How to Make Your Own Stress Relief Balls


Too many a time we get overburdened and stressed with the pressure of daily tasks. But there are ways-out. How do you create them? Read on to find out.

Here are a few:

1) Instead of keeping your concerns to yourself, just talk to a family member. You may end up laughing and joking and the stress is gone

2) Call up your favorite neighbor or friend. You may be groping for words to talk about your concern and stress. Don't worry. The person on the other hand will most likely understand you and free your burden by giving you brevity and comfort.

3) Try to distract yourself and get engaged in something. It may be cleaning a corner of your kitchen or a drawer in your bedroom and put full focus on it. You may not have touched the part for months and you may be surprised about what items you find there. It may remind you of something or someone and your stress is gone with the wind.

4) Play your favorite track on your mp3 player. Close your eyes and sing yourself along with the player. It may be hard at first and you may even feel like crying. But as the songs play out and you sing along, something changes and that is your mood. You simply brighten up happier and the stress is lifted off.

5) Watch a funny comedy which has been lying on a CD for days in your living room. Call up a friend and ask her to join you. Then watch it and experience belly aching laughs. Where is your stress now? You don't feel it all! Amazing, isn't it?

6) Go on a ride in a roller coaster and have some fun after work. It may be a little late but it's worth it. Ride on the swings and merry-go-round and find the kid in you again. No way stress can overburden you after you have played enough. Have a good night's sleep and wake up morning fully rejuvenated and happy to carry out your day's routine.

7) Lose yourself in a plethora of books at the local library. It may be fiction or nonfiction which ever you choose. You may keep a journal handy and jot down interesting points that interest and baffle you. Take the journal with you back home and review it at the end of the day. You will find it refreshing and rewarding, gaining effective insights and learning something new. There is no scope for stress - only joy and contentment.

These are some of the invigorating ways you can create special stress relief balls and pick one or two at a time and fully come out alive happy with a lot of vigor.


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Split Second Decisions

Once I had the privilege of traveling in the cockpit of the aero-plane. I found that the captain of the plane was sitting idle most of the time. He seemed relaxed. He was enjoying his coffee and chatting to me in very casual manner, as if he was a traveller too like me.

This was just opposite to my perception which I had about the working of the captain in the cockpit of a moving plane. I assumed him to be a busy, tense, worried person and physically engaged in activities of adjusting and controlling the buttons & levers etc.

I asked him why the job of a pilot is highly paid and considered tough and 'what was his specific role as a captain of the plane?'

He explained to me how the modern planes can be programmed to run on auto pilot mode till everything is working normally on 'expected lines'. The other crew members were busy in rituals according to the instructions given to them by him before the take-off. They can manage minor problems in the working.

He has to be just watchful that everything (the machines, controls and his crew members) is working as expected. His real job starts during emergency situations. It is during those situations, where his vast experience and training will count. He has to take split second decisions in the worst of circumstances. That is what he is paid for. To facilitate him to execute his decisions, he was having parallel but overriding controls to the co-pilot who is actually flying the plane. Thus, he was able to negate the effect of any immature action by the co-pilot.To perform his job honestly and sincerely (realizing that his own life and lives of all passengers were at stake on his performance) he was being 'at ease' with the environment so that he can work at his best.

It is also possible to have similar arrangement in our lives and fly in the vast sky of our imagination. Most of the activities in our society today are just mechanical rituals. Let them happen as it is, unless there is something very disturbing. Do not overload your mind. Just relax and enjoy. Just instruct the work team (in case you have the privilege of having one) reporting to you before the start of any major event. After that allow them to do their work and do not interfere. Be cheerful and conserve your energies and skills for any emergency situation, if at all it comes in your life.

We should leave our mind free to identify the emergency situation little early and focus on decision-making during that time. But alas, we are pre occupied with so many things in our mind that we turn the normal events in our lives as emergency and use our power of decision-making so lavishly that we are exhausted by the time we encounter the real event.


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Are You Humble or Vain?


Many of us are raised into believing that humility, modesty and inner values are virtues. - And that those are superior and contradictory to being vain, selfish, and superficial.

That money not only can't buy you love, but it's the root of all evil. That we're not supposed to think too highly of ourselves, and that wanting more than your average peer is "vain", "selfish" and "greedy".

... And I say that's all a huge load of life-denial.

Want six-pack abs? Of course you do!

