How to Stop Procrastinating
Procrastination is something up to 95% of us do at some time or other. In this article and video, explore why it happens and strategies for managing and prioritizing your workload more effectively. Learn 4 tips on how to overcome the habit of delaying important tasks.
5 Toxic Personalities Successful People Avoid
Some people are dream killers or stop us from taking a risk, and we don’t always realize what they’re doing. It’s important to be aware of who we’re spending time with. We need to distinguish between those who support us. and those who don’t. Learn the five types of people to avoid when chasing goals.
The Extraordinary Power of Visualizing Success
When you think of obstacles, you allow them to stop you from achieving your goals. Top performers, in sports and business, know the importance of picturing themselves succeeding in their minds before they actually do in reality. Learn some tips on how to use visualization to accomplish your dreams.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
Our lives today are filled with things that keep us busy and distracted. We obsess over our cell phones: talking, texting, tweeting, checking Facebook and surfing the internet. We’re working longer hours and have less time off. When we do take vacations, it’s generally rushing to a location so we can participate in activities that keep us busy.
Our frantic lives have become a habit. We have a need to fill every waking moment with activity. When we don’t have anything to do, we feel anxious, panicked and seek to do anything that will relieve the discomfort. This craving to be productive has spun out of control.
We can actually become addicted to the adrenaline rush that stress provides. Many people become adrenaline junkies, seeking thrills in ever dangerous sports so that they get their hit of this chemical. Once we’ve reached this high level of stress, our ability to think things through, reason, be creative and learn decreases.
We can become addicted to the habit of stress. A habit is formed by doing the same thing over and over until it becomes automatic. Not only do we get a physical jolt of adrenaline from it, but we also receive emotional rewards. And a habit tied to an emotional benefit can become hard to change.
Some of the benefits to chronic stress include:
Stress can distract a person from what isn’t working in their life.
It gives people the excuse not to deal with a bad relationship, unhealthy eating habits, or family issues because they’re just so busy.
People have used it as justification to indulge in destructive lifestyle habits, such as drugs or excessive drinking.
Many people think that when they’re frazzled, they look more important or committed.
Looking busy and stressed can also keep people from dumping more responsibility on them.
People feel sorry for the person who’s stressed, and do what they can to keep from upsetting them.
Chronic stress will eventually lead to a physical, mental and emotional collapse, because sooner or later the adrenaline runs out. This amount of stress also reduces the effectiveness of our immune systems and makes us more susceptible to illness and disease.
Stress caused by our own busyness is a choice. We make decisions every hour of the day that contribute to the pressure we feel. Some of it is caused by trying to control every aspect of our lives. Trying to be perfect also pushes us to feel overwhelmed. Neither of these is realistic or constructive.
Like any habit, it’s uncomfortable when we begin to break it. Some people get panicky when they first start to relax. It feels unfamiliar, unnerving and unsafe.
It takes a change of perspective before the habit can be altered. We have to realize that our mindset and decisions have helped create the stress that we’ve been exhibiting. Then we have to be willing to handle the things we’ve been avoiding.
Here are five steps to break the habit of chronic stress:
1. Become aware of what you’re doing that’s causing you to be so busy and pressured.
2. Learn what the benefit of it is for you, and decide if it’s worth the eventual burnout and exhaustion.
3. Address whatever emotional reason has pushed you to be so busy.
4. Let go of some of the control that you’ve been exerting in your life. Delegate to others and let them run with the project. Accept that everything isn’t going to be perfect. Don’t look at your cell phone more than once an hour. When you’re with someone at a restaurant, if your phone rings, let it go to voicemail.
5. Take time outs. Do deep breathing, learn mindfulness meditation, practice yoga, do relaxation exercises, exercise. These all work by switching on another physical system that naturally reduces stress.
When you begin to practice these steps, you may feel strange and uneasy. That’s normal. But the physical, mental and emotional benefits are well worth the effort. You’ll be able to think clearer and have more resources to deal with the challenges of your life. Feeling centered will become more natural.
Breaking a habit is rarely easy. You have to perform new actions consistently over and over until you’ve created a new behavior. However, once you have them instilled in your life, you’ll find that your life is much happier and healthier.
