them.

No matter what life has tricked you into believing about yourself, understand that you must motivate yourself! When you are knocked down by the challenges of life, know that you are your greatest resource to getting back up again!

Here are five (5) strategies that I developed which will help you to remain motivated to climb out your pit:

Put on your Rhinestone Combat Boots: Put your foot down, take a stand and declare, Enough is enough! Feel good about yourself as you wear the knowledge, experiences, wisdom, and faith that will help you to fight battles, climb over challenges, and kick butt.

Focus on the Light: You must realize that your success depends on you believing in yourself and pushing beyond what you see. You must learn to focus on what lies ahead (i.e. job promotion, SBA loan, keys to your new home) and not dwell on what has passed (i.e. layoff, bankruptcy, divorce).

Grasp Again: Learn that when you slip in grasping for something that you want, that break gives you a chance to take a breath, regain your strength, and renew your focus, allowing you to see the best way to grasp again. As my favorite singer, Aaliyah, once sang, if at first you dont succeed, dust yourself off and try again, you can dust it off and try again, try again. Meaning, keep grasping until you get a firm hold and can overcome your obstacles.

Have a Flashback Party: Get together with a group of your closest friends. Allow those who know you well to shed light on the areas where you are great. You will gain strength as the memories reveal your achievements, successes, and moments of fearlessness. The flashback party will add to your self-confidence and boost your self-esteem and give you the energy to fight the darkness.

Sing a Tune: Singing a tune of positive words will uplift, encourage and motivate you to put forth your best effort to overcome the challenges of your life. Quotes, words of praise, affirmations, and scriptures are examples of positive tunes that you must play in your mind over and over again as you experience your darkest moments.

Success in life does require you to receive guidance, direction and assistance from others. Yet, the vital key to remaining out of and moving beyond the pit requires that you serve as the motivating force of your own life. When you Put on your Rhinestone Combat Boots, Focus on the Light, Grasp Again, Have a Flashback Party, and Sing a Tune, your actions will develop you into a capable individual who is wise and strong enough to overcome the challenges life throws your way.

Copyright @ 2007 SSANEE, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Cassandra Lee is a self-development expert that conducts seminars, moderates panels, facilitates workshops, presents speeches, and writes resources that provides instructions on personal growth and professional success. She is founder, president and chief executive officer of SSANEE Incorporated, an educational consulting firm in Chicago, IL, where she provides interactive, skill-building seminars and keynotes to associations, colleges, corporations, clubs, organizations, social service agencies, and universities nationwide. She is featured in Whos Who in Black Chicago, the Inaugural Edition and is the author of the audio CD D.I.V.A.BITS: 24 Enlightening Tips to Conquer Communication Skills and co-author of the books Survival Skills for the African-American Woman and The Young Womans Guide for Personal Success. To receive professional development strategies FREE each month, sign-up for her newsletter, Dialog Digest at http://www.ssanee.com