Love Yourself

In order to love others, you must first learn to love yourself. We are often irritated, angry, and frustrated with our own existence. But if you start loving yourself fully and unconditionally, you can throw open the channels between yourself and the universe to give and receive love. Our primary relationship is with ourselves. Oscar Wilde had said, “To be in love with oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance”. That says a lot about importance of self-love.

We all have our own set of problems. Many of us go through problems like lack of confidence, poor self-esteem, lack of materialistic facilities etc but the biggest tragedies that one can face is inability to love and value oneself. We keep 24/7 company with ourselves so shouldn’t we make concrete efforts to love ourselves? If you have a divided self, it can trigger a lifelong chain of painful experiences. To get ourselves free from emotional and psychological needs that we seek to fulfill externally, we must develop acceptance and basic trust in ourselves.

Loving ourselves means taking good care of ourselves. You must believe that you are worthy of life. The direct result of loving yourself manifests in you not running away from the uncomfortable moments in your life. You accept yourself completely and there is no rejection of any aspect of yourself, no matter how unpleasant the sensation. To be able to love yourself unconditionally also means you firmly believe that you are worthy of happiness, of success, of abundance and love. Your mindset says you deserve to have the best of friends and family. Loving yourself also strengthens you. No matter what sort of troubles you are facing, you are always there for yourself and that’s no mean support and achievement. There is no substitute for it. Remember, we are our own best friends.

How to Give Your Attitude a Boost

We all know how important attitude is. This one factor can determine the way our life is headed. They say, your attitude is everything. So how do you define attitude? The simplest definition of attitude is, how you see the things around you, how you deal with the situations you face, and what you think about life. If your attitude is negative, your life is negative and that is a pretty straightforward equation. It is important to give your attitude a boost but how? Let me offer some wonderful tips that you can always implement in your life to have a great attitude.

First thing first. Rise and Shine! Yes, that means it is always better to have an early start to the day. Get up early, walk for a while and enjoy the morning beauty. It will invigorate your senses. Never fret over the things. There will always be a tomorrow and tomorrow is always a new day. Many a times, things won’t go your way but that does not mean you lose hope or feel bad over the way events have folded. Always remember that as time passes, so do your troubles. No matter how down and out you feel, life will surely turn for the better and that’s an eternal truth.

Remember, you are master of your own destiny. If there is one person who can give you a good attitude then it is you and you alone. A good and positive attitude can be developed whenever you want it to. It is not a herculean task to wake up tomorrow with a brand new outlook on life. Just remember, you are the master and you are the executioner.

How To Handle Annoying People

We all are greatly affected by the people around us. Those people could be your family members, spouse, boss, colleagues or friends. What if one of them is annoying? Of course, you will be stressed and worried over the company of that person. Few of you may even feel like breaking the relationship or quitting the job but what is the guarantee of your next boss or friend being not that annoying? You see, there is no such guarantee but yes, what you can do is to psychologically disarm such people.

First thing you need to do is to observe that person, his mannerisms, behavioral pattern and attitude. Why he indulges in such behavior? Many a times, the simple reason is low self-esteem or simply attention deprivation experienced by that person. People with low self-esteem try to do everything to make themselves feel important by flexing their egotistical muscles. You need to acknowledge that annoying person and his personality. A very smart strategy would be to feed his ego by making him feel superior. This will completely transform the behavior of that person towards you.

Make that person feel important by asking for his advice on anything. This will give him a sense of worthiness and will pamper his huge ego. Consequently, he will start developing better attitude towards you.

Shower him with a nice compliment every now and then. This will sooth his senses and he will feel like talking about himself. Everyone likes to talk about himself but good listeners are quite rare. All you have to do is to lend your ears and make him talk. These are simple but effective tips for handling annoying people. Don’t run away from them. Instead, Learn to handle them.

