The Most Powerful Success Factor: Personal Development and the Golden Hour | Brian Tracy

The most powerful success factor of personal development and lifelong success has to do with the “golden hour” of your day.

As an individual, you become what you think about, most of the time. You become the sum total result of the ideas, information and impressions you feed into your mind, from the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night. Everything counts, but some impressions count more than others. The thoughts with which you flood your mind in the first hour of the morning, the golden hour, have a strong influence on how you think, feel and act for the rest of the day.

Improve Your Personal Development

Fully 95% of everything you do or say is determined by your habits, whether good or bad. Successful people have good habits that lead them to engage in positive, productive behaviors and improving their personal development throughout their lives. 

Unsuccessful people have inadvertently developed bad habits that cause them to act, or fail to act, in ways that lead to underachievement and failure.

The Most Important Success Factor

Perhaps the best success factor and habit you can develop is to take advantage of the golden hour and start every day in a thoughtful, productive way that sets you up for greater success in the hours ahead.

Here is a successful and effective formula that has worked for me, and for thousands of others, in going from rags to riches. Resolve to try it yourself for 21 days before you pass judgment on whether or not it is helping you. My promise to you is that, by the time you have practiced these behaviors for 21 days, your whole world will have changed in positive ways that you cannot even imagine.

The 21 Day Mental Diet

1. Starting tomorrow, arise each morning at least two hours before you have to be somewhere, and invest the first golden hour in yourself, and in your mind. If you exercise physically each morning, do this before you begin to exercise mentally.

2. Before you turn on the television, radio, or read the newspaper, take 30-60 minutes and read something motivational, inspirational or educational. Be sure that the first thing you put into your mind in the morning is positive, healthy and consistent with the kind of life you want to lead.

3. After you have completed your morning reading, take a spiral notebook and write out your top 10-15 goals in the present tense, exactly as if you have already achieved them. Write goals such as, “I earn $100,000 per year”; “I weigh 165 pounds and am superbly fit”; “I drive a brand new grey BMW”; “I live in a beautiful 3500 square foot home” and so on. Rewrite your list of goals every morning without referring back to the goals you wrote the day before. This is a very important success factor for you to practice in order to achieve your goals.

4. Plan every day in advance. After you have rewritten your goals, make a list of everything you have to do that day, and then organize the list by priority, value and importance.

5. Begin immediately to work on your most valuable and important task, before you do anything else. Resolve to focus single-mindedly on that one task until it is complete. When you start and finish your major task first thing in the morning during the golden hour, you will experience a surge of energy, elation and confidence that will propel you into your other tasks, and dramatically increase your overall productivity for the rest of the day.

6. Listen to educational audio programs as you drive around. Leave the radio off. Continually feed your mind with high quality mental nutrition that uplifts and inspires you to do your best. This is a great way to improve your personal development throughout your entire life.

7. Finally, develop a sense of urgency. Pick up the pace. Move quickly from one task to the other. Don.t waste time. The faster you move, the more energy you will have. The faster you move, the more you will get done, and the better you will feel. The faster you move, the more in control of your life you will feel, and the more you will like and respect yourself.

The Golden Hour

The golden hour is the rudder of the day. When you begin to arise early and invest the first hour in yourself, you will be amazed at the difference in the way you feel and in the results you will get. You will gradually transform your thinking about yourself and what is possible for you. You will become a money magnet and begin to improve on your personal development and achieve success in all levels.

I hope you enjoyed this article on the most powerful success factor of personal development and lifelong success. Do you have any other tips for what others can do during the golden hour for greater success throughout the day? Please feel free to share and comment below!

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Why You Need Discipline to Achieve the Good Life | Jim Rohn

We spend our lives gathering knowledge, skills and experiences. But what are we doing with it? 

What’s at the core of achieving the good life? It is not learning how to set goals. It is not learning how to better manage your time. It is not mastering the attributes of leadership. 

Every day in a thousand different ways, we are trying to improve ourselves by learning how to do things. We spend a lifetime gathering knowledge—in classrooms, in textbooks, in experiences. And if knowledge is power, if knowledge is the forerunner to success, why do we fall short of our objectives? Why, in spite of all our knowledge and collected experiences, do we find ourselves aimlessly wandering? Settling in for a life of existence rather than a life of substance? 

There might be many answers to this question. Your answer might be different from everyone else you know. Although there might be many answers to this question, the ultimate answer might be the absence of discipline in applying our knowledge. The key word is discipline, as in self-discipline. 

