Stop Worrying - 9 Tips To Help You Stop Worrying And Start Living

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a worrier. I sometimes worry about the most mundane things and let them get out of proportion where someone else would hardly give these things a second thought.

If you're like me then you probably think about upcoming situations and imagine the worst case scenarios in full and glorious technicolour! And not only that, you'll go over and over slightly differing versions of this scenario in your head distracting you for quite large amounts of time.

Worrying does serve a purpose to an extent in that it makes you consider the possible outcomes of an impending situation or event which then gives you the opportunity to consider it and to prepare for it the best that you can. But as worriers, we have difficulty accepting the inevitable levels of uncertainty that we will always face in life and will spend unnecessary amounts of time and energy worrying about things we can't influence.

When worrying gets out of hand it can lead to:

• high levels of stress and anxiety
• insomnia
• irritability
• ill health

- so it's important to learn to control the degree of worrying that we indulge in.

Here are 9 tips to help you stop worrying:

1. Distract yourself: don't sit there staring into space running through all the "ifs and buts" in your mind, get up and do something productive, this will help distract you from worrying as and a result will reduce your levels of stress.

2. Talk about it: if there is someone understanding you can talk to, then talk to them but make sure this person is level headed and the type of person that is likely to offer some positive help, NOT someone who will make your worrying worse by thinking of all the bad scenarios that YOU haven't thought of yet!

3. Take action: if you can do something to help the outcome to be favourable to you, then do it, for example, if you are going to an interview, prepare well, think about the questions you may be asked and how you will answer them. Research the company; who are they, what do they do?

4. Assess whether you want or need to do to the thing that is worrying you - some worries we can remove fairly simply and if you have made a decision to do something which is now scaring you senseless, them you can opt out. But you have to assess whether it's better for you in the long term if you don't do it or if you'll really benefit if you "Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway"

5. Don't waste time worrying about things that you can't change, for example:

i) if you've already been to an interview then you won't be able to change the outcome now. Be constructive and take time to consider a "Plan B" that you can use if you don't get the result you want and then and then distract yourself from thinking about it as much as possible until you find out the outcome.

ii) Don't keep beating yourself up if you are short but wish you were tall - there's nothing you can do about it so put your energies elsewhere. Ask yourself: "What is the point in worrying about something like that?" and really try and answer the question. You won't be able to, because there is NO POINT, you can't change your height by fretting about it. Concentrate on things you can change.

6. Break it down: analyse what it is that you are actually worrying about, sometimes with all the worries swirling about in our minds we're not even that clear what we actually think will happen, why and what the result of it could be, we're just simply panicking. Once you've identified what the specific worry is about you'll be more able to rationalise it and therefore deal with it more easily. You then have two options:

• ease or solve it if you can
• accept it if you can't

7. Accept that there will always be uncertainty in our lives and that we can't control everything.

8. Don't recycle the past - just because you had a bad experience doing something once it doesn't mean you'll repeat that experience. If that were the case how would we learn to swim or ride a bike?

9. Postpone your worrying: get a piece of paper and a pen and write down your worry and tell yourself that you'll think about it later. Your can comfort yourself that you will still be giving this matter your time and attention, but just not now. Now you have the opportunity to use your time more productively. With any luck, by the time you go back to the worry its intensity may have faded or the problem may have resolved itself.

Helen is the author of the Richer Life Bulletin. The Richer Life Bulletin provides regular relevant information, tips and support with the aim of helping people who want to improve their lives. It is sent out free of charge. http://www.richerlifebulletin.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Helen_Fell

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6486025

Tips on Developing self-empowerment

Developing Self-Empowerment

We all have opportunities to explore and develop new skills.  In order to become more empowered we should, in our interactions with others, aim to:

• Develop trust.
• Understand our strengths, weaknesses and limits.
• Develop confidence and self-esteem.
• 
  

image

Developing Trust

Developing trust can be a difficult and lengthy process.  In order to develop trust with others you should aim to:

• Be Open:  In the sharing of information, ideas and thoughts.  When appropriate also sharing emotions, feelings and reactions.  Also aim to reciprocate appropriately, when somebody shares their emotions, thoughts or feelings with you.   
• Share and Co-operate:  Share resources and knowledge with others to help them to achieve their goals. Work together towards mutual goals.
• Be Trustworthy:  When other people place their trust in you do your best to provide positive outcomes.
• Be Accepting:  Hold the values and views of others in high regard.
• Be Supportive:  Support others when necessary but also recognise their strengths - allowing them to work towards goals without your intervention as appropriate.

In the workplace and in any professional working relationship there are three basic components of trust:

• Trust in the integrity and goodwill between all workers, regardless of salary or status and whether paid or unpaid.
• Trust that all workers within an organisation share the same objectives and are open with each other about any conflicting objectives.
• Trust in each other's competence and to do what you promise to undertake.

Trust can be broken very quickly and may never be restored to its former level, think about the points above and try to build and maintain trusting relationships in both your personal and professional life.

