7 Secrets

of Mind Power
How to Unlock Your Full Potential, Stop
Procrastination, and Leave Your Failures in the
Past

HARVEY MIND
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 TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: Envy: The Enemy Within
CHAPTER 2: Understanding the Mind
CHAPTER 3: Ghost of Failures Past
CHAPTER 4: Beating Procrastination
CHAPTER 5: Harnessing the Power of Intention
CHAPTER 6: Intentional Life Planning
CHAPTER 7: Your Time, Your Life
CONCLUSION
 INTRODUCTION

Why do I keep moving around in circles?

Looking around, everyone seems to be doing better than me. My best friend
has just bought a luxury apartment in a high-brow area, and my colleague has
just added the latest luxury car to his fleet of cars.
But, me; what have I got? Nothing spectacular.
I am alone in my own world, where I am constantly on the brink of achieving
my dream but never getting that big break.
What could be the problem with me? This question has become a terror to my
mind.
Failure and heartbreak are birds of a feather working hand in hand. When you
experience heartbreak, you feel you have failed. And when you fail at
something, you are heartbroken.
Even if you can boast that you have never experienced heartbreak before, you
can't boast about failure. It can't be trusted. Failure can still crush your soul
and make you want to keep the negative feelings trapped within you like a
shaken-up bottle of soda.
But don't buy into that idea. As tempting as it is to want to bottle up your
emotions, this isn’t the right thing to do. The pressure will gradually build
until you are unable to contain it. And then all you have hidden inside will
explode and affect your relationships and mental state.
We are all aware of how hard it can be to cheer our friends on when they are
succeeding, and everything we are trying to do keeps failing. You know you
should be happy for them, yet you cannot help but feel jealous as they keep
succeeding while you face setbacks.
I understand what you are going through. We have all experienced moments
when we had the feeling of happiness mixed with a bit of jealousy. Having
those feelings doesn't mean that we are bad; it means that we are human.
You are caught between responding to your feelings of being rejected and
responding to the news of your friends’ successes. Both situations make you
experience the emotional pain of being left behind. This emotional pain
appears as envy. And this envy just goes to show that you want something
that you don't have or something that others have. This feeling feels
unbearable.
The feelings of rejection and envy can make it difficult for you to give your
best to support other people, making it hard for you to be fully present when
they need your support the most. But understand that envying someone's
success is a normal part of life, which means you are human. Don't
completely see it as a bad emotion. You can get something good out of it.
There is a famous saying about making lemon juice out of the lemons life
throws at you. How about that? Don't you think it is possible to channel the
emotions you are getting from failing and the successes of others into
becoming successful yourself?
There is so much hidden within you that haven't been unleashed, and I will
show you how to unlock these hidden potentials. Once you do, your constant
failures will be a thing of the past, and you will master how to stop
procrastinating and make the best use of your time.
In this book, I will help you understand yourself and help you become the
best version of yourself. Your mind is powerful, and each chapter of this
book discusses a secret of mind power that you need to understand.
Having a full understanding of the secrets discussed in this book will help
you tap into your mind power and achieve extraordinary results in life.
Envy can be a barrier to your success. You might be thinking the enemy to
your success is external, but have you ever thought it could be within?
What if envy is the enemy to your success? It is within you. It can blindfold
you and prevent you from seeing all of your beautiful colors. So, we need to
talk about this.
Let us head over to discuss the first secret, envy, in detail and how to stop it
from ruining our chances of success.
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 CHAPTER 1:
Envy: The Enemy Within

Humans crave to belong and be accepted. We have an emotional need to feel

accepted by others; this need for connection and acceptance is part of our
DNA.
When this need to be accepted is threatened, which can happen when we face
rejection at work or are excluded from a time out with our peers, it can make
us feel alone. Our brain registers this emotional pain the same way it would
register physical pain.
Our bodies believe it is a threat and then naturally find ways to escape the
pain or fight it. And our bodies can do this by attributing the successes of
others to luck or withdrawing from associating with friends.
People may deal with pain through their feelings of envy or jealousy. So, you
shouldn’t allow the feelings of envy to make you ashamed. This is your
body’s way of letting you know that you are experiencing emotional pain.
And when you pay attention to this emotional state, it will help you
understand your desires and emotional needs, and you will discover new
ways to achieve your desires.

Here are steps to help you get started:

1. Know What Envy Is.
Understand that all envy is not bad. Some are actually healthy. I want to
distinguish between healthy envy and unhealthy envy. Healthy envy can also
be referred to as applauding envy, while unhealthy envy can be referred to as
resenting envy.
Resenting envy is when you believe that someone else shouldn’t have
something that you don't have. This reaction can erode our relationships as it
often makes us feel resentful toward our friends and also increases our
anxiety and stress. And it can make us start to believe someone else has to
fail at something before we can be successful at it.
Applauding envy is quite different from resenting envy. With this kind of
envy, you believe in abundance, and that other people don’t prevent you from
being successful. Applauding envy doesn’t mean that you aren't sad or
jealous. Instead, you can acknowledge conflicting emotions: You can be sad
when you fail at something and still be happy for your friend when they
succeed.
It may feel difficult, but you can go with the option of shifting your
perspective and using applauding envy in place of resenting envy.
2. Name Your Feelings.
If you want to shift your perspective, how do you do that? Start by first
giving names to your feelings. You free yourself so you can experience your
feelings of envy fully. Once you experience the feelings, you can then
process them.
When you are envious of someone, it can come with disappointment, anger,
regret, sadness, or embarrassment. So, you must be specific about your
feelings and name them. You should be able to feel those emotions without
judgment or shame whenever you experience them. Understand that emotions
are temporary and are not permanent. So, use your emotional experiences to
your advantage by finding out information about your hidden desires and
unspoken needs and then using the information you have gathered to decide
on the right actions to take.

Ask yourself these questions:

Am I having feelings that indicate I have lost something?
Am I isolating myself and missing the people, connections, or objects that I
lost?
Am I angry or frustrated about being mistreated, violated, or wronged?
Do I feel anxiety, fear, or worry and feel like I am in danger? Why do I feel
this way?
Is shame the cause of the feelings of disappointment, awkwardness, or
embarrassment I am feeling?
Once you can answer these questions honestly, you can then start having a
realistic assessment of your situation and feelings and start getting rid of your
negative self-talk.
For instance, instead of saying, “I have failed!” you can say something like,
“I am feeling sad about not getting the contract, and that is fine. It's okay to
feel this way.”
3. Practice Self-Reflection to Know What You Desire Most.
Once you know your emotions and label them, allow them to help you
explore the motivations behind them.
Think about what your failures and rejections mean to you. Think about the
thing you lost that made you hurt the most. Are you worried about not
making your family proud? Do you feel embarrassed when you are around
peers who appear to be more successful than you are? Do you envy your
colleague at work's opportunity to go out to have meetings with companies
and meet new people?
Although it might be tempting, it would benefit you more if you understood
what this loss means to you, as it would help you understand what is
important and matters most to you.
Write what you understand by rejection. Ensure that you are as honest and
specific as possible. Once you have done this, study your words and look out
for any patterns. Can you see any emotions showing up more than once?
What do you understand by this?
While you may not find this self-reflection easy, paying attention to your
feelings and working through them will help you know what really matters
most, and you will know the next step to take. For instance, you may be
jealous that your friend has the opportunity to learn things they never had the
opportunity to learn, more than the fact that a top school admitted them. You
can exercise your control over the former.
4. Take the Necessary Action.
Since you have identified what you need, you can now think about healthy
ways to get them. If you pursue something and don't get what you want, it
doesn't mean that there are no other creative ways in which you can meet
your needs.
If you have made it clear that you want to take a specific course because the
knowledge will contribute to growing your career and building your
professional network, think about what you can do to accomplish your dream
of studying that course and building a strong professional network.

You can try the following:

Pay a visit to the school you want to attend to understand more about the
admission process and the documentation you need. Find out if there is any
additional thing you need to do to help the admissions committee make its
decision.
Check out other schools that are similar when it comes to network and
reputation.
Attend conferences or join a group related to your field of study that will
create room for connecting with people in your field.
Follow the leaders or professors that you enjoy learning from on social
media. Sign up for the webinars they take part in.
Making this list will remind you that your future depends on your response to
the setback you believe you have and not on the perceived setback itself.
What matters is your reaction to the perceived setback. Understand that this
roadblock is only temporary, and you can look for new ways of handling the
situation.
5. Celebrate Your Friends.
If you work on understanding and processing your emotions, you will see that
your friends’ successes don’t mean you will experience setbacks. Of course,
you may find it difficult to understand this. But once you can move away
from this unhealthy envy that makes you resent other people's successes, it
will help you safeguard your relationships and celebrate your loved ones.
Remind yourself that if your friends are successful, it will also make you feel
positive emotions and motivate you to work on achieving your own goal.
Be inspired: Look at your friends' successes and let them inspire you to
believe that if they can make it, then you can make it in your own unique way
too. We can only look at how far we have come and appreciate the
speedbumps on the way to our destination when we are at the end of our
journey.
Learn from other people's experiences: Study the ideas and resources that
your friends have gained from attending different programs and learn from
them. In the same way, your friends can also learn some new things from you
as you explore new possibilities and make your decisions.
Make your relationship stronger: When you and your friend have made the
commitment to support each other no matter the circumstances, it can help to
build respect, support, and mutual trust. It will help you celebrate each other
even in times of no success.
When you are ready to converse with your friend, ensure that you have an
honest conversation and don't hide your feelings. You can say something like,
“I really desired to get admitted into this school too, so I’m disappointed at
the outcome at the moment. Still, I want to let you know that I'm happy you
got the admission, and I’m proud your hard work paid off. I will be available
if you need my help with anything.”
Ensure that you show up for your friends even when their situation is not
what you imagined it to be. Life is not always easy, and you will experience
setbacks along the way. But once you can practice the steps we have
discussed above, you will increase your emotional intelligence and become a
more courageous person. And this will make you enjoy a lifetime of
encouragement, compassion, and mutual support.

When Envy Turns into an Opportunity

The guy with a six-pack you see on Instagram who’s always posting about
his family's vacations and adventures. That guy who is living on your street
with the latest luxury ride. The parents of your child's classmates, who
always seem to have everything going perfectly well for them. The list is
endless.
No matter your accomplishments or how hard you work, Envy will make you
always find someone who seems to be better than you. You may be doing all
you can to eliminate envy, but this is almost impossible. You can use envy to
your advantage.
It's difficult to avoid envy because society applauds people who have more
accomplishments. This creates room for comparisons, and you find yourself
comparing your friend's high-paying job or your neighbor’s big house to
yours. And you will notice these things even if you don’t go out trying to
look for them because people seem to show off the shiny parts of their lives.
Parenthood is one avenue that creates envy. There is no fixed rule used for
finding out who is a good parent. So, people often use meaningless things
like parenting strategies or fancy kids’ stuff to decide which parent is good
enough.
Although envy is common, it doesn’t mean that it is always healthy. When
you focus on other people, it makes you ignore what you already have in your
life. Focusing on what that guy down the street has will make you miss
opportunities to improve and maybe get to that person's level or achieve those
things they have.
Also, you will find it challenging to be in a meaningful relationship with a
person that you are jealous of. There will be constant competition if both of
you are envious of each other, and the relationship will be inauthentic if the
person you are in the relationship with has no idea that you are envious of
them.
Fortunately, envy doesn’t have to affect your relationships and well-being as
long as you are open to shifting your perspective when you notice it. You can
use envy for your growth.

These strategies can help you put an end to comparison and use
envy to your advantage:
1. Redirect Your Thoughts.
One harmful thing about envy is that it steals one's focus away from what is
presently happening in their life, which could be an opportunity for one to
grow. If you suddenly discover that you are comparing yourself to another
person and getting jealous, you must stop and redirect your thoughts back to
yourself.
You will find it helpful when you acknowledge that your feelings aren't
always about the other person that you are jealous of. Rather, jealousy makes
us see what we desire to have. So, pay special attention to it and listen to it.
2. Ask Yourself What’s Deep Within.
When you focus on what someone else has, it is a sign that you have a part of
you that is begging for attention, whether it is an unachieved goal or a false
belief you have about yourself. Check yourself for what part of you is
bothered that your friend owns a luxury car. If you are honest with yourself,
you will agree that you secretly feel that person is great, and this makes you
think of yourself as less than them. Pay attention to this, and then use the
information to help yourself.
Envy can be connected to a big self-esteem issue where you attach your
identity to something that some other person has. Sometimes, jealousy can
make you study yourself and motivate you to do things that will make you
better.
For example, if someone is going on a family vacation and you notice that
you are feeling jealous, you may have a deep, unaddressed desire to go on a
family vacation with your family and have fun. If you notice that someone
else's job makes you envious of them, you may be unhappy in your own job,
so you should consider changing your job.
Also, if you decide to dig deep, you may discover a new opportunity for
growth in your envy.
3. Ask Yourself If Your Thoughts Are Valid.
Any emotion that is a cause of concern for you deserves to be doubted.
Identify the cause of your jealousy and study it in detail. Is your close
associate successful in business, and you are not? Can you find any real
evidence that the person is more valuable than you, or are you simply holding
on to information that holds no weight? After you study the situation and
discover that your reaction could be negative, you won’t find it hard to go
ahead with your life.
If someone else has something you don't have, ask yourself why it is a
problem for you. Your friend's wife may have a higher attention span than
your wife, but you would still find yourself unhappy if she doesn’t share the
same interests with you as your wife does. And if you see that you are still
jealous of your colleague's luxury ride, remind yourself that having a brand
new car may be exciting, but it might be difficult to have a high car payment.
4. Be Committed to Growth
Depending on what is causing your feelings of envy, move swiftly to act on
your feelings. To move past your jealousy, you must make up your mind to
do something about it. If you believe that insecurity is the cause of your
jealousy, you will find that self-validation can be useful. You may need
people to tell you that you’re worthwhile and lovable. When you are able to
recognize that, you will easily notice that what someone else possesses or
does just doesn't relate to you.
What if your jealousy comes because there is a desire you have and haven't
achieved yet? It doesn't matter whether your goals are linked to your work,
social life, or hobbies; take steps to achieve your goals. That way, as soon as
you start having feelings of envy, they won’t take over you. You can handle
the situation by reminding yourself that you are on track and working toward
accomplishing your dream, and another person's success doesn’t have to
make you feel bad, as it doesn't stop you from being successful.
Either way, when you create time to address your feelings, not minding how
uncomfortable they make you feel, it will help you grow. When we take
advantage of our feelings of jealousy to discover what we desire, we can use
the information to get a more appropriate version of what we desire for
ourselves.
We often make comparisons with other people at different times in our lives.
The world is a competitive one. We often measure our progress by looking at
the achievements of the people around us. And for people who have a high
desire to achieve something, they start making comparisons which motivate
them to set clear targets to help them succeed in their careers and life.
Although envy can motivate someone to do something challenging, it also
has the ability to sabotage the individual's chances of success. But constant
comparisons can make you live a life of constant sorrow. This is because
comparisons will make you envious of other people's accomplishments which
in turn makes you feel inferior.
5. Allow the envy; stop the shame.
If you want to escape feeling envious of others, you will find it almost
impossible to stop yourself from feeling this way. But the problem can be
exacerbated when you control the shame that envy often causes. If you want
to prevent acute envy from becoming a chronic problem, then you must be
open to accepting the discomfort but at the same time, not giving in to the
shame that accompanies it.
Studies show that we are often more envious of things before they happen
than after they happen and vice versa.
For instance, when you are told that your colleague will be promoted next
month to a position you have always desired, it makes you more envious than
when you simply think about promotions that are already in the past. And
envy can make you feel bad about your feelings, and it will be shameful and
even more painful.
Remind yourself that you may not be able to control envy, but you can
definitely choose whether to allow yourself to feel shameful about your
feelings of envy or not. And the sting will gradually disappear when you are
patient enough to allow yourself to feel envy about something or a situation
and prevent shame's negative impact from being prolonged.
6. Move from comparison and over to curiosity.
To prevent comparison from making you feel defeated, get conscious about
what triggered it and explore how it can teach you more about your future,
instead of wrongly assuming that a person's success takes away your chance
of being successful.
You may have lived on the same floor with different people with different
careers. They may just be a handful of successful people you had the
opportunity to know when you were younger before any of you even knew
the paths you would take in life.
So, when you pursue a different profession from those you have known from
childhood, you may fall into the comparison trap when you measure the
successes you have had compared to theirs. And you may be comparing
according to different criteria such as fame, fulfillment in life, financial
abundance, etc., just because you all have something in common from your
past. But it is limiting when another person's success makes you feel inferior.
Instead, you can shift from self-analysis over to curiosity.
When you become curious about why you perceive those people's
experiences to be more important than yours, you will discover that it was
because their stories were reflections of some of your interests and values.
So, reflect on your work and think about what those people's journeys could
help you learn about your career and life. When you think about everything,
you can start thinking about how you can bring your expertise to their worlds.
This will prevent you from being self-critical. You will learn how to think
about the things that make you make the comparisons. And instead of the
comparisons, you will get excited about your future career. We can
accomplish great things in unique and unpredictable ways. Effort, resilience,
persistence, and luck pay.
7. Move toward the people you envy, not away from them.
It is difficult to be happy for a person you envy because it can keep repeating
in your mind that the person is superior to you. And since our envy is more
intense when we have a closer relationship with someone or more similar
work to theirs, we often handle this situation by going away from them and
creating distance between us, rather than reaping the benefits of the
relationship.
One of my friends was a long-tenured VP in a company whose colleague was
recently hired and then promoted to become my friend's boss almost
immediately. My friend considered quitting the job and was always
comparing his position and career to that of the boss. This made my friend
always avoid engaging with his new boss.
On discussing further, we discovered my friend didn’t even want the SVP
position and agreed that his new boss would perform better on the job than he
would. His envy was only triggered by his belief that the Company's CEO
now considered him less competent than the SVP.
So, my friend didn’t envy her because he desired to achieve what she had
achieved. Instead, he was drawn to the attention and validation she received
from the CEO, who was a person of power and high status. After
understanding this, my friend made up his mind to draw closer to her rather
than move away from her, and he started sharing his thoughts and fears with
her.
She appreciated my friend's honesty and vulnerability and told him that she
respected his wisdom and experience on the job and wouldn't want to lose
him. She also added that they should both help each other to succeed in the
eyes of the company's CEO.
When you stop viewing people you work with as threats and start seeing
them as allies, you will find it beneficial for success. If you keep running
away from people that make you compare yourself to them, you may not get
the chance to learn that those people you consider threats might actually want
to help you.
When you allow your job to determine your self-worth, you will be
disappointed whenever you see someone achieving more than you have
achieved. You don't have to see your career as one job but as a portfolio of
investments. Treating your career like a portfolio of investments that would
keep evolving would increase your future value.
Everyone compares their careers and lives to others at one time or another.
However, when you follow these strategies, whenever you get stuck in the
comparison trap, you will eventually reduce your feeling of discomfort and
then successfully use envy to your advantage.

Patience to Calm Envy

Whenever we see others becoming successful, we often relate their successes
to some shortcuts. Envy overwhelms us, and we start doubting them. We find
it difficult to tolerate their success. And a hidden part of us wants to snatch
away their success so it can be ours.
Humans are complex beings, and this envy comes naturally to everyone. But
some people have mastered how to get rid of the negative feelings. And they
have discovered that envying others does them no good but only worsens the
situation and makes them unproductive.
Psychologists have said that envying others ruins people both physically and
psychologically because it creates negative feelings such as anger, hate, and
enmity, and it also makes you feel so little.
But suppose you pay attention to what is going on and remove the curtains of
jealousy blocking your eyes. In that case, you will discover that these people
have been working on what made them successful for a long time, and they
didn't just become successful overnight without going on a long and painful
journey.
When you start seeing other people this way, it will make you appreciate and
respect them more.
But the issue lies in how to stop envying other people and focus on your
work. Envy comes naturally, but it is personal when you don't get out of it.
Humans express a variety of feelings, such as envy, patience, love, anger,
jealousy, hate, and fear. Many other feelings exist, but we may not be able to
name them. Certain situations and events are responsible for stirring these
feelings and emotions. But these feelings don't have to overwhelm you. If
you can nurture patience, it can be controlled just like all other feelings.
Mastering your patience makes it possible for you to look at things from
different perspectives. When you are able to do this, the other emotions won't
blind you. Emotions are powerful when they first overwhelm you, but after
they have lasted for a few minutes, a person can use reasons and patience to
dispel its charm.
Patience creates an opportunity for an individual to think and reason properly
before taking any action. This will help you understand how other people
have achieved the success you desire because you will know what they went
through to become successful. You will know their struggles and pains and
the challenges they dealt with to get there. This realization makes you step
out of the circle of those envying others for their successes and takes you into
a circle of those who admire and appreciate people for their successes.
Positive emotions such as admiration and appreciation inspire you to work
hard like those people you admire and appreciate, and the emotions help you
stay committed to achieving your goal. The emotions help you believe that
you can also achieve what others have achieved. And you get rid of
distractions and start doing your work with more focus. It forces you to think
about the areas you are not meeting up to expectations, and you will be able
to see why you are lagging.
You want to get certain results but aren’t getting them, right? These positive
emotions will make you see why you aren't achieving the kind of results you
desire.
Definition of Success
You can turn envy into positive envy. And this can bring you success.
Envy has the power to switch things up and serve as motivation for you to do
your work. If you have learned to have this kind of envy, then don't stop it.
Don't stop; because this kind is positive and can bring out the greatness in
you. But if the envy you have is the kind that overwhelms you and blinds you
and then makes you suspend your will to perform better and be productive,
then stay away from it.
It is negative envy and leaves you with nothing good but miseries after it saps
your energy. We all have different destinies, and success is highly subjective.
It isn't actually something objective for everyone.
Some people may consider themselves successful when they pass their
graduation exams or get married and build a home. Some others may feel
successful in landing the desired job or making more money.
For others, their definition of success may be finding a loved one and having
a relationship or helping the needy. Even painting a masterpiece or writing a
great poem or piece of article can be a success for some.
Success for someone depends on what they think it is. So, ask yourself
questions and find out what your definition of success is. If you think that
only being wealthy is successful or that earning a college degree is all that
success is about, think again. Finding someone to love and building a
beautiful relationship is also not what success means.
While you may consider waking up at 5 am your definition of success, losing
weight and fitting into your dream clothes or running 10 miles may be a
success for someone else.
Just like life experiences are not the same for everyone, success is different
for everyone. It isn’t the same. Money or a good life isn't used to determine
success. Something you term success may not be success to someone else,
and vice versa.
If you are more beautiful than someone else, it doesn't mean you are more
successful than the person. And if you are wealthier than someone, it doesn't
also mean you are more successful. You may have children and other
possessions that someone else doesn't have, and they would do anything to
have what you have. Understand that there is always something you have that
someone else doesn't have and that they would be ready to make sacrifices to
have what you already have.