:Image courtesy buzzle.com

Self Improvement Activities

Self-improvement is a lifelong process. The concept of self-improvement consists of several activities that help you in becoming more productive and achieve better quality of life. This article focuses on some of the activities that you can inculcate in your life. The first activity is ‘focusing on one task at a time’. It is believed that in order to get most out of life, one should concentrate on only one activity at a time. This will ensure that all your energies are directed at a single task which will prove useful in accomplishing the desired results.

The second activity is about using your energy on important things. What’s the point in wasting energy on frivolous activities that will not bring any fruitful results? Watching useless TV channels, surfing net for no important reasons, worrying all the time etc are some of the worthless activities. Indulging in such activities will rob you off your energy and enthusiasm. One should always prioritize important tasks first and then putting all his efforts and energies on fulfillment of those tasks.

The next self improvement activity should be focused on controlling one’s thoughts. Negative thoughts tend to affect our productivity and act as a hindrance in the process of self-improvement. It is important to emotionally disengage from the curse of negative thinking. Moving on to next activity, it must be the ability to get organized. If you are not organized, chaos will ruin your mental peace. In order to live a stress free life, we must live in an organized manner. You should be organized in not only in your mind but also in your home.

The last self improvement activity of this article is about the art of living in the present. There is no point mulling over your past and pondering over your future. All you have is your present and that’s why you should make the most of it. It is important to enjoy every present moment. This will help you tremendously in improving your inner as well as outer being.

Quotes on Education

We all know the importance of education. It is the lifeline of modern human life. No one can deny the significance of education and learning in our lives. 

It helps us in seeing things in a better perspective. We get to know the world and its people in a better way. The scope of education is not just restricted to a good career and earning five figure salaries. It is much more than that. 

Education tells us about what is right and what is wrong. It helps us in developing insight and wisdom. And perhaps, if there is one thing that segregates humans from animals then it must be education. 

The ability to read, write and understand is what makes we humans the special ones. Let’s have a look at some of the phenomenal quotes on education:-

If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding.

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Practice is the best instruction of them all.

- Publilius Syrus

If the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original as well as competent.

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.

- Aristotle

Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities--that's training or instruction--but is rather a making visible what is hidden as a seed...

To be educated, a person doesn't have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life...

One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.

- Thomas Moore

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

- Sir Richard Steele

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

- Aristotle

We can get over being poor, but it takes longer to get over being ignorant.

- Jane Sequichie Hifler

Fear is the instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

- Mark Twain

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

- Thomas Watson, Sr., founder of IBM

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and rootpuller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

- Aristotle

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

- Plato

Productivity Key

Productivity is such an important factor in our lives. It is not just restricted to our professional lives but also to other important aspects of our lives. Productivity is at the core of ambition. No dreams, no ambitions can be fulfilled without you being productive. Productivity as a virtue is very much determined by how comfortable we are with ourselves. It is imperative to love and respect ourselves without putting any condition. Setbacks and mistakes are parts and parcels of life. One cannot escape them but the trick is to continue loving yourself despite the regular obstacles. Others’ view about you whether in positive or negative sense should not determine our love for ourselves. If you love yourself just because someone has praised you or you start hating yourself because someone has blamed you, is far from an ideal key of productivity.

Don’t condition your appreciation for yourself on your work performance. In fact, sometimes it works other way. When we love ourselves more because of our success, the less focused and motivated we’re likely to be. To meet our productivity goals, we need to build a sense of unconditional appreciation for ourselves. Attaching conditions to your productivity is not likely to produce positive results. Suppose, if you are criticized by your colleagues for your work, your love for self decreases and does it further leads to low productivity? Then, consider this- Your value as a person is not just dependent on your work success. The perfect key to be more productive is to believe that no matter how people are judging you and your work, you will continue loving yourself and that will further make you more productive. Try it and see the results yourself.

