Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 April 2020

Using Your Body To Strengthen Your Mind

For thousands of years, physical disciplines like yoga, Tai Chi and Sufi Dancing have been said to increase mental and spiritual powers. If this is true, how might one explain this, and even better, how can we use this fact, practically, to enhance our lives as artists, business people, parents, and partners?
First, we have to strip away the mysticism from the activity. Not that these activities have no esoteric aspect, but rather that we have to approach them on the most down-to-earth level. The higher the tree, the deeper the roots. The taller the building, the deeper the foundations. If you want to soar, be certain that your tether is strong. So we need to start with a simple, physiological explanation (if possible!) and then suggest a way that this ties in to advanced artistic accomplishment, relationship skills, intellectual clarity, and spiritual growth.
My own enlightenment in this regard came from studying the work of Coach Scott Sonnon, the first American martial artist to train in the former Soviet Union. While there, this brilliant man met Russian sports and performance scientists who had been studying indigenous health system in the Ural Mountains for a century. There, they found movement and wellness concepts equivalent to anything in China or India. They shared many of these concepts with Sonnon, and invited him to share them in turn with Americans. Over the years, Coach Sonnon has created hundreds of books, videos and essays on his interpretations of this core knowledge.
Perhaps the single most important in terms of Body-Mind is what he calls the “Flow State Performance Spiral.” In order to relate this breakthrough thinking in such a short essay, we’ll have to condense considerably:
1) All physical technique is composed of three aspects: breathing, movement, and structure.
2) Each of these aspects is controlled by the other two (breath is created by movement and structure, etc.)
3) Stress “dis-integrates” this structure. In other words, when you are under stress, the physiological signs will manifest in your breathing rate or shallowness, your posture, your muscle tension. This is why lie detectors work!
Before he died, Hans Selye, the creator of the “stress” concept, said that he had misspoken himself, that it is not stress that hurts us, it is strain. Stress is the pressure we are under. But strain is the degree to which that stress warps us out of true.
Stress is not the enemy. In fact, when handled healthfully, it is the primary trigger for growth. So the key is to avoid strain.
Let’s skip around a bit to a truth about artistic and intellectual pursuits: your ability to utilize your intelligence, education, skills or talents will be in direct proportion to your ability to maintain “flow” under stress. Or to put it another way, in life, we are rewarded for how much stress we can handle without folding. Writer’s block, for instance, is nothing but a poor reaction to performance stress.
Combining these ideas, what we have is that mental and emotional balance under stress leads to excellence. Combine this with the fact that learning to cope with physical stress develops skills that are tremendously applicable to the mental arena. The most vulnerable portion of the “Flow State” triad (breath, movement, structure) is breathing. Proper breathing will be degraded by stress before you can detect it in posture or muscle tension. This is one of the reasons breath control is addressed in most religions and spiritual disciplines, whether this is through pranayama (yoga), exercise, hymns, ritual prayers, dance, or sacred postures.
A good yoga teacher, for instance, will place the student in a posture sufficiently extreme to force total concentration. When the student learns to relax and focus, that posture becomes relatively easy, and a more extreme posture is given. The point is to teach the student to monitor their own internal process. Fine martial arts or breathing meditation teachers use similar techniques.
The student learns to recognize the early signs of strain, and to dissipate them. NOTHING in life creates more stress than lack of oxygen, and learning to remain calm in the midst of oxygen debt will teach you to remain calm when the children are screaming, when your boss is on the rampage, when someone cuts you off on the freeway.
Or when you have a writing deadline, or when insecurity and fear hammers at the door of your resolve.
Deliberately practicing a physical discipline to enhance this quality of calmness and centeredness, while simultaneously working toward goals balanced in body, mind, and spirit, exposes you to the currents of life while helping you develop the skills and strategies necessary to excel. This, over time, leads to excellence, even in a purely mental arena.
There are numerous disciplines that will teach proper breathing under stress, and this article has listed a few. If you wish to reach your maximum potential as a mental, spiritual, and emotional being, seek one of these techniques out, and integrate it into your life. It is one of the best investments you could ever make in your future.https://populararticles.co/using-your-body-to-strengthen-your-mind/

Saturday, 11 April 2020

If You Want To Know What It Takes To FIND and KEEP LOVE - WATCH THIS!