It doesn’t really matter how smart you are if you don’t use your knowledge. It doesn’t really matter that you graduated magna cum laude if you’re stuck in a low-paying job. It doesn’t really matter that you attend every seminar that comes to town if you don’t apply what you’ve learned.

We spend our lives gathering: gathering knowledge, gathering skills, gathering experiences. But we must also apply the knowledge, skills and experiences we gather in the realms of life and business. We must learn to use what we’ve learned.

And once we’ve applied our knowledge, we must study the results of that process and refine our approach.

Finally, by trying and observing and refining and trying again, our knowledge will inevitably produce worthy, admirable results. And with the joy and results of our efforts, we continue to fuel our ambition with the positive reinforcement of continued progress. Pretty soon, we’ll find that we’re swept into a spiral of achievement, a vertical rise to success. And the ecstasy of that total experience makes for a life triumphant over tragedy, dullness and mediocrity.
But for this whole process to work for us, we must first master the art of consistent self-discipline. It takes consistent self-discipline to master the art of setting goals, time management, leadership, parenting and relationships. If we don’t make consistent self-discipline part of our daily lives, the results we seek will be sporadic and elusive. It takes a consistent effort to truly manage our valuable time. Without it, we’ll be consistently frustrated. Our time will be eaten up by others whose demands are stronger than our own.

It takes discipline to conquer the nagging voices in our minds: the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of poverty, the fear of a broken heart. It takes discipline to keep trying when that nagging voice within us brings up the possibility of failure.

It takes discipline to admit our errors and recognize our limitations. The voice of the human ego speaks to all of us. Sometimes, that voice tells us to magnify our value or accomplishments beyond our actual results. It leads us to exaggerate, to not be totally honest. It takes discipline to be totally honest, both with ourselves and with others.

Be certain of one thing: Every exaggeration of the truth, once detected by others, destroys our credibility. It makes all that we say and do suspect. As soon as a business colleague figures out that we tend to exaggerate, guess what… he or she will think we always exaggerate. And they’ll never quite hold us in the same regard again. Never.

The tendency to exaggerate, distort or even withhold the truth is an inherent part of all of us. It starts when we’re kids. Johnny says, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it!” Well maybe Johnny didn’t do it, but he probably had something to do with it. And then it continues when we’re adults: exaggerating the benefits of a product to make a sale, exaggerating our net worth to impress old friends, exaggerating how closer we are to closing a deal to impress the boss. Only an all-out, disciplined assault can overcome this tendency.

It takes discipline to change a habit, because once habits are formed, they act like a giant cable, a nearly unbreakable instinct.

It takes discipline to change a habit, because once habits are formed, they act like a giant cable, a nearly unbreakable instinct that only long-term, disciplined activity can change. We must unweave every strand of the cable of the habits, slowly and methodically, until the cable that once held us in bondage becomes nothing more than scattered strands of wire. It takes the consistent application of a new discipline, a more desirable discipline, to overcome one which is less desirable.

It takes discipline to plan. It takes discipline to execute our plan. It takes discipline to look with full objectivity at the results of our applied plan. And it takes discipline to change either our plan or our method of executing that plan if the results are poor. It takes discipline to be firm when the world throws opinions at our feet. And it takes discipline to ponder the value of someone else’s opinion when our pride and our arrogance lead us to believe that we are the only ones with the answers.

With this consistent discipline applied to every area of our lives, we can discover untold miracles and uncover unique possibilities and opportunities.

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Are You Prepared for Success? | Brian Tracy

Are you prepared for success? Earl Nightingale once said that if a person does not prepare for his success, when his opportunity comes, it will only make him look foolish. You’ve probably heard it said repeatedly that luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. Only when you’ve paid the price to be ready for your success are you in a position to take advantage of your opportunities when they arise. And the most remarkable thing is this: The very act of preparation attracts to you, like iron filings to a magnet, opportunities to use that preparation to advance in your life. You’ll seldom learn anything of value without soon having a chance to use your new knowledge and your new skills to move ahead more rapidly.

There is a series of things that you can do to become ready for success. All of these activities require self-discipline and a good deal of faith. They require self-discipline because the most normal and natural thing for people to do is to try to get by without preparation. Instead of taking the time and making the effort to be ready for their chance when it comes, they fool around, listen to the radio, watch television, and then they try to wing it and dupe others into thinking that they are more prepared than they really are. And since just about everyone can see through just about everyone else, the unprepared person simply looks incompetent and foolish.