Want a pimped-out car? Cool!

Want to be rich? Well, who doesn't?!

Want to eat out at fancy restaurants every week? Well, count me in!

Sadly, there's a prevalent way of thinking that allegedly, only weak individuals who try to cover up low confidence strive for these things. And that the two are incompatible contraries.

However, I've found the opposite to be true.

Whether you can have a humble outlook and still cultivate outer values is a matter of confidence. Because confidence is a matter of personal growth, and being able to contain presumed differences and paradoxes.

I used to think that nothing made any sense because nothing has any inherent meaning or value, and therefore, nothing mattered. And so, it didn't matter what I did or whether I felt good, so I might as well feel miserable.

Today, I KNOW that nothing makes sense, has any meaning or value - so we have to apply our own meaning and value. I KNOW that my existence is as objectively pointless as any other human being's. - But also, I sure do know what I like. So I'll have some more of that while I'm here, thank you.

Non-fidence often entails envy of other people's fortune. With thinking in terms of scarcity, pettiness and settling - rather than abundance, admiration and ambition.

When you see successful people driving cool cars, dining at expensive restaurants, working out to get slim and fit, and whatnot, those things are assuredly a reflection of confidence. - Feeling that you're worth something, and that it's totally cool to have nice things because why shouldn't you be allowed to?

"But they're only brief values, not permanent ones!"

... And??

Whenever we eat anything, it's a passing pleasure. And, for that matter, whenever we have sex, watch a movie, get drunk, have fun and all-round entertain ourselves. Life CONSISTS of passing moments and sensations: Why not make sure they're enjoyable?

Don't get me wrong. We should, ideally, feel good about ourselves no matter what we do. But I believe it goes the other way, too.

I believe that the things we do should also make us feel good. If someone else considers them "vain", so what?

Just because you feel good doesn't make it right. I know. But that in itself sure doesn't make it wrong, either.

We're here once. (And there's no sensible reason to believe otherwise until someone presents sufficient evidence.) So for goodness' sakes let's go ahead and make that one time worth looking back upon.

ACTION ITEM:

Indulge yourself. Do something you've been wanting to do, but didn't because you thought it might be too vain or selfish.

If you want to be worth it, go ahead and think that you are. That's how we grow a little.


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4 Secrets for Improving Self-Confidence


This article shares 4 secrets to improving self-confidence. Most people tend to focus on specific areas when they try to improve self-confidence such as improving the way that they speak or give presentations in business meetings. This is important but it is not the priority to focus on when trying to improve self-confidence. Below I break down the 4 secrets to self-confidence.

1. Improve your emotional fitness and mental state

Self-confidence is about emotional fitness. Most of what we experience around the area of self-confidence gets influenced more by emotions. Just think about what you go through when you feel that you have poor self-confidence. Most likely you feel anxious, doubtful, fearful and uncertain. At times you might even feel like you will embarrass yourself in a public place or a meeting. It is not always that we are not skillful, able or talented. Most of the time it is our feelings that get in a way and cause us to be fearful. Feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy are also associated with low self-confidence. Fear of Rejection, failure, embarrassment. All of these things are influenced by our emotions and mental state than anything else. It is not uncommon to have someone who is capable being afraid to do something due to fear of failure, rejection and embarrassment. The journey to becoming self-confident therefore starts with improving your emotional fitness and conditioning yourself to have a mind that supports you instead of a mindset that works against you.

When you feel that you have poor self-confidence it is very tempting to focus on the specific area where you want to improve self-confidence such as speaking or your ability to present in meetings. This is essential but it is more of the end than the beginning. To really improve self-confidence you need to first improve your emotional fitness and mental strength before focusing on the specific area that you want to improve. Doing this sets you up more for success than if you improve your skill set without dealing with inner issues.

Improving emotional fitness and your mindset before improving your specific skill set will help you create more lasting change. Let me give you an example of how what I am talking about right now works using marathon runners as an example. An amateur runner cut corners when it comes to stretching. He or she might feel like it is a waste of time spending 15 minutes stretching and warming up before the run and get tempted get started with the exercise or marathon right away. This in the short-term might look like a good decision because 15 minutes of stretching and warm up is saved as running starts immediately. It is a grave mistake when considering the long-term perspective because the amateur runner might get injured from not stretching and suffer a long prolonged period without exercising and competing due to injury.