How to Set Personal Life Goals for Growth

Change is said to be the only constant in life. Who you were five years ago is not the person you are today. However, you might be feeling like you are just drifting through like aimlessly without any target for where you want to be.
If that feels like you, then you probably have not set any life goals for yourself. Life goals are important because they give guide you, give you focus and a yardstick to know when you are headed in the right direction.
What are life goals?
When most people think of personal development, finances come to mind. However, personal development entails continuous expansion of various facets of your life including spiritual, social, mental and physical.
If any one of these facets of your life isn't in order, then all the others might crumble. Self-development, therefore, is multi-faceted and a continuous process that seeks to achieve self-actualization. It therefore never stops.
How to Set Personal Life Goals
You probably have heard that goals should be SMART. This means that they should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. When your goals are SMART, you are able to visualize them and set up a plan on how to achieve them in the decided time-frame.
Before you jump into writing down SMART goals, you must visualize your life in five or ten years to come. What do you want to achieve by then?
Take the large goals and the big picture and break it down into smaller goals that you should achieve progressively starting today. The smaller you break down your goals, the easier it becomes to achieve them. As you achieve smaller goals, you get motivated because the bigger picture becomes that much closer every day.
Categories you Might Set Life Goals In
As stated earlier, personal development is multi-faceted. It involves all aspects of your life including the following: career, financial, education, family, health, attitude, physical, pleasure, social, love, relationships and spiritual.
It is essential that you focus on all aspects of your life and aim to get better every day.
Take Action
Setting goals and having a plan is one thing; but without action, it all becomes wishful thinking. It is important, therefore, that you start today to work on your goals. As started earlier, it becomes easy to achieve the bigger goals when they are broken down into smaller ones.
Do something daily or weekly that works towards your long term goal without thinking of how long you have to do it. This will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by how much you have to achieve.
Conduct Progress Reviews
You will not know how far you have come unless you are able to measure your progress. A progress review helps you know whether you are still on track or you have derailed off what you should have been doing.
You can choose when to do the progress reviews based on the goals you need to achieve. You can do it annually, semi-annually or even quarterly.
Go on and use this guide to set smart personal life goals that will see you achieve you dreams in all the facets of your life.
Mathenge Kabui Is an expert author on matters to do with personal development. You can contact him to give you quality content for your website by following the link below: https://www.kenyawriters.com/customorders/
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mathenge_Kabui/557294
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10196134

Thursday, 2 April 2020

Happiness For a Better Life - Tips For Early Morning Motivation

Have you ever felt to be in bad mood when you get up in the morning? Do you need too much time to get running and functioning at high speed? Do you need many coffee breaks? Off course, sometimes everybody has a hang through phase, be it after a lot of work, long time school or study, boring work or what ever.
I have thought a bit about how to improve the small things of life to the positive and how to get up with a great smile every morning. Actually I just reflected what I am doing for years and which helped me through many difficult situations. Funny enough, to get up positively in the morning has its roots in the evening before and how you go to bed. That's what I do:
After our work day, Eliane and I sit down for a short while just talking to each other about the nice and frustrating things we encountered over the working day. Then, while she prepares a small meal, I help her with some jobs to be done in the household, going to the cellar for milk or what else is needed. After the meal, often together with our adult children, we do no more speak about business but about our dreams, holidays, the book we a re reading, etc. Now it comes: we go to bed with an absolutely positive feeling and mind.
The alarm clock rings! There it is very important to get up slowly and with a first and positive thought. This is easy since I already slept with a positive mind, so I just restart where I left. Be not hectic, enjoy the shower, look out of the window, see the birds, the sunshine, and enjoy your life. Go on to have joy the whole day!
My conclusion and recommendation:
- Chose to be happy, be grateful
- Avoid bad news and stress
- Manage your time well, do not waste it, it's just too precious
- Laugh heartily, this is medicine
- Express your feelings and passions
- Work hard but not to exhaustion
- Enjoy your achievements and accomplishments
- Learn something new everyday, broaden your horizon
- Exercise your mind, soul and body, feel alive, eliminate depression
- Find Inspiration and success, be enthusiastic
- Take some minutes for meditation and religion
Following these simple but powerful small steps every day will increase your health (mind and body) dramatically. If you learn to avoid negative exposures, enjoy what you feel and what is around you, you are set for a long and prosperous life. Start reading motivational books.
Martin Bigler is an experienced Copywriter and offers Resources, Tools and Educational Content to help interested People build their Internet Business successfully and with motivation. His Educational Martin Bigler Newsletter offers profound step by step guidance on various Marketing and Sales Tasks. A big selection of Free Reports, Downloads and useful Links are available at MartinBigler.com and the MartinBiglerBlog. Copyright by Martin Bigler.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1891789https://ezinearticles.com/?Happiness-For-a-Better-Life---Tips-For-Early-Morning-Motivation&id=1891789