The Golden Hour

We live in a knowledge-based society, and knowledge in every field is doubling approximately every seven years. This means that you must double your knowledge in your field every seven years just to stay even. You’re already “maxed out” at your current level of knowledge and skill. You’ve reached the ceiling in your career with your current talents and abilities. If you want to go faster and further, you must get back to work and begin to prepare yourself for greater heights. You must put aside the newspaper, turn off the television, politely excuse yourself from aimless socializing, and work on yourself. Get in the habit of awaking earlier in the morning and spending the first 30 to 60 minutes reading something uplifting, informational, educational. Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The first hour is the rudder of the day.” This is often called the “golden hour.” It’s the hour during which you program your mind and set your emotional tone for the rest of the day. If you get up in the morning at least two hours before you have to be at work, or before your first appointment, and spend the first hour investing in your mind, taking in “mental protein” rather than “mental candy,” reading good books rather than the newspaper or magazines, your whole day will flow more smoothly. You’ll be more positive and optimistic. You’ll be calmer, more confident and relaxed. You’ll gain a greater sense of control and well-being by the very act of reading healthy material for the first hour of each and everyday.

Plan Your Day

Another thing that highly successful people do is plan and prepare for the entire day. They review all of the tasks and responsibilities that they have for the coming hours. They carefully make a list of all their activities, and they set clear priorities on the activities. They decide which things are most important to do, which are secondary in importance, and which things should not be done at all unless all the other things are finished. They then discipline themselves to start working on their most important tasks and stay with them during the day until they’re complete.

The natural tendency of the low performer is to do what is fun and easy before he or she does what is hard and necessary. Underachievers always like to do the little things first. They are drawn to the tasks that contribute little to their careers or future possibilities. But high achievers discipline themselves to start at the top of their list and to work on the activities in order of importance, without diversion or distraction.

In everything you do, preparation is the key. If you want to be ready for success, you have to plant the seeds well in advance of the harvest that you expect. Do what the winners do: Think on paper. Memorize the winner’s creed: “Everything counts.” Everything you do is either moving you toward your goals or away from them. Everything is either helping you or hurting you. Nothing is neutral. Everything counts. A young man once asked a successful businessman how he could be more successful faster. The businessman told him that the key to his own success had been to “get good” at his job.

The young man said, “I’m already good at what I do.”

The businessman then said, “Well, get better!”

The young man, somewhat self-satisfied, said, “Well, I’m already better than most people.”
To that, the businessman replied, “Then be the best.”

Those are three of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard: Get good. Get better. Be the best!

A quotation by Abraham Lincoln had a great influence on my life when I was 15. It was a statement he made when he was a young lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. He said, “I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.”

If you study and prepare yourself, your chance will come as well. There is nothing that you cannot accomplish if you’ll invest the effort to get yourself ready for the success that you desire. And there is nothing that can stop you but your own lack of preparation.

Think about the message in this beautiful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

“Those heights by great men won and kept

Were not achieved by sudden flight;

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.”

Remember that preparation requires self-discipline, because your natural tendency is to do more and more of the things that come most easily to you and avoid those areas that you don’t enjoy because you’re not particularly good at them yet. It requires character for you to admit your weaknesses in a particular area and then resolve to go to work to develop yourself so those weaknesses don’t hold you back. In other words: Prepare yourself for success … or when opportunity knocks, it will make you look a fool.

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW …
It’s not what you don’t know that can cause you to miss out on success; it’s what you think you don’t need to know. Perhaps you have never studied the intricacies of how to raise money to support a new venture … you have never needed to. But, how many ideas have you had that get dispelled because they are “too big” or would “cost too much money”? Maybe they would seem smaller, more achievable 'allowing you to entertain them' if you knew how to obtain venture capital. You don’t need to learn every subject in depth. But, take the time to learn what you think you don’t need to know, at least at a cursory level. If the occasion comes to dig deeper, then dig.

So let me know what you think below!

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5 Success Lessons I Learned From Running Ultramarathons | Michael Winterheller

1. Be consistent.

Although I’m putting this at the very top of my list, it is something I actually discovered rather late in my training (actually after having run my first ultra): Whatever you do, you need to do it consistently. This is the foundation, and it has become a crucial basic ingredient in terms of everything else that I’ve learned in this regard.

