Prioritization – More Important Than Any Productivity Technique
Productivity doesn’t mean to get more tasks done. That’s just a way of staying and looking busy and it’s neither efficient or effective. True productivity means to get the most important task done. The one that will drive you closer to your goal. To that end, you need to prioritize what is most important and do that task first.
How to Support Yourself When Your Emotions Don’t
Our emotions are valuable because they provide us with important information. But sometimes our emotions steer us down the wrong path, and we can make self-destructive decisions based on them. This article explores how to determine when our emotions aren’t being helpful and what we can do in that case.
Take a Mindful Moment: 5 Simple Practices for Daily Life
From frustrating to impatient, your experiences each day give you opportunities to practice mindfulness. And it doesn’t need to take much time to reclaim your calm and reason. It just needs a bit of consideration and practice. Explore these simple practices to breathe more peace into your day.
I recently had lunch with a friend, Mary, who makes jewelry. Her work is in stores and online, and has begun to get popular. But, as with many creative entrepreneurs, she’s having trouble with loved ones who don’t take her business seriously. She struggles with balancing her work with the expectations of her extended family.
Because she doesn’t have a 9 to 5 job, her family assumes that she’ll be available whenever they want. They don’t respect her work time because she hasn’t insisted that they do. She’s put their desires above her interests. Her message to them and to her subconscious is that her work and priorities aren’t that important. As a result, she’s trained her subconscious and the Law of Attraction to not only accept the interruption to her work, but to attract other interference.
Have you ever noticed that as you’re expanding and changing, you have a lot more distractions? They seem to pop up out of nowhere, and keep getting in the way of what you want to accomplish. If you succumb to them, they’ll sabotage your priorities. But it’s a natural part of the change process. The Universe isn’t testing you. It’s your subconscious testing you to see if you really are dedicated to your dream. The subconscious is also trying to keep you in your comfort zone.
I was amazed at how many of my smoking cessation hypnotherapy clients would experience unexpected stressful situations when they quit smoking. It was their subconscious throwing up road blocks to their goal. The severity of their problems was in direct proportion to the amount of ambivalence they had to becoming an ex-smoker. If they weren’t committed to quitting, they backslid and gave up. The distraction was an excuse for them to continue smoking.
Sometimes the subconscious will know you really don’t want to face a task, and your concentration is disturbed. For instance, you need to get the budget done. But you receive a phone call about an insignificant matter that pulls you away from it. You could have let the call go to voicemail, but welcomed the interruption. That’s the subconscious trying to help you avoid what it knows you don’t want to do.
The main purpose of the subconscious is to keep you safe, even if it means keeping you from doing what you want. It sees any change as a threat. If you allow yourself to get off track, the subconscious will get the message that you want to stay off course. And it will begin to seek out new ways to detour you.
However, if you push the distractions aside and persist with your priorities, there will be fewer disturbances. Your subconscious will get more comfortable and will help you move towards your goal. Your priorities are important. The Universe and Your subconscious will support you as you support yourself. When you respect your own priorities above what anyone else wants from you, you’re instructing your subconscious to respect your interests, too.
Mary decided to make appointments with herself to work, and keep them no matter what. She wanted to make sure nothing got in the way of that time with her jewelry. This will convince her subconscious that she’s committed to her work, and her inner mind will start to support her by reducing distractions. When she recognizes the validity of her business, she’ll be able to stand up for her priorities. As a result, she’ll create boundaries and insist that others recognize them.
Is there some goal or dream you want? If so, set it as a priority. Work towards your goal and don’t let anything get in the way. You can attend to other people’s wishes after you’ve satisfied your priorities. But your priorities come first. How can you respect your priorities and stand up for them? When you figure that out, and act on it, your path to achieving your dream will get easier.
Affirmation:
The Universe supports me as I support myself in the pursuit of my dream. I deserve it, and I respect my time and efforts. I realize that other people may have desires of their own, but I put my well being and interests first. I fulfill my priorities first, then I can address the desires of others.
