Pick The Brain

Wednesday, 03 March 2010 07:42

1. Identify your goal. Write it down.
2. Ask yourself: What feelings do I think I am going to get from achieving this goal? Write those down next to the goal.
3. Brainstorm 10 other ways to get that feeling state. Just brainstorm—put ideas down rapidly. Don't evaluate their quality or feasibility now.
4. Ask "What can I easily do today that will get me into this feeling state?" You'll discover some new "little things" you can do in your life – right now- that will have big impact. Come up with at least 5 of these.
5. Finally, ask yourself, what are the current thoughts or beliefs that are getting in the way of me feeling that feeling state in this very moment? What new thoughts would free me to be in the feeling state I want, right now?

Pick The Brain

Wednesday, 03 March 2010 07:35

1. Dress sharp. Clothes can be an instant confidence booster.
2. Breathe. Focus on your breathing: first notice it, then start to consciously breathe deeper, slower, and more regular.
3. Exercise. Exercising will help release tension in the muscles and will boost your level of endorphins, which is the body's natural drug for improving your mood, including your confidence.
4. Focus on action. When you feel insecure, your thoughts will often go into a negative cycle: you start thinking negative, dramatic things, etc focus on positive and action.
5. Stop! When negative, say 'stop'. This self-command will interrupt the negative internal dialogue for a while, prevent it from spinning out of control and help you boost your confidence.
6. Think of your qualities. A lot of times, lack of confidence is a result of loosing sight of our qualities.
7. Remember positive experiences. When you think of positive things, you generate and amplify positive emotions, while at the same time combating negative ones. 

Zen Habits

Thursday, 25 February 2010 08:35

The One Deadly Sin of Habit Change?

• Not doing the habit. 
• If you don't do it, it won't become a habit. 

1. Just start.  Tell yourself all you have to do is take the 1st step.
2. Do it, no matter how small.  Do it for a few minutes at least.
3. Do it, no matter how badly. Quality doesn't matter when you're forming habits — doing it matters.
4. If you fail, don't beat yourself up – do it the next day. Let's be clear: missing one day won't kill your habit.
5. If you don't do it the next day, do it the day after. If you miss two days, don't let yourself miss a third.
6. Figure out what's stopping you. What's getting in the way?
7. Plan ahead. Think ahead and be sure to get your habit in.
8. Engineer success. Knock down the barriers and set it up so it's harder to fail than to actually do the habit. Public accountability is a good way to do that.

Pick The Brain

Thursday, 25 February 2010 08:14

• The monkeys that learned fear: 
• Monkeys that don't fear snakes were introduced to some snakes while being forced to listen to loud noises. Some monkeys learned to fear but some didn't, instead saw the fear response of monkeys that fear snakes then learned to fear snakes too. 
• Conclusion: We learn to fear things when we associate them with another even. Moreover, if a child watched an adult reacting with fear to a certain situation the child will develop fear too.

• The frog that died in the boiling water: 
• When a group of frogs were thrown in boiling water they jumped and survive. However, when the same frogs were put into cold water that was slowly heated, all of them died because they didn't react.
• Conclusion: We can feel sudden changes but when the change happens over time we don't feel it until it is too late.

• The Rats that failed to swim: 
• A researcher got rats that could swim for 80 hours continuously, then frightened them by making them believe that they were stuck before throwing them in water. Many rats died after a few minutes of swimming! The rats didn't drown due to lack of ability but at some point they just gave up swimming and died. 
• Conclusion: When we feel in control we can reach our maximum potential, if we feel out of control we give up even if we have the required skills.

• The dogs that learned to be helpless: 
• Few dogs were placed in room that has a switch which turns on electric current and shock the dogs or turn it off. When the dogs were first shocked they kept jumping around until one dog pushed the switch and discovered that the electric current stopped. Dogs learned how to turn off the shock. They were split into two groups,  first remained in the same room while the second was placed in a similar one that had a faulty switch. 
• When the second group was shocked the dogs tried to push the switch but nothing happened. The second group of dogs were returned to the first room then were shocked again but this time they never tried to push the switch. The dogs learned to become helpless as a result. 
• Conclusion: No one is born helpless but we learn how to become helpless when we face certain situations that we fail to deal with.