Running a few intervals or doing long runs every once in a while won’t really improve your fitness (for all non-runners, these are the parts of your training that really make you sweat), and likewise stretching once won’t improve your flexibility. You need to do these things as a consistent part of your training, again and again.

I’ve found that it is very similar in the business world: To achieve extraordinary results and be successful, you need to put in the work on a very consistent basis, almost to the point that improvement itself becomes a habit for you. Stop wasting your time with one-off efforts to change things all at once, and instead focus on weekly or maybe even daily accomplishments that will deliver consistent improvement.

2. Do the right work at the right time.

The simple act of doing work is actually pretty easy—the same is true for running. When I first started training, I basically just put on my running shoes and ran. Speed, distance and elevation gain were more or less a product of my mood and motivation on that day. While I did improve at the beginning of my training, I soon hit a wall where improvement became almost nonexistent. I only started to improve again when I started to follow a training plan and developed a better understanding of what I was actually trying to achieve.

It’s the same in your professional life: Just doing work won’t get you very far. It is doing the right work at the right time that will propel you toward success and the achievement of your goals. Create a daily list of the things you need to do that day and arrange it according to importance and overall benefit in terms of moving you forward. Moreover, get started with tasks on that list first thing in the morning. Once you have checked off the top five items, you can start to combine the other tasks on your list with whatever comes up as part of your workday.

3. Rest days boost your workday efficiency.

Rest days are a must if you want to improve your running form, and also if you want to improve consistently. In the world of sports and fitness, the need for rest and time off is well-known. Every article on improving your race time warns about the dangers of overtraining or going into a race tired.

Yet for some reason in the business world, working late, working on weekends and being online 24/7 seems like the right thing to do. Working without sufficient rest might work for a while, but it won’t take you very far in the long run. You will become tired, you will lose your creativity and your productivity will certainly fall. This is true in the business world just as it is in the world of fitness. Stop trying to be superhuman all the time and enjoy some well-deserved rest; you’ll end up being more productive and creative—more successful—than before.

4. Challenges are an integral part of getting better

During my first ultramarathon, I reached a point where I thought I just could not take another step. I sat down on the side of the dusty trail and was ready to throw in the towel. The only problem was that I was in the middle of nowhere, there was no mobile phone reception and there were no roads even remotely nearby. Anxiety almost got the better of me when another racer came by who stopped and asked me how I was doing. When I told him that I was ready to drop out of the race, he replied that this was his 19th time doing the race and he came to the exact same conclusion almost every time. But he learned to get through the rough times and was able to finish. He offered me his hand, pulled me up and told me to keep going. I was so bewildered and inspired that I just did what he told me to do: I kept running and I finished the race.

This moment is one of my top inspirations whenever I encounter difficulties in my role as a CEO. I learned to not only deal with challenges in a much more productive way, but now I actually find inspiration in them. It might sound strange, but for me challenges offer reinsurance that I am doing something new, something big, something out of the ordinary. 
So next time you find yourself facing an obstacle, keep going and then give yourself a pat on the back. Why? Because chances are that you are on the way to achieving something great.

5. Surround yourself with people who inspire you and keep you moving forward.

Training for an ultramarathon can be a pretty lonely experience. You spend most of your time running through the woods or scrambling up mountains, accompanied only by your own thoughts and inner dialogue. While I did really enjoy this time on the trails, I also learned that you can become trapped within your own limits without realizing it. This dawned on me when I started doing some of my workouts at the local running track. All of a sudden I was able to compare my speed and endurance with other runners, and I was baffled by how fast some people can actually run. It’s not that I didn’t read about fast runners or see their video clips online, but that’s a very different thing from going full out and being passed by other runners who seemed to not be struggling at all. Now I love doing my workout on the track because it helps me to surpass my own limits, and also to gain inspiration to train harder and at the same time improve my pace.

Relatedly, whenever you have the chance to meet someone successful or learn something from your competition, make it count. Stop being intimidated and instead be inspired. Use their stories as encouragement in terms of questioning your own limits. Chances are good that you will be able to think bigger, be bolder and go further than ever before.

So can you relate to this?  Please let me know below!

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6 Habits Of Highly Successful People Before Bedtime | Tony Robinson

We’ve all heard the stories about the mega-successful who wake up early every day and conquer the world before most people put the coffee on. But what about the other time of day that plays an equally important role? What are successful people doing right before bed? Do you want to know the secret? They set themselves up to have an even more productive day tomorrow.
Here are six bedtime habits of highly successful people.