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, apply for her complimentary "Clarify Your Vision" consultation at http://www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/coaching.shtml
7 Ways To Start To Value Yourself
It’s not self-centered to put yourself first. If you don’t, not only will no one else, but others will take advantage of you until you’re empty. When you prioritize your well being, you have more to give to others who will value you. This article gives some powerful tips on actions you can take so you feel more worthwhile.
A Simple but Proven Way to Get Things Done
For some people, without having outside pressure to accomplish a task, it doesn’t get done. It’s hard to set aside the time and energy to achieve it when you can always put it off. This can affect your productivity, effectiveness and success. But if you figure out how to set it as a priority, you’ll get it done. This article describes an efficient method you can use to increase your progress.
How to Overcome Perfectionism: 6 Powerful Habits
Perfectionism is a destructive tendency. It drains your self-esteem and undermines your productivity. Not only can you get stuck while trying to get things perfect, but you dig yourself into a hole that it’s hard to get out of. But you can overcome this frustrating pattern. It’s not easy to break this habit, but using these tips will get you moving in the right direction.
Why You Need to Be Good at Reading Your Emotions
Emotional clarity is the ability to understand what you’re feeling. And new research is showing the importance of emotional clarity for your emotional health and well-being. When you’re able to identify what you’re feeling, you’re able to regulate it and get over negative emotions quickly.
How to Handle Being Bullied as an Adult
We all had to deal with bullies as children. Unfortunately, many of them don’t grow out of the habit. They continue to harass, put down, demean and undermine you and your work. It’s important to be able to identify how an adult bully acts out. They’re usually more subtle than they were as children. But the result is the same. This article gives some suggestions how to deal with these toxic people.
Respect Begins With Each Other
This article deals with a specific industry, but the essence of the concept is important in every walk of life. When you treat someone with a lack of respect, it comes back full circle. Competition can be handled in a civil manner. Standing up for each other will raise everyone’s effectiveness.
How a Brain Dump Can Unlock Your Creativity
Anyone who is creative knows that the more you have weighing on your mind, the less creative you are. Now there’s research backing this up. But researchers have also found some remedies for clearing the clutter out of your mind so you have more space to create. Meditation and mindfulness are a couple of those ways. This article gives a few other tips on how to clear your mind.
When To Say Yes To The Messy Desk
Tidiness and organization has been the fast track to success, if you believe conventional wisdom. But recent research shows that having a clean desk or room influences people to conform more to the norms. And a cluttered desk or room inspires people to be more innovative. This article describes other benefits to both types of environments.
8 Ways to Test Your Stress Mindset
How you view stress can influence how it affects you. Although chronic stress can be unhealthy, if you shift your attitude about it, you can reduce some of the damage. When you’re able to consider pressure as beneficial, then it can help you in your health and life. This article shows 8 ways to test your stress mindset.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
5 Ways You Can Use Mindfulness to Fix Your Brain, Decrease Stress and Improve Performance
Mindfulness meditation has multiple studies showing how it changes your brain. Research has found it impacts eight areas of the brain. Two of those regions increased brain activity and the density of brain tissue. You can reap the multiple benefits of mindfulness in just a few minutes a day.
10 Scientifically Proven Tips for Beating Procrastination
Procrastination is one of the biggest blocks to success. It affects productivity, effectiveness and confidence. The suggestions in this article will get you off the starting block and taking small steps. And generally, just getting moving is all it takes to break through that block.
6 Ways That Night-time Phone Use Destroys Your Sleep
Using your phone at night makes you sleep-deprived and exhausted. This article is based on a study by Harvard researchers that found why you need to shut it off an hour before bed. And it’s not just your phone. Your computer, tablet, e-reader and television can affect your sleep, as well.
7 Quick Ways to Calm Down When You Are Overwhelmed
Do you sometimes feel like you’re always running behind? And that you have so many things to do, you’ll never get them all done? Unfortunately, that feeling of stress just slows you down and keeps you from performing at your best. This article suggests some commonsense ways to reduce your stress so you can be more effective.
