The Connection between Time and Stress Management
You’ve probably heard before that stress is the most common cause of aches and pains, as well as time missed from work. That’s because stress doesn’t just affect us mentally. It’s hard on our bodies, too. That overwhelmed feeling many of us have at work and at home is a big source of that stress which is why understanding the connection between time and stress management is so important. Below are some strategies that can help you achieve both.
Learn to Delegate
The people who seem the most stressed are the controllers. You know the type – you may even be one. These are the people who have to personally handle everything because no one else is capable of achieving the same standards. As a result, they end up being overwhelmed with tasks that could easily be done by their subordinates and that leaves them with less time to deal with the really important projects.
If you fall into this category, you have to learn to go a little. Start out small by delegating a few minor projects. You’ll be amazed how much time it frees up in your schedule.
Take Breaks
One of the worst things to do if you’re worried about time and stress management is to work yourself too hard. No matter how much work you need to get done you must take breaks. Those breaks don’t have to last for hours but ten or twenty minutes here and there can be great for recharging your mental batteries and for keeping you motivated.
If you start feeling stress, go for a walk around the office or do some deep breathing exercises at your desk. You’ve got to fight back that stress because it will interfere with your productivity.
Remove Distractions
Don’t try to deal with your stress through distractions from work. Playing solitaire or watching Internet clips might seem to be helping but your mind still knows you have plenty of work left to do and that’s going to cause you to feel stressed even while you’re enjoying yourself.
If you have trouble resisting distractions on your computer, have them removed or blocked by the IT staff or delete the shortcuts from your desktop. Other distractions, such as chatty co-workers or text messaging, can also be easily removed from the picture. Just remember that focusing on getting your work done and meeting those goals is going to make you feel good and will alleviate a lot of stress.
Become a Planner
Another great way to deal with time and stress management is to start planning your day in advance. Take some time before you go to bed each night to make a list of everything you want to accomplish the next day. By planning this out, you’ll go to bed with a sense of what needs to get done and you’ll wake up feeling ready to get those things done. Make sure to write down your list so you’ll remember it the next day.
My Top 10 Quotes for Living Well!
Over the years many people have offered their models of the “Good Life”, and some have left quotes that nicely summarize important truths. The following are ten of my personal favorites.
1. Know Thyself. – Socrates. From ancient Greece comes this reminder that introspection, keeping a journal, paying attention to the heart of things, comes first. Before we can know the world around us, and make reasonable decisions about our roles and goals, it seems we must first come to grips with who we are and what we value.
2. To Thine Own Self Be True. – Shakespeare. In life there is no substitute for integrity. My grandmother was fond of saying, “We either stand for something, or we’ll fall for anything.” Integrity is about going beyond the truth to full and complete honesty, openness and fairness.
3. And the Greatest of These is Love. – St Paul. He also observed that “without love I am just a clanging symbol or a noisy gong.” Without love, caring relationships, and compassion, life is indeed a dry and shallow thing.
4. Imagination Rules the World. – Albert Einstein. The good life is at least partly based on dreams that are worthy of us, dreams that elevate and challenge and inspire our best. Bobby Kennedy noted, “Others look at the world and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream of a world that never was and ask, ‘Why not?’” Martin Luther King’s defiant cry, “I have a dream!” will live long after most of us are gone and forgotten.
5. Too much of a good thing is wonderful! – Mae West. The good life is about living large, about expressing the joy and love of life. It’s about song, exuberance, and about taking chances, and “going for it”.
6. Opportunities multiply as they are seized. – SunTzu. Success depends on the courage to act, and courage in turn requires a level of faith that every opportunity acted upon will lead to more and better ways to serve, learn, grow and prosper.
7. Do, or do not. There is no “try”. – Yoda (The Empire Strikes Back). Life requires action, boldness and decisiveness. Mae West also observed, “He who hesitates is a damned fool.”
8. Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. – Antoine de St. Exupery. Henry Thoreau recommended, “Simplify, simplify, simplify. Let your concerns be as 2 or 3, no more.” Friends, work, the media and this thing called the Internet, along with our own “wish lists” try to seduce us to complexity, busy-ness and anxiety. Keep it simple!
9. The artist is nothing without gift, but gift is nothing without work – Emile Zola. Only focused, intelligent, diligent effort turns potential into reality. Without creative effort, talent and “gift” seem to atrophy and die. Truly a case of “use it or lose it”.
10. There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. – Albert Einstein. I highly recommend practicing the attitude of gratitude. What else is there?
The Power Of Success Affirmations
Success quotations or affirmations as they are known to some, are an exceptional and important part in shifting your life from disaster to success.
Affirmations are a repeated phrase, mantra, sentence or word that is invigoratingly creating the opportunities and success that you seek to become real. To put it simply, by saying something enough to yourself will align yourself to make it happen.
So how does this work?? Your mind is a complex and intriguing part of your body that scientists still do not know what a large proportion of it actually does. But what they do know is that within your mind lays your consciousness (the part that holds your immediate thoughts, images and ideas), and a subconsciousness (the part that does things for you without you needing to think about it such as breathing, walking, how to talk etc).
These two parts are always working in unison with each other so that as people, we function as a body and as a person at the same time freeing up our minds. By not continually having to think at every second that we have to breathe, pump blood around our bodies etc… We are able to actually think about other things, these just become a “programmed” and automatic things to do.
To achieve what you are aiming for through success quotes, you need to access your sub conscious and allow what you are trying to achieve to become second nature just like breathing. To make all of this happen you need to actually choose what you are going to repeat to yourself over and over again.
So sit down and take a really good look at your life and decide on the main key issue in your life that you would like to move on from and succeed in. Once you have decided what it is you wish for, you may then begin to either write your own quotation or research one that is right for you and your situation.
Writing these “affirmations” is about being positive, taking the darkness away and bringing clarity to sub consciously find what you are looking for. So always write in a positive tone such as I am, I will or I deserve.
The next step is to then find a time each day when you can calm your mind and take in your inspirational success quotes so that they take effect. Meditation is a god example of calming your mind completely; taking a soothing bath for some or listening to nature does it for others.
The place you choose on is also personal to you, think of the place where you feel the most at peace in and start from there. Make it your daily mission and you will notice in no time at all that you begin to find opportunity doors in your life opening up as your subconscious steers you to achieving your goal by noticing things you would not normally see or hear.
So the old saying “if you tell yourself something enough, you’ll believe it”, is actually true, just stay positive and your success is guaranteed.