Affirmation:
I deserve to have time to enjoy my life. Whatever has been promoting stress in my life is out of balance with the Universe. I now make new choices to restore balance and harmony in my life. Divine Order is now taking place in every area of my life, allowing me to be calm and centered. The Universe supports me in my endeavor to establish peace and serenity.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
As a vision strategist, hypnotherapist, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart helps women entrepreneurs and small business owners who feel stuck, immobilized and overwhelmed to to get clear, focused and on the fast track to the next level of their business. If you'd like some help to reach your goals, email her at LAS@Linda-AnnStewart.com with "Complimentary Consultation" in the subject line.
How to Use Positive Reframe Strategies for Stress Relief
Reframing means that you look at a situation from a different perspective. When you shift the way you think about a situation, it changes your emotions and attitude about it, bringing a sense of relief and lightness. This article includes 4 ways shift your outlook and ease your stress.
What to Do When You Just Can’t Make the Decision
Do you sometimes find it hard to make a decision? It’s tough when there are so many choices and you get confused by them. Learn 5 ways to improve your decision making skills that will help make it easier to make a choice that is best for you.
The Successful Optimist
The language you use makes a difference because when you explain things in a positive way, you’re more likely to get what you wanted. But optimists aren’t born. They develop that way over years and you can learn how to be an optimist. Discover how just making a couple of tweaks to your words and attitude can start changing you from a pessimist to an optimist.
Are you believing the excuses you’re telling yourself? These are the reasons why you aren’t going after what it is you want or taking an action that will move your forward to your dream. You may think that it’s a valid reason, but generally, it’s not. It’s simply a way to keep you in your comfort zone and from doing something that makes you uncomfortable. Learn how you can stop believing your excuses and start creating ones that support your goals.
Transcript:
Are you believing the excuses you’re telling yourself? These are the reasons why you aren’t going after what it is you want or taking an action that will move you forward to a goal or dream. You may think that it’s a valid reason, but generally, it’s not. It’s simply a way to keep you in your comfort zone and from doing something that makes you uncomfortable.
I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. Clients came to me to create change in their lives. They might want to stop smoking, lose weight, feel better about themselves, or reduce their stress, and they hadn’t been able to do it on their own. And much of those reasons were because the things that they were telling themselves about it. So one of my tasks was to de-hypnotize them of those incorrect/false beliefs. Think about that. And many of those beliefs were wrapped in excuses. I’d like to touch on how you can stop believing your excuses so you can have a freer, happier and more successful life.
I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, Heartvision Consulting. I’m a vision strategist and help women entrepreneurs align their heart with their vision. As a hypnotherapist and coach, I’ve helped clients achieve their goals. Now, as a vision strategist coach, I help women entrepreneurs who are stuck, scattered and tired of being run ragged by their business to align their heart with their vision, get clear, focused and accelerate their business to the next level.
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One of the things I do is help them to recognize their excuses and what they’re believing that’s holding them in that self-sabotaging feedback loop. It’s the same type of cycle you get into when you find yourself making excuses why you don’t…. go to the gym, refuse that cookie, make that follow up phone call, finish your project on time, stand up for yourself …. Fill in the blank. Those excuses become self-fulfilling prophecies.
You tell yourself why you can’t do something/aren’t doing it this time. If you keep telling yourself that same idea, it becomes a belief, and then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without realizing it, you’re making sure that belief becomes true, which just confirms it for you. That’s the feedback loop you have to de-hypnotize yourself from and break.
For instance, I had a client come in to reduce stress. One of her complaints was that she didn’t have enough time and get everything done in her work. That’s a common enough complaint, isn’t it? Do you have it? There’s so much to do that we just run out of time and energy to get it all done, right? And you can’t do anything about that, right? Time is finite, right? Well… that’s a belief. And believing it means that your actions will make it into a reality. Bear with me.
My client and I worked to deal with some of her issues to reduce stress and this was one of the big ones. I gave her the suggestion that she was able to get twice as much done in half the amount of time. A bit of an exaggeration, but… she found that she got creative. She figured out how to ditch some of the things she really didn’t need to be concerned with and how to streamline others. Within a short time, my client was able to get all her work done with time to spare.
What excuses are you turning into beliefs and making real? What are you preventing yourself from having? The mind is very creative when you give it a goal, whether that idea is good, bad or indifferent. Belief becomes a goal. With my client, we just had to de-hypnotize her of the false belief and then get her mind focused on a new idea so it would figure out how to make it real.