Comparing the Right Way

Comparison can be good when it is done by comparing wholly and not
partially. If you can make comparisons by comparing the whole of your life
and not only some parts, you will see how blessed and wealthy you are.
You may be experiencing delays because it is not yet time for you to achieve
what you desire. Everyone has their own time; yours will surely come, and
you will receive your desires.
When you are fully prepared for your wish, it will come to you. Everyone
who has achieved something deserves it. If you doubt this, look past the
glamour, and you will discover the hard work, sweat, pain, consistency, and
patience they put in to achieve their desire.
When you see how they got to where they are, you will leave your envy
behind, and your resentment will be a thing of the past. Your resentment will
become admiration and appreciation.
Positive results will start coming to you, and you will start achieving more
results over time. But you must understand that anything valuable requires
time, commitment, effort, persistency, and patience.
The most important thing is to believe in yourself and your dreams. Do what
you have to do and wait till your time comes. Don't get tired of waiting and
start rushing yourself into making mistakes. Great things may take time, but
once it is your time, you will achieve your desires.
So, make a full comparison whenever you are comparing your life with
others. Don't go comparing certain areas of your life with that of others. Open
your eyes and see clearly. And you will notice that they don't have or have no
means of ever having what you already have.
You may see that your neighbor is richer than you, but have you even noticed
that you are prettier than her? She might even be doing everything possible to
be as pretty as you, and you may not even notice it. Now, if your neighbor
decides to spend all her money on making herself as pretty as you, she may
never be able to achieve that goal. And women can spend lots of money on
their outfits and make-up to be beautiful at all costs.
Maybe you don't really know who you are. You may be like an elephant. But
your success will not show forth immediately. It may take time before it
comes, and then people will start looking at you with admiration.
Understand that feelings of envy and resentment over people's achievements
come naturally to us. Everyone experiences this. But it can overwhelm us if
we are ungrateful, intellectually blind, and short-sighted.
You may get attracted to some people when you see their successes and be
inspired and motivated to work harder, while you may feel negative and
jealous of others who are successful.
If you are unable to get out, then it's your problem of not being able to control
your thoughts. But you can get out of it. Learn to control your negative
emotions, or it will make you lose what you deserve or what is already yours.
People may become successful due to their hard work or deserving nature, so
you will only be putting your health, job, and life in danger if you keep
envying them for one flashy area of their life. They may be living an unhappy
life. Because even with the success you are seeing them achieve, they may be
living in hell.
So, you need to be patient and have self-control if you want to get rid of your
feelings of envy and be productive.
Remind yourself of your blessings and know that not everybody has it all
together. Your time to succeed will come, so see yourself in a positive light
as you work towards your goal and wait for your time to come.
And most importantly, never give up even if you fail many times. Develop
this mindset, and you will have a productive and happy life.
 CHAPTER 2:
Understanding the Mind

Are you living your dream life? Or have you accepted the status quo? If you
are working on a dream and feel stuck, it's not too late to achieve it and reach
your full potential.
You need to reprogram your mind. It will help you become determined and
focused until you have a life filled with passion, fulfillment, and joy.
Many people are not completely sure of what they think they deserve. When
our life moves away from the direction we want to go and moves to another
path, it makes us sad and frustrated. Then we start wondering why that is
happening to us. Discontent has the power to make us change.
But you must understand that our subconscious mind is capable of working
against us. Many times, we end up sabotaging any chance at success by
allowing our sadness and frustration to work against us. We start thinking
about deserving better, and those thoughts may make us work harder for
some time.
But rather than doing things that will make us have lasting change, we fall
back to where we think we should be in our relationships, health, finances,
careers, and general well-being.
What if you want to make your life a masterpiece? It’s possible. You just
need to reprogram your mind.
Do you know that your subconscious mind holds the key to your success?
You can even work on it to achieve the life you desire. If you want to do this,
you must make up your mind to be committed to reprogramming it.
What we want to do isn't what makes a difference in the world; what makes a
difference is what we actually do. By taking charge of your mind right now,
you can create a better future for yourself.
The mind is undeniably powerful. And cultivating a deep belief in yourself
requires you to know how to program your subconscious mind.

How the Subconscious Mind Works

Our subconscious mind makes decisions without our needing to put much
thought into it. This part of our mind is different from the conscious mind as
the conscious mind is made up of the thoughts we are conscious of at any
particular moment. Our subconscious mind stores events and experiences
from our past that we have forgotten.
For example, learning and practicing to play an instrument can demonstrate
how our subconscious mind works. When you are starting out, you first focus
on translating the sheet music and gradually playing each note with your
fingers. But as you practice and get better, you start moving your fingers
faster, and then you can play any song.
The subconscious mind isn't just useful for learning new skills. It affects all
of our thoughts, words, and actions, and it helps in processing information. It
is a storage house for our values and beliefs. It is in charge of our memories,
and it monitors everything happening around us in order to decide the
information to send to our conscious mind and the information to store for
later. Most of us don't know the importance of the subconscious mind, which
affects us and everything happening in our lives.
So, how long can it take if an individual wants to reprogram their
subconscious mind?
It can take about three to four weeks or more than that. The exact time will
depend on your limiting beliefs and the length of time the behavior you want
to give up has stayed with you.

Mindset Shift
To achieve success, you need to reprogram your mind using the steps
discussed below.

These steps will shift your mindset and help you stay focused in
the right direction:
Know What You Want
It is important that you have a clear understanding of what you want. This is
the first thing you must do. Overthinking shouldn't be an option here. Keep
your focus on the goals you want to achieve. What are your desires? Can you
imagine the extraordinary life you want to have? What does it look like? You
need to have clarity because it is power. As you think more about this, you
will have more details about it, and your vision will become more powerful.
This makes your subconscious mind have a map of your destination, which
provides your brain with the tools it needs to make your vision a reality.
Do you wish to reprogram your mind? Consider a scenario where you are
arguing with your partner. What happens? Don't you often lose track of what
you're arguing about and put all your energy into being heard during the
heated argument? You focus on having the last word and winning the
argument you are making. Your partner suddenly becomes the enemy at that
time, your tone changes, and you are not gentle while talking to them. When
you start treating them like an enemy, the argument can easily escalate, and
things can worsen.
To handle this, you must stop for a moment and ask yourself why you are
arguing with your partner. You don't intend to fight with them but to reach a
resolution. You only disagree to agree on a solution.
When you allow the desire to win the argument to distract you, you lose track
of the problem you are arguing about and want to solve. Once you remind
yourself of this, you can redirect your focus and take it back to solving the
problem at hand and using your brain's resources to produce a positive
outcome.
To reprogram your mind, you must first decide what you want to achieve
now and in the future. After deciding, you can then focus on it to give your
brain the direction to follow.
Where your mind is focused on will determine where your energy flows to.
What desires do you have personally and career-wise? What are your
physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial goals?
Decide that you will focus on positivity and your goals, and then start
reprogramming your brain.
Become Committed to your Purpose
Once you are sure about what you want, the next thing to do is commit.
Remove all traces of self-doubts and fear. And you can do this by committing
to your purpose and allowing it to be your driving force.
Fear is powerful. It prevents people from taking the necessary actions to
achieve their goals in life. Everyone has fears. It could be fear of failure or
fear of success, but if you don't do anything about it, it will stay where it is
and continue standing in your path. You will continue living in fear, and you
will still remain where you are and not move. You might say you are not
doing any worse, but living in fear means that you also won’t do better. And
you will always have that fear in the back of your mind, keeping you further
away from your goals.
When you don't take any action, it creates an opportunity for negativity to
affect your thoughts. You would start saying things like, “I wouldn't have
made it even if I tried. I made the best decision by not trying.” When these
negative thoughts are allowed to stay in your subconscious mind, they will
spread and affect everything you believe about yourself and all you do.
Facing your fear head-on is the best way to handle your fear and reprogram
your mind. Go ahead and do what is needed, even though you are afraid.
Failure is meant to educate you. Failing at something will help you
understand that you should take a better approach the next time you try to do
it. You are not where you started from. You are actually better off than
before.
When you reprogram your brain, you will change “I can't” to “I can.” For
instance, a person trying to work out at the gym to build their muscles. The
process will be difficult for them when they are starting out. But if they take
little steps and work out every day, they will become stronger. The same goes
for a person trying to reprogram their mind. If you can start small and stick to
this every day, it will start coming effortlessly to you and become a habit.
Be committed to having a better life and overcoming all of your negativities.
By committing fully, you are lifting yourself to a higher level and placing
more demands on yourself. And that is you utilizing the power of the
subconscious mind.
Focus on Resolve
After deciding on the path you want to take, and have made a full
commitment to it, take an inventory of the situation at hand. What are you
getting from the actions you are currently taking? Get to know what is
working, find out what is not working, and then make the necessary shifts.
Resolve involves finding solutions for the situations that you may encounter.
An important aspect of finding resolve as well as reprogramming your brain
is flexibility. Tunnel vision limits you, and you will lose opportunities that
could have brought you great benefits. Understand that you don't have 100%
control, so you must remain flexible.
Put more thoughts into this. Are you living a life that is going according to
the way you planned it to be? Your life probably isn't going according to
plan. This is what makes it important to stay flexible, embrace your mistakes
and failures and learn from them. You must do this because the path you are
taking is never straight. Take advantage of your negativity to make changes.
Just ensure that you are progressing as you do this, and everything will be
okay.
By reprograming your mind and making it focused on resolving, you develop
the ability to change your approach to problems as required. Not all
circumstances and obstacles are the same. Every circumstance is unique with
its own challenges, and you can face the challenges head-on. True power lies
in you, and when you reprogram your brain, you become successful. When
you become frustrated with what you are working on, it is actually a gift
because it shows that you are on the verge of experiencing a breakthrough.
Failure counsels you on what to do to improve and become better. And your
roadblocks serve as opportunities for you to find new solutions to the
problem. That is what you get when your mind is dedicated to resolving.
What Can You Do to Reprogram Your Mind?
Adopting positive habits will help you reprogram your mind when you are in
a determined state.

Here is how to reprogram your mind:

1. Replace Limiting Beliefs with Empowering Beliefs
Limiting beliefs prevent us from achieving our goals. These beliefs can come
from past experiences, negative events, or having a flawed vision of what our
future will look like. You can replace your limiting beliefs with empowering
beliefs that will support your desires. For example, you can replace, "I grew
up in a broken family, so I am not destined to have a happy relationship" with
"I deserve to have a happy and healthy relationship. Changing your self-talk
and becoming more positive will help you change your world.
2. Accept the Beauty in Uncertainty
We can't control everything we experience in life. We can only control our
responses to situations. We have the power to shape our lives, and we can use
it to reprogram our minds. There is beauty in uncertainty, so let go of the
desire for certainty and accept the beauty in uncertainty. We will enjoy our
journey more when we relax and choose to trust and give without expecting
to receive anything in return.
3. Be Grateful
When you appreciate the little things in your life and choose to be grateful for
them rather than being critical and full of fear, you allow the light of
positivity to flow into your life. Your brain then starts noticing and paying
more attention to what you have and less attention to what you don't have. It
also makes you pay attention to the events happening in your life, and it
makes you ready to embrace change because you know that life is full of
changes and never remains the same.
4. Minimize the Negativities in Your Environment
To reprogram your mind, you must minimize the negativities in your
environment. Your subconscious mind absorbs information from your
external environment and then shapes your thoughts and behavior with the
absorbed information. We often absorb negative energy from toxic people
around us, social media, and daily news. And all these negativities from these
sources can have a negative impact on our subconscious minds without us
even noticing what is going on.
Proximity is power, so it is important that we remember that as we work on
reprograming our minds. Don't surround yourself with negative people, but
with people who are supportive and full of positive energy. Spend time on
resources that empower you and uplift your spirit. With time, you will see
that the negativities have reduced, and you have made your subconscious
mind more positive.
5. Use Visualization to Reprogram Your Mind
You can use visualization to reprogram your mind. When you continue
picturing in your mind what you want to achieve in the near future, you can
program your mind to actually achieve what you see in your imagination.
How do you want your day to go? What does your perfect day look like?
How do you want the presentation you have to make to a client to go? What
do you want from your first date with the person you like? Pick a desire you
have and want to make a reality and practice visualizing it as if you already
have it. Do this every day for about 10 to 15 minutes, and your subconscious
mind will start absorbing the feelings the images carry as if they have already
happened. Your confidence will increase, and you will be able to pursue the
dream and bring it to reality.
6. Use Binaural Beats to Biohack Your Subconscious Mind
Biohacking is when you use technology and experimentation to create an
improvement in your health and wellness. Biohacking can involve
supercharging your health with supplements, causing weight loss with
intermittent fasting, or making health better with red light therapy.
Music is powerful, and you can use it to reprogram your mind. Different
types of music have different ways that our brainwaves respond to them. And
we can use the right beats to induce the type of feelings we want.
Binaural beats involve inducing states of mind by playing two tones and
playing them at different frequencies. Research has shown that an individual's
subconscious mind has a higher rate of absorbing information when the
person is relaxed. So, binaural beats are capable of triggering alpha
brainwaves.

Are Your Efforts Productive?

Although subconscious mind programming is a tricky process, here is how
you can determine if your efforts are actually being successful.
When your self-awareness starts increasing, you are actually making progress
in your subconscious mind programming efforts. You can't reprogram your
subconscious mind without becoming aware of it. When you start controlling
your emotions better and stopping negative self-talk, you are becoming more
self-aware. Also, when you start shifting your focus when you want to, you
are becoming more self-aware.
When you reprogram your mind, your confidence will increase, and you will
come out of your comfort zone and start taking more risks. We all tolerate
risks differently, but limiting beliefs will make you afraid of taking risks to
the extent that you won't take any risks at all.
You will start attracting positivity. Since we gravitate towards what we
consistently think about, more positive things will come into your life when
you reprogram your mind to have more positive thoughts.
It is important that you first know how the mind works if you want to
understand the power it possesses. There are two levels in which the mind
works; the conscious and the subconscious. While your subconscious mind
houses your emotions, which is your creative mind, your conscious mind
works based on your thoughts. Your habitual thoughts sink into your
subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn't differentiate between
good and bad ideas. The law doesn't select; it is sensitive to what you think.
When someone uses the law in a negative manner, they are faced with
frustration, failure, and sadness. However, when you have more positive
thoughts, you enjoy good health, success, and abundance.
The subconscious mind will embrace and bring the things you claim mentally
into your reality. This will happen when your subconscious mind believes the
idea or thoughts being conveyed to it. So, you need to convince it to believe.

How the Subconscious Mind Controls the Body

The subconscious mind works tirelessly, controlling all the body's vital
functions. It doesn’t stop working even at night when you have gone to bed.
For example, your heart continues working, and you continue inhaling and
exhaling just as you do when you are awake. You don't stop breathing
because you are sleeping, and your heart doesn't stop too. However, through
fear, depression, anxiety, and worry, the conscious mind can interfere with
the heart rate, intestine, stomach, and lungs. These thoughts, which have
repetitive patterns interfere with the subconscious mind's harmonious
functioning.
Whatever thoughts are conveyed to the subconscious mind, impressions are
formed in the brain cells. After embracing an idea, the subconscious mind
starts to put it into effect immediately. Therefore, when you give the
subconscious mind commands and speak to it, you can get the functions of
the body to start working normally again.

Here are ways in which you can make the subconscious mind
work:
1. Visualization
If you want to formulate an idea, the fastest way to do it is to have clear
pictures of it in your mind's eye. These mental pictures are as real as your
physical body. You do this by creating images of what you desire, and they
should pass a strong positive message. For example, creating mental pictures
of yourself in good health and abundance rather than imagining yourself
being sick and struggling financially will help you become financially stable
and give you good health.
2. Positive Affirmations
Affirmations are statements that you continuously say to yourself, either
quietly or loudly. You can create positive results in your life using
affirmations. This technique is effective when you need to reprogram your
mind with positivity. With affirmations, you become conscious of your
thoughts and choose your words. Research shows that affirmations affect the
part of the brain which lets us know what we should and shouldn't pay
attention to.

Here are some affirmations for health:

All the cells in my body are health conscious.
My body is getting more energetic.
I have a healthy body, mind, and spirit.
I eat only healthy meals and do regular exercise.
My body and mind are perfectly in unison.
3. Setting of Goals
You give your efforts a direction when you set goals of what you want to
achieve. What health or career goals do you want to achieve within a certain
period? Make your decision about that. Your goals should be SMART.
It Should Be Specific – Ensure that the goal is clear and you are specific
about it. For example, you want to learn how to drive so that you can be
driving the kids to school.
It Should Be Measurable – Ensure that the goal is something you can
measure after a certain period. For example, you want to exercise your body
for 30 minutes every day for 3 months.
It Should Be Attainable – Set a goal that you can attain and isn't out of
your reach.
It Should Be Relevant – The goal you set should be relevant to your
physical condition at the moment.
It Should Have a Time Limit – Ensure that your goal has a time limit.
This is important. The goal can be short-term or long-term. For example:
“You want to start exercising to lose weight so that you can participate in the
modeling competition coming up after one year.

Working in Unison with the Universe

Mind power is powerful. You will find it useful in your life if you can utilize
the powers. When you combine this power with your imagination, you will
enjoy opportunities, success, and happiness. But if you imagine the wrong
things and combine those wrong things with this power, it can create
obstacles, failure, and unhappiness. The outcome of this will depend on the
mindset you have.
Your thoughts are in charge of all that happens in your life. They have the
ability to create your reality when you combine them with emotions and
focus. However, every thought is not equal because the ones that just come
and go once in a while don't have much power. It is your predominant
thoughts that shape your reality because they are the ones that influence your
attitude and actions.
Powerful thoughts have the ability to create great changes in your life, while
weak thoughts won't do much. Your thoughts are an important part of your
life. Your thoughts, mental images, and attention make up your mind power.
Thoughts are invisible energy that can affect your reality. They are just like
the wind that is powerful despite being invisible.
Thoughts have creative power. They play on your mind just like a video
plays on a TV screen. The images you play on your mind screen determine
what you experience in your life. Since this is the case, you have to change
the video you play to something you like if you want to experience a
corresponding change in your life. You can pay attention to your thoughts
and work on them to give them strength. Once you can use it to make the
desired changes you want to see in your life, you can also use it to influence
other people's lives.
Once a person plants seeds, they water them. The person also puts fertilizers
to help the seeds grow into healthy plants. Our thoughts are similar to seeds.
They have the ability to become powerful and manifest in our lives if we give
them attention and the opportunity to grow. Using your mind power for
creative visualization will bring the desired changes in your life.
Your thoughts are made powerful by your attention, enthusiasm, and interest.
If you don't give a specific thought any attention, it will not become
powerful. Your thoughts sink into your subconscious mind. Your
subconscious mind then makes you act according to your thoughts. Your
thoughts can also influence other people when it passes into their minds.
When you start working on your dreams and stay focused on them, people
who will help you achieve that dream will start coming into your life. You
will attract into your life those that can help you get to where you want to go.
We know that powerful thoughts can affect other people in our lives just as
they can affect us, so be careful with your thoughts.
Your life is a direct result of your thoughts. You might find it strange, but it
is true. If you take time to analyze your thoughts and see your life's direction,
you will understand that there is a relationship between your thoughts and
your reality.
Your mind's power is part of the Universe's creative power. This makes your
thoughts work in unison with the Universe.
As you keep having the same thoughts over and over again, the mind power
brings them to life. Have you ever daydreamed? This is you using your
thoughts to paint mental images.
Using Your Thought Power
Imagine whatever you desire. Paint a perfect scene of it in your mind. Ensure
that you make it detailed and colorful. Also, hear the sound, perceive it, and
put life into the scenes. Practice this visualization often and believe it will
come true in your heart. As you continue visualizing the scenes, your
subconscious mind will start believing that the scenes are actually real
because your subconscious mind can't distinguish between real experiences
and the ones imagined. So, it takes the visualizations to be real. It will then
go on to bring the right opportunities your way to bring the mental images
into your reality.
When you constantly visualize certain situations, you will eventually
manifest those situations naturally. Understand that the manifestations don't
just happen so fast; it takes time and depends on the amount of determination
and focus you put into getting what you are thinking about. It also depends on
how much time you spend visualizing what you want. You can turn negative
habits into positive ones through the use of visualization. You can also use
visualization to change your circumstances and attract good health,
abundance, promotion, successful business, and healthy relationships.

To make visualization work, you must do the following:

Be aware of your thoughts.
Replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
Allow only good and positive thoughts into your mind.
We have said that our thoughts become our reality. So, you must be careful
about the thoughts you allow into your mind and the effect they have on your
actions and life. Put your energy and focus into your dreams and goals. Give
your thoughts attention because they control your life and decide whether you
will become successful or fail. Your imagination and thoughts determine the
people and events you attract into your life.
Once you learn how to control this mental force, you will be able to use it
well and make it produce the good things you want in your life. You can start
working on accomplishing your goal by paying attention to what you desire
and visualizing it.
Understanding the Higher Mind
Your superconscious mind is who you really are. It is your true self. When
you are at this higher level, you discover the truth about your true self. Most
people don't often access their superconscious mind power because it is out
of the physical, mental, and emotional planes we are used to. The higher
mind has always been in existence, and it exists beyond your physical self.
Your physical world is subject to your spiritual world and superconscious
mind. Your superconscious mind is superior and knows all. This
superconscious mind is above and has the highest level of self-awareness. It
is superior to both the subconscious mind and conscious mind and the
individual himself.
What you see as reality is only an illusion. This means that your
circumstances are simply a product of your beliefs and a projection of your
internal world. You are looking for your true self. However, there is no need
to keep looking because you are your higher self. And you have always been
that.
Being your true self, you are not disturbed by your perceived joy and pain,
your successes and failures, and your light and your dark when you observe
them. When you are at this awareness level, you become aware that all of
reality is just a dream, and reality can change when you change your
consciousness because everything is taking place right within your
consciousness. And you can't question this.