Professional runners know that stretching and warm-up before the marathon is as important as the marathon itself and therefore spend time before running to stretch and warm up, knowing it will benefit them.

Improving self-confidence sometimes works the same way. Before trying to improve self-confidence on the specific area of your life whether this is about singing or cooking or speaking well you need to spend time improving your emotional fitness and mindset. Because self-confidence is more about emotional strength and mindset. When you take care of your emotional fitness a priority, your journey to improve self-confidence becomes much more easier.

From doing this you will gain the same benefit that the long distance runner gets from spending 15 minutes stretching before he starts running. You will be able to create lasting change in your life. What is even more exciting is that we the right level of emotional fitness you will be able to bounce back should you make mistakes or something crushes your ego as you are trying to improve your self-confidence. One person said that self-confidence is not about walking into the room and have everybody get excited to see you. It is about walking into the room knowing that if nobody accepts you or if you make a mistake and embarrass yourself you will be OK and have the ability to get up and dust yourself up without being too miserable. To get to this level of self-confidence takes emotional fitness. So first focus on emotional fitness to improve your self-confidence.

2. Improve mastery

Even though emotional fitness is the first priority to improve self-confidence, I would like you to note that no one is confident doing something that they feel they are not skillful in doing. You might feel comfortable speaking in public and maybe enjoy it, when you get asked to sing and dance in public a different story might unravel. Unless you are extremely multi-talented you might feel timid, nervous and hesitant. This is because doing one specific thing well does not make one a master in everything. It is important to practice and improve your mastery level to improve self-confidence. After you have conditioned yourself emotionally and mentally identify what it is that you would like to do well and improve your self-confidence doing. Maybe you would like to feel less anxious in social situations or to speak. Whatever it is that you want to improve your self-confidence on, identify it and spend time mastering the skills to develop it. This will help you improve your self-confidence. As you learn and try to improve you might take some time to master the skills that you want to improve well. If you have developed the right emotional strength and mental strength you will find yourself recovering well after setbacks and getting encouraged until you improve your self-confidence.

3. Improve self-esteem

When trying to improve self-confidence, having low self-esteem can sometimes work against your efforts. No matter how good you become at doing something if you do not accept yourself and see yourself in a positive light you might always find ways to criticize yourself and second guess yourself. Having a healthy self-esteem is therefore extremely important for improving self-confidence. Improving your self-esteem will help you easily develop self-confidence in the specific areas of your life and be able to enjoy any success that you create as the result of improved self-confidence.

4. Train your self-confidence

Self-confidence is like a muscle. The more you teach yourself to be self-confident in challenging situations, the more you get better. Self-confident people aren't vastly different from anyone else. They have just learn to manage their feelings in the face of pressure or adversity. One of the best ways to improve self-confidence is to act despite fear and anxiety. The best way to learn to act despite fear and anxiety is to act despite fear and anxiety. Doing this will train your self-confidence. One person said that those that are successful do experience fear, they just learn to act despite fear.

Whatever it is that you fear begin practicing conquering it. If you have social anxiety and are afraid to meet people in social situations playfully start meeting people and push yourself to act despite your anxiety. If you fear speaking up during meetings start pushing yourself and say a few words in the next meeting that you have. Feel the anxiety as it tries to stop you but act anyway. Many people who face challenging situations and pressure including athletes, sky divers and even entrepreneurs learn to act despite anxiety. Do the same thing that they do in your life, it will help you.

Remember, you have all that it takes within you to succeed.



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7 Ways to Motivate Yourself to a Good Workout

1. Chuck all those fashion magazines away

First things first, you are not striving to achieve a healthy and active lifestyle to look a certain way or to become a certain body size. Nobody is made from the same mold - everyone's physique and genes differ. Whatever body features you have, embrace them and be proud of them. Stop reading magazines where every model has photoshopped images and have unrealistic beauty standards. Grab yourself some health related magazines or books to read on to know how you can make better health choices.

2. Get a workout buddy

It is always great to have a workout partner with you whether it is a friend, spouse, family member etc. Having a workout partner is a good idea because you can pump each other up and stay motivated if either one of you does not feel like working out.

3. Load your iPod with motivational songs and lectures

Make a separate playlist of motivational and inspiring songs that would pump you up for an awesome workout. YouTube is full of motivational speeches related to workouts that can keep you running on the treadmill for hours or jogging in the park early in the morning.