For you to overcome your excuses, you have be become aware of them. Notice what you tell yourself whenever you’re avoiding something, or telling yourself “I can’t.” Those are 2 signs of an excuse coming on. Confront and challenge your excuse. Why do you think it’s true? When might it not be true? What can you do to undo it?
These are all things that I help a client with. But you can do it for yourself. When you de-hypnotize yourself of false beliefs, and start to focus on ones you want to be true, you’ll make them real. It takes some dedication, stay focused, but you can do it.
If you’d like more tips on how to make your day flow more smoothly, download my free guide, Take Control of Your Day.
Thank you for watching. I hope you’ve gotten some encouragement and direction to support yourself in your quest for your goals and dreams.
As a vision strategist, hypnotherapist, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart helps women entrepreneurs and small business owners who feel stuck, immobilized and overwhelmed to to get clear, focused and on the fast track to the next level of their business. If you'd like some help to reach your goals, email her at LAS@Linda-AnnStewart.com with "Complimentary Consultation" in the subject line.
Caroline was a massage therapist who worked in a spa. The spa did all the marketing and scheduled her clients for her, and paid her per client. But Caroline thought she could have more freedom and get more clients on her own. She left the spa, and opened her own office.
But she discovered that she hated the administrative chores the spa had done for her, such as scheduling, paying utilities, and marketing. This caused her to be chronically forgetful. She’d forget to take business cards when networking, pay her bills, or write down appointments, which caused her to miss them. Although her clients knew and liked her, they learned not to trust her and they went elsewhere. Because of her refusal to work on the details of her business, she made less than she had at the spa.
Finally, one of her friends confronted her and said that Caroline’s excuses were clues she was leaving herself. Caroline realized that she really just wanted to give massages. She gave up her business and returned to the spa, where she could let others handle the tasks she despised. She needed the structure the spa gave her. Even though she was giving up control, she was gaining the freedom she’d craved.
Do you chronically defend yourself, to yourself or others about why you didn’t do what you had agreed to do? At your core, you just didn’t want to do whatever it was. Something within you was preventing it. You’re giving yourself a message that you haven’t listened to yet.
When you use excuses, you’re giving the Law of Attraction conflicting information. On one side, you’ve agreed to something, and on the other, you are reluctant to follow through. By not being clear, the Law of Attraction won’t know what you really want. You’ll just idle in neutral until you decide which way you really want to go.
There are times when excuses are valid. For example, if you had a flat tire on the way to work. Or an important phone call delayed your leaving for an appointment. Events that are unexpected and unavoidable are legitimate reasons why you weren’t able to fulfill a promise. But the question to ask yourself is, are your explanations reasonable or are they just trying to get you out of trouble?
The stories you tell yourself are hints as to how motivated you are to achieve your goals, dreams and vision. They may be telling you how you feel about your commitment or your direction. Here are some of the possible messages your excuses are communicating:
Fear. You’re afraid of the next step or where it may take you. Or you’re not confident that you know how to accomplish your task, goal or agreement. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Generally, when you bring the fear into your awareness, you realize it has little validity. Ask yourself, “What do I need to do to gain that confidence?” It could be something as simple as learning a new skill.
Not the right goal/dream/vision. You could be going in the wrong direction. Or your task, vision or your motivation to achieve it isn’t strong enough. When you find yourself not taking the actions you need to, ask yourself if you’re ambivalent over your goal. If there’s a part of you holding back, you need to address its concerns. Are you really committed to your dream or vision? If not, choose another one or scale back on your current one.
It’s a “should.” You think you “should” want a particular goal. Others have told you that it’s the right one for you. But it doesn’t really resonate with you, or you felt pressured into doing it. This one is especially true when you’ve agreed to do something you really didn’t want to do, such as participate in a charity event. Is it really your priority, or someone else’s? To simplify your life, decline someone else’s objective for you and focus on what you really want
These are just a few of the excuses we make. The only way you’re going to fulfill your goals is if you transcend your excuses. Listen to the message they’re telling you. When you hear it, and change your responses, you’ll be happier and on track to your dream.
Affirmation:
I now become aware of the excuses I make. I realize that they’re giving me powerful messages about what’s holding me back. Since the Universe only wants the best for me, it must be my beliefs and attitudes that are sabotaging me. By understanding the messages I’m giving myself, I’m able to change my beliefs and thus change my responses to support my dreams.