Loving Your Family

Family is perhaps the most important part of an individual’s life. Right from our birth to the time when we breathe last, it’s our family we always count upon. Whether you are sad or happy or just want to share your things, family is the place we need to be. As we are living in a time when people are struggling with time constraints, we find ourselves more alienated with our family members. But it is important to remember the true value of family and accord them the respect and love they always deserve. Let’s share some wonderful quotes on family emphasizing its importance.

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.

- Shirley Abbott

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

- Desmond Tutu

The family is a haven in a heartless world.

- Christopher Lasch

Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.

- Evan Esar

Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we've put it in an impossible situation.

– Margaret Mead

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.

- Author Unknown

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.

- Johann Schiller

An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship.

- Spanish Proverb

When you look at your life, the greatest happiness’s are family happiness’s.

- Joyce Brothers

Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.

- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry. - Margaret Laurence

There is no cure for laziness but a large family helps.

- Herbert Prochnov

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

- Erma Bombeck

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.

- George Bernard Shaw

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.

- Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford

Blood's thicker than water, and when one's in trouble

Best to seek out a relative's open arms.

- Author Unknown

The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.

- Thomas Jefferson, 1813

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.

- Barbara Bush

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

- Jane Howard

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.

- Ogden Nash

In a houseful of toddlers and pets, you can start out having a bad day, but you keep getting detoured.

- Robert Brault

The Art of Public speaking

Public speaking is an art. Mastering this art requires some practice and effort. Many people fail to do true justice to their talents because of the inability to speak in public. It is common for many students or professionals who are hugely talented otherwise, but stutter while speaking in public. What this does is one, restricts the career growth and second, person suffering from this problem has clear issues of low self confidence. So how to tackle this impediment?

Remember, body is used to two responses of fight or flight. So either, you handle the butterflies in your stomach or you just hide in a flight mode. While we go on stage to address a large gathering, the rush of adrenaline is more than usual. We keep assuming, what people will be thinking of, what if I make a mockery of myself, what if I start stammering, what if I forget what I was to say and the ‘what if’ phenomenon goes on..

First thing first. Nobody knows you and everybody is conscious of the fact that its ‘you’ who is on the stage and speaking. Don’t assume how people will be reacting. You are what you are and you definitely have your own style of speaking. You must establish eye contacts with the audiences. This helps in communicating the message clearly and shows you are very much confident about what you are saying.

You should also use appropriate body language. Proper movement of hands makes a lot of difference. Before you begin, it will also help if you could communicate a clear set of ground rules from public speaking engagement aspect. Few speakers love to interact with audiences during the speech whereas few others invite questions only when they end the program. Finally, try to master the art of telling stories. All these suggestions will help you in improving your public speaking and if it works for you, don’t hesitate in sharing your experience.

Powerful Thoughts

To a certain extent we all know the power of thoughts. Positive Thoughts are truly powerful. Thoughts are also extremely creative and can cause huge difference in our lives depending upon what one think. Preachers, philosophers and great motivators always talk about power of thinking. It has been rightly said that, thoughts are so powerful that one can make his life the way he wants it to be if he thinks on those lines.

It is believed that there is a certain connection between create life force energy and powerful thoughts and one can dramatically affect another. 

The energy present in thoughts makes them creative and dynamic. Thoughts always have elements of focus, energy and emotions. So if one experiences things of life in a positive way, it gives way for powerful thoughts. The power of thoughts makes itself manifested in high self confidence, positive approach towards life and enthusiastic persona.

One will need to work in a disciplined and consistent way to enhance his powerful thoughts. It is definitely a long journey but worth the labor. The thoughts have the power to change not only someone’s perspective about life but it also affects lives of people in one’s surrounding. It can make a direct impact on others when they come into your company and a positive vibration spreads throughout. Keeping an eye on your thinking pattern is of prime importance. Negative thoughts must be kept aside and should be replaced with happy images and positive thought process. If one wants to attain happiness and peace of mind, positive thinking is the key.