1. Read for an hour

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is an avid reader. Each night before bed, he spends an hour reading a book, ranging on topics from politics to current events.
Aside from the obvious benefits of gaining new knowledge, reading daily has also been shown to reduce stress and improve memory. A 2009 study from the University of Essex revealed that reading for as little as six minutes a day can reduce stress levels by up to 68%.
Another big benefit from cracking open a good book on a nightly basis is that it can improve the long term health of your brain. Every time you read, it’s like a mental workout for your mind. This study performed in Britain showed that people who stimulated their minds through activities like reading, reduced cognitive decline by an average of 32% as they got older in age.

2. Unplug

After passing out from exhaustion and injuring her head to the tune of five stitches, Arianna Huffington has been an evangelist for “unplugging”. Every night before bed, she puts her phone in another room so she’s not distracted by it before bed. And science proves that she might be onto something.
According to Dr Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard University, the bright lights produced by our cell phone screens disrupt our bodies natural sleep rhythm and actually “trick” our bodies into thinking it’s daytime. Those bright lights send a message to our brains that prevents certain chemicals from being released, causing us to have a much harder time going to sleep. So, if you want a good night’s rest, stash your phone in another room.

3. Take a walk

The busy CEO of Buffer likes to unwind with a brisk walk right before bed. He uses his walks to turn off his thoughts about work, and slowly work his self into a “state of tiredness”.
For a busy person always on the go, Joel’s late night walk routine could be perfect way to unwind after a stressful day. And aside from the obvious health benefits of daily walk, there a couple of surprising bonuses that come along as well.
One study revealed that walking can increase creativity. When you’re walking, your mind isn’t working as vigorously, which “opens up the free flow of ideas.” So if you’ve got a tough problem you haven’t been able to solve, maybe a nice, night time stroll is all you need to find the perfect, creative solution.

4. Meditate

The media maven has long supported the idea of regular meditation. No doubt, Ms. Winfrey has a schedule that keeps her mighty busy, and what better way to unwind at the end of a stressful day, than with a focused meditation session.
There’s often times a stigma surrounding meditation, and there has always been a debate as to whether mediation is actually helpful. But when a 2014 study took a look at over 19,000 cases involving mediation, the results were clear. Meditation was found to help reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and pain. So regardless of one’s view of mediation, you can’t argue with the results.

5. Get creative

In 2006, Vera Wang stated to Fortune that her nightly routine includes, “a fair amount of designing — at least conceptually if not literally.” Sometimes, the quiet of the night can be the perfect remedy for a creative block.
What’s even more surprising is that there’s a study that actually shows night time can be the perfect time for creativity, even if you’re tired from a long day. A study from Albion College revealed that, “tasks requiring creative insight was consistently better during their nonoptimal times of day.”. 
So if you’re a morning person (raises hand), then your most creative ideas will come right before bed. Researchers believe this is true because your mind is less restrained at night. Your ability to make logical connections worsens, but it works in your favor because you’re able to make connections you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

6. Plan the next day

The American Express CEO likes to manage his time, and he does so by ending his nights in a very simple way. He plans out three things he wants to accomplish for the following day. That way, he can wake up in the morning, and get to work on his most important tasks, right away.
This study from the early 90’s supports Chenault’s strange addiction with planning. Researchers followed a group of students from their high school years, until four years later at the end of their college careers. The researchers tested these students on their time management skills in high school, and when they caught up with those students four years later, they made a shocking discovery.
The students with better time management skills, had higher college GPA’s then their peers who had higher SAT scores. Basically, time management played a bigger role in their academic success than actual scholastic aptitude.

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So what do you think? Let me know below..

Christmas Stress Relief

Christmas can be a very stressful time of year.  For many the Christmas holiday period is a mass of complex social interactions with family or relatives, some of whom you may rather not see. 

There could well be expectations, or at least perceived expectations, to create a ‘wonderful Christmas’ with presents and perhaps the most important meal of the year. 

Some people rate Christmas as being more stressful than divorce or being burgled.  We don't want to add to the stress and have deliberately avoided putting images of holly, robins, snowmen or anything else Christmassy on this page!

The page does, however, provide some tips and advice to make your Christmas as stress-free as possible. Don't let the festive season get you down: follow the tips and advice you find here, relax and enjoy yourself.