Study suggests meditating can prevent age-related mental decline
Less than 10% of the U.S. population meditates. And that’s unfortunate, because study after study show that it can help with mental, emotional and physical problems. This particular study shows how it can prevent age-related mental decline and difficulty focusing.
How to Stop Making Excuses
Unfortunately, we don’t always realize when we’re making excuses, but they sabotage our ability to achieve our goals. There is a difference between an explanation and an excuse, and this article dives into this difference. When you’re able to tell them apart, you’ll stop undermining yourself and be more successful.
6 Exercises for Positive Emotions: Start Your Upward Spiral Today
Over the past few years, many researchers have found new and scientifically proven ways to increase positive emotions and well-being. The techniques described in this article have all been shown to boost positive emotions. They take some commitment, but they’re well worth the effort. Choose one, practice, and enjoy the changes.
7 Myths About Meditation Preventing You From Grasping The Amazing Benefits of Mindfulness
Meditation is becoming commonplace. But there are lots of misconceptions about it. People think mistake the goals and how to practice it. Meditation improves your concentration, self-awareness, and productivity, and your ability to show up in the world.When you’re able to better connect with yourself, you improve your relationship to yourself and others.
How to Make the Best Decision When You Have Too Many Options
Research has shown that when people are faced with too many choices, it can produce anxiety that actually makes us less likely to choose. As a result, we’re less likely to succeed. A study has the best strategy to use confronted with a large number of choices. When you’re having trouble choosing from too many options, use this technique to reduce your stress.
~ Linda-Ann Stewart
Most people have misconceptions about what hypnosis is and isn’t. What they don’t realize is that they’re using this process in their lives every day, for their benefit or detriment. This is a brief explanation of hypnosis, by a hypnotherapist of 30 years. Join me to learn what it is, how you’ve been using it, and how you can use it to now benefit yourself.
Transcript:
I’m Linda-Ann Stewart. Ok, so I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. But most people have all sorts of misconceptions about hypnosis. They think that someone takes control of their mind and makes them do things they don’t want to do. Not. They don’t realize that it’s a normal, natural process that they access several times every day. And they walk around in a trance that’s impacting their ability to either achieve or sabotage their goals and their vision.
So today, I’d like to give you a very brief explanation of the natural process of hypnosis. I hope that you’ll walk away understanding how you hypnotize yourself every day. And how you can use this natural ability to benefit yourself.
I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. Like I said, I’ve been a hypnotherapist for almost 30 years. Clients came to see me to create change in their lives. Over time, I discovered that they had to also have a vision of where they wanted to end up with that change to be truly successful. Now, as a vision strategist, I help women entrepreneurs get a clear vision, get focused on its strategies and get back in control so they’re able to accelerate to the next level of their business.
When people hear that I’m a hypnotherapist, they have various reactions to it, based on their beliefs about hypnosis. Swinging watch. “Look into my eyes, and sleep.” It’s not true. And I can’t tell you how many clients have asked me, “Am I going to walk out of here barking like a dog?” My reply, “Not unless you want to.”
Not their fault. Their beliefs are based on what they’ve seen on TV and in movies. They don’t believe that an ordinary man can really “leap tall buildings in a single bound,” but they believe how writers sensationalize hypnosis because there are already so many misconceptions about it.
What TV and movies depict isn’t hypnosis, it’s Hollywood.
Did you realize you’re in a mild state of self-hypnosis several times every day? When you’re daydreaming, watching a movie, get so involved with a project that the distractions of the world go away, you’re in a light state of self-hypnosis. You’re driving down the road, daydreaming, and miss your turn. Have you ever done that? Should ask, “How many times a day.” We all do. Light state of self-hypnosis.
You walk around in a trance much of the time, not fully aware of what you’re saying (“Hi, how are you”), thinking (“I’m never going to get it all done”), doing (eat that donut without being aware of it, and wonder where the powdered sugar on your fingers came from).