Who is in Charge?
The Universe is Mental. And the One Universal Mind must be present
everywhere since it is absolute. This means that your mind can be said to also
be the One Mind. This goes to show that you shouldn't be looking for your
superconscious mind outside of yourself. It isn't something you need to
acquire. You just need to become consciously aware of it. When you become
consciously aware of it, remember your true self by increasing your degree of
consciousness to its level. Everything is an illusion. You are a projection of
consciousness.
Most people can't remember who they truly are while present in the physical
world, and they have never considered the superconscious mind's existence.
Moreover, many people operate in a state where they allow all the messages
being bombarded with to move to their subconscious mind to be
programmed, thereby giving the subconscious mind full control over their
lives. And in this state, the subconscious mind is running a set of programs in
the ignorance of their higher mind, which is all-powerful.
If you are this person, then the beliefs and programs you adopted mostly
when you were a child are running your life. You must direct your mind
because if you are not doing so, your position is just like that of the tree that
is completely subject to the Universal Laws' unconscious operations. It is just
like the man who knows how to read but does not read and therefore has no
advantage over the man who is illiterate.
If you want to change the subconscious programs in charge of your life, you
must pay attention to your personal self and study it with its personality. And
you must do this from the Observer's higher vantage point. When studying
yourself, do it as if you are studying an actor's role from the outside. This will
make you stop identifying with your personality and help you change the
chain of command to the superconscious mind from the subconscious mind.
So, make the decision now to have your self-aware, conscious mind be the
guard at your subconscious mind's door.
Make the decision that you will allow only positive messages to pass into
your subconscious mind. Become the Observer and single director of your
life by consciously making up your mind to take charge of your life and
choose your mental diet wisely by making positive affirmations and declaring
only what is best for you and other people.
You will discover when you get to the level of the higher mind that the self-
conscious mind's false ego is only an illusion. And you have unconsciously
agreed to play this role in the 3D world. This role is just like an actor's role in
a play. By letting go of your personal self's false ego, you will start
identifying with the mighty I existing within. This is the Real Ego.
Make the decision to take back control of your life. Let go of any attachment
to this 3D world and rise to the superconscious mind's level. I am not saying
you have to leave the 3D world. That is not what this means. It means you
have to become the master of your mind and not allow yourself to become
the puppet of circumstance.
As your higher self, you are experiencing something like a dream. Right
within your consciousness is where the 3D world is taking place. Although
you are having a dream-like experience in this world, you are still in this
world and not out of it. You have to always remember who you are and know
that the power to make the experience joyful for yourself and others lies with
you. The choice is yours to make.
The power to change every aspect of your experience and the circumstances
in your life without forcing it lies in your hands. You just need to utilize your
thought power.
Thought power is the key to creating your reality. All that you perceive and
experience in the physical world comes from the invisible world.
Circumstances happening in your outer world originates from the inner world
of your thoughts. If you must take charge of your destiny, you must learn to
take charge of your most dominant thoughts and direct them positively.
When you can do this, you will start attracting your desires into your life as
you become aware that your thoughts are the seeds responsible for the reality
you experience. We can simply say that thought power is the power you have
within which creates your reality.

Thoughts, Mental State, and Mental Diet

Everything that happens in your internal world starts with a thought. Your
feelings and beliefs all begin as a thought. They are not independent of your
thoughts. A belief is formed when you consciously or unconsciously pass a
certain thought to your subconscious mind continuously until it becomes part
of your core beliefs. Even when it is a single thought-reaction to something
that happened outside, it is capable of creating a permanent belief.
The beliefs that you have justified the way you think. And the same goes for
your feelings. The thoughts you have about a particular event, whether the
event is imagined or real, create corresponding feelings. And those feelings
that the thoughts have given rise to then affirm your thoughts concerning the
event.
Your mental diet determines your mental state. The food we eat determines
the state our body is in. In the same way, the mental food we consume, which
is our thoughts, determines the state of our internal world. When we say
thought power, thinking isn't only about what you are thinking; it includes all
your mental activities—your feelings, imaginations, assumptions, and beliefs
are your mind's thinking activities. And they come together to determine your
mental frequency and direct your thought power in their respective directions.
Everything that happens in your physical world has a cause, which originates
from your mental world. This is what thought power is about. In other words,
your life's circumstances are caused by your thoughts or mental state.
Circumstances reveal what a man already is. The circumstances don't make
him. Your life, ranging from your finances to health to your relationships,
reveals your beliefs, imaginations, and feelings in each area.
Most people have the wrong belief that their circumstances are responsible
for their thoughts, but it is actually the other way round. Your thoughts are
responsible for creating your circumstances, whether the circumstances are
what you want or not. When you understand the truth that your thoughts are
responsible for creating your reality, you will start seeing the changes you
want to see in your life. The creation of reality is an inside job. And it is your
thought power that fuels it.

Your Mind and the Universal Mind

The One Universal Mind exists everywhere at the same time. It is all-
powerful, all creative, and all-knowing. And your mind is one with this
Universal Mind. Since your mind is one with the Universal Mind and your
thoughts come from your mind, then it means that the power of your thoughts
is also limitless.
Once you have the understanding that your mind and the Universal Mind are
one, and you are aware that the power exists within you and that you are the
power, then it means you have discovered the only true source of limitless
power, and you can achieve anything with this power. To access the source of
all power, you must look inwards because that is where it begins and ends.
You will find that all the power you can harness has its source within you.

Mental Frequency
Science has made us understand that everything that exists is energy like the
greatest teachers and mystics told us a long time ago. Our thoughts are
energy, and we are part of the Universe. We can't see our thoughts with our
physical eyes, but that doesn't mean that they are not alive. They are alive
with energy.
According to the Law of Attraction, like energy attracts like energy. This
means that you attract to yourself circumstances that are vibrating in harmony
with your dominant mental frequency. So, what frequency are you vibrating
on? Your beliefs, dominant thoughts, and dominant mental attitude are what
determine this. To get an understanding of your mental frequency or the
nature of your thoughts, just take a look around you.

Unequal Thoughts
The power of any thought is determined by the persistence in which you have
that particular thought and your conviction about it. If you have strong
feelings backing a particular thought and you believe it is true, it will have a
greater power to draw to you the circumstance that corresponds with that
thought.
This is the reason the thoughts you have that are just one-off thoughts don't
possess the same creative power as your most dominant thoughts and beliefs
that you already perceive to be true. Your thought power is never dormant. It
is always active, so think more about what you wish to have as if you already
have it, even if it is for a short period of time every day. Don't entertain
unwanted thoughts.
Negative thoughts that you have reduce the power of your positive thoughts
and vice versa. This doesn't mean that both positive and negative thoughts
have equal power. The negative thought's power is lesser than the positive
thought's power, meaning we will require more negative to be able to cancel
out the positive. But even then, positive thoughts won't be useful to you if
you keep following them up with constant negative thoughts or if you don't
think the positive ones.
You have a variety of factors influencing your life since your reality is made
up of your thoughts and belief system. This may make it hard for you to
directly connect the dots between the thought, which is the cause, and the
circumstance, which is the effect, but the causation is present. The cause is
always your thought’s creative power.
Your subconscious mind houses your mental programs and deep-seated
beliefs. So, you must reprogram your subconscious mind if you want to
change the present circumstances that you find unpleasant and attract into
your life your desires. You can use practical techniques such as revision of
your past, positive affirmations, visualization, perception changing,
autosuggestions, and so on to reprogram your subconscious mind. The most
powerful technique for utilizing your thought power is to know your true self,
who is one with the all-powerful Universal Mind.

Taking Control of Your Thoughts

You become more aware of your thoughts when you focus your attention on
them. Having this in mind, you can ask yourself at different times during the
day: "What thoughts are on my mind?" "What feelings am I having?" "What
are my assumptions?" This information will help you better understand your
subconscious mind instead of being confused by how it works and the events
happening in your environment. If you discover that your thoughts and
feelings are leading you in an unwanted direction, then change them so that
they can lead you to the direction you want to go. True thought power is
when you take control of your thoughts.
When you are having negative thoughts, you can neutralize the power of the
thoughts by replacing them with opposite and positive thoughts, which are
equivalent to the thoughts on your mind. Don't panic while replacing the
thoughts. Just do it calmly.
For instance, if you start having thoughts like, "I am going to fail, I will never
be successful," "I don't deserve to be happy," replace those negative thoughts
with "I will be successful," "I deserve to be happy," "Money flows to me
easily," and "It is awesome that success comes easily to me."
Even if you don't have negative thoughts on your mind that you are trying to
replace with positive thoughts, you can still make use of affirmations like
these throughout the day.
You can use the cancel, cancel technique whenever you find yourself having
negative thoughts. It is a useful tool for getting rid of negative thoughts by
mentally instructing yourself with the cancel, cancel, and then saying positive
affirmations or thinking positive thoughts immediately after that. Don't
continue thinking about the negative thoughts; you have neutralized them
with the cancel, cancel technique. This will help to minimize your negative
thoughts. And as they keep reducing, you will have a more deliberate and
sharpened thought power.

Collective Consciousness
Most people live with only little self-awareness. The numerous events
happening in one's society, the daily news they watch on television, and other
factors affect their subconscious thoughts. If you don't have self-awareness,
your subconscious mind will not be guarded against unwanted events. And
when this is the case, you will also be affected by the countless possibilities
that can befall anyone out there in your community. This means that it isn't
the choices you make consciously that are deciding the direction that your
thought power is exerted, but the collective consciousness.
This means that an individual can be met with a tragedy or accident by mere
possibility. The person doesn't attract the accident or tragedy into their life
through their beliefs or direct thoughts. And it can even get worse if the
individual doesn't have positive beliefs that they can use to counter more
unwanted events that may be on the verge of happening. Your subconscious
mind will create random events if it is programmed at random. Your
unguarded subconscious mind influenced by collective consciousness may
bring unexpected events into your life because you have consciously or
unconsciously assumed that those events can happen.

A New Way of Thinking

Once you understand that you are in charge of creating your reality, it doesn't
mean that you should blame yourself for every wrong thing that may have
happened to you in your life. And you don't have to blame anyone else for
those wrong things too. The past is the past, and those events have already
happened. So, leave them in the past and make a commitment to changing
your mind from this moment onwards.
If there are some past experiences that are still bothering you, all you have to
do is to leave them in the past.
You can even use your imagination to do a revision of the past. But after this,
you must have a new way of thinking.
When you make a commitment to have a new way of thinking, it means you
are committed to thinking from a higher level of reason and understanding.
And you are committed to rising above your emotions and controlling them
when your emotional world is upside down. It is all about observing your
beliefs and the corresponding circumstances the beliefs create.
You accept that your beliefs are stories you made up, and they are subject to
change. And you realize that you are not your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.
Your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings belong to your personal self, but your
personal self is not your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.
All of your beliefs and all you associate with your strengths, personality, and
weaknesses are only the role you agreed as your personal self to play, and
you are playing the role without your conscious consent. It has escaped your
memory that it is just a role because you have forgotten the person you truly
are.
When you become dedicated to a new way of thinking, you start thinking
from your true self, which is your highest consciousness level. And you are
aware that everything is but a dream. By doing this, your natural state of life
will be filled with faith, joy, and gratitude, creating fertile soil where you can
plant the seeds of all you desire to achieve.
We are our minds and can utilize our thoughts in shaping our lives. Thoughts
are capable of causing happiness and unhappiness. Do you remember having
secret thoughts, and they came to reality? This happens because our minds
are responsible for molding our lives.
Your life is a direct reflection of what you think about, your feelings,
imaginations, assumptions, and beliefs. Your thoughts are creating your
reality, and you are doing this knowingly or unknowingly because your
thoughts have power.
Everything you see in your outside world starts from your inside world. You
are responsible for everything happening, even if you are not aware of
choosing the beliefs that led to the circumstances you are experiencing. To
access the creative power within you, you must take possession of your
thoughts and direct them to what you want because you are one with the
Universal Mind.
Internalize the fact that your thoughts are in charge of creating your reality.
You will experience unbelievable transformation in your life if you can apply
this. Since your thoughts are responsible for creating your reality, you must
direct them. If you don't direct your thoughts, someone else or something else
will direct them. So, don't waste your time leaving the option open. Go ahead
and direct your thoughts.
 CHAPTER 3:
Ghost of Failures Past

We often refuse to move ahead in life or open our minds to learn new things
because the failures from our past won't let us believe in a better future. They
keep haunting us like ghosts, and we are reluctant to banish them, so they still
have the power to prevent us from moving ahead in life. Whether it be a bad
breakup that we have suffered, a fight we lost, a high-income job we lost, an
exam we failed, or something tragic, we don't easily drop them. They follow
us everywhere.
Life is made up of ups and downs. And we must understand that disaster,
sickness, and death are a natural part of life. We need to have a happy heart to
effectively fight these spirits and allow creativity to flow from within us to
the outside world. We must cast the light of positivity into the deepest parts
of our minds so it can drive out the negative thoughts plaguing us.
We can make choices concerning how to deal with events in our lives. It isn't
easy to deal with, and it takes determination and practice. If it were easy to
handle events effortlessly, everyone would be doing it without stress.
Remember, you are creating your life events and the path you will walk
through your thoughts. And you need training for this. I'm not talking about
martial arts training or going to the gym; I’m talking about focusing on your
mindset and spiritual development. Your mindset matters. According to
professional athletes, you must have a certain mindset to perform excellently
well. Just as exercise changes you from the outside and the positive effects
flow to the inner parts of you, believing in yourself and your ability to
achieve what you want changes you from the inside, and the positive effects
flow to the outer parts of you and makes you accomplish your desires.
Martial arts require motivation and the right mindset. And with past failures
distracting you, you won't be able to focus. Many people are unable to
achieve great things in life. They find it difficult to achieve more. Someone
might need to talk to an attractive person or send a business email to a
potential client. And if you ask them what is stopping them from chasing
their dreams, they give shallow responses or answer with “what ifs.” They
might say something like, “What if they don't like what I have to tell them?”
“What if I don't succeed?”
I know there is the possibility of these scenarios happening, but they haven't
happened yet. These “what ifs” make you less confident and courageous,
making you unable to take the actions you need to take to achieve your goals,
even while knowing the actions will help you in your life.
Let me talk more about the reason for this and what you can do to handle the
situation.
Failure isn't our enemy. It is meant to guard us against an emotional death.
Just like death is inevitable, but nobody wants to die, failure is inevitable, but
nobody wants to fail. Your feelings and brain can't differentiate between
reality and faking it. You don't want to fail, be ashamed, and face
embarrassment, so you do all within your power to gather more information
and create scenarios that will make you believe that what you are working on
is fail-proof.
While you are gathering information and doing all these, you also search for
reasons that will make you not take the chance of trying to do it. You may not
even be aware that you are doing this.
Once you open your eyes in the morning, open your email, or enter a room,
your mind will start looking for reasons why you shouldn't go to the gym,
talk to that person you want to invest in your company about the investment
opportunity, or talk to that person you are crushing on.
Your mind will convince you that the gym is too far from where you live, and
you have to wake up early to make it there. And you can't wake up early
because you are too tired and need to continue sleeping.
It will convince you that the lady you want to talk to is talking with her
friends, so you shouldn't interrupt her, or it will convince you that a certain
investor doesn't want to give you money, so you shouldn't ask them to invest
in your business any longer.
While you are doing everything you possibly can to avoid failing and you're
conceiving and creating different scenarios in support of that, you are not
putting any energy into getting ready for what would happen if you become
successful.
Failure that is simulated feels real.
You go through all the scenarios where you can fail to the extent that it starts
feeling real and you have already failed. Because you frequently go through
the scenario and simulate the failure experiences, it feels real, even though
you haven't actually failed. When this continues, your mind gradually tricks
you into believing you had experienced all this when you failed, when in
reality, you haven't truly experienced it. You only have simulations of it. You
are building experiences around failure, planning for it, and navigating
around it.
This makes your mind have no idea of what success feels like, how to
cultivate it, and handle it when you become successful. And then, since
success is unknown to your mind, it becomes strange and scary. This happens
because your mind has no concept of the feeling of success. Your mind
doesn't understand what success feels like because you haven't made it go
through those scenarios.

The Other What If

Now that you have been spending your energy and time focusing on “what if
I fail,” Why not consider the other what if? “What if I send that investor an
email requesting a meeting, and I am able to convince him to invest in my
company?” “What if I talked to that lady I am attracted to, and she also said
she had been waiting for me to talk to her so she could become my friend?”
“What if I went to the gym to work out, and it wasn't as hard as I thought?”
If you get ready and prepare your mind for what would happen if you become
successful in what you are doing, it will surprise you to know that you may
not have any idea of what to do at that time. When people achieve a level of
success that they didn’t prepare for or see coming, they often have no idea of
what to do to maintain it, so they end up losing it.
When you make failure something you are so afraid of failure, you dedicate
all of your time and do everything within your power to avoid it. What
happens is that you keep researching and trying to gather more information
about what you want to do instead of actually starting out and working on the
idea you already have. The final information you are searching for is not out
there, but you keep searching for it and hoping it will give you a pain-free
path to achieving your goals. And expecting a pain-free path to success isn't a
smart way to live because this isn't possible.
Start thinking about success just like you have been thinking about failure.
What if you make up your mind to start preparing for success? I know you
want to be successful, or don't you? You want that. Then you should focus
more on that. The things you focus on often become a reality. If you put all
your energy into avoiding failure, you will only be manifesting failure
without knowing it. So, now that you know this, you must put all your energy
into becoming successful, and you will see how things will change for the
better.
You may have spent so much energy and time focusing on how to avoid
failure. But you can reverse this and start planning for success. Focus on what
you want to achieve, so when it eventually comes to you, you won't be
overwhelmed because it is already a part of your plan, and you were
expecting it.
Making this mind shift can be a life-changing experience because you will
now redirect your focus toward what you will be doing when what you are
working on becomes successful. This kind of focus is capable of making
success more inevitable for you. You must learn to prepare and plan for your
success.

Shaping Your Future with Failure

Persistence is a powerful tool. When a person faces many obstacles and
hardships on their way, it doesn't mean that they will automatically make it to
the top and be successful. The person who eventually makes it to the top is
the person who persists and doesn't give up or follow the easy path. In other
words, what matters is the way we respond to our failure and not the failure
itself. We must overcome our fear of failure to increase our chances of being
successful.
Failure is helpful in shaping our future, and we will find many resources,
including books, articles, videos, and podcasts, that we can learn from.
Everyone knows that being successful isn't always easy. If you say you want
to climb to the top of a mountain, you will definitely face some surprises on
your way to the top of the mountain. You may find some good surprises, but
you will also find mostly bad surprises.
We must refuse to allow the fear of failure to limit us and prevent us from
achieving our goals. If we can learn to handle our fear of failure, our chances
of becoming successful in the future will increase. Since failure is inevitable
in life, we need to have the ability to deal with it as this skill is a crucial one
to have in life.
Let's look at a school example; when students get a grade F, they become so
sad because it is associated with failure. Have you ever received an “F” on
your report card or seen someone who has? You will agree with me that you
battled feelings of shame, disappointment, and self-doubt. We look down
upon people who have failed and then celebrate people who are successful in
society. Wherever we find ourselves, everyone expects us to be successful.
Reward systems are designed around excellence, and there is no room for
failure.
Although the world celebrates success, we cannot succeed in life without
going through failures. When we don't prepare for success, we might fail.
And you may never succeed if you don't learn to deal with your failures.
Once you understand your mistakes and what you did wrong that caused you
to fail, you will know the right things to do to correct the mistakes. If you
miss this, you will be doing the wrong things thinking they will correct your
mistakes, but they won't. Doing the wrong things may have you working hard
and never making any real progress.
Once you experience failing despite all your hard work, the negative
experience from your past may make you unable to move ahead. You will
have a fear of failure when faced with another similar situation, which leads
to a cycle of fear. And this cycle is difficult to break.
Your perception and the way you respond to failure can differentiate you
from others. Allow your failure to become a lesson that will help you succeed
instead of allowing your failure to defeat you. The key is to see failure as an
opportunity to become successful and not as an obstacle. Avoid inaction and
try not to miss any opportunity to become successful. You will become more
successful when you become this person than when you become the person
who is afraid of taking risks.
Don't fail and be defeated but fail and become successful. Now that you
understand that you need to learn how to handle your failures, you better get
started with it.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What do you find more worthwhile? Is it learning to handle failure or
getting rid of it?
Most people would consider learning to handle their failures rather than
getting rid of them. However, a huge gap exists between our desires and our
actions. Many people spend much time trying to prevent themselves from
failing rather than making a plan that will help them deal with failure when
they experience it.
Take a look at some of your past projects and do a reality check:
Can you count the number of times you failed? Do you think you did
everything within your power if you were successful all the time? Did you
avoid taking risks, play it safe, or step out of your comfort zone?
What was your most dominant fear? Was it taking risks or failing?
It is important that you get used to discomfort if you want to be successful.
Great things won't come to you when you are comfortable with sitting inside
your comfort zone. They will come to you when you are ready to put one foot
outside your comfort zone. And while you do this, be ready to accept that you
can fail.
Since failure in life is inevitable, the question is not whether or not you will
fail but what your response to the failure will be. How will you handle the
problems when they show up?
2. Are you making improvements, remaining where you are, or
becoming worse?
When you are doing something worthwhile, you will fail, learn lessons,
improve, and then grow. When you try to do something and fail at it, you will
know what works and what doesn't work.
You will fail more if you try more. You will learn more by failing more. And
you will get better when you learn more. The more you do, the more you fail.
So, this means that you are actually improving and getting better even though
you may tag it as a failure. You fail, learn from your failures, and become
better.
You can measure your growth by checking for the improvements you have
made in the last couple of months or one year. You will be able to see if you
are learning from the failures you have experienced.

Ask yourself these questions:

What skills have you newly learned?
What part of your life and work is now better?
Do you know what doesn't work and why it doesn't work?
What parts of your life do you need to give more time and attention?
3. Do you stop attempting to do something when you fail at it, or do you
fail because you stop attempting to do it?
When most people are faced with adversity, they become restless, and their
anxiousness about the future makes them indecisive. What makes a
difference is what happens after someone is faced with adversity. An optimist
is down for a short period of time but quickly picks up the broken pieces and
bounces back. On the other hand, a pessimist remains stuck with the fear of
failure. So, while an optimist believes that they are only going through a
rough time, a pessimist becomes hopeless and believes that their situation is
permanent.
A person's emotions and actions are not usually directly proportional to
adversity. Rather they depend on what the person believes about adversity.
Therefore, if a person changes the way they respond to the adversity they
face, they will find it easier to cope with the setbacks they experience.
Anyone can fail, so understand that it is okay to feel down and disappointed.
However, you must not allow those feelings to keep you from taking the
necessary steps to move on with your life.
Describe the bad events you have experienced with the use of temporary
explanations. These temporary explanations will make you feel motivated to
work hard and fix your problems. Ensure that you are specific. Using specific
explanations will help prevent generalization and help you focus on that
particular event. There will be clarity, and the problem will be easily solved.
It will help you take control of the situation and take away the feeling of
hopelessness and helplessness.
When you start seeing your failures as merely temporary setbacks, they will
lose their hold on you, and you will stop quitting permanently because of
failure.
4. Are you using your failure to acquire knowledge or moving forward?
When someone attempts to do something and then fails at it, they may start
thinking that they can solve the problem by gathering all the information
about the failure. This step is important, but you shouldn't be doing only this.
It is important to understand what you did wrong, but it is more important to
use the knowledge you have gained to take the necessary steps. Many people
will spend a large amount of time trying to find out what caused the failure
but never use the knowledge gained to find a solution to the problem.
Good strategies need to have the right tactics that will bring the strategy to
life. In the same way, an analysis of failure needs to be backed by a solid
implementation for it to work out.
So, the knowledge you have gained from your failures is important. Use it to
explore new ways of making things work. You shouldn't be only concerned
with acquiring knowledge and not doing anything with it. This shouldn't be
all about your learning. Use all that you have learned to make your dreams
come true.
5. Are you accepting responsibility for your mistakes without
personalizing them?
People can easily look for scapegoats to blame, or they can easily cover up
the mistakes they have made when they make mistakes that lead to failures.
Of course, you will feel relieved when you push the responsibility for your
failure over to someone else by blaming them or something that happened,
but the relief will only be temporary. You will feel relieved at that moment,
but it won't help in the advancement of your goals.
By accepting your role in the failure, you will learn from it. And you must do
all you can not to allow the failures you suffer to define you. Separate your
identity from your failure. I know you failed, but failing at something doesn't
make you a failure for life.
You need to own up to the mistakes you have made if you want to take
responsibility for the failures you have made. And you can do this by
identifying and understanding your mistakes without giving room for them to
limit you.
6. Are you bothered about what you can control or what you can’t
control?
Humans are made to be happy and full of satisfaction when they have control
over their lives. This tendency that humans have to control becomes useful
when used to bring positivity. For example, if you have a desire to practice
healthy eating, then taking out all unhealthy foods you have in the house and
replacing them with healthy ones will help to align the environment with
your desire.
However, if we want to control everything, this desire can be damaging when
we refuse to accept that we can't control every circumstance because some
are beyond our control. We can lose our sense of control over a situation
when events we didn't expect throws us off course.
When we allow ourselves to be worried over what we have no control over, it
can make us unable to see the problem and fix it, even if the solution is
staring at us in the face. Although we may not be able to control some things,
we still possess power over some decisions and choices we make concerning
those things we can't control. And we may be unable to see this fact. So, we
should direct our energy and focus on our decisions and choices.