Plan Ahead

Start making a list of things you need to do for Christmas early: for example, shopping, food and presents, decorations, seating plans or travel arrangements.  Make the list as detailed as possible, include people’s phone numbers or email addresses to make contacting them simpler.

If it's already too late, bookmark this page ready for next year and set yourself a reminder to do this in mid-November.

Try to prioritise the items on your list: can they be done now, and are they essential?  Do not overestimate how much you can achieve on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Many recipes can, at least in part, be made ahead of time and frozen thus reducing tasks in the immediate run-up to Christmas Day.

Delegate the responsibility for certain tasks to other family members since this will reduce your workload.  Keep your list for next year; it’ll need tweaking and updating but will give you reminders of the sorts of things you need to think about.

See our pages: Time Management and Delegation Skills for more ideas of how to get organised and prioritise your tasks and time.

Shop Online

Although shopping locally has many advantages, High Street shopping just before Christmas can be particularly stressful, often cold and wet (in the UK anyway) and with hundreds of other stressed people trying to find the ‘perfect’ gift. 

Shop online from the comfort of your own home as you’ll not only save time and be less stressed but will probably save money too.  Always make sure you buy from reputable online retailers and check that they can deliver before the big day.  Take advantage of a cash back site such as TopCashBack in the UK to save even more money on your purchases.

If you haven’t already tried it, you may be able to do your food shopping online too and have it delivered directly to your door. Remember to book your delivery slot early though as the prime delivery slots may well be booked early.

Christmas Cards

Start writing your Christmas cards early too!

Many people receive and send lots of cards at Christmas time so start in mid-November, if you can, and write a few cards and envelopes each day keeping them to one side before posting or delivering.

Know When to Stop

Decide when you will stop your Christmas preparations and start to relax and enjoy the holiday.  Work towards and try to stick to this goal, even if it is in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve.  Remember that Christmas is your holiday too.

Christmas Day and Beyond

Keep Calm

Play some relaxing music, perhaps seasonal carols, and burn some scented candles, incense or aromatherapy oil. Take a relaxing hot bath to unwind.

Our pages: Relaxation Techniques including Aromatherapy for some advice about how to relax.

Seating Arrangements

If there is someone coming to dinner that you dislike, avoid sitting opposite them and instead seat them to one side and opposite somebody who they get on with better.  Invite a few more reasonable people along as it will help dilute any stress caused by relatives.  It’s a case of the more the merrier!

Keep Calm

Play some relaxing music, perhaps seasonal carols, and burn some scented candles, incense or aromatherapy oil. Take a relaxing hot bath to unwind.

Our pages: Relaxation Techniques including Aromatherapy for some advice about how to relax.

Seating Arrangements

If there is someone coming to dinner that you dislike, avoid sitting opposite them and instead seat them to one side and opposite somebody who they get on with better.  Invite a few more reasonable people along as it will help dilute any stress caused by relatives.  It’s a case of the more the merrier!

Turkey

If you are planning on cooking a bird then turkey or pheasant are good choices. They both contain tryptophan which our bodies use to make serotonin, a powerful brain-calming chemical.

Have Decaffeinated Coffee

When your body is under stress it produces cortisol which prepares you for ‘fight or flight’ situations. Caffeine does too; see our article: Stress, Nutrition and Diet for more information.  

Offer everybody decaffeinated coffee and tea, or herbal tea alternatives, since this will help keep the stress levels down and has the added bonus that people may fall asleep after dinner!

Practise Breathing

When we’re stressed our heart beat increases and our breathing shallows, it’s all part of the fight or flight reaction.  Work on reversing this process and take time to breathe deeply. 

Breathe in deeply through your nose, hold for 15 or 20 seconds and then breathe slowly out through your mouth, repeat for a few minutes to instantly help reduce stressful feelings.

Have a 'Great Escape' Plan!

It's a good idea to have some pre-planned excuses to escape from proceedings if they get too stressful.

Be imaginative and use things such as leaving the room to make a phone-call to a friend or perhaps checking on a neighbour. Just by having planned a couple of escape routes you’ll probably feel less stressed anyway but actually leaving the situation, even for 10 minutes, will help clear your mind and relax you.

Make Time for Exercise

Christmas is, for many, a time of excessive eating and drinking and exercise can be easily overlooked.  Diets are particularly popular in January!  Exercise is a great way to reduce stress as it burns off hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and helps produce mood-enhancing endorphins.  Try going for a walk after dinner as the fresh air and exercise will lift your mood and make you feel better.