Wednesday, 1 April 2020


2 Hours in the Morning Will Put You in 2% Club!

Do you set up yourself for failure every morning? If you hit snooze over and over again, yes you do, yet you didn't know till now. Two years ago, I was in your situation. It was my dream to be a successful person, you know, kinds of people who always look motivated and get things done in no time. I always knew waking up early would change my life, but the problem was not waking up early, it was sleeping early.
As you can relate, I thought I didn't have what it takes to have an amazing morning routine that over a couple of years it will transform to a success story. It was just a dream that I wanted, yes it was, not anymore!
Are these statements familiar to you?
• I'll wake up early tomorrow.
• I've slept late, so I should sleep more.
• I don't do anything useful in the mornings anyways, so why should I wake up early?
• I'm just not the right person for growth and success, I lack the discipline.
If you relate to one of these or all and are nodding your head, this guide will definitely save you from the struggle.
I'll not even mention agonizing impacts of wasting your mornings because you're living them. Let's start with the benefits and how those benefits will change your life in better way.
The first and the best one, waking up early will give you mental strength. Probably, you're saying, "I wake up early every day for work/school and there's no mental advantage!". Okay, I've got a few questions for you: what do you do when you wake up? Go through your emails? Or social media? Or in rush to be on time for your work/school? Another question: what do you do for yourself? To have mental strength, you should work on yourself. According to a study contacted by the American Psychological Association having a good routine in the beginning of the day will reduce your depression, anxiety and stress. More than that, it will increase your satisfaction level which will become happiness.
Second, a good beginning routine will provide you physical benefits. For instance, I do a hundred pushups after I wake up (of course it's not the only exercise I do during the whole day), which skyrockets my energy for the day. I'm not suggesting you to do pushups, you can practice yoga or even go for a walk. Another physical benefit of having a good morning routine is consuming less calories. I made an experiment with a group of twenty people, ten of us slept late for the next month, on the other hand, the rest slept early. As a result, late sleepers ended eating more because when you sleep late you get hungry that's why you tend to eat more which over the years become obesity.
Third, a good beginning always provides spiritual rewards. Visualizing your success does give you inner peace. I remember myself visualizing working as a freelancer and making enough money to travel while working. And that gave me enough motivation every day to work towards my ambitions, thus, my relationships with people became better both at home and at work. When you work for what you visualize today, in some time you'll make it reality. Of course, practicing visualization is not the only way to have inner peace. Meditation, journaling or listing what you're grateful for will help as well.
Of course, there're many other benefits of waking up early, but in my opinion, those which are above are dominant to other benefits. What else will you ask for if you're mentally strong, healthy as a model and peaceful with yourself, right?
I hope you're ready to build your own amazing morning routine! No, don't say, "but I'm not a morning person". Everything starts in your mind, so change your mindset and be positive on waking up early. "Beliefs we've that are so deeply embedded that we don't even realize they guide our attitudes and behaviors", said author Ramit Sethi. In simpler words, what you believe is your reality. So, you better start believing the you're an early bird.
Your morning routine doesn't start in the morning; it starts the night before. Here are five things you need to do to develop a habit from 'Habit Starter Checklist' written by Rob Norback. First, always remind yourself the habit that you want to create, in this case it's waking up early. Second, break it down to small pieces to make it easier and doable, make a decision of routine in regards to your new habit. For example, what activities you'll include in your morning routine. Third, know what rewards it will bring to you. How I did this, I wrote how creating and following a morning routine will make my life better on a piece of paper and read it every day. Fourth, visualize your success with your morning routine. Finally, record the progress, it will definitely encourage you to keep going.
If you're having issues with sleeping because of stress, anxiety and uncertainty (worrying about future) of future, like I had in the past. I highly recommend you to write down negative thoughts like these on a piece of paper, then fold it and tear it apart, finally throw it away. By doing this, you kick out your negative thoughts from your head and you physically do something to them which is extremely relieving.
Other helpful activity to relax before sleep; deep breathing, silence your inner voice, so it won't be bothering you; think about good things, read a book, write diary or look forwards to an amazing night sleep. There's no a certain way to get relaxed before sleep, you can find which one works for you by trying them.
It's time to chase your dreams and since day starts in the morning, you need to have a good morning routine. Start off with encouraging yourself, I believe this is the first thing you should do in the morning. 'Today is going to be the most productive day of my life' this is what I say to myself when I wake up. You can find different ones for yourself such as 'I'll be on my best today', you got the idea.
Every time I wake and encourage myself, I get out of the bed and start doing pushups right away, of course, there're plenty of other exercises you can do. For instance, sit ups, walking, jogging, even dancing, do whatever you want to for approximately twenty minutes that fills you with energy.
Cold water is the enemy of sleep if you can take a cold shower then go for it, however, if not, just wash your face with cold water. Feel awake? Now, tell what you're grateful for, you can make a list of it if you wish. Here is what I am grateful for:
• Being able to wake up
• Living the life that I've always dreamt of
• Exercising
• Yummy breakfast
• Friend
• Going to cinema and spending a great time with my partner
• Being able to finish my projects on time
Read them all out loud (of course, yours will be different), by doing this you hack your brain that you're a successful person, therefore, more achievements coming for you today.
Take your time when creating your morning routine, creating my current morning routine took two years for me. At the beginning, I set up my alarm clock to 5 a.m. and I believed that it'll give me more energy and productivity. By contrast, it gave me nothing but sleepiness, when you do something gradually your chances of success are more likely. Let's say you normally wake up at 6 a.m. next day wake up at 5:45. Then, gradually continue to your wake up time goal with setting your alarm clock 15 to 30 minutes earlier. In short, start small, be persistent and you'll achieve your goal wake up time.
As I've said before, take your time, I didn't build my winning morning habit in a day but in two years. Don't put too much to your morning routine when you're at the beginning, I did that mistake. I read books, meditated, exercised, worked; however, it didn't fulfill me with happiness and I thought of giving up many times. Build your perfect morning routine gradually, for example, exercise, after exercising becomes a habit read a book after exercise. You don't get the whole building in a day, you build it and it takes time.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10245284https://ezinearticles.com/?2-Hours-in-the-Morning-Will-Put-You-in-2%-Club!&id=10245284