Yesterday’s Failure, Today’s Winner

Failure isn't easy for anyone to take. Your past failures don't make you
doomed in the present. In fact, those epic fails you had in the past are capable
of granting you bigger wins today if you pay attention to the lessons you
learned from those failures. Hard work and persistence will help you
transform your failure into a massive win. So, pay attention and read on to
understand how to do that.
1. Every one of us has failed.
No one is a completely perfect human being. In fact, I haven't seen anyone
publishing a book on how to be completely perfect in life and make no
mistakes at all. And even if someone published a book like that, there would
definitely be an error in it.
Some people always love to play comparison game. “Why can't you play the
piano like Jenny” “Why are you not good with people like Scott?”
Growing up, you must have been compared to other people, and this may
have made you always feel insecure and less than others. But it isn't a strange
thing. Most parents and teachers make comparisons between children. Social
media is so popular because of the comparison game. People get to see other
people's lives and achievements and get to compare them with their own lives
and achievements. As people show off their best lifestyles and achievements,
they feel less small deep within. And seeing other people's achievements can
make you feel like you are not good enough and haven't achieved anything
worthwhile even though you are trying.
Looking around you and seeing successful people, you see their highlight
reel. These people also have failures, but you don't get to see the failures
because they are only out to show you their big accomplishments. If we are to
pay attention, we will see that even the most successful people today still
experience failure. And we can see that this is true as tabloids always talk
about them.
2. What Lessons Did the Failure Teach You?
Failure teaches the best lessons. It helps you know yourself more and helps
you see why something doesn't work. But you must understand that not all
mistakes are failures. You may have published something that many people
discredited, but that doesn't make it wrong. You may have given an example
that isn't right, but you can learn from that mistake you made. You can make
progress by finding a solution to the problem. Mistakes are capable of
moving you ahead and to the right path.
You can approach failure by considering all that you do as an experiment.
Just like a scientist working on a project to discover something, approach
your ideas like that. If you perform an experiment and the results from the
experiment are not what you expected, then take a new direction. Rather than
catastrophizing your failure, you just accept that the hypothesis didn't
produce something satisfactory and then try again through another method.
When you take this approach, you will learn from your failure and not avoid
it. And you will eventually find the right solution.
3. What Do You Learn from Successful People?
There is so much you can learn from people who are more successful than
you. You can learn strategy, patience, and persistence. These successful
people have gone through tests and have learned these things, so they are
more experienced than other people when it comes to these things.
If an individual has succeeded in building eight online stores, don't let that
discourage you. Even if you are just working on creating your first online
store, don't let that scare you. It may have taken that person six attempts
before they finally got to where they are. But since they made it, you can also
get there. You only need to continue working, experimenting, learning, and
building.
Successful people are aware of something others may not know. They are
aware that anyone can make it if they try. Anyone can become successful,
including someone with anxiety or a school dropout. Who you are or the
problem you have doesn't matter. You can make it. Your challenges might be
different from someone else's challenges, but if you know how to jump or the
steps to take to get to the top, no one will prevent you from doing that.
Sometimes, you need to jump over obstacles; other times, the solution may
be to move around them. But you must expect to face challenges along the
way if you have big dreams. The challenges may frighten you, but it doesn't
mean you can't achieve your dreams.
4. You Are Closer
Many people get frustrated with failed projects or businesses. Why does this
happen? You may complain about your problems, but will that really be
productive? Some people are like turtles in life; they might take so long to get
to their goal.
Failure is you moving a step closer to your goal. When you fail, you are
forced to think about what will work if this doesn't work. You might need a
change of idea, you might need to investigate more, or you might need to
increase your marketing. So to keep moving ahead, you might change your
idea and test it to see how it goes. Or you might do more research and
marketing and test it out. This way, you are working on a new hypothesis to
see what works.
5. You Owned Your Mistake.
So, did you tag yourself a failure after you failed? A person may fail at
something and not own up to it. We know that most people play the blame
game instead of owning their mistakes. For example, you might say, “I failed
because the professor made it difficult for me to pass, not because of my lack
of knowledge or poor work ethic. Our company CEO is unfair. It's my
colleague's fault that I didn't win the deal for the company, not my fault.”
But if you fail and admit your mistakes, saying you messed up, you didn't
study hard enough, you lost focus, or you are still learning and will get better,
you are on the right track to winning in no time.
You need to take ownership of your failure if you must move from failure to
winner. You have acted smartly when you do this because it means you have
total control over your decisions. But you will always be trapped if you keep
blaming everyone else for your mistakes and problems. How do you think
you can win if you put another individual in control of your path? For this
reason, the blame game isn't the best solution and doesn't work long-term.
6. It Makes You Step Up Your Game
Many of the people who are super successful fail a lot. And they keep trying
harder. Someone may be saying they always win, but is it really true? There
would have been times when they tried and failed, so don't believe every
shiny stuff you see.
When you fail, you get something to fight for. You will step up your game so
that you can perform better the next time around. To win, you put yourself in
the world domination mode. But once you have won a couple of times and
become used to winning, you start relaxing.
All winners have failed at some point in their lives. And if all failures stay
persistent and keep trying, they will eventually win. The best part of life is
when you aim to win big. It provides you with a reason to fight and a sense of
purpose. This is something you must cherish. Winners are aware that life isn't
more about the win but the climb.
7. It Teaches You to Face Your Fears
It is important to learn to face your fears in life. You might decide to get over
your anxiety or stage fright or face the person who has been bullying you.
Not everyone is able to face their fear of failure. They may end up failing
again because of this fear. When you fail at something you are working on,
remind yourself that the main character in a movie always goes through
problems or challenges, but they always win in the end.
There is a secret about fearless people. They also experience fear. Some
professional singers and performers have stage fright before they go on stage.
They may have powerful voices and great songs that have blessed the world.
But they may still experience fear. One difference between these people
face their mistakes or fear of failure because they know that the show must
go on.
8. It Causes You to Grow
You may not remember that when you were still a baby and learning how to
walk, you stumbled around and fell down many times. You didn't give up but
got back up and tried again. You may have failed many times, but can you
see that it has made you grow too? You knew that you needed to learn how to
walk to get to places you wanted to get to. You knew that if you learned how
to walk, you would reach the biscuits on the table. Your whole world would
be much better if you knew how to walk.
Now that you can walk and go wherever you want to go, you don't even
remember that walking was once a big challenge for you when you were a
baby. And that is growth.
One day in the near future, you will easily do something that used to be a
challenge for you and you failed at. And you would do that thing without
even thinking about it. Your growth will make it hard for you to remember
that it used to be difficult for you to do that thing in the past.
Failure shows that you are doing something new. It means that you are
experiencing a new challenge in life. And when you are doing a new thing,
you are growing in a different direction. Isn't this amazing? Pain can be
uncomfortable, especially when we see it like we have failed, but the gain at
the end of it is worth it. Every challenge, struggle, and obstacle that comes
your way comes to make you smarter and better.
9. It Makes You Humble
Failure can be so humbling. You may be at a time in your life when you feel
like everything is going well for you and that you can never come down from
the top where you are, but failure might just come around and throw you in
the mud. And then your reality changes in an instant.
When you just show up, you are already half successful. But the competition
is fiercer at the top than it is at the bottom. You will find that getting to the
top spot is a constant battle. An individual can be great, but if they want to
become the best, that is a different ball game.
Everyone that is currently at the top can come back down. It can be hard to
cope with failure after experiencing success. This is where humility comes in.
It reminds you there are also other talented people out there, and you aren't
the only talented one. This lesson is important, and everyone needs this
lesson in life. When you understand that many talented people exist in the
world, you will think about collaboration which can also lift you from failure
to winner.
Many award winners share their awards with people who worked with them
as a team to help them make their success possible. Artists do collaborations
to create great songs. Successful people know that collaborating with other
successful people is the secret to increasing their success rate.
10. It Makes You Smarter
A person doesn't need to be smart before they can be successful. They will
become successful if they can stay with the problem they are trying to solve
much longer. As he stays with the problem longer, he works through them.
Although he might have made mistakes while trying to find a solution, his
persistence makes him smart.
It is the same for any project you want to work on. To become successful at
it, you might need to stay on it for a much longer time. If you spent $1000 on
building your online store but didn't make any profit. You may be thinking
you have failed and it is final, but don't think that way. Why don't you
approach the situation differently and see what happens? The ads you are
spending money on may not be as profitable as before. Or maybe, you don't
have the required experience with running ads. So, what is the way forward?
You can start by working with smaller budgets and learn to run ads until you
become smarter with it and able to run successful ads.
You can approach your failures more intelligently by investing more time
learning about a topic and trying out different ideas and solutions.

Different Perceptions of Failure

Failure may not be pleasant, but it makes life worthwhile. When climbing to
the top, you will find that it isn't easy but slow and difficult. It is during the
climb-up process that you will experience your greatest workout. On getting
to the top, you will become an incredible person created by the mistakes you
made and the lessons you learned along the way. It doesn't matter if you are
moving slowly; just stay on track and keep moving, and you will win. In the
face of challenges, you must stay willing to push yourself to accomplish your
goals and get to the finish line.
What if you are running away from failure, but it is the key to success?
We know that failure frightens us, but what if we need it to be successful?
Failure teaches us lessons from our mistakes so that we can bounce back,
thereby making us appreciate success.
What do you really understand by failure?
Different cultures have different perceptions of failure. In some countries,
people deny failure without minding that failure doesn't harm us. In some
other countries, failure is seen as an indicator of people's capacity to be
successful.
Of course, everyone wants to have a linear path that doesn't have obstacles
and failures. But failure gives us the ability to overcome challenges. So, we
shouldn't be ashamed of it.
We are used to showing off our successes while omitting to talk about the
challenges we had to overcome to be successful. It is true that the road to
success is filled with obstacles, and we must stay focused to overcome them
and achieve our goals.
When failures make us stumble, we can rise up and transform the difficulties
we encounter into strengths.
Failure initiates change and creates room for progress. A little child trying to
walk will first walk and fall many times until he gets used to it and starts
walking. Since the child is learning to walk and falling, will you tell the child
to stop trying to walk? You don't do that because, with each fall, he learns
how to control his balance and walk.
If you pay attention, you will also notice that this principle holds in our lives.
Whenever we do something and fall, we get back up after failing. We learn
lessons from the mistakes we have made and then try again. Failure is a stage
we go through in our journey to success. It isn't definitive. In science, failure
helps us invalidate a hypothesis, gain more knowledge, and change our
research direction.
Failure has the ability to provoke negative emotions and make us question
our plans. However, you must understand that failure isn't a relapse, and you
don't have to question all your efforts. The successes still belong to you, and
you can still pull yourself together and move on with your life. You will even
learn about yourself and know your triggers in the process. When you come
out of it, you will be a stronger person. If you are ready to make your failure
a success, there are tools that will help you.

You need to understand the following:

Failure makes it easy to grab the key to success.
Failure is only a stage in our journey to success. It isn't the end. If failure
crosses our path and we are able to draw the necessary lessons from it, we
question ourselves and make the necessary adjustments to move forward.
Failure is the first step we take before success comes.
Imagine that you want to work on a project you are passionate about.
There are two possibilities:
Motivate yourself and go ahead with working on the project while accepting
the risk of facing disappointments.
Remain where you are without making any move to try to work on the
project and let it go by without facing the risk of failing to accomplish it.
Which of these possibilities do you prefer? When you ask yourself this
question, it will help you see that the only way you won't experience failure is
if you never try at all. But then, will you risk failure and go ahead with what
you want to do or remain in your comfort zone, which you might regret later?
It's up to you to make your decision.
Success is possible when you try to do something while accepting the
possibility of failure. And if you experience failure while trying to do
something, you must learn the lessons it brought and recover stronger from
the failure.
It is when we swing to action that we can experience failure and get the key
to success. But if the action we take makes us learn and test hypotheses, even
if it doesn't work out, will we consider it a failure? After all, we can get
experience from failure and perfection from continuous practice. Our
blunders will reveal areas that we need to improve on so that we don't keep
making the same mistakes we have made. This will make us even anticipate
future obstacles and then give us the opportunity to prepare to face them.
We may still face challenges later on, but they won't be the same, and we will
have gained experience that will help us overcome those challenges more
easily. Gradually, our failures will transform into assets, moving us closer to
our goals, and getting the key to success.
Failure Allows You to Pause and Reflect
Find yourself and appreciate your successes as well as your failures.
You become successful with the accumulation of your confusion, mistakes,
failures, and the determination to keep trying despite the circumstances.
Failure allows you to pause and reflect on the mistakes you made. And this
will make you think up alternatives that you never thought of as you work on
your project.
When we fail at something, it forces us to stop and pause. This forced pause
provides us with the opportunity to reflect and take stock of our lives and the
road we have traveled.
During this time of rest, we are able to listen to our little inner voice and ask
ourselves questions. Do we feel fulfilled with what we are doing? Do we like
what we are doing? Do we have another dream to accomplish before starting
with this one? Ensure that you answer these questions without being too
harsh on yourself. Show yourself some kindness. The questions will keep you
focused on what you love.
Failure is an intersection on our journey that provides us with the opportunity
to change direction and accept new opportunities that we didn't accept before.
We know that many successes have been made from failures. It is an
opportunity to reinvent yourself and find your way.
We Experience Failure to Appreciate Success
A person who has never experienced failure may struggle to appreciate
success. Such a person will probably find it hard to celebrate someone who
has newly become successful. They may even be proud because they know
that everyone is not as fortunate as they are.
Through our falls, we become humble and get to understand our peers. It also
helps us discover the thing that makes us unique.
When we experience failure, we start becoming more appreciative of success
and the things we already have in our lives. So, when we become successful
later on, we can value it more than we used to.
Know When to Pause and Adjust or Quit
One tricky thing in life is to know when to keep trying to do something and
when to stop and move on with life.
To accomplish great things in life, you need perseverance and grit. If you can
keep moving even when faced with challenges, you will be able to build a
successful life. The most critical trait a person can possess is sticking with
whatever they are doing. Whether it is learning a skill, building a great
marriage, or growing a company, this trait is important and shouldn't be
overlooked.
Are you telling someone that they should never give up? Don't get it wrong.
Successful people have given up many times before becoming successful.
However, smart people know when something isn't working, and they stop
doing it endlessly. They pause and adjust or quit. A person can't keep
repeating the same thing continuously and expecting to see different results.
You need to understand both strategies in life. Sometimes, some projects
require you to display unwavering confidence and put more effort, while for
some others that aren't working, you need to abandon them and try something
new. So, you need to know when to keep trying and when to give up.
Past Failure Can Become Future Success
Can you remember failing at something during your childhood days? Maybe
you didn't perform well in a school test, made your school team lose the
basketball game, or forgot your lines during a school play. How did you feel
during those times you failed? The failures must have felt devastating and
heartbreaking. We now understand that failing is an important part of
winning.
This makes sense, even though it seems counterintuitive. Developing the
fortitude to learn from failure is the best thing to do since we can't avoid
failure. And although we may find it difficult, we are actually getting
ourselves ready to win by accepting failure.
Many people often forget this lesson. It is simple as well as powerful. This
happens because people are trained in the business world to despise failure.
They are given this orientation because failure in business can cost them
dearly.
Yet, great leaders are born from their ability to accept failure, learn from it,
and get back to a powerful position. This ability is necessary for making a
failure a success.
Admit the Error and Acknowledge Your Role
If you want your failure to turn into success, the first thing to do is to admit
there was an error and acknowledge your role in what went wrong. You can't
learn from your failure if you don't do this. You must openly accept
responsibility for the role you played in that failure. You must do this
because if you don't do it, people will go ahead and make assumptions about
you denying your role in the failure and refusing to be accountable and learn
from your mistake. When you admit your role in what went wrong, you are
making them see that you are human, humble, and willing to learn.
Children have the habit of grabbing any excuse to divert the blame from
themselves. But as an adult, you should have outgrown that behavior. You
will have to face worse consequences if you keep dodging responsibility for
something wrong you have done.
Yet, some people still dodge their responsibilities. They give an excuse for
every error and assign a different scapegoat for every failure. They may not
realize what they are doing, but they are actually paying a much higher price
since they have refused to accept their mistakes. They start losing the trust of
their company's management as well as their colleagues' because no one
would choose to work with someone who makes excuses for everything that
goes wrong and makes others the scapegoat.
It takes someone who is fair and knows what is right and wrong to own up to
their mistakes. These traits are admired and sought in leaders. Do you possess
them?
Make the Sting of Failure Your Source of Motivation
The sting of failure is quite powerful. It is a source of motivation for great
leaders. It helps them to avoid making the same mistake they have made and
to keep moving ahead. Some people may find it compulsive, but success is all
about dissecting past failures into pieces and analyzing each piece to gain
insight from the failure. This insight gained is what makes great leaders great
and tackle things differently the next time they try.
Sometimes, after failing at something, you don't get an opportunity to try
again. There is no second chance. In cases like these, bouncing back wouldn't
be about applying the lessons you learned from the failure to the same
situation. Instead, you use the lessons you have learned in other areas of your
life since the lessons learned shouldn't be wasted.
Take this as an example: You go for a job interview, and the interviewer asks
you questions about yourself, and you provide detailed answers about your
background, experience, and goals. But when it is time for you to ask the
interviewer questions about the position you applied for and the company,
you don't ask and are unprepared for that moment. This makes someone else
get the job. Right from that moment, before the interview is even over, you
already know that you have made a mistake but cannot ask to redo the
interview. You can only apply the lessons you have learned from that
interview and be well prepared before showing up for any interview.
Lead by Example
Sometimes, you will get another opportunity to succeed. You might find
yourself stuck with the particular situation that has occurred before again and
again until you get it right. In this kind of situation, you must openly accept
responsibility for the mistake, and you must do it quickly. This makes the
people affected aware that things will be different when the situation repeats
itself next time.
For example, let's say you were meant to handle a project with your team, but
you passed it over to another team to do the work because you were too busy
to do it. After the job was done, you received a report that the job had
mistakes all over it. The bad decision you made has now affected the quality
of work because you allowed a less knowledgeable and skilled team to
handle the project. So, how do you handle this? After you have battled the
embarrassment of doing a low-quality job, you need to accept responsibility
for the errors involved and then make things right by correcting the mistakes.
We all know it isn't easy to admit mistakes, but a secure and strong individual
is always ready to admit their mistakes. It makes you a good leader as a good
leader leads by example. It shows your followers that being exemplary and
facing your problems is the best way to deal with the problems. The people
who are looking up to you will see that you are the type that fixes your
mistakes, and they can count on you.
Most people are not born with the skill of bouncing back after making
mistakes and learning from them. This skill is acquired, and experience
teaches us.
Accepting our mistakes isn't usually easy, and we must have experienced this
many times. However, if we can accept responsibility for our mistakes and
learn from them, we will reap lifelong rewards. One attribute of great leaders
is their ability to remind themselves of what they have learned from
influential people in their lives, their teachers, parents, and grandparents.
Great leaders remind those around them to always try to get back after a fall.
You have to make smart decisions when you have a challenge so that you can
adjust to the situation at hand. It requires determination and perseverance.
Understand that rejection and failure are only minor speed bumps that people
encounter on the road to success.
Imagine this scenario: A boy cried as he fell a couple of times. He finally
achieved his goal after failing five times. Moments like this usually leave a
lasting impression on people, especially if it was when they were still young.
But as we get older, our persistence in the face of adversity decreases. We
start putting in less effort when faced with challenges. And this is caused by
the fear of failure, which we can start having during youth.
Failure gives no joy. Whether it’s failing an exam that you have been
preparing for or getting turned down by a person you are attracted to, failure
isn't fun for anyone. And this can become so overwhelming for some people
that they stop trying to achieve their dreams. But you can use this fear of
failure to your advantage.
Most people with the fear of failure find it difficult to face failure. If they
want to do something but notice that there is a chance of them failing at it,
they will decide that there is no need to even try to do it at all. This attitude
they put up doesn't mean that they were born with this trait. An individual can
develop a fear of failure if they grew up with parents who were too critical
and bullied them or if they were exposed to a traumatic event in their life.
If you have ever wanted to achieve something so badly but failed at it, it can
make you feel upset and humiliated. And you may be left to struggle with the
emotions long after the incident. This can further grow into a force that hurts
your goals if it isn't checked.
 CHAPTER 4:
Beating Procrastination

I admit that I have been a victim of procrastination many times. I will

promise myself that I will do something on a certain day but end up watching
movies or doing something not particularly important.
On some occasions, I even decide to do absolutely nothing instead of doing
the work I have to do. This behavior only made the situation worse because it
became harder for me to do what was needed. And I ended up with only a
short time left to do it.
When this happens to you, you become worried that you won't be able to
finish what you have to do, and then guilt takes over.
I'm sure you have been in this position before. It can happen to anyone.
Workers can relate, and even students getting bombarded with school work
can relate.
Everybody procrastinates at one time or another. I'm sure you are familiar
with the feeling of not being able to do your work even though you know you
have to do it. You waste time not doing it until the last minute when you start
forcing yourself to finish the work. You force yourself to try and do it and
might even end up not doing the job at all.
You need to be smarter than procrastination; if not, you will never do your
work when you have to. It's either you do the job poorly, or you don't
complete it before the due date.
A reminder that you should be doing your work is necessary. So, while you
are procrastinating, you will know that you can't completely relax and
abandon your work.
Procrastination has the ability to make you feel like a loser. It makes you start
seeing yourself as someone who never finishes any task they are given. This
can decrease your productivity, and in turn, your earning and creative
potential will suffer.
Are you ready to learn tricks and tactics that will help you put an end to
procrastination?
Many people find themselves procrastinating, and you don't have to stress too
much about it because you can overcome it. It can be beaten if you make up
your mind to do it.
So, what steps can you take to overcome procrastination?
Fortunately, you can use some proven methods to fight procrastination.