Avoid Excessive Alcohol

Most de-stressing articles will tell you to avoid alcohol altogether but, let’s be realistic, it is Christmas!  However, do avoid excessive alcohol as it dehydrates your body and makes your liver work overtime to process it. Drink as much water or juice as alcohol as this will help you to stay hydrated, feel better and therefore cope better with stressful situations. You'll also feel better on Boxing Day.

Have Fun!

Remember it’s your Christmas too so try to relax and have fun, laugh and be merry.  If you do find others around you difficult then try to rise above the situation.  If things don’t go to plan try not to worry too much, instead laugh about them and make them into fun memories that you can talk about during Christmases to come. "Remember that time Mum set fire to the sprouts!".

Have a great, stress-free, Christmas break!

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Why Success Always Starts With Failure | Sarah Rapp

“Few of our own failures are fatal,” economist and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford writes in his new book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure. This may be true, but we certainly don’t act like it. When our mistakes stare us in the face, we often find it so upsetting that we miss out on the primary benefit of failing (yes, benefit): the chance to get over our egos and come back with a stronger, smarter approach.

According to Adapt, “success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right first time.” To prove his point, Harford cites compelling examples innovation by trial-and-error from visionaries as varied as choreographer Twyla Tharp and US Forces Commander David Petraeus. I interviewed Harford over email to dig deeper into the counter-intuitive lessons of Adapt. What follows is a series of key takeaways on the psychology of failure and adaptation, combining insights from our conversation and the book itself.

The Wrong Way To React To Failure

When it comes to failing, our egos are our own worst enemies. As soon as things start going wrong, our defense mechanisms kick in, tempting us to do what we can to save face. Yet, these very normal reactions — denial, chasing your losses, and hedonic editing — wreak havoc on our ability to adapt.

Denial.
“It seems to be the hardest thing in the world to admit we’ve made a mistake and try to put it right. It requires you to challenge a status quo of your own making.”

Chasing your losses.
We’re so anxious not to “draw a line under a decision we regret” that we end up causing still more damage while trying to erase it. For example, poker players who’ve just lost some money are primed to make riskier bets than they’d normally take, in a hasty attempt to win the lost money back and “erase” the mistake.

Hedonic editing.
When we engage in “hedonic editing,” we try to convince ourselves that the mistake doesn’t matter, bundling our losses with our gains or finding some way to reinterpret our failures as successes.

• We’re so anxious not to “draw a line under a decision we regret” that we end up causing still more damage while trying to erase it.

The Recipe for Successful Adaptation
At the crux of Adapt lies this conviction: In a complex world, we must use an adaptive, experimental approach to succeed. Harford argues, “the more complex and elusive our problems are, the more effective trial and error becomes.” We can’t begin to predict whether our “great idea” will actually sink or swim once it’s out there.Harford outlines three principles for failing productively: You have to cast a wide net, “practice failing” in a safe space, and be primed to let go of your idea if you’ve missed the mark.

Try new things.
“Expose yourself to lots of different ideas and try lots of different approaches, on the grounds that failure is common.”

Experiment where failure is survivable.
“Look for experimental approaches where there’s lots to learn – projects with small downsides but bigger upsides. Too often we take on projects where the cost of failure is prohibitive, and just hope for the best.”

Recognize when you haven’t succeeded.
“The third principle is the easiest to state and the hardest to stick to: know when you’ve failed.”

• The more complex and elusive our problems are, the more effective trial and error becomes.

How To Recognize Failure
This is the hard part. We’ve been trained that “persistence pays off,” so it feels wrong to cut our losses and label an idea a failure. But if you’re truly self-aware and listening closely after a “release” of your idea, you can’t go wrong. Being able to recognize a failure just means that you’ll be able to re-cast it into something more likely to succeed.

Gather feedback.
“Above all, feedback is essential for determining which experiments have succeeded and which have failed. Get advice, not just from one person, but from several.” Some professions have build-in feedback: reviews if you’re in the arts, sales and analytics if you release a web product, comments if you’re a blogger. If the feedback is harsh, be objective, “take the venom out,” and dig out the real advice.

Remove emotions from the equation.
“It’s important to be dispassionate: forget whether you’re ahead or behind, and try to look at the likely costs and benefits of continuing from when you are.”