Avoid the following actions that may destroy trust and have a detrimental effect on personal empowerment:

• Making a joke at another’s expense.
• Being judgemental about another’s behaviour, attitudes or beliefs.
• Communicating rejection or non-acceptance, either verbally or non-verbally.

Understanding Your Strengths, Weaknesses and Limits

Becoming empowered includes knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, identifying these will enable you to work on improving your weaknesses and build on your strengths.

It is not uncommon for other people to have misjudged your strengths and weaknesses, or for you to misjudge those of others.  This can lead to opportunities being limited due to the misconception of abilities.  It is important, therefore, to know your own strengths and weaknesses and to communicate them clearly to others, whilst encouraging others to communicate their strengths and weaknesses to you.

In some circumstances you may feel that you face problems that are truly beyond your capabilities.  In such cases you should seek help.  Empowered people know their own limits and have no problems with asking for help or guidance.  Self-knowledge, often referred to as self-awareness, is a strength which enables you to set personal improvement goals in order to make a more substantial contribution.  The more empowered you become, the more you will be able to help others to become empowered.

Developing Confidence

Confidence acts as one of the greatest motivators or most powerful limitations to anyone trying to change their behaviour and become more empowered. 

Most people only undertake tasks that they feel capable of doing and it takes great effort to overcome a lack of confidence in one's capabilities.  Self-empowerment involves people constantly challenging their own beliefs and what they are capable of undertaking.

---

Personal empowerment is not a static thing that you can do once in your life.

You should view personal empowerment as ongoing personal development.  As circumstances change and develop and as we ourselves change and develop so do our needs for development and empowerment.

source

Find more at: http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/personal-empowerment.html#ixzz3hmXsmQPD

Quotes on positive attitudes

" Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure it just means you haven’t succeeded yet. "
Robert Schuller

Dont say I am broke substitute with " I am having a cash-flow problem"
Don't say I failed say " I am having a character building day "
Les Brown

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. "
Albert Einstein

" If you’re going to be thinking, you may as well think big."

Donald Trump

Effect of Thought on Circumstances

A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.
By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thoughtforces and mind-elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.
Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man's circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought-element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.

Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err.

This is just as true of those who feel "out of harmony" with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them. As the progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.

That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any length of time practiced self-control and self-purification, for he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition. So true is this that when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires; and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstances.

Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit. The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual.

As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss. Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o'-the-wisp of impure imagining or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavor), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment in the outer condition of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtain.

A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power.

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations; or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes to its own, and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean. The "divinity that shapes our ends" is in ourselves; it is our very Self.

Man is manacled only by himself.

Thought and action are the jailers of Fate - they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom - they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions. In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of "fighting against circumstances"? It means that a man is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy.


This a lovely paragraf by the Book "As a man thinketh" - James Allen

what do you think ????????? are the cirmustances shapping us ? are we in charge of our circustances?

Three decisions that control your destiny. By Tony Robbins

The three decisions that control your destiny are:

1. Your decisions about what to focus on.

2. Your decisions about what things mean to you.

3. Your decisions about what to do to create the results you desire.

You see, it’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. 

Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re

going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny. Know that if anyone is enjoying

greater success than you in any area, they’re making these three decisions differently from you in some

context or situation.

Too many of us don’t make the majority of our decisions consciously, especially these three absolutely

crucial ones; in so doing, we pay a major price. In fact, most people live what I call “The Niagara

Syndrome.” I believe that life is like a river, and that most people jump on the river of life without ever really deciding where they want to end up.
So, in a short period of time, they get caught up in the current: current events, current fears, current challenges.

When they come to forks in the river, they don’t

consciously decide where they want to go, or which is the right direction for them. They merely “go with

the flow.” They become a part of the mass of people who are directed by the environment instead of by

their own values. As a result, they feel out of control. They remain in this unconscious state until one day

the sound of the raging water awakens them, and they discover that they’re five feet from Niagara Falls

in a boat with no oars. At this point, they say, “Oh, shoot!” But by then it’s too late. They’re going to take

a fall. Sometimes it’s an emotional fall. Sometimes it’s a physical fall. Sometimes it’s a financial fall. It’s

likely that whatever challenges you have in your life currently could have been avoided by some better

decisions upstream.

There will be times when you’re on the river solo and you’ll have to make some important decisions on

your own. The good news is that if you’re willing to learn from your experience, then even times you

might think were difficult become great because they provide valuable information—key distinctions—

that you will use to make better decisions in the future. In fact, any extremely successful person you

meet will tell you—if they’re honest with you—that the reason they’re more successful is that they’ve

made more poor decisions than you have. People in my seminars often ask me, “How long do you

think it will take for me to really master this particular skill?” And my immediate response is, “How

long do you want it to take?” If you take action ten times a day (and have the proportionate “learning

experiences”) while other people act on a new skill once a month, you’ll have ten months of experience

in a day, you will soon master the skill, and will, ironically, probably be considered “talented and lucky.”

source
Image

This paragraf is from the book "Unleash the power within" of Antony Robbins. He is a great inspiration to me in term of how passionate he is in speaking and studing the tools we need to get what we want once we discovered what and why we want it.