Psychologists have studied procrastination and concluded that

it has four main causes:
1. We often procrastinate when we are doing a task that involves a low
reward or rate of success.
If you want to write fifteen-page research, you might not have the confidence
to start if you have never written five-page research before, so you are likely
to procrastinate.
2. We often procrastinate when there is a tendency that we will not get
immediate benefits when we successfully complete a job.
Talking about writing research papers, many people don't find it an enjoyable
task. So, they will likely procrastinate when they know that they won't get a
reward when they turn it in.
3. The likelihood that we are going to procrastinate also increases when
we are distracted.
If you are in the library doing research and writing and your friends keep
texting you about the fun things they are doing at that moment, your
determination to continue your work will decrease.
4. You are more likely to procrastinate if you have a long deadline to
complete a job you are doing.
When you have a due date of four months, you will easily convince yourself
to relax because you have plenty of time to complete the job.
These factors that we talked about above work hand in hand to contribute to
procrastination.
You are more likely to procrastinate if your determination and reward for the
task are low, and vice versa.
We all have different reasons for procrastinating.

These tips will help you overcome that daunting task that has
been making you procrastinate:
1. Start with One
To beat procrastination, you must stay focused. Having too many tasks to do
can make you less determined to do your work. Don't attempt to do all the
tasks at once. Just start with one of the tasks that you have been avoiding and
make up your mind to complete the job the following week.
2. Start right away
After picking one task to start with, you must swing to action immediately.
Don't say you will start tomorrow; start today. If the task feels overwhelming
or you feel you may not have enough time to finish it, see what to do in the
next tip.
3. Break your work into smaller pieces.
When you break your work into smaller pieces, you stop seeing it as one big
task, and it becomes more manageable for you.
This step will help you stop procrastinating, and you will eventually start
doing the work little by little. And this will boost your confidence to do more,
thereby helping you to stop procrastinating.
4. Give yourself deadlines.
People seem to procrastinate if they have to do a task that the due date is far
away. To manage this situation that leads to delay in doing your work, create
an artificial deadline to work with. If the task is due 30th September, create
your own artificial deadline where the task is due 15th September.
5. Work in an unfamiliar place.
Most people tend to do their work in the same familiar places over and over
again. The issue here is that they often get distracted in these familiar places.
So, if you have an important job to complete, go to an unfamiliar location,
such as a coffee shop or a park, and do your work from there.
6. Switch off your Wi-Fi and mobile phone.
Our mobile phones and the internet could be major distractions for us.
However, switching off your mobile phone or Wi-Fi can dramatically
improve your chances of finishing your work on time. You won't be sending
unnecessary messages or browsing the internet and wasting time. Quickly
checking your email or scrolling through posts can be distracting. When you
switch off your phone, you can focus on your work undistracted because you
won't easily check emails or browse with your phone switched off.
7. Talk to yourself gently.
Many people don't utilize gentle self-talk when they are struggling with
procrastination. They talk harshly to themselves, often criticizing and
condemning themselves for procrastinating. But this judgmental self-talk
does more harm than good. It makes you have the urge to use a distraction to
escape your situation. When you have a job to do, and you start having the
urge to procrastinate, gently talk to yourself and remind yourself that having
the urge to procrastinate is normal, and you shouldn't treat yourself harshly
with unkind words as a result of that.
8. Dedicate minutes to the task each day
You will find this a great technique if you struggle with procrastination. This
technique is about asking yourself what you can do today in only less than
five minutes that will move the project you are working on forward, even if it
is just a little bit. After identifying the small actions that you have to take,
time yourself for five minutes and work on the task. Studies show that you
are more likely to finish a task once you have started it. This is because
unfinished tasks have a high probability of getting stuck in our memory. And
we keep thinking about all the things we started doing but haven't completed.
It doesn't matter if you take only a small step. Taking little steps in the right
direction is far better than when you take none at all. Five minutes dedicated
to the task at hand every day will make a difference.
9. Honor the peaks and valleys
Do away with every distraction and work for some time. Give yourself short
periods of rest to make your brain perform better.
According to science, our brain has natural cycles of peaks and valleys. To
have the best output, you must honor the peaks and valleys. And you can do
this by knowing how to focus and relax while working.
10. Practice self-compassion
When you can forgive yourself for procrastination that has occurred in the
past, you will have a higher chance of overcoming your present
procrastination and getting started with your work. Don't be too harsh on
yourself. Practicing self-compassion will do wonders for you.
11. Play a Power Song.
Whenever you want to do a task that you have been procrastinating, choose a
song that increases your energy level and listen to it. Your brain will get
triggered to work, and you will find it easier to do the task you have been
procrastinating when you are feeling good.
12. Identify your fears.
Sometimes, you will find it helpful to understand the reason you have been
avoiding the particular task you have to do. What are your fears? Are you
overwhelmed with the requirements of the job and don't know how to start
working on it? Ask yourself what is making you procrastinate. Once you can
identify your fears, you will realize that they aren't as bad as you perceive
them to be.
13. Revisit your to-do list.
Many people put too many things to do on their to-do list. Decide that you
will not procrastinate and remove some things that are not important from
your to-do list. Revisit your to-do list. What can you remove from the list?
Cross off whatever you don’t really need to get done and permit yourself to
let it go.
14. Get an accountability partner.
Having an accountability partner helps a lot. You can have a bet with them
regarding when you will finish your task. Pick a day and time and tell your
accountability partner that you will buy them coffee, take the person to see
that movie they have been longing to see or give them $20 if you haven't
completed the work by that day and time. Give them a date and time and tell
them to check in with you on that day to see if you have completed your
work by then. And if you haven't completed your work by then, you owe
them what you bet.
15. Reward yourself.
The project you are working on may not be immediately valuable or all that
rewarding. But you can still increase your determination to work in this
condition by rewarding yourself for completing the work.
A great way to motivate yourself to complete a job that you have been unable
to complete is to make provision for a reward that you will enjoy after
completing the job.
So, choose anything you find enjoyable or rewarding and treat yourself after
you have successfully completed the work. Think about something you can
give to yourself after completing the task and get to work.
According to research, our brains respond to reward stimuli. And we can
easily create habits with this.
Hopefully, these tips we have discussed have given you ways to handle
procrastination, and you now have some strategies you can use when faced
with the problem of procrastination.
Remember, you are not the only one who procrastinates; we all sometimes
do. So, don't see yourself as a strange person for procrastinating. Take time to
understand the factors that make you procrastinate most times, and then take
the necessary steps to do your task before the due date.

Acute and Chronic Procrastination

Procrastination is classified into two types, acute and chronic procrastination.
Chronic procrastination cannot be easily eliminated because it has a deep
psychological cause. This doesn't mean that it can't be eliminated at all; it can
be eliminated. But hard work and patience are required.
On the other hand, even small mood swings all through the day or
psychological triggers such as having a bad day can cause acute
procrastination.
Thus, we must deal with both types of procrastination differently. Acute
procrastination is easier to sort out, so let's begin with it.
Acute Procrastination
Acute procrastination is common among people and is normal. It is the type
of procrastination where you procrastinate from time to time. It occurs as an
out-of-the-ordinary pattern of behavior. This type of procrastination can be
easily recognized and distinguished from chronic procrastination.
Acute procrastination makes you behave differently when it attacks you. You
might ask yourself this question, “why am I behaving as if I am stupid?". You
will do the job when you are in a normal state of mind, but this time around,
something is preventing you from doing the job.
You may be the type who is super productive, but you will still be caught up
in acute procrastination from time to time.

There are many reasons that can be responsible for this:

Low energy levels.
Having an emotional state that is irritated.
Not giving yourself a break after you have finished doing a demanding job.
Thinking that some other person should take up the responsibility to do the
task when it was actually delegated to you.
Having to do a task with people you don't like.
Having to do a task you find boring and don't like.

Other reasons responsible:

What you should first do is find out why you are procrastinating. Ask
yourself why you are procrastinating and pay attention to your answers.
This step is important because there are different reasons for acute
procrastination, and you can't tackle them all in the same way. So, you must
first make the correct diagnosis.
If you want to handle procrastination well when you are faced with acute
procrastination, you can do these things to overcome acute procrastination.

These proven tips work well for overcoming acute

procrastination:
1. Just get started with your work.
You need to force yourself and start doing the work you have to do. Take the
first step and get on with it.
It is often hard to take the first step. Have you ever been in a position where
your car broke down somewhere, and you had to push it? As soon as you
were able to get your car moving, what did you notice? It got much easier,
right?
So, you can handle procrastination by disciplining yourself and pushing
yourself hard to take the needed first step. This sure works well.
After you take the first step, you will notice that you have stopped
procrastinating and continued with the job.
2. Focus on managing your energy, not your time.
You must consider your energy levels and not manage only your time. This is
important in time management.
Everyone has days when they are highly productive and days when they are
not so productive. This is similar to how you have hours in the day when you
are more productive and hours in the day when you are less productive.

Here are some ideas you should consider:

Push yourself to work more during the hours when you are highly
productive, not during the hours when you have low energy levels.
Go out for a walk or take a nap and then start working afterward if you
notice that you are getting tired while working.
Take a break to recharge your brain after you have done some hard work.
Talk to other people around and help yourself to calm down first if you
find yourself emotionally irritated.
Accept the fact that you will not always be in the state to be productive,
and it's not a bad thing. We are all humans, and this is okay.
Work on your energy issues first before proceeding to work on the project
you have been procrastinating.
Ensure that you work smart even as you are working hard. Working smart
doesn't mean you must continuously work hard. If you continue this way, you
will soon experience burnout.
Life is not a Sprint but a marathon. So, if you notice that your energy levels
are getting low while working, take regular breaks. You can also give
yourself a long break when it's the weekend. This will increase your
productivity on other days.
3. Start by doing tasks that are easier for you to do until you get back
your energy levels.
What happens when you are supposed to do a task, but you end up
procrastinating?
What do you usually do during the period you put off the task you have to
do?
You probably walked to the kitchen a number of times to check if everything
looked okay. You opened the fridge to give yourself a drink. You stared at
the house next to yours and counted the number of windows the house had.
Or you browsed the internet all day doing nothing particularly important.
But what if you used the time instead to clean your room, arrange your desk,
or do other productive tasks?
You get the picture, right?
If you are unable to do the task you need to do, you can motivate yourself to
do other tasks that are also important.
The most important thing is that you get busy and not waste your time doing
stupid things, but start doing other important jobs that you have on your to-do
list.
When you get closer to the deadline for the task that you have been slow to
do and find yourself under pressure, you will get the task done. Instead of
trying to fight procrastination, get started with other important tasks. This
way, you won't waste your time.

Chronic Procrastination
Chronic procrastination is more difficult to stop. Acute procrastination is not
the same as chronic procrastination, as chronic procrastination often has a
complex psychological issue associated with it.
With chronic procrastination, you find yourself constantly procrastinating
when you have to do certain tasks or even any task at all.
Although this type of procrastination is difficult to handle, it can still be
stopped.

Some of the most frequent reasons for chronic procrastination

include:
Fear, lack of assertiveness, and self-sabotage.
Having goals and expectations that you know deep within you that you
can't meet because they are unreasonably high.
Being lazy.
Having an unhealthy lifestyle.
Lacking skills or not having genuine passion.
Perfectionism.
To overcome chronic procrastination, you need these tips:
1. Participate in assertiveness training.
2. Get over the fear of success or the fear of failure.
3. Ensure that your life goals are not unreasonably big.
4. If you see yourself as someone who is lazy, have a shift of identity.
5. Work on improving your lifestyle and increasing your energy
6. Work on having a new set of skills that will make it easier for you to
handle tasks that are more demanding.
7. Discover a new passion you get because you are good at something.
8. Ensure that you don't allow perfectionism to hold you back.

Let us discuss some of these tips in detail

1. Ensure that your life goals and expectations are not unreasonably big.
Although everyone can dream big, we must ensure that we don't allow
unrealistic expectations to control our thoughts and actions regarding the
speed of achieving our goals.
We can get disappointed if we keep holding on to unrealistic expectations.
And when we get hit by big life disappointments, we can give up, or it could
make us start procrastinating things we normally would do without
procrastination.
Here is what actually happens. When you have very big goals that are
unrealistic and realize after you have tried to achieve the goal that it won't be
that easy, you may start to procrastinate. You may start having doubts about
your abilities and be scared you don't have what it takes to make your dreams
come true. You start struggling with procrastination and then give up after
some time.

You can at least do these two things:

Stop focusing on only the outcome but the process as well because nothing
great comes easily.
Dream big, but start small; break your big goals into small steps.
2. You should make an identity shift if you believe that you are lazy.
If you believe it is true that you are the lazy type, the best way to handle it is
to change that perception you have. To stop procrastinating due to laziness,
you’ll first have to make a change and start seeing yourself as an individual
who is ultra-productive. But before taking this step, you must spend time
exploring your underlying beliefs.
Ask yourself this question: “what beliefs are helping me to stay lazy?”
Imagine yourself as an individual who is ultra-productive, never experiencing
procrastination. What do you see in your life? Do you notice any benefits?

These ideas may help you:

Visualize your new self in your future, and then try to enjoy the good
feeling of being that person.
Make a written note of the rewards you’ll enjoy if you put in more effort.
And ensure that you give yourself rewards for small efforts.
 Take small productivity actions to support your new identity. Don’t put off
a task for another day and procrastinate. Start doing it immediately.
If you are lazy but don’t see yourself as someone who is, it’s okay because
everyone has blind spots and may not notice everything about them. If this is
the case, you have to become aware of your laziness first before you can
solve the problem.
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 CHAPTER 5:
Harnessing the Power of Intention

Have you ever heard about the power of intention?

If you have ever had a dream you want to fulfill, you should know that every
dream has intention as its starting point. Whether our needs are money, love,
or spiritual awakening needs, intention is the creative power to fulfill them.
Intention is the beginning of everything that occurs in the universe. For
instance, when I call my friend or buy a gift, it begins with intention.
Our deepest intentions and desires are in charge of shaping our destiny. You
are what you desire. Your intention is your desire.
An intention contains the seed form of what you desire. It is a directed
impulse of consciousness that can't grow if you don't release them. You have
to release them into your consciousness' fertile depths before you can see
them grow.
Do you want to manifest something but don't know how to set an intention?
Stay with me, and I will show you how to do this. When you want to
manifest something, your intention matters a lot. In fact, it matters more than
the desire you have. Your intention backs up your desire.
Different individuals may want to achieve the same thing but attract different
outcomes. This happens because their intentions are not on the same
energetic level. So, your manifestation must begin with a positive intention if
you want the outcomes you manifest to be what you want.
If you want to manifest your desired outcome, there are steps you can take to
help you set an intention.

Let us take a look at steps you can take if you want to use the
power of intention to achieve your desires:
1. Put Your Desire in Writing
The first thing to do if you want to set an intention to manifest your desire is
to write down what you want to manifest. So, if you have many desires that
you want to manifest and are struggling with the one to choose for a start,
select anyone who stands out to you and write it down. Get a manifestation
journal for this purpose.
After writing down what you want to manifest, add more details to it and
describe it. Use your five senses to describe it, outlining the things you will
do with what you want to manifest. Ensure that you are creative with this step
while allowing your thoughts to flow freely onto the manifestation journal.
This step is necessary for manifestation as it will help you to visualize what
you want to achieve.
2. Make the Intention Behind Your Desire Clear
When you decide to manifest something, you must make the intention behind
your desire clear. Ask yourself for the reason you want to manifest that
thing?" and write the answer to that question in your journal. Ensure that you
answer this question with complete honesty, as it will help you uncover the
energy you need to achieve your desire.
When you want to use the Law of Attraction to manifest anything, know that
you will always receive the energy you give out. After writing down your
response, look for the words associated with your feelings or emotions and
highlight those words.
Then check whether those emotions have low vibrations or high vibrations.
Your emotions are capable of letting you know whether your intention will
bring you your desired outcomes or the ones you don't want.
By sending out positive energy with high vibrations, you get to manifest
situations, people, and experiences that match with the positive energy you
are sending out. On the other hand, if you send out negative energy with low
vibrations, you will manifest situations, people, and experiences that match
with the negative energy you are sending out. So, if you discover that low
vibrations are backing your intentions, what can you do about it? You can use
positive affirmations to shift your vibrations. After doing this, you can then
move over to the next step.
3. Get into The Gap
We may have discovered that our minds are busy with thoughts, memories,
and emotions most of the time. However, there is a state of pure awareness
that exists beyond these noisy thoughts, memories, and emotions. This state
is sometimes called "the gap." Meditation can get you into the gap.
Meditation catapults you into the stillness of pure consciousness, away from
the ego-mind. This state is ideal for planting your seeds of intention.
4. Release Your Intentions and Desires
Once you have settled into a restful awareness state, let out your desires and
intentions and let the Universe know your intention. When you release your
intentions, the best time to do it is after you have finished the meditation.
During this period, your awareness is in the field of all possibilities. Set the
intention and stop thinking about it. Just let it go. You can do this after your
meditation each day. You mustn't do it for a long period every day; a few
minutes each day is enough.
Read in a loud voice everything you have put down in your journal and tell
the Universe your intention. You are surrendering to it your desire as you do
this. Don't bother about what would happen, when it would happen, and how
it would happen. Just free yourself and allow your positive intentions to uplift
your spirit. If you really want to manifest something, then you must detach
from the outcome. Don't bother yourself about that. Just release yourself so
things can work out.
Detachment is important even though it may appear counterintuitive. You
will receive the best when you don’t worry about the outcome. With
detachment, you don't need to surrender your intention but your desire. Your
desire can hinder manifestation because of the urge to worry and control. But
your intention has the ability to transform your energy which then affects the
outcomes manifested.
You must always allow your positive intentions to power your actions,
feelings, and thoughts and make your vibration align with your desire.
5. Stay Centered
When you release your intention from a place of contentment, the intention
has more power than when it comes from a sense of need or lack. Don't allow
other people's criticisms and doubts to influence you. Just stay centered
because your higher self is aware that everything is okay and will be okay,
even if your higher self has no idea when and how it will happen.
6. Don't Attach Yourself to the Outcome
Don't be so attached to a specific result. Instead, allow yourself to dwell in
the wisdom of uncertainty. Fear and insecurity cause attachment, while
believing in your true self's power leads to detachment. Just open your mind
and allow things to work out the way they should. Release yourself and allow
opportunities to come to you.
7. Allow the Universe to Fulfil Your Desire
When you have focused intentions, you get the organizing power of the
universe moving. This power sees to the complete fulfillment of what you
desire. You don't have to be obsessed and too vigilant with everything
happening to get something done. Shut out that voice that keeps telling you
that you must use obsessive vigilance to get things done. When you try too
hard to force an outcome, you will discover that it usually isn't as good for
you as the outcome that just comes naturally. You have put your intentions
out there, into the fertile ground where there is potential, and you will see
them bloom in the right season.

Why Intention Can Create Changes

Many spiritual teachers, wellness gurus, and life coaches seem to talk about
intention a lot these days. However, many others are still struggling with
what it really means.
You may be one of the people thinking about the real meaning of intention,
what makes it powerful, and how to get more out of them. To help you
wrestle with these questions and discover your own intention, read on to
understand why intention can bring changes to your life.
When you set an intention, what you are doing is activating a part of your
receptivity. You can't take a bike and have no direction in which you are
going. So, if you want to go out and don't have any intention you have set or
created any manifestation or prayer of what you want to achieve that day,
then you are just getting on a bike without setting any direction in which you
are going. If you don't set any intention, you are just sitting back and giving
fate room to happen to you. But if you really want to achieve your dreams in
life and get to your desired destination, then setting an intention will make it
possible.
So, visualize your desired destination. This may look easy. But what role
does intention play in helping you get there? An intention is powerful and
reveals to people the powers they possess. Oftentimes, people just go about
their daily activities and let the day, week, or month dictate their lives and
happen to them. But setting an attention means you are manifesting your
desires and calling them into your reality. You activate your receptivity when
you set an intention. This has happened in my life, and I have seen it happen
in other people's lives as well.
If you are still confused about setting intentions, it's time to get started with it
and stop wasting more time. When you set intentions, it doesn't just involve
physical things that you can see. It also involves the operations within you
and your internal wealth.
So what does this mean? Does it mean I cannot manifest that new car I want?
You may want something tangible, and I am not saying that tangible things
are not part of life, but you should first check in with your body, mind, and
spirit and be sure of what it is you want, not just putting unnecessary things
on the list.
Are you still not sure of your intention? You can have an intention that is
about having a great meeting with your client or receiving an exciting project
that you will work on. Your intention might even be to save money to buy a
new car, dedicate more time to your health, or focus on building a
relationship.
Once you have made up your mind about your intention, the next thing to do
is tell the universe your intention. How do you start? You might want to take
the whole month to connect. So, you might take your bath the night before
you start and do some self-care and nourishment. And after that, you get a
pen and paper, assess yourself, feel the upcoming month's energy, and then
write down your intentions.
The ritual will also help you discover things from the present month that is
ending that you should be grateful for and will show gratitude for them. You
need gratitude during the period you are setting your intention because
gratitude is very important at this stage. You can't always want something
without showing any gratitude. It will make you remain in a state of scarcity.
You may want to set monthly intentions, but don't forget to remind yourself
of the intentions weekly and daily. You may set aside Mondays to reconnect
to your monthly intention and also use the opportunity to set some intentions
or goals to achieve for that week. Some actionable items will make it easy for
you to feel connected to the bigger intention you have set.
When you want to get out of bed in the mornings, first connect to yourself by
taking a deep breath and sending love to yourself and your entire day. A few
minutes will do. After doing this, you can then set your intention for that day.
Great people don't accomplish greatness by chance. They knew what they
wanted right from when they started their journey, and they had their
intention as the journey progressed.
To set an intention, you must know what you want to achieve. And to get it,
you must have a general idea of its location. You will still need to zoom in to
see the details even if your eyes are on your target. This is referred to as
precise intention. What it does is to find and magnify your desire. If you do
this and take the necessary steps towards your desire, you will get it.
Our thoughts and words are known to impact the cells in our bodies. Our
words possess the power to positively or negatively affect our entire being.
When you say the word "I," whatever comes after it will dictate your actions
and feelings. Therefore, start using statements that will empower you, not the
ones that will pull you down. Don't say, “I don't think I can ever succeed at
this;" instead, say, "I am committed to becoming successful at this."