That trance is self-hypnosis, and you’re hypnotizing yourself every day. It isn’t magic, a strange, mystical or other state of mind. Nor is it the “deep sleep” that people normally associate with hypnosis. It’s a natural state that most people drift into and out of many times during the day. Hypnosis is when the rational, analytical part of your mind isn’t as present. Hypnosis is simply a more focused state.
The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis defines hypnosis as a state of inner absorption, concentration and focused attention.
Secret – hypnosis also occurs whenever you’re upset, stressed or worried. Just for a moment, think about what you think about when you’re upset or stressed. Those thoughts become auto-suggestions. Scary, huh?
What most people don’t realize is that the things you say to yourself over and over that you’re only half aware of, are actually being said when you’re in a light state of hypnosis. Things like, “I know this won’t work,” “I don’t have enough time,” or “It can’t fail.” Do any of these sound familiar?
You then act on them as if they were true, whether they were or not. How that works is, suppose you’re afraid that your phone call to a potential customer won’t be welcomed. If you call at all, you’ll be nervous, not make a good impression, and end the call quickly. Your belief would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. All from what you were telling yourself. Has that ever happened to you?
Remember, hypnosis is just focusing the attention. So it all depends on the direction and the beliefs that you’re focusing your attention on. And your attention determines your actions. “Energy flows where attention goes.” Heard of that before? Not airy-fairy. Psych truth.
It’s like driving a car. You’re aware of the traffic, the landscape, your dashboard. But the majority of your attention is on the direction you want to go to your destination. If you’re driving, and you stare off to the side, what’s your automatic response?…. To drift in the direction of you’re looking, isn’t it? The same principle applies to your daily life. Your attention drive your actions. So keep your vision directed towards where you want to be headed and not rear view mirror.
So how can you use this natural process for yourself – other than just focusing on your direction? When you have a goal or a vision, become aware of what you’re telling yourself about it. They’re auto-suggestions. Do you doubt you can make it? Are you afraid of any step along the process? If so, these are the hidden hypnotic suggestions you’ve been giving yourself. Break your trance. Change them with auto-suggestions. You can do this. Even if you don’t believe it right away, repeating new ideas with consistency and persistence will start changing the old ones. The old beliefs were simply ideas that you accepted some time in the past.
When you change your beliefs, your emotions and responses change. You’ve already been using the process of hypnosis every day, by what you’ve been focusing on. I hope you start using the natural process of hypnosis to create what it is that you want.
If you want tips to you increase your productivity and accelerate your success, download my free guide Take Control of Your Day. It will also give you information on a process I used with my clients that helped them achieve their goals and vision.
Thank you for watching. I hope you’ve learned how to use this process for your benefit and use it to improve your life.
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, apply for her complimentary "Clarify Your Vision" consultation at http://www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/coaching.shtml
Creating the Right Attitude for Success
If you’re not reaching the kind of success you want, you need to assess where you’re holding yourself back. It may mean you need to develop some new skills. But more likely, it’s a result of your attitude. Believe it or not, having the right attitude for success is a skill. And it’s not just about having a positive one. This article covers some of the attitudes you need to readjust or cultivate to achieve success.
10 Life-Changing Tips for Highly Sensitive People
Some people love conflict and argument. They need it to feel stimulated. But then there are other people, an estimated 15-20% of the population, who are sensitive. They feel overstimulated in situations others deal with easily. There isn’t anything wrong with sensitive people. They’re just wired differently. If you’re one of those people, here are some valuable tips on how to accept yourself and start thriving.
7 Things To Do If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed
Do you often feel overwhelmed with too much to do, and too little time in which to get it done? Technology promised to make life easier, but it has failed in that promise. And we’re expected to do more and more, just to keep up. So far, we can’t clone ourselves so we have more bodies to get it all done. Instead, we have to find ways to deal with the unrealistic demands. Here are some suggestions on how to approach your life if you feel overwhelmed.