4. Build rapport with your trainer

It is always best to build a good relationship with your trainer. Your trainer will push you harder and motivate you to finish that last rep of squats or a 30kg bench press. There are many people who go to the gym and never bother to even have a conversation with their trainers and just do half hearted workouts and leave. You will be twice as likely to stay motivated in the gym knowing that there is someone watching over your exercises.

5. Workout as soon as you can

Head to the gym directly from work instead of going home because once you are home you will feel lazy and won't feel like going to the gym. Most companies have their own gym, so take full advantage of that as well.

6. Set an alarm

Set a workout alarm and reminder on your phone so that you don't have any excuses of "forgetting" to workout.

7. Find something that you love and substitute it for a workout

Gyms are not for everyone and that's OK because there are other options that you can take such as yoga, Zumba or swimming etc. All these are body toning activities and you end up feeling more energized after doing them.

Bonus tip:

It's a given that having a healthy diet goes hand in hand with an active lifestyle but every now and then if you miss a day of a workout or eat something unhealthy, don't let it make you feel guilty and give up. Everybody slips up, you just have to be persistent. And who said, a few cheat meals here and there aren't allowed?


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The Law Of Attraction - Is This The Whole Story?

You may well have heard of the Law of Attraction, a concept that infers that like attracts like. But what does this mean? For me, it means that if you wholeheartedly want something (and you do something about manifesting it) chances are that you'll get it.

But does the concept really work?

As a Life Coach I am hot on forward thinking and working towards what I call 'ideals'. An ideal is simply something positive that you want to see happen - it's a vision, a mission, a purpose, a goal.

A number of years ago I compiled one sheet of paper that contained my overall life purpose, my vision, my goals and a list of projects stemming from those goals. Everything I wrote down came from deep within me, and had been an integral part of me for years.

I have been looking at that sheet of paper almost daily since compiling it without thinking too much about how the things on the sheet were going to manifest.

The reason why I refer to the sheet so often is simply because it makes me feel good. It directs me and stirs me in a positive way. In short, it represents everything I want to manifest in my life.

More recently I attended a meeting with some colleagues and we talked about developing an enterprise. As the discussions went on I realized that much of what we were talking about resembled what was on my sheet.

On returning home I looked at the sheet and laughed. Practically everything I'd written down was covered in the meeting. This happened not because I was pushing my own agenda. It happened naturally because we were all of the same mindset with similar aspirations and wanting to achieve similar life and business goals... like attracting like.

I've now realized that everything I've aspired to may come to fruition by default if our enterprise is successful.

So does this concept of attraction really work? Yes I think so!

Now you could say that nothing I've put out there has yet come to fruition. This is true. However, the meeting showed me that things are already beginning to shift.

If I hadn't produced this sheet I doubt whether the conversation in that meeting would have gone the same way. I may well have been more easily led by the others around the table, because I would have had no real perspective of my own.

By clearly articulating my purpose, vision, goals and projects, and referring to them on a daily basis, my subconscious mind is already recognizing opportunities that will help to make these a reality. That meeting (and the subsequent enterprise idea) is one of those opportunities.

I do believe, however, that there are certain caveats to the concept:

Windows of Opportunity

Once you've clearly and specifically established where you want to go, windows of opportunity begin to open for you. It is for you to grab those opportunities and immediately take the action necessary to achieve your goals. Otherwise, those windows eventually close and the opportunity is lost.

Letting Go

I also believe an important element is that you let go of the outcome. Be OK with achieving your goals and aspirations, and with not achieving them. This is because, in my view, becoming desperate about your achievements pushes them away. Becoming more relaxed about them increases the chances of you achieving them. For me it's also about recognizing that your aspirations may not always manifest in the way you envision them - and being OK with this.

Giving It Time

I also think it's important to give yourself the time you need to manifest your ideal. Specific timeframes focus and galvanise you into action. However if those timeframes are unrealistic they could have the opposite effect. You may feel that if you've not reached your goal within the timeframe you've set yourself that you've somehow failed.

Allowing yourself the time to mature with your vision and grow to become the kind of person who can make it happen may well increase the chances of you succeeding.

So yes I believe the law of attraction works if:

· You're clear and specific about precisely what you want

· You focus daily on what you want

· You take full advantage of the opportunities that show up and do the work that's necessary

· You let go of the desperation and...

· You give it time


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