Visualization for Goal Achievement

Everything happening in our internal world comes from our external world.
Where we are in life is a result of our manifestations. It's where we have
brought to reality, whether consciously or unconsciously. You can rewire
your subconscious mind with visualization. When you form the habit of
seeing yourself one year from the present time through visualization, you are
increasing your belief and confidence that you will be successful. You are
rewiring your subconscious mind to make it believe you can get there. A
world of opportunities will open up, and you will start finding yourself in the
right places and meeting the right people at the right time when you start
believing in yourself and doing something to achieve your goals.
Meditation for Goal Achievement
Meditation is becoming popular these days. It has grown in recent years as
more studies have shown that it has the ability to stimulate creative thinking,
reduce blood pressure, improve cognitive functioning, reduce stress levels,
and strengthen the body’s immune system.
Meditation is a useful tool for achieving success in business. It helps you
effortlessly pursue what you seek. When you are meditating, see the image of
the goal you want to achieve. This will plant the intention in the subconscious
mind's fertile soil, thereby programming plans that will help you achieve the
goal.

Busy or Productive?
When many people are busy with work, they confuse it for being productive.
But being busy doesn't mean that a person is productive. Of course, listening
to voice notes and going through emails are important, but these activities
don't have a direct impact on your goals. Learning to prioritize is important if
you want to be successful.
Ensure that you do your most important tasks first. Check it daily and do the
ones with utmost importance first. This practice is effective because it will
gradually move you in the direction of your goal. The best time to handle this
is in the morning because you will have high energy levels at that time. You
will feel accomplished, and this is responsible for setting the tone for the rest
of your day.
To become more productive, you can set a timer to reduce the amount of time
you spend on a task. When a person gets more time to perform a task, they
may discover that it's not usually what they need. What they need is just for
them to use the time they have to complete the task more effectively. Our
motivation is usually high when a task we have to do has a specified
endpoint. And our focus increases when we are aware that we only have a
limited time to complete a task.

A Dream: Where Intention Begins

A dream is the intention’s starting point.
You now know that you are the one who has been creating your reality all
this while. You may be doubting it, but it is the truth. So, whether you think it
is true or not, it doesn't matter. You are still responsible for creating your
reality.
However, nothing really changes when you become aware that you have
created it all. There are many people out there who created their reality yet
struggled with living in fear, lack, and scarcity. These people are able to
recite affirmations and practice conscious creation but can't create themselves
out of their situations.
Why is this so? This happens because knowing theory and applying theory
are two different things. An individual may know the theory aspect but still
be unable to apply that theory. Conscious creation is work. You may have
known what it takes to change reality, but it still takes a lot of work to get it
done.
So, is it worth it to do the required work? Of course! You can enjoy heaven
on earth. But you must be determined to put in the needed effort. And where
is the starting point? The starting point is a dream. That is where it begins.
There are many ways to dream, and you can even state the dream in a variety
of ways. I have practiced this for years, and I am convinced that the best way
to state your dream is with intentions. Some people teach that people should
state their dreams in the future. But that isn't effective. When you say, "I will
have... your subconscious believes that you are trying to realize the dream,
and you never realize it. Some others teach that people should state their
dreams in the present. When you say, "I now have..." there is also a problem
because your subconscious mind believes you already have an abundance of
what you want and you don't need more of it.
But using an intention to state your goal is good because it is open-ended. It
considers the present and the future. It tells your subconscious about this and
more, which makes you open to receiving more than you have asked from the
universe.
I intend to enjoy a connection with the divine, abundance, prosperity, beauty,
peace, freedom, health, joy, trust, and love.
Intentions mean business.
When you state your dreams using intentions, what should you include?
Let your intentions include areas of your life that you want to keep that way
or make improvements to.

Your intentions can include the following:

Work, spiritual, relationships, financial, creative, emotional and mental,
physical body, humanity intentions, and physical surroundings.
When you are putting out your intentions, the sky is the limit for what you
can create. Just ensure that you use clear and concise words so that you don't
confuse your subconscious mind. It should have clarity about what you want.
Emotion has the power to create. Also, when your intentions have excitement
around them, it will be easy to achieve your goals. So, you should be excited
about the possibility of achieving your goals.
You can also ask for help. For example, you can close your intention with, "I
am making this request to get help from my unseen friends to make my
intentions come true even greater than I have stated."
What is the next thing to do after you have written your intentions? Read
what you have written down daily and change them daily or weekly as
necessary. Be focused on your intentions and allow them to constantly excite
and inspire you. It isn't easy, but you will find that it is worth it.

Get Up and Do Something

If you are a dreamer, then you should act on your dream. If you don't, then
it's just a fantasy. Fantasies may be fun, but they seldom become a reality.
You don't have to keep doubting and saying people don't create reality
because your dream didn't come true. When you have a dream, and you don't
take the necessary action in the direction of the dream to make it come true,
you are sending conflicting messages to the universe. You can't be saying you
want something and then not even believe that it will happen.
You may be saying that you expect your dream to come true, but do you truly
believe it? If you did, you would be letting the universe know that you are
serious about your dream and expecting it to come to reality. You would be
taking the actions needed to achieve the dream, and by taking the necessary
actions, I don't mean blind action.
If your dream is to relocate to another country, it’s not compulsory for you to
get on a plane today and start going there despite not having money for the
relocation at the moment. I am talking about taking small steps towards
achieving that dream.

You can do the following:

Buy a book on your dream destination and start reading about the place.
Search online and join a group of ex-pats already residing in your dream
destination.
Plan a trip to go and explore the place.
Make plans about the things you will travel with and how much it would
cost, and get rid of those things you don't need.
You might say you don’t want to start getting rid of things because you are
not sure of ever relocating. If you are not sure you want to move and can't
start getting rid of stuff you wouldn't want to travel with, then you shouldn't
intend to relocate to that location.

Instead, you can put out intentions like these:

I intend to have clarity about the location I want to move to.
I intend to relocate to a warm, beautiful, exciting, and spiritual place.
I intend to go to adventurous places in my life.
I intend to travel to different places, including the location I want to
relocate to, to live and spend the next few years.
Notice that the new intentions listed above still include the location you want
to relocate to, but they create more possibilities.
These possibilities could come into your reality as a new job with a travel
opportunity and a home in a beautiful and warm location with people who are
connected spiritually and possess all the qualities you want. You take the
opportunity and find the love of your life there, and all of a sudden, you make
up your mind to continue living there. This is what clarity does. It brings the
right opportunities your way.
You may not be clear about relocating to that particular destination until the
time comes to get rid of some of the things you don't need. Getting rid of
those things isn't what matters here. What matters is taking action and
moving one step at a time. As you do this and pay attention, you will see that
things will become clearer.
Taking action goes deeper than just physically taking action. It sends
messages to your subconscious mind and gets it to start working on
manifesting your desire. Action helps in the creation process because it
solidifies your intention and helps you put energy into your dream.
So, don't just sit there watching and doing nothing to contribute towards
achieving your dream. Start taking steps in the direction of your dream, no
matter how small the steps may be. The idea is to keep moving and not
remain static.
 CHAPTER 6:
Intentional Life Planning

Why does it feel like time is never enough? We have just started a new week,
and before you can even do anything, it is already Saturday. How can you be
productive and achieve what you want to achieve every day?
You should be working towards reaching your fullest potential daily. I mean
every single day. And you should enjoy the days that you are not working
too. Relax on those days and enjoy every moment.
So, what can you do to reach your full potential?
If you want to attain your daily goals and reach your full potential, you will
need to plan to achieve this. So, this is the time to start planning if you don't
have good planning skills. People with good planning and time management
skills usually experience more high productivity days than those without.
When you want to set the goals you want to achieve, don't shy away from
setting big goals. You can say, “I want to be a successful singer” or “I want
to be the best salesperson amongst my colleagues in the company." But
setting your goals isn't the end. After you have set your goals, you need to
make a plan to achieve those goals. So, when making an action plan that will
help you achieve your goals, breaking your big goal into smaller, easily
attainable goals will help.
The salesperson whose desire is to make the highest number of sales in the
company might set smaller goals which include increasing the number of
sales they make for the company by making one extra sale a week in the first
three months of the year or two extra sales a week for the first six months,
and so on. The singer might set a smaller goal to master a performance before
the next concert, or the artist might set a smaller goal to produce a specific
number of artworks that they will sell to people at an art show.
The smaller goals you set should move you closer to your ultimate goal, and
they should also be attainable. The thing about success is that it builds on
success. So, when you achieve those small goals, they will serve as
motivation for you to keep working until you achieve your big goal.
To reach your potential every single day, you must plan your day according
to your priorities and the things that really matter to you.
Pay attention to the most important things in your life. The most important
things may be spending quality time with your partner or providing for your
family's needs. When you start living your life according to your priorities
and the things that matter to you, reaching your fullest potential every day
will be easy for you.
You can decide to plan for the coming week every Sunday evening. You will
know your schedule for the week. Doing this will help you see what your
week will be like before it begins. Ensure that you include when you plan to
start your work as well as when you plan to end your work for the week in
the schedule. This will make it easy for you to know when to stop working
and focus on your family. Also, ensure that you are realistic with the goals
you want to achieve when making your action plan for the week.
Don't set yourself up for failure but for success. What you should do is create
a to-do list for every day of the week. You can do this on Sunday evening.
You can put about four or even five tasks that you want to accomplish for
each day of the week.
One thing I do that has been helpful to me in reaching my potential each day
is that I check off each task on my list after I have completed it. This makes
me feel satisfied at the end of the day, knowing that I was able to complete
the tasks I set out to do that day. Remember to work for success. And ensure
that you reward yourself after you have worked throughout the day and are
productive.

Why is Planning Important?

Planning begins after you have your dream and desires. It plays a crucial role
in every area of our lives. I will talk about what makes planning important in
our life. But you need to first understand what planning actually is.
Planning is a process whereby we set goals, develop strategies, and create
schedules and tasks that will help us reach our goals. Planning helps us know
the details of what we want to do before we actually start doing that thing.
If you have a goal to do groceries, you may see it as an easy task. But when
you pay attention to it and break down what you have to do, you will
discover that it involves many small tasks.
The tasks may include: making a grocery list, getting the wallet, driving to
the store, finding certain grocery items, and buy them, etc.
An action plan is a guide that helps you see how far you are from the goal
you have set or your closeness to the goal. It performs the work of a map.
What makes planning important in our lives?
Planning helps us focus on our goals despite the situation we are faced with.
This is what makes it important. With proper planning, one small idea can
become a reality one day and go on to do great things. When you have an
idea that you haven't made any plans to execute yet, it is nothing more than
brain waves. When you plan, you will see that you will have confidence,
flexibility, competitive advantages, and speed.
Planning helps secure our future and provides us with a good standard of
living. For example, if you need some money urgently in the future, what will
you do? It is for this reason that many people save money so that they can
have a secure future. This is why we need planning. It is important for our
survival.
A good plan requires a breakdown of activities to do, the time to perform
them, and the conditions to perform them. It involves spelling out whether
certain tasks would be done daily, weekly, or monthly, writing out what to do
to make a profit, what to do when there is a loss, and so on. Planning requires
brainstorming and research to get it properly done.
You need to understand that not all plans are perfect. Even an expert can
make a plan, and it would still fail. So this goes to show that planning doesn't
guarantee that you will be successful, but it makes you stick with the goal
longer than you would have and reduces the burdens the brain carries on a
daily basis.
You are in the middle of a situation or need to make a decision. The situation
could be in your personal life or at work. You could be doing this with a team
or alone. Whatever the situation is, you need a plan to handle it.
Organizations need planning, and individuals also need planning. A business
can make an expansion plan, while an individual can make a plan to follow to
help them switch jobs. Some projects you want to work on may require more
planning than others, so you need to think about your choices and get things
right.

These reasons will help you understand the importance of

planning:
1. Planning Makes It Easy to Set Appropriate Goals
Before you start planning, you should already know what you want to
accomplish with the plan. When you plan for a goal you have, it helps you
refine the goal and make you see whether the goal is realistic or not. For
example, if you want to increase the sales you make to a particular number,
and you discover that the number you are trying to reach is too high due to
factors you cannot control, you use the new information you have to adjust
your goal.
2. Planning Breaks a Goal into Smaller Goals
You must have discovered that many goals you want to accomplish are
complicated. So, what do you do about those kinds of goals or problems? Do
you just abandon them? There are different ways you can take to accomplish
a goal. And we all know that you don't just flip a coin and know the single
road to take that will get you to your destination.
You might find your goal or problem overwhelming. This is where planning
comes in. Planning helps you break down the goal or problem at hand into
smaller pieces, and then the tasks are distributed when necessary. It doesn't
matter if you are the only one facing the dilemma or you are in a team;
planning turns a larger goal or problem into smaller activities. It’s like
making a road that will lead you to your destination.
3. Planning Reveals Strengths and Exposes Weaknesses
When you make a plan, you go through it properly and look at it from
different angles. This will help you notice the strengths and weaknesses of
the plan. This part of planning is important because if you don't pay attention
to this before you start rushing towards your goal, you will end up running
into problems early on. Think about the flaws in your plan and make the
necessary adjustments. As you do this, remember to take note of its strengths.
4. Planning Gives More Confidence
You can't rule out uncertainties when it comes to new projects. Uncertainties
bring fear because you don't know what to expect. Planning will help to boost
your confidence and increase certainty. Although we can't predict what will
happen in the future, and we will always experience surprises, planning gives
you clarity about what lies ahead.
5. Planning Prevents Waste
There are many projects where people just started without planning well. You
must have heard about them. People often focus on the embarrassment that
failure causes, but it's important that we also check how much waste
occurred. Check how much time, money, and talent has been wasted. Even if
a project you didn't have a plan for didn't completely fail, lack of planning
means you used more resources than you should have used to complete it.
Planning helps you prevent waste.
6. Planning Helps to Reduce Risk
When we are starting to work on a project, we can't tell what the future holds.
And because we don't know the future, every new project we embark on
involves some form of risk. What will determine whether a project or idea
will advance is the level of risk involved. If a goal you want to accomplish
involves others like a team or an organization, the risk involved will
determine whether or not they want to work with you to accomplish the goal.
What can you do about this? Explain your plan to the people you want to
work with. Make them understand that you have thought about the challenges
involved and that you are ready to make adjustments when necessary. Prove
to them that you have done everything within your power to reduce the risk
involved.
7. Planning Helps to Increase Credibility
When you are working with teams and organizations, you can easily earn
credit if you are a good planner. If you have a dream of getting to a
leadership position or if you are already in that position, your ability to plan
well and guide the planning process will reveal how respected and successful
you will be. Good planners are able to set realistic goals that have clarity, and
they know what needs to be done to achieve those goals.
8. Planning Encourages Innovation and Creativity
When you break a goal into small pieces and study the weaknesses to see
how you can reduce risk, it creates room for innovation and creativity.
Creative thinkers such as writers, artists, and musicians often say that the
problem-solving quality of planning helped them to stretch their minds and
achieve more than they initially thought they could.
9. Planning Gives Peace of Mind
Planning gives many benefits such as creativity boost, reduced risk, increased
efficiency, etc. But you shouldn't ignore this benefit: peace of mind. A project
that requires planning will bring about stress. Planning takes out the
uncertainty and increases your confidence. When you have thought about the
project and understood the pros and cons, stress may not completely
disappear, but you will have more peace of mind than you had before you
started planning for the project.
Planning is a great way to accomplish your life goals.

Think about the following:

You plan your trip before traveling.
You plan your wedding before getting married.
When you want to have a party, you plan the event.
When you want to increase your earnings, you make a plan for it.
You do some planning when you want to be happy.
When you want to have good health, you make plans for it.
When you want to lose weight, you plan for it.
When you want to travel around the world, you make plans for it.
You plan when you want to have a happy and meaningful relationship.
I bet you won't dream of doing any of the activities we have listed above
without first making some plans. It is the same thing when you want to live a
life filled with happiness, meaning, and fulfillment. Yet most people don't
think it is necessary to plan their lives. They neglect the need to make plans
for their goals and then get disappointed when they fail to achieve what they
want to achieve.
You can plan both the big and small aspects of your life.

Here are some ideas you should consider:

When you want to start waking up earlier than you used to.
When you want to stop bad habits that you have.
When you want to become a nice individual.
When you want to start a business.
When you want to lose weight.
When you want to get a better job or promotion at work.
Planning can help you lose weight, read more books, get fit, wake up early,
and become more mindful. If you don't make plans that will guide you
toward your goals, you will have a hard time trying to accomplish those
goals.
I know this because I have experienced it. When I don't carefully plan a goal,
I fail to accomplish it. And this means that you have a high probability of
failing at something when you don't make any plan to achieve it.

Steps for Planning

When you want to plan, you must first ensure that you have clarity of goals.
It is the first step to take. Start by writing down your goals. You will find it
beneficial, and it won't take you much time to do that.
After identifying your goal, the next thing to do is to brainstorm the required
tasks. Arrange all the tasks according to the order they are to be performed
and then assign the time for completing each of the tasks. The next thing to
do is to define your roles in accomplishing the goal and the roles that other
people will be playing in helping with your goal. This will ensure that there is
no confusion.
After setting your goal, determining the required tasks, and the people to
complete certain tasks, you can start scheduling. Ensure that the schedules
you plan are daily and weekly. Although the weekly schedule is important in
helping to make your project successful, the daily schedule is also important
because it helps to track your project's success and helps you know when you
are on schedule or when you are not.
When you start doing your work, keep evaluating your performance to check
whether you need to adjust your schedule to fit your plans and know if you
are still on track. This makes daily planning necessary.
Finally, after you have completed your task, do a review of your planning
process to check if your plan was successful or not. You will be able to find
out whether your planning process was productive.
Planning has been beneficial to me in my life. I use it to determine the level
of progress I have made and see if I am on the right track, which will lead me
to success or not.

More About Planning

Productivity doesn't come by accident. It comes with intelligent planning, a
commitment to do excellent work, and having focused effort.
You may think you have made a plan of five or even ten years for your life,
expecting that things will go the way you have planned. But these times we
live in are uncertain, and anything can go wrong.
So, it is possible for you to find yourself away from where you expected to
be. And this isn't bad because you can still start again or make changes to get
to where you want to be.
You don’t have to stop making plans for your life since it probably won't be
the way you expected it to be. That would mean that you won't be able to
reach your full potential.
You don't allow uncertainties to make you stop planning. You need to plan
your life in the direction you want it to go, but be flexible about it so that you
can easily adjust when the unexpected happens. The key here is to keep
assessing your life to check the progress you have made, your destination,
and how fast or slow you are moving. Circumstances changes, so you must
make your strategies flexible and ensure that they are leading you in the
direction of your goal.
You should still desire productivity and success, and work towards it, even as
you stay open to embracing setbacks and failure.
If you feel that this is a lot of work, then you are right. It definitely is. But
you need to plan your life despite this.
Still not convinced about planning your life?

Here are more reasons to do so:

You Will Know Your Priorities
When you don't plan, you will discover that it can derail your life.
We have important things in our lives, such as family, friends, and work, that
we value. In addition, we also have less important things that we do but are
still necessary. They include running errands, shopping, responding to emails,
going to work, and so on,
If you live your life without planning, there is a possibility that you will miss
doing the most important things in your life and go about doing the less
important ones first. This means that you will waste your time doing
unnecessary things instead of doing the important things that you should
prioritize. And you will only spend a little time doing the important things.
Your life might be full of tasks, but at the end of your life, you might be full
of regrets when you look back and see that you spent your time doing
unimportant things and your life is empty.
Don't spend all of your time planning the wedding than the marriage like
most people do.
You Will Easily Achieve Your Purpose
When you plan for your life, it helps you to easily achieve your purpose.
What your purpose is doesn't really matter. The important thing is that your
purpose is something you want. You might make up your mind that your
purpose is to become the most sought-after supermodel ever. You can only
achieve your purpose with planning.
Purpose makes you positive, and you will not have time for negativity. You
will stay focused on accomplishing what you want to accomplish in life.
Understand that it is your attitude that will determine your altitude. You have
the ability to achieve whatever you want if you know your purpose and you
have a positive attitude towards life.
Planning Is a Source of Motivation
You can't say you are moving ahead when you have no goals. When you set
goals for your life, you have something you are working towards. You will be
motivated to work harder and save your money if you have made a plan to
own your own home by the age of 30. If you have a plan to invite your
friends to your house for dinner, you wake up early to clean the house and get
the food ready before their arrival.
When you plan and set goals for your life, they will motivate you to get up
and start working. You can make long and short-term goals. If you don't have
goals that you are working towards, the days just pass by, with each day
blending into the next. And before you even know what is happening, life has
passed you by.
Planning Gives You Satisfaction
A lot of us have the desire to work towards achieving the goals we have set.
We are motivated to work towards the destination we want to get to. Yet
planning is about defining a point of satisfaction and not just about the
journey.
You need to have the feeling that you have accomplished something when
you reach a goal or complete a task. You get more satisfaction from a
difficult task or goal than from a task or goal that isn't difficult.
You need to know your destination to recognize it when you get there. You
can't just get into a car and start driving without knowing where you are
going to. If you do this, how will you know your destination when you get
there? You will just keep driving and not knowing where you are going,
which will be time-wasting and tiring. And when you finally stop moving,
you won't have any sense of accomplishment or feel satisfied because you
have no idea about what you accomplished in the first place.
You Will Make Better Decisions
When you make no plan for your life, it will be difficult for you to make
important decisions for your life. Having no direction in which you are going
means that you might find yourself settling for the easiest options since all
the options make no difference to you. And the easiest options may not be the
right ones for you.
A plan will help you make choices that are based on the goal you want to
accomplish. You have to make up your mind to take a culinary course if you
want to become a great chef. You have to make up your mind that you will
not purchase a second car at the moment since you are saving your money to
buy a house. You have to choose a course in aeronautic engineering since
you want to build airplanes. Our choices affect our life, so we have to learn to
make the right ones.
You Will Reduce Risks
Planning can help you reduce risks in your life. This is because when you
plan for the unexpected, you won't be taken by surprise.
Although insurance covers much of that, there is still a need to secure some
other things. Some jobs can be quite demanding, so choose one that gives you
enough time to spend with your family. A good work-life balance will help
you build a strong relationship with your family.
Time management is important, and priority management will help us
maximize our time. We can't control time; it ticks endlessly regardless of
what we do.
Personal development will help you become an improved version of yourself
so create time for that. Do your best to have a healthy social life. Connecting
with friends will give you a sense of security. You will worry less when you
have more confidence and a larger social circle. And this can make you more
productive.
So, instead of worrying, why don’t you start thinking and planning in
advance? This will do you good.
You Will Learn to Delegate Tasks
Some people think that they have to load their life with many activities and
tasks to be productive. However, that isn't right. When you have poor
planning or you are unable to say no when you should, it will negatively
affect your productivity.
Nobody is perfect at doing everything. If you attempt to do everything, it can
lead to poorly executing tasks or leaving some tasks unfinished. Planning
makes you understand what you can accomplish within a specific period. It
also helps you know the tasks that would bring more productivity and the
ones you should delegate to others to handle to have better results. If you
work in the sales department and need higher numbers so that a client can
come back to invest with you, you can achieve faster results by passing the
job over to an individual or team known for doing high sales numbers.
Every entrepreneur is aware that their ability to prioritize is important to be
successful. So, you must prioritize the most important tasks, and then you can
delegate the others.
This is the same in life, and it not just only applies in business. You will save
time when you plan your day and delegate tasks you can't handle yourself to
others or delegate tasks to others that they can do better and faster than you.
You Will Have Strategies
When we perform our daily tasks, we have strategies that we use. And we
may not realize it, but it is the truth. We take a shower when we wake up in
the morning and then get dressed. We don't get dressed before taking a
shower. It doesn't make sense. Yet, there are people who do things that don't
make sense because they have no plan for their lives.
When you only exist in this present moment and don't think about your
future, you don't think about strategies that will help you accomplish more
tasks and do your job faster. You don't have a vision of the future, and you
have no plan. And because you don't have a vision and a plan to make the
vision a reality, you just move along until you eventually find yourself
somewhere. If you had a plan, you could have gotten to that place easily.
When you have a certain destination or goal in mind, there are different paths
that can take you there. What a strategy does is help you accomplish that goal
you want to accomplish in the best way possible. When you don't have a plan
or strategy, you might end up anywhere that won't give you the satisfaction
you need.
Should you just relax and allow things to happen? The truth is, it can work
for a short time this way. However, you could find yourself with nothing in
the end if you don't have a strategy for the things you consider important in
your life.
So, while doing small things, you must have the big things in mind so that the
small things you are doing can move in the right direction.
You Will Have Control
An important reason to plan your life is to have some form of control over it.
Although 90% of the things we see happening around us are beyond our
control, a plan can help you have some form of control over the other 10%.
You can steer the boat of your life by utilizing mechanisms of control such as
setting goals, making strategies, etc. And you can do this no matter the way
the wind blows. You just need to keep holding on to the sides of the boat and
doing all you can to ensure that it doesn't tip over. However, won't you find it
good to steer out of danger when you find an opportunity?
Planning helps you achieve that. With planning, you are bringing your future
to this moment and doing something about your life now. Planning will help
you have some control over the direction that your life is going in. Although
your circumstances are capable of making you compromise, you are
conscious of what you are experiencing, and you have the ability to choose
what you do next.
When you plan your life, you have control over what you are doing. You are
in charge of making the decisions rather than allowing other people or fate to
decide for you. You will easily identify and focus on more important things
when you create an action plan because everyone has different
responsibilities in their lives.
Failure isn't a bad thing, but isn't it better to fail and know why and where
you failed than to look up and wonder what went wrong? A plan makes you
able to look back at what you did at every stage and study the lessons your
failures have taught you so that you won’t repeat the same mistakes and you
will perform better next time.
We all desire to be in the driver's seat of our lives. So, it is good for our
mental health that we take control of our lives rather than just sitting back and
allowing life to happen to us.
You Will Become Successful at Each Stage
Planning your life is important if you want to become successful.
Success is relative and means different things for different people at different
stages of life. And this is what makes planning important.
People have different definitions of success. Many young people's definition
of success is to be famous, have lots of money, or a mixture of both. As
people get older, their goals start changing and include goals that are less
tangible such as pursuing a passion, having a happy family, and so on.
When you make a plan, it helps you become successful at each stage of your
life. A map is like a roadmap that has many destinations, and this roadmap
can make it easy for you to achieve each stage of your life journey more
quickly.
We don't measure success by the position we have reached in life; we
measure it by the obstacles we have overcome. When you can look at
everything you have achieved despite the challenges you went through, that
is what true success is.
Planning makes your dreams look more achievable. Once you make a
realistic plan, you will notice that your dreams are achievable. An individual
with a sense of purpose is a happy person because they know they are
working towards something great. Understand that you need a plan to help
you establish your purpose. If you have a plan and start taking steps towards
your goal, you will stop existing and start living a life of purpose. Some
people just exist without having any sense of purpose. So, you shouldn't be
like these people.
With a plan in place, you will easily say "no" to things that are outside the
plan and are not important. This means that you will understand that
opportunities that are not aligned with your plan won't be worth your time,
and you will not hesitate to turn them down.
You will have a sense of peace when your life is planned. And you won't be
worrying about whether or not the choices and decisions you are making are
the right ones.
A plan gives you the feeling of being more powerful. You have the
permission to live your life just the way you want it to be. And it also gives
you the tools you need.
A plan ensures that you know what to expect and will have no regrets after
completing what you want to do. If you make an effort to plan your life and
you stick to the plan you made to achieve your goals, you will have the
assurance that you will accomplish your goals.
 CHAPTER 7:
Your Time, Your Life

You get up from the sofa where you have been answering phone calls from
friends and going through web pages, only to realize it's 2 pm and you still
haven't accomplished anything that day. Has anything like this ever happened
to you? I'm sure we have all been there. But when this starts happening all the
time, it's time to swing into action and put a stop to it.

You can maximize productivity with these tips whether you are
at home, work, or school:
1. List Things You Waste Time On
Make a list of everything you often waste time on. Have the list close to you
so that when you notice that you have started wasting time, write that thing
you are doing at that time that is wasting your time on the list. This list will
help you. And the next time you want to do any of those things that waste
your time, you will stop it. It will serve as a reminder of things you shouldn’t
do or things you should stop yourself from doing, like watching cat videos
when you should be working on your project or sending emails.
2. Uninstall or Hide Time-Wasting Social Media Apps
Research has shown that the average person who uses social media spends
3.6 hours each day socializing online. This time when calculated equals about
a quarter of the time you are not sleeping. Imagine spending a quarter of the
time you are awake socializing online without doing anything meaningful to
move your life ahead. If you put those hours into something more
worthwhile, wouldn't it be useful?
To avoid wasting this time on social media, remove all the social networking
apps from the toolbar on the browser of your computer and your phone’s
home screen. Although you can still reach the sites when you want, removing
the apps from your computer and browser prevents you from using the apps
to check updates on impulse, even though we know there is nothing new to
see.
3. Set Daily, Small Goals and Reminders
Every day has its own tasks that you have to complete. So, don't make things
difficult for yourself. Make things easy for yourself by taking it one day at a
time and completing each task you have to do.
Are you meant to submit a report next month? Set daily goals that will help
you complete the report at the right time, and ensure that you set reminders
for when to start working on the goals each day. Break things down into the
small tasks you will do each day to help you complete the work instead of
waiting until the last minute before you start rushing to finish it.
Apps like Google Calendar will help you with your daily goals. When you set
reminders, you will not forget what you have to do, and your work will be
organized.
4. Start by Doing the Tasks That Are More Important
When you have a big project to work on, and you are finding it difficult to
start working on it, you might begin by doing the easiest tasks. This is
because it gives you the feeling that you have started and you are doing
something worthwhile even while delaying your big project. But by the time
you finish doing the less important tasks, you will discover that you are
reluctant to start working on the more important ones because you are already
worn out from doing the less important ones.
So, to fix this, what do you do? You can switch things up and start working
on the most important tasks first. You will be happy with the outcome and
feel relieved after that, and the rest of your day will be hitch-free.
5. Don't Multitask
Humans can't multitask. We are not multitasking. What happens is that our
brains are quick to switch attention from one task to another so quickly that
we think we are multitasking. And if you decide to take on too many tasks at
the same time, you will discover that you are not very good at it. You won't
complete the tasks to a high standard, and you might spend more time on
them than the time you would spend if you only focused on doing one task at
a time.
What does this tell you? This means that humans are not very efficient at
multitasking, and you will only hinder your productivity if you are
multitasking.
6. Make Use of Dead Time
What do you do with the time when you are on a bus going home or waiting
for the doctor in his office? If you are just sitting and looking outside the
window or staring at the wall, your time is wasted. You will benefit more by
using it for something more valuable. So, instead of just sitting and doing
nothing, send those emails you have to send or take notes on that project you
have to start doing next. You could decide to use this time for breathing
exercises that help you relieve stress. What you do doesn't really matter; just
ensure that it is productive.
7. Use Your Time Well
You will reach your fullest potential each day if you plan and use the time
you have well. When you make an action plan of how you want your day to
go and what you want to do with your time, you will do more things during
the day and also have extra time to do what you enjoy doing. It is important
that you learn time management because when you place value on yourself,
you will also place value on your time and what you spend it on.

Getting Back Wasted Time

We all have things to do. And I’m not one of the people who say, “Oh,
everything is so easy” or “I will just go ahead and do what I have to do right
now.” Most people work a 9–5 job with limited time and savings to spend on
family commitments, holidays, and so on. Not including other aspects of life
such as disability, illness, or some other unfortunate circumstances.
That said, I believe that there will always be a way when there is a will. There
are many people who have come out of circumstances such as serious
hardship, extreme poverty, and other traumatic experiences. And if these
people can overcome these circumstances, then we can get over our own
relatively smaller challenges.
It depends on our choices and priorities. If you are willing to go with the
feelings in your heart, no matter how scary they may feel, it will go a long
way. When you combine that with the knowledge, the right strategy, and
execution, you will be on the right track.
How can you figure out what is important to you?
Take a pen and paper and make a list of everything you want out of life.
Think about it for a week and revisit the list. Be honest with yourself and ask
yourself what it is you really want. Once you know what you really want, go
for it.
You may be thinking it is easier to say this than to do it. But if you do what
we have discussed above and still don't know, what you need is to have
experiences with as many different people as possible. Eventually, you will
start discovering the things you like and feel right. And then, with time, you
will find your direction.
We are wired to be unique individuals, not sitting in front of a screen
watching everyone else and comparing our lives to their highlight reels.
Sometimes, you may have different ideas that are confusing, and none of
them makes any sense to you. What do you do in this case? I have been at a
stage in my life where I had so much going on that I couldn't sort out myself
and needed an outlet that would help me with it. So I bought myself a jotter
and wrote everything down.
After I had written everything down, I went through it over the next week
until I came up with something that made sense. What I had written down,
which made no sense, now had SMART goals. The SMART goals were
connected to my purpose, and every other thing clicks into it. I started taking
small steps that led toward the big goals. I opened the jotter every day and
went through what I had written, which helped me remain focused. This
helped me to achieve my goal, and not just to keep dreaming about it or
making excuses about why it won't work out.
So, what is preventing you from pursuing your dream and making it a reality?
Some people give endless excuses. Are you one of them? Do you keep giving
excuses as to why you can't pursue your dream? Someone might offer you
several ways that you can overcome your challenges and accomplish your
dreams, but I have learned from experience that many people don't often want
to listen to suggestions that can make them pursue a dream they have already
tagged dead. They keep hiding behind their excuses, and they are comfortable
doing that. Although this may appear harsh, it is true. If these people took an
honest look at themselves and made up their minds to agree to a nudge in the
right direction, they would find a solution to their problem.
Below are some excuses people seem to give and some simple things anyone
who wants to get back their time and focus on things that are important can
try. Pay attention to these things and build on them, and you will see that
things will start happening. When you are disciplined and know why you are
doing what you are doing, you will make progress. The journey may get
difficult at times, but you must understand that anything worth doing is never
easy.
1. Time is not enough
Turn off the TV and reduce the amount of time you spend on social media.
I'm not saying you should stare at your phone doing nothing. I'm only saying
you should try taking time off from these activities for a few months, and the
amount of spare time it will create for you will surprise you. And in addition,
you will also see how much happier you will start feeling.
We are made to be outside, making things happen and using our uniqueness
to fulfill our potential, not sitting in front of a screen watching everyone's
lives and comparing our lives to their highlight reels. Research shows that
most people watch TV for about four to five hours a day. When you add the
time spent on social media to this time, it is already a sizable percentage of
our whole lives.
Now make good use of that time you have been wasting. When you go to the
gym, or you are traveling from one destination to another, you can listen to
podcasts of people whom you gain inspiration from. You will learn and grow
from this because of the ideas and implementation strategies you will get.
You might even decide to reach out to some of those people, and who
knows? It may open doors of opportunities for you.
A day has 24 hours which means that we all have the same number of hours
in a day. Once we have spent our time on something, we can't get it back.
And if we have wasted it, we can't get it back too. Time makes everyone the
same as we all have the same 24 hours to work with, no matter where we are
from. Pay attention to your schedule and control it as much as possible, learn
to say no when the need arises, and pay attention to the things that bring you
happiness.
2. The Money I Have Isn't Enough
Cut down on unnecessary expenses. Stop becoming unnecessarily
materialistic and buying crap you don't need. Only buy stuff that you need.
You don't need all the many things you buy most times. Your wants are
different from your needs. The difference between them is huge. Most of the
time, we are trying to impress people we don't have any real bond with or
people who don't care about us. And we are trying to impress them with
things that we don't even need. This doesn't make any sense, yet many people
live their lives this way.
If you can save and invest your money instead of wasting it on things you
don't need, you will notice that it will start accumulating. So, discipline
yourself, and you will reap the benefits over time. As you start making good
use of your money, your excuses for not having enough money will start
fading away, and new possibilities will start coming your way.
3. I Have a Family
This excuse is quite tricky to implement. This is because every situation isn't
the same. They are different, and compromise would be needed on some
level. You shouldn't see your family as a burden or an excuse to hide under.
You can still find ways to include them in what you are doing while still
achieving your goals.
Your family members are your loved ones, and you should see them as your
responsibility. They are your support network. I know they would be more
understanding if you even sat with them and explained your plan to them.
Explain why you are doing something, the advantage of it, and the fact that
you don't want to do things that will make you regret it later in life. Regrets
are unhealthy and breed resentment.
So what can you do?
People are beginning to avoid potential regrets and get in the driver's seat of
their lives, thereby living their lives just the way they want their lives to be,
not how others are telling them to live. Why don't you do the same? I
encourage you to try it. There are people that will help you. You are not
alone. There are many resources that you can get help from. You just need to
make a move and do something about it.
If you still feel like making excuses, do this: go online and search for anyone
who has been through what you are going through now, or even in a much
worse situation, and still accomplished what they made up their mind to do.
Once you find that person, use them as an example and allow yourself to
draw inspiration from them whenever you are giving up on yourself instead
of making excuses. When you search deep within you, you will discover that
every one of us is similar, and we can do much more than we think we are
capable of.
The clock isn't standing still. It is ticking. So, get moving.

Increasing Productivity
A productive life equates to a happy life. But we keep wasting our time,
which makes us struggle to live productive lives. Your career growth will be
faster if you are more productive than average people. You will learn more
and do more things, which will bring you more rewards.
Productivity is about being effective. And by doing the right things you need
to do, you are effective.
What matters most is to live a meaningful life. Otherwise, you will just find
yourself running around in circles. You might be doing things that make you
appear busy, but you won’t accomplish any meaningful thing.
In other words: It’s not difficult to do useless work. It is quite easy. And this
work doesn't move you any step closer to your desired outcomes. It is only a
waste of your valuable time.
Results are what matter the most. You can’t keep working without having
results. They are important. You might be working for 40 hours every week,
but if this doesn't translate to any emotional, financial, or personal growth,
then you are not making effective use of your time.

Follow these steps to increase your productivity:

First Step: Measure Your Time
“I don’t know why I keep procrastinating. What is wrong with me?” Many
people say this.
The question I want to ask you is, do you know your time, and can you
measure it?
You need to measure your time as it will help you stop procrastination and
make you more productive. If you don’t measure your time, you will struggle
with managing your time. You have to know where your time is going first if
you want to be able to manage it better.
Do you think your memory is sufficient? It isn't. If you were asked what you
spent this exact time eight days ago doing, would you be able to answer them
right away? I bet you won't.
So, what can you do to know your time? You can do this by keeping an
activity log. An activity log involves an hourly record of your activities
throughout the day. You can use any method for your activity log; the
method used doesn't matter. What matters is that you want to have a record of
your activities for at least two weeks or a whole month if you prefer that.
You can just keep a pen and a notebook where you write down the time and
all the things you have done during the past hour. You can do this every one
hour. Ensure that you keep the notebook where you can easily reach it, so
you don't forget to write down your activities.
Second Step: Identify The Work That Is Non-Productive
This step is not a difficult one. Just answer this question:
Take your notebook and go through all the activities that are recurring one
after the other. What if you stop performing those activities? What would
happen?
Give an honest answer to the question. If you answer: “All hell breaks loose.”
Leave everything the way it is without changing anything.
But if you say: “Everything would stay the way it is, and nothing would
happen.” It means that you have hit gold.
Every one of us performs some activities which bring us no return. Those
activities are time-wasters.
Third Step: Get Rid of the Time-Wasters
To stop wasting time, you must get rid of the time-wasters in your life. If you
become aware of where your time goes, and you can separate the critical
tasks from the trivial tasks you spend your time on, you will be able to easily
eliminate the trivial, time-wasting tasks.
It is that simple. To become super-effective, you need to regularly keep an
activity log. I'm not saying you must keep a log for 365 days a year. You can
just keep a log for two-three weeks a year. Doing this will help you know
what you spend your time on, and you will be able to identify and eliminate
the time-wasters in your life.
Also, this simple exercise will make you think about your daily routine.
Often, when we start doing time-wasting activities, they turn into habits that
become difficult for us to stop. Living your life without taking note of the
time-wasting activities you spend your time on will worsen things and make
it difficult for you to break those bad habits.
The following exercise will help you to stop wasting your time.

You can start working on your activity log now. Your activity
log may look like this:
(Write the time) — I switched my phone off and continued working on the
office project.
(Write the time) — I browsed the internet for news, watched videos on
YouTube, and browsed Facebook and Instagram.
(Write the time) — I read and responded to emails.
When I say that you should focus on productivity, I don't mean that you
should get rid of all the fun in your life and work yourself to death. No! That
is not what I am saying.
We need recreation in our lives, which is as important to us as working
towards accomplishing our career goals. After all, you can't be working to
earn money that you cannot spend to enjoy the good things of life. That
doesn't make sense.
Again, fun can be too much, and we need to know how much of it is
considered too much.
One deceiving thing I have heard is that it is difficult for humans to achieve
time management and that it should be pitch-perfect. But that is false. If you
think time management is about you getting up every day and every hour to
work without resting, you are getting it wrong. If you think time management
is about bombarding your brain with uninterrupted studies every second of
the day, you are still not getting it. You are going to end up living the whole
of your life like a robot and become uninteresting. Time management isn't
this.
Effective time planning eliminates procrastination from your life, and you
gain precious time in the process. It involves having a schedule for your
activities, thereby helping you save a few minutes every hour that can
become a total of one or two hours saved in a day. It involves minimizing the
time you spend on unproductive activities and maximizing your productivity
and your work ethic.

The following is an example of the activities a person performs

in the first four hours after waking up:
1. The individual brushes their teeth and takes care of their personal hygiene.
This could last for 30 minutes.
2. The individual takes coffee while going through the newspaper. This could
last for 30 minutes.
3. The individual starts watching Television and watches for 30 minutes.
4. The individual takes part in physical activities for 30 minutes.
5. The individual calls their friend on the phone to talk about the latest gossip
for 30 minutes.
6. The individual prepares to go to the office and uses 30 minutes to get
ready.
7. The individual takes 30 minutes to get to the office.
8. The individual spends 30 minutes chatting up their colleague when they
get to the office.
The activities we have described above are based on the assumption that an
individual spends 30 minutes on each of the tasks they do daily.
According to the example above, the activities the person performed in
numbers 4, 5, and 8 are not productive activities. They don't add anything to
his daily routine, and he can switch those unproductive for productive
activities such as scheduling his work goals and working on a report.

Here is how you can make your day productive:

If you save 90 minutes a day within 4 hours, this adds up to about 450
minutes from Monday to Friday, which translates to about 7.5 hours gained.
So, imagine that you made these tweaks to your 16-hour activity time. That
increases the productivity time gained to 7.5 multiplied by 4, which is equal
to 30 hours. When you gain an additional 30 hours of time in a single work
week, you are left with the whole weekend to do whatever you want to do.
Don't believe this? You better do it because it's achievable. When I talk about
productivity, this is what it is all about. It involves saving small portions of
your time from areas where you are less productive. You will enjoy the
numerous benefits of time-management if you make up your mind to manage
your time effectively.

Productivity Test
Take this quiz, and you will understand more about how you spend your day.
You only need to answer Yes or No to each question. It will also help you
understand more about yourself and what you spend your time doing.
Does social media easily distract you? Do you allow YouTube, games,
movies, etc., to distract you?
If you sleep for 8 hours out of the 24 hours in a day, are you more likely to
spend the remaining 16 hours of the day when you are awake on non-
productive activities?
Do you find yourself suffering from productivity issues, such as not having
enough time to spend with family, not having a quality sleep, struggling with
pending projects, etc.?
Do you find yourself taking short naps when you are at work?
Does your mind often wander whenever you are busy with work leading to
difficulty concentrating?
Do you struggle with trying to track time while your day runs so fast and you
don’t realize the day is already gone?
Do you always ask a colleague in your office to cover up for you when you
don't complete a project you are supposed to complete at a certain date?
Has any of your senior-level managers or boss talked to you about what you
should do to improve your work ethics within the last three months?
Do you always struggle with your tasks and finish them at the last minute?
Do you have the habit of always postponing work to have time to do
something fun?
Give yourself 10 points for any of the questions you answered No to. And if
you answered Yes to any question, give yourself 0 points.

The group you belong to is one of the following:

You belong to the Non-Productive Group if you scored between 0-30 points.
This means that your day is filled with unproductive tasks. Instead of doing
real productive work, you always prefer to go for entertainment. When
someone talks about productivity, it scares you, and you find yourself
running in the opposite direction when accountability is required from you. If
you continue with your current way of doing things, it will be difficult for
you to become successful in the things you do. So, you need to change your
entire lifestyle so that you can achieve success in the things you do. The
information in this book will make you an improved version of yourself, and
you will become more productive in your life.
You would be in the Average Productivity Group if you scored between 40-
60 points. You are productive, but on average, and the productivity meter is
only filled halfway. And even at that, it is not enough to achieve the goals
you want to achieve in life. If you want to gain an additional one or two
hours, try to become more productive with your time. What we have
discussed in this book will make you manage your time better, and you will
gain more hours in your entire week.
If you scored between 70-90 points, you are in the Great Productivity Group.
This is almost perfect, and you are on your way to accomplishing your goals
but only fall behind in a few situations. The techniques you will learn from
this book will show you how to tweak yourself, and before you know it, you
are improving and have become better than you used to be.
If you scored 100 points, you are in the Extremely Productive Group. Do you
find it unbelievable? You better believe that you are a productive guru. This
book is going to be fun for you to read, and you have already perfected how
to become productive with your time.