As a vision strategist, hypnotherapist, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart helps women entrepreneurs and small business owners who feel stuck, immobilized and overwhelmed to to get clear, focused and on the fast track to the next level of their business. If you'd like some help to reach your goals, email her at LAS@Linda-AnnStewart.com with "Complimentary Consultation" in the subject line.
Answer: Most of us do have some unconscious resistance to moving forward in some area of our lives. The challenge is to figure out what it is that’s holding us back. Who are you trying to please? What would change if you did move forward, and what would leave your life? What would you eliminate from your life with the change? They may be things that consciously you want to let go of, but they’re holding on for some purpose.
Consider what those reasons might be, even if they don’t make sense. Many times, once we discover what’s been hanging us up, it doesn’t make much sense to us in the present. Remember that the reason was created a long time ago.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
A person can work like crazy to get ahead, have great ideas, great connections, and great opportunities, but still fail. Usually, it’s due to a negative, self-defeating attitude. Through either early training or hard knocks, they believe that nothing they do is going to succeed. Therefore, it doesn’t. They can’t contradict their expectations. Studies have shown that a person with a positive outlook will go farther and achieve more. An optimistic person seems to not only attract more opportunities, but they seem to know better how to make them pay off. And the good news is that optimists aren’t born, they’re created. With some work, you can have a better mental attitude and become an optimist.
In the New Testament, Jesus told a parable about a farmer sowing seeds. Some fell on hard ground and were eaten by the birds. Still others fell on rocky soil and sprouted, but didn’t have enough soil or water to grow, and therefore died. Some fell on ground that was choked with weeds, and were able to begin to grow. But the weeds choked the life out of them. However, some fell on rich, deep soil, sprouted, were watered, and grew into plants that produced many more seeds.
These seeds are like your thoughts. Some fall on ground that is too hard to accept anything new and are eaten by those who wish us to fail. Other thoughts begin to sprout, but there’s not enough positive nourishment to allow them to expand. Still more fall into thought patterns that are choked with negativity and old ideas, and the life is choked out of the ideas. But when you’ve prepared your mind, through actions, positive focusing, and affirmations, the seeds that are sown into that ground find welcome. They are able to germinate, sprout and grow, and bring much more good into your life.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
As a hypnotherapist, this article was especially interesting to me. Unfortunately, so many people have misconceptions about this process, including that it doesn’t exist. Now, neuroscientists are taking an interest in and researching it. They’re beginning to understand its mechanisms. This article shows an experiment with one of those mechanisms.
You Are What You Think
Neuroscience tells us to “Be careful what you wish for,” because you may get it. Your brain follows your attention, and will take you where it thinks you want to go. This applies to both positive goals and to negative thoughts. This article gives you 4 steps to creating your perfect world and solving problems using the power of thought.
“You’ve got this!”: How “You Statements” enhance self-regulation
Life is a giant game of self-regulation. If you can manage yourself and your thoughts, then you’ll have a better life. However, it’s not easy to develop and act on these skills. Positive and supportive self-talk are very helpful in sticking to it. Research is showing that giving yourself positive support in the second or third person is much better than just saying, “I.” Learn how your inner dialogue helps you to improve your self-management skills.
6 Tactics Narcissists Will Use To Silence You
Only a true professional can diagnose a mental disorder. That said, we all should recognize when people try to manipulate us. Narcissism is one of those disorders that can be relatively benign or all the way to downright toxic. Learning about their behaviors can help you spot who they are and what they’re doing so you can take care of yourself. And many of these tactics are also used by bullies or controlling people.
Neuroscience: This Simple 10-Minute Exercise Will Give Your Brain an Immediate and Lasting Boost
We all want our brains to work at their best, especially when we’re making a decision or working on a project. But sometimes, we feel like we’re wading through molasses. Scientists have found a quick exercise that can give you a 14 percent gain in cognitive performance. And that could make all the difference.
How To Rewire Your Brain For Happiness
You can literally create new neural pathways that lead to compassion, gratitude, and joy instead of anxiety, fear, and anger. It does require conscious effort, but all change starts with that. If you knew you could experience more positive emotions, wouldn’t you make the effort? This article gives you some direction on how to do that.
How to Stop Procrastinating