Don’t get too attached to your plan.
“There’s nothing wrong with a plan, but remember Von Moltke’s famous dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The danger is a plan that seduces us into thinking failure is impossible and adaptation is unnecessary – a kind of ‘Titanic’ plan, unsinkable (until it hits the iceberg).”

• Being able to recognize a failure just means that you’ll be able to re-cast it into something more likely to succeed.

Creating Safe Spaces to Fail
Twyla Tharp says, “The best failures are the private ones you commit in the confines of your own room, with no strangers watching.” She rises as 5:30 AM and videotapes herself freestyling for 3 hours each morning, happy if she extracts just 30 seconds of usable material from the whole tape. This is a great example of a “safe space to fail.” But many of us don’t have this luxury of time or freedom. So how do we create this space?

Practice disciplined pluralism.
Markets work by this process, encouraging the exploration of many new ideas as well as the ruthless weeding out of the ones that fall short. “Pluralism works because life is not worth living without new experiences.” Try a lot of things, and commit only to what’s working.

Finding “a safe space to fail is a state of mind.”
Assuming that you don’t operate a nuclear power plant for a living, you can probably infuse a bit more freedom and flexibility into your workday. Give yourself permission to test out a few off-the-wall ideas mixed in with the by-the-book ideas.

Imitate the college experience.
“College is an amazing safe space to fail. We are experimenting with new friends, a new city, new hobbies and new ideas – and we’ll often mess up academically and socially as a result. But we know that as long as we don’t screw up too dramatically, we’ll finish college, graduate, and move on – that mix of risk and safety is intoxicating. Yet somehow as we grow older we lose it.” —

What’s Your Take?
Do you think that trial and error is the most effective approach for innovation? What are your tips for surviving failure?

Source 

5 Daily Habits That Will Increase Your Productivity Levels | Matt Mayberry

“How can I become more productive?” is a question that will continue to always come up.

Everyone wants to get more done and feel a sense of accomplishment as each day comes to an end. There are a million different productivity tips out there, but here a five ways to increase your productivity levels that have worked wonders in my own life.

1. Arrive early, stay later

Living in a congested city such as Chicago, I have found that if I start my workday before everyone else, I can save time by beating traffic and getting to my most important tasks right away. Sitting in traffic will do nothing but frustrate you and set a negative tone for the rest of your day. The same goes for when the end of the work day rolls around.

Related: Want to Be Successful? Quit Slacking Off.

Your ability to save these extra hours can not only increase your productivity levels drastically, but help you become one of the highest paid and most productive people in your field. Arriving early and staying a little bit later could make all the difference in the world.

2. Plan each day the night before

This is a total game changer. If you spend just 15 minutes before you go to bed the night before creating your to-do list and prioritizing it, you will have a head start on your day when the morning rolls around. After I create my to-do list, I pick the most important tasks and put a little star next to them reminding me that these are the tasks that need to be done to push me forward with achieving big goals.

                              

3. Leave the office for lunch

This is something so small that can have such a powerful effect on how you work for the remainder of your day. Getting out of your work environment for lunch can ease stress levels, refresh your creativity and help you to re-focus for when it’s time to go back to work. I often take a short walk to clear my head and think about how I want the rest of my day to go.

4. Minimize distractions

This seems self-explanatory, but in this day and age, distractions are everywhere. If you work from a computer, as most do, there is the temptation to check social media and surf the Internet, among many other things. When it’s time to work, work! If possible, close your door and have a "do not disturb" sign hanging on the door so your co-workers know not to bother you.

Related: One Way to Beat Bad Online Habits and Be More Productive

Every company has those employees that love to talk about what was on TV the night before instead of actually getting important things done. Don’t let these average achievers hold you back. Set boundaries and try your very best to abide by them daily. Your ability to minimize distractions as much as possible can single handedly increase productivity.

5. Keep your goals in sight at all times

After setting extremely big and exciting goals that you want to accomplish, keep them in sight at all times. I keep a list of my goals in my phone, a note card that I carry in my pocket and in a spiral notebook. The main objective is to keep your goals in a place where you will end up seeing them many times throughout your day. When I glance down at my goals, my motivation levels to get things done goes through the roof.

Start to picture yourself as the most productive person in your field. How does it feel? What tasks are you spending the majority of your time on? What is your philosophy on personal performance? Be in competition with yourself to see how much you can get done. Have fun with it. Make it a game.

Always try to beat the person you were the day before. Keep track of your results and work every single day to be a highly productive individual and watch the small daily victories begin to transform your life.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241797


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