Making the Best Use of Your Life

We waste about 80,000 hours of our life watching television. These 80,000
hours translate to about six full years, meaning you spent six years of your
life watching television.
This is shocking to you, right?
We engage in many activities like these that add no real value to our lives.
Imagine if we have the ability to add ten years to our life, and we use it to
make ourselves the best we can be.
We would be much healthier and smarter.
We would see to the improvement of our financial goals.
We would accomplish our life goals in a shorter time, and we would be left
with more time to do more in our lives.
I'm sure you would like to learn how to add ten years into your life. Start by
making your day have an extra hour. And how can you do this? You can do
this by minimizing the time you spend on unnecessary things and becoming
more productive with your time.
Wasting is terrible. Is there anything else worse than it? You can't be wasting
food that could be used to feed those who are hungry. And you can't allow
laziness to make you waste your athletic talent. Are you somehow wasting a
great business idea because you are struggling with overcoming your
addiction to alcohol? This is sad, but what is worse than that is when you
have the thought that you are wasting your life. 25 years wasted. 30 years
wasted. 40 years wasted. That is a sad thought to have.
Time is a precious commodity. Why don't you use yours to invest in causes
that will outlive you? This is the opposite of waste.

If you don’t want to waste your life and want to use it wisely,
you can get started by doing the following:
1. Believe in Your Value
Believe in yourself and that you are a person of value and can contribute
something great to the world.
2. Know Your Destination
If you are just moving without knowing the direction in which you are going,
you will end up somewhere you didn't intend to go. To make a purposeful
change, both short-term and long-term goals are necessary.
3. Pursue Achieving the Right Success
When you serve others, you live a more impactful life. You can be successful
in doing things that don't add any value to the lives of others, and you can
also be successful in doing things that add value to other people's lives. The
human standard for living a successful life is found in serving other people.
This service involves being a great parent to our children, loving our partner,
and so on. Meeting these standards of serving others makes us live a life of
satisfaction.
4. Value Your Relationships with People above all
This is an extension of what we have discussed in number 3 above. When
you show love to your neighbors, co-workers, friends, and spouse, you are
living a life of impact. Loving well is having a life well-lived.
5. Happiness is Within You
We often need other people or our achievements to make us feel happy or
worthy. But we are neglecting the fact that our creator values us, and that
alone is sufficient to feel valued.
6. Stay in the Present Moment
Do you feel like you have accomplished something only when certain things
have happened? For instance, “When I buy that new house, I’ll be good.”
“Just let me get that shop, and everything will be alright.” When you think
this way, you will keep expecting more satisfaction and never be satisfied.
Ensure that you enjoy the moment and utilize the opportunities coming your
way if you want to have a positive impact on your life and that of those
around you.
7. Defer Short-Term Bling to Gain Long-Term Rewards
Oftentimes, we confuse short-term bling and fluff with substance. When you
always depend on externals to feel genuinely satisfied, you will be sacrificing
what is real and getting the superficial in return. You will sacrifice real things
like relationships, hard work, respect, stability, etc. This leads to self-
sabotage as you are grabbing what you can get now, not minding what lasts
long.
8. Don't Stop Learning
People who don't stop learning keep reinventing themselves. An individual
who is open to learning asks questions rather than behaving as if they have
the answers to everything. If you are humble and open to exploring new
ideas, you will easily minimize the time you waste on irrelevant things.
9. Don’t Worry About the Things That Don't Matter
When you know what you value, you will know that you shouldn't be wasting
your time on irrelevant stuff. Only the real things will be important to you at
the end of your life. And by that time, you will probably wish you had spent
your time on things that really matter and not on things that don't matter.
10. Have Good Morals
When in doubt about what to do and what not to do, remember to always
uphold morals in whatever you choose to do. Good morals make society
better. If everyone had good morals, we would make better use of our time.
Benefits of Time Management
You may be asking these questions, “Why should I save a few hours of my
time here and there? Are we not meant to go with the flow of things and just
enjoy life? Shouldn't we relax and just allow ourselves to make mistakes and
let life happen to us?”
If you are asking these questions, then expect to receive a surprise when you
least expect it. And you will certainly not find it joyful.
Studies show that older people regretted not making action plans for their life
goals, and they wished they could turn back time so they could correct their
mistakes.
When you set goals, you will be able to achieve your inner desires through
working on the goals over a period of time and eventually becoming
successful.
If the goal you have is a difficult one that only a few have successfully
accomplished, then prepare yourself for the difficulties you will encounter on
the way.
Similarly, when you are making your plan, you must ensure that you use your
time wisely and create milestones that you will achieve as you progress
towards achieving your goal. Understand that your time gets lesser as you
keep wasting it because it is a finite resource.

These benefits discussed below can help you redeem your time
by utilizing it well to reach your milestones:
Creation of Wealth
Can anyone have more than 24 hours in a day? If you had more time in a day,
you would make more money, right? Imagine that you have a day with 100
hours and not the usual 24 hours we have in a day.
Wouldn’t you have enough time to accomplish more things with 100 hours
than you would have done with your 24 hours? But would 100 hours be of
any good to an individual who wastes his time engaging in unproductive
activities when a productive individual can accomplish more in 24 hours?
Financial experts will agree with me that you need effective time
management to successfully create surplus wealth. You can't just create
wealth without planning for it. You need to have an action plan.
If you want to gain one million dollars in your business, it might look like a
difficult goal, but that doesn’t mean that it's impossible. You can still get
there. But you can't get there without making any action plan. You need to
understand your financial standing and your community's needs, and you
need to spend time understanding your product and audience. After executing
your business, you need to spend some time fine-tuning it to ensure that you
will succeed with your product.
After reaching your first milestone of $10,000, the next thing to do is to set a
new milestone at $50,000. This is how you keep going until you get to 1
million dollars. When you have made a million dollars, you will discover that
effective time management creates wealth.
Similarly, if you work in an organization where you wish to move up the
ranks and start receiving increased income, you will have to make an action
plan to achieve your milestones. You can have goals like getting promoted to
a junior management position, and then a senior management position, etc.
The first two milestones you would set would be: to climb the management
ladder through the use of productivity and provide the company with great
results, and make the company see exactly why you stand out from the rest.
When you achieve these milestones, your company will notice and start
paying attention to you. The company would then be ready to increase your
salary to what you desire while giving you promotion options.
Increase in Skills Acquirement and Knowledge
Take a look at this scenario: You usually read a 200-page book and finish it
in 12 hours. But with family, work, and other commitments, it might take one
week to complete the same book.
When you eliminate the time you spend watching television and participating
in other activities, you reduce the time you will spend to finish reading a
book by 2-3 days, and then you gain more knowledge in a shorter time.
Doesn't this sound good?
You can learn new courses that are related to your field, and you can even
complete the courses in only a few months instead of them taking years to
complete.
You will learn everything your business requires and the tricks to make
things work, and you will have the ability to give your employees or boss
support.
If you can save one or two hours every day, it will add to your productivity.
When you break time up into little time frames like 30-minutes, it makes you
utilize it well. Create reminders that will alert you to wake up and notice
important things. This will help you to complete tasks that you have to do
within a given timeframe without procrastination.
When you acquire new skills, your employers or employees will be
impressed, and you will find yourself in a better position to implement all the
latest trends and tricks you have learned. Once you acquire these skills, they
will keep you ahead of your competition. This makes time management
important to you career-wise and in your life.
Increased Responsibility
When you stick to a time schedule, it means you are a responsible person and
a person of character. Instead of spending time regretting, why not spend that
time increasing your productivity?
When you spend an hour being productive, you have equally saved an hour
from complaints and regret.
An individual who is responsible doesn’t waste time worrying over what has
happened in the past. Instead, if they make a mistake, they accept
responsibility for the mistake and move on with their life rather than allowing
the mistake to prevent them from moving ahead in life.
Time management involves knowing that productivity is important for
success, and whenever you have negative energy or sulk, the time you spend
on the things that will move you closer to your goal reduces.
When your productivity increases, you will become more efficient and
complete your tasks on time. You can make better use of your time by
learning things you haven’t learned before. A better way to do this without
wasting your time is to do your tasks such as cooking while listening to a
podcast that helps you become better at business.
During dinner, you can also watch the news. It is a great way to catch up on
what is happening in your environment and around the world, relax, and also
have your dinner at the same time.
The time you go clubbing can also be used to perform some more important
activities.
Remember, you can perform your leisure activities along with something
productive. Although multitasking while working can be distracting and
unproductive, It’s completely okay to multitask your leisure activities.
More Time for Family and Leisure Activities
The time you spend with your family is important. You shouldn’t be only
concerned about growing yourself and your career. Spending time with
family is more important than many other things that we do with our time.
Your family needs your attention, and time management will provide you
with the extra time that you can spend with your family.
Like many others, you may be struggling with striking a balance between
your professional life and personal life. But effective time management will
help you with your work-life balance.
Can you remember the last time you spent some time doing things that you
enjoyed? Managing your time well will give you more free time that you can
spend on leisure and recreational activities that you enjoy. You will be able to
work smart and then give yourself a reward after completing your work.
A Better Life with More Opportunities
When you start managing your time well, your personal life and your
professional life will become better. As you handle your professional tasks
well, it will give you more time to focus on your family and your
relationships with other people. You will feel relaxed when you know that
you are performing your daily activities and things are moving the way they
should be. Less stress equals an improved quality of life.
You will be respected at work if you are punctual with your tasks. You will
have a good reputation. When your managers know that you do your work
well and complete any task you are given on time, it will bring more
promotional opportunities your way.
Productivity Hurdles
We all have our uniqueness. And this uniqueness that people have could
make some people not manage their time effectively.
One extremely important thing you must not fail to do is to identify the
triggers in your life that cause you to waste time on unnecessary things that
will not add value to your life but only make you unproductive.

The following are some common obstacles that hinder our

productivity in life:
Living a Life Without Objectives
Imagine this scenario: Someone blindfolded you, and you had to walk from a
place where there were so many people to your house. This person leaves you
alone to find your way back home. What will happen to you in this situation?
Won’t you find yourself tumbling over people and objects as you try to find
your way home and end up hurting yourself?
This occurrence is the same as when we are walking through life, and we
don’t have any goals or objectives. You will end up hurting your family and
financial goals since you don’t have clarity of goals and motives for what you
should do.
When you have an objective, it makes your life have a direction in which it is
going, makes you see all the dangers before they come, and prepares you for
anything worse that may happen in your life. You will always stay alert when
you are in the middle of disastrous situations, and you will be more attentive
to the things happening around your financial goals.
Constant Procrastination
Procrastination is a word that people often misunderstand even though they
use it all the time. Procrastination is not a friend to productivity. It tricks your
mind into believing that it can do something fun at the moment instead of
doing productive work. Everyone has procrastinated at some point in their
lives. This is a fact. Even successful people have been victims of
procrastination.
This goes to show that procrastination is a normal part of life. It becomes a
problem when you start overdoing it, allowing it to creep into your daily life
and affect your productivity.
You might have caught yourself mindlessly clicking different YouTube
videos and watching them continuously without realizing you have wasted
the whole of your day doing nothing productive.
Have you ever made up your mind to do something productive, but before
you could do it, you ended up daydreaming about how you would spend your
money if you were wealthy?
We have seen examples of procrastination and now understand that it affects
productivity.
Multitasking Behavior
Many people believe that multitasking increases productivity. But that isn't
completely true. We need to concentrate on the present work we are doing to
be able to deliver the best results. Has anyone ever told you about an athlete
who has ever won a major competition and talked to their friend or colleague
on the phone at the exact time they were running?
You need to concentrate if you want to complete any task you are doing. You
must be 100% focused. Don't pick up a book to read while you are devoting
time to watching the news. You won't be focused enough to catch up on what
is happening, and you will also be distracted and find it difficult to
understand the book you are reading. In the end, you won't grasp the news
properly, and you won't also understand the plot of the book you are reading.
You will gain only a little information and end up losing on both ends.
Stress-Causing Problems
An individual who is undergoing stress will find it difficult to completely
stick to their plans or goals. Stress reduces productivity and makes you spend
more time bothering yourself with the negativities affecting your life than
making an action plan that will help you in your life. Stress negatively affects
your human abilities.
If you decide to eliminate stress, you won't find it easy. Eliminating it is quite
complicated, and you need to first find out what is causing the stress before
working on getting rid of it. There are many things that trigger stress-related
disorders. They may include financial problems, medical conditions, verbal
abuse, etc.
Look for what the problem is and then find a solution to it. For instance, if
you find yourself struggling with a financial situation, you must start by
creating a financial goal and then working towards it to improve your
financial situation. If you can't do this yourself, there are financial institutions
that can help you achieve your financial goal but also ensure that you plan
well. This way, you will be able to increase your productivity and be loan-
free as well. Once you handle this, you will never be disturbed by thoughts
about outstanding loans.
Interruptions
You have a project to submit, and you are working on it while having a drink.
Your friend posts a fun video on social media, and you receive a notification
that the video has gone viral. You go to check out the video and then start
chatting with your friend and telling them that the video is really funny.
After chatting with your friend about the funny video they posted, you go
back to continue working on your project but can't remember where you
stopped and what exactly you were doing. This is what interruptions do.
People often have interruptive lifestyles in this digital age. You might find
yourself playing a game on your phone before you go in for an interview, or
you may be sending messages to friends during lectures.
Foods with No Nutrition Benefits
When a person lacks adequate nutrition, they have a high probability of
having attention deficit disorder. This means that by eating junk food that
doesn't provide you with any nutrition benefits, your attention will suffer and
will most likely fail you when you need it. Such foods can include foods with
high sugar, fried fast foods, and potato chips.
Diet is important when it comes to time management. And you can prepare
your meals while using the least time possible. Distractions make you unable
to effectively manage your time. It makes you unable to focus on your goals.
To eliminate distractions, there are rules you must follow.

Here are some rules that you can consider sticking to:
Your phone should be on airplane mode whenever you want to do your
work to avoid receiving notifications and phone calls that will disturb your
work.
Keep your TV and other entertainment systems you have at home switched
off and ensure that your work desk is not close to them.
Your work desk should generate positive energy and not negative energy.
So, don't give room for music systems, phones, or any distractive thing to
enter this space.
Politely let your family members know that you don't wish to be
interrupted while working. Ask them to write on sticky notes any important
thing they would like to inform you about before leaving the house.
 Ensure that your computer has two user-based desktops. You can use one
for your work and the other for your general stuff. This way, you won't be
distracted by notifications and other news alerts.
When you tweak your interruptive lifestyle, you will be able to enjoy a
blissful working time that will increase your productivity.

Productivity Tricks
Productivity involves increasing your value and using your time wisely.
Imagine finishing a job that would have taken you one week to finish in 2
days. Isn't that being productive?
When you complete your work in time, you will impress your seniors and
also have extra time that you can use to do some more work. That is why we
are discussing these tricks that will help you use your time the best that you
can.
When you leave your desk for some time or socialize with your colleagues at
work, it can help to give you clarity and increase your productivity. If you
reduce interruptions and manage your email better, you will save time and be
more productive.

You need to know the following:

Interruptions Are Time Thieves
Are you aware that an average individual who is working faces fifty
interruptions in one day? These interruptions can include receiving phone
calls from people, people coming to your office to have a chat with you, and
so on. Amongst these interruptions, some may be work-related, but most of
the interruptions are time wasters.
If you want to reduce these interruptions, you must first recognize them.
After recognizing what those interruptions are, you must stay focused on
reducing them to stop wasting your time. It will be easy to reduce
interruptions if you can record them in a journal. You can keep the journal on
your desk and record the interruptions as you notice them.
Write things like “Ken called to chat, 15 minutes” or “Kylie stopped by my
house to discuss Tamara's retirement party, 20 minutes.” Then check the list
after a few days. Some of the interruptions may be work priorities. So, look at
your list and pick out the ones that are work priorities and eliminate the
interruptions that are not work-related.
One thing you can do is to decide that you will not answer your phone once it
is a particular time or decide that you will keep the door of your house closed
from 9 pm at night and not allow visitors in until 11 am every morning. You
might even decide to change your desk's position so it doesn't face the
doorway. If you have a colleague who is always interrupting you, you might
put them off by telling them that you have a deadline to meet, or you can just
suggest to them that they can talk things over with you over lunch.
Email Management Tips
Your email can control you if you allow it to. So, you need to control how
you check it so that it doesn't control you. If you receive 500 emails per day
and oversee more than 1000 persons, and you have to deal with this alone,
you know how tasking that can be. You can check it once in the morning and
once at night to empty your inbox every day.

Use the following tips to manage your email:

Respond to emails, file, or discard the emails you don't need.
Be disciplined and ensure that your email inbox stays empty.
Delete as much as you can from your inbox.
Immediately address any action that will not take you more than two
minutes.
Create an “action” folder and group actions that will require more than two
minutes into the folder.
Set aside a particular time of the day for checking your messages.
If you are someone who is addicted to your email or internet, think about
going offline or unreachable at least once a month. For people that want to
reach you, you can set an auto-responder to notify them that you are taking a
day off email, but you are present in the office. And you can add that if they
want to reach you, they can stop by the office.
If you can apply these proven tips, you will control your time effectively,
stop wasting it, and your productivity will increase.
This is Your Last Chance!
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 CONCLUSION

We can accomplish far greater things than we have accomplished when we

understand our potential. Whether you are trying to choose your career path,
applying to a college for admission, or going through a crisis, you should ask
yourself what your potentials are. This world is good at feeding us unrealistic
expectations that may prevent us from understanding what we are capable of,
but that can be corrected.
Are you still wasting your time and not building your potential? We all
possess some talent that we may not know about yet. And this hidden talent
can be our saving grace when we least expect it.
You need to stop wasting your time on unnecessary things and strive to
understand your potential. Success will keep coming to you if you can truly
understand your hidden potential.
We have discussed seven secrets of the mind in this book. These secrets are
what you need to find your hidden potential and create your empire.
All this while, you may have had the wrong definition of what personal
potential means but don't blame yourself for this. People will tell you that
your personal potential is something you are naturally gifted at. They will tell
you that it is an activity that you can do effortlessly and still be perfect at it.
Bearing this in mind, you start searching for a natural gift you are endowed
with or a hobby that you believe you are good at.
What you don’t understand is that personal potential isn't only about your
natural gifts; it is more about your mental strength. It is what you desire to be.
Hence, what people say doesn't really matter. If they tell you that you have a
horrible fashion sense, you can still turn out to be a great fashion icon.
You need willpower. This is what you need. You will achieve your goals
with the courage to pursue your dreams and a firm intention.
A magic wand isn't what will bring out your inner potential but your own
will. Hard and smart work will help you build your potential. You can't just
sit and be waiting for your potential to jump out. You don't have to blindly
follow another person's footsteps simply because they are successful. Getting
advice from successful people is great, but we all have different potentials,
and our paths to success may be different.
The key is to understand yourself and the potential you possess instead of
forcing yourself to do something because someone else is doing it. Hard work
and strategy will get you your desires.
You need to identify your inner voice to understand your potential. Just take
out some time to listen to yourself. You will understand yourself better and
know what you want to get from life. As you work to accomplish your goals,
you will enjoy the process.
What things do you enjoy doing or want to get better at? Have you always
wanted to be an artist or an actor? Think about those things and make a list of
them all. After making a list, you can then be realistic about it and downsize
it. Your inner voice is important, so listen to it at this stage. Don't look for
things that will appear to give you a lot of money and improve your image
before others, but don't give you fulfillment. Your self-satisfaction should be
a priority.
You may be great at something but don't like doing it. For instance, people
around may tell you that you have a great voice and they enjoy hearing you
sing. However, there is a chance that you despise it despite all the good
things people say about your voice. Ensure that you note these things down,
as they will help you make the best decisions for your life.
Once you’ve planned the destination you want to go to, it's time to put in the
required effort that will take you there. Your potential will not just fall from
the sky onto your laps. You have to work hard to fulfill your potential.
By making conscious efforts and taking steps in the right direction, you will
understand your potential and eventually fulfill it. Do everything you can to
find answers to your problems. Things won't always be straightforward. This
is why you need to make conscious efforts.
So, start working on what you want right away. Don't waste any more time.
Just start now. If you desire to be the owner of a restaurant or start a law firm,
but you are not yet sure, start by taking small steps, and along the way, you
will figure out if it is something you are willing to dedicate your time and
energy to.
For example, if you can’t decide whether you want to be a chef or a lawyer,
you try being a chef first. Put in consistent effort, but if you have done so for
the past six months, but you keep cooking food that your friends and others
never give you any positive feedback for, meaning you have to change your
decision. If you ensure that you follow the same recipe, but you never make a
decent meal, and your dishes keep having different tastes every time with no
sign of improvement, then it means cooking is probably not the right choice
for you.
Since owning a restaurant isn't working out, it's time for you to try the other
option. Meet with experienced lawyers to discuss your dream of building a
successful law firm, do research on your own, and take internships and find
out what it takes to achieve it and if you have what it takes.
Remember to make the best use of your most productive hours. And you can
do this by working on the projects that have the highest priority during your
highest productivity hours. So, check yourself to find your most productive
hours. Are you most productive before dinner time, or is it in the mornings?
Once you have this information, you will be able to do your complex projects
during your highest productivity hours.
Even if you put in 110% effort, you will still experience times when you
cannot complete certain tasks within a given time. This means that limitations
exist, and you must learn to accept them. So, if you have more workload than
you can handle, it is best to delegate some of the tasks. Don’t just relax and
assume you will finish all the tasks within the given time frame. Delegate
some tasks if you have to. It will help you make the best use of your time.
It is important to appreciate yourself. When you are appreciative, it helps to
keep you in positive energy spirits. Celebrate all of your achievements, even
if they are little. Give yourself a pat on the back whenever you accomplish a
milestone. Track the achievements you are making so that they can encourage
and motivate you when you feel down.
You must learn to embrace uncomfortable situations if you want to be
successful in life and fulfill your full potential. Every moment of your life
should be enjoyed, so learn to enjoy the moments.
You can set a goal even though it looks out of reach to you. Just encourage
and motivate yourself while working through the pain and discomfort to
achieve your goal. As you do this, you will discover that it works for both
physical and psychological challenges. We are capable of achieving bigger
things than we think we are. We just don't know all that our minds and bodies
are capable of.
Remember that your time is valuable. So, if you want to accomplish great
things in life, you must use your time wisely. Work is good but always
remember to enjoy every moment of your life.
With everything going on, it’s easy to just keep going and going without
pausing to smell the flowers. You will have different experiences throughout
each day, and you should learn to enjoy those moments. This will make you
feel appreciative and grateful for everything you have in life. Appreciate and
enjoy the simple things, such as being able to provide food for your family
and having a roof over your head.
Your reward for living a life of potential is a success. Don't be the person
who looks back at the end of his life to say, “I wish I would have done this,
but I was too scared to try. I had the opportunity to do something great, but I
didn't put in the time.”
Everything we have discussed in this book will give you the motivation you
need to push yourself into fulfilling your full potential in life. There will be
no regrets if you stick to what we have discussed.
Understand that it isn't that hard to fulfill your potential. Listen to your inner
voice and then combine it with strong willpower, action in the right direction,
and patience.
Although the fast-paced world makes finding your potential seem almost
impossible, you don’t have to give up. Keep trying and taking steps in the
direction of your dreams, no matter how little they may be. The world may be
chaotic, but you will be on your path to success if you follow everything we
have discussed in this book.