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How to Stop a Breakup – Come Up With an Action Plan to Save Your Relationship

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 9:37 am

With the increase of social dating rates in our communities today, it is without a doubt that breakups have taken their position in the circle of life. All over the world, youngsters and adults are experiencing breakups each and every day, and this often results in the pondering of how to stop a breakup.

The first thing to do when your relationship is on rocky grounds is to identify your faults and mistakes. Notice what upsets her, be it something you do or something you don’t do. Every time she gets upset, talk to her and find out the cause of it.

Then, come up with a plan of action to change and work on your flaws. You don’t have to change who you are or anything as drastic as that but what you could do is to avoid hitting her nerves by breaking habits that annoy her and changing a few of your usual routines.

Next, list out your flaws and mistakes so that you can work on it. To stop a breakup, use the list as your guide and scratch them out as you learn to correct yourself. The only way to do this effectively would be by rewarding yourself with little things every time you achieve a goal.

After that, take your list and give it to your significant other. This would show her that you’re making an effort to please her and she won’t be so hard on you. Instead, she might even reward you and help you along the way.

Lastly, act out on your plan and change for the better. Try your very best to not go backwards and move forward.

In conclusion, you can stop wondering how to stop a breakup as it is not impossible. Just keep trying and stay patient.

If it is important to stop a breakup and get your ex back, it would be silly if you don’t check out the actionable tips at Love Break Up

Article Source: How to Stop a Breakup – Come Up With an Action Plan to Save Your Relationship

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I’ll Do It Later But Later Never Comes

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 10:12 pm

Has there ever been a time when you didn’t procrastinate? Probably not, if you’re really honest with yourself. For the most part, procrastination is something we all live with and it typically doesn’t seem to interfere too much with our daily lives.

But what about the times we procrastinate to such a degree that we become immobilized? Perhaps you may recall Shakespeare’s Hamlet who, when he discovered that his uncle had murdered his father, wanted revenge. Unresponsive to his initial best instinct, he hesitates. Tormented with doubt, rationalizations, love and hate for his mother (who marries his uncle), and a myriad of other excuses, he hesitates. Or does he? Is he biding his time, waiting for the right moment, or merely procrastinating? For Hamlet, this wasn’t a moral reason. Then why did he hesitate? Or did he? Let’s look at the possibilities, while apparently enduring his torment.

1. I must find the opportune time.
2. How would it affect my mother? (Those of you familiar with Freud’s Oedipal complex theory might insist: Of course, it would be logical!)
3. How would others in the royal court respond?
4. The timing must be right.
5. I abhor violence. (highly unlikely)
6. How do I make it look like an accident?

One other possibility would need to be examined. What if Hamlet never really hesitated? Perhaps he was merely contemplating various ways he could carry out the act. (But then the play would be too short). The question remains: Did he procrastinate at all?

You’re probably wondering why I used such an extreme example to illustrate an issue with which most of us have had to cope at various time in our lives. In my work with individuals however,
I’ve used the Hamlet example to help defuse the intensity of their own struggles with procrastination be they minor or major. While not always successful in their attempts, their willingness to confront the matter has often led to at least modest changes in their lives.

One of the more memorable participants in an ongoing “ Decisions Decisions” workshop that I conducted a short while ago was somewhat skeptical, at first, about her participation. Having had five years of psychoanalysis for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and low self esteem, which had some positive resolution, Rita nevertheless felt that her propensity towards procrastination had not been sufficiently addressed. Attractive, physically healthy and active for a woman of sixty years, she took an early retirement from a Federal government position with the intention of traveling and pursuing her interest in watercolors. Divorced at age fifty, following fifteen years of marriage, Rita had had several relationships which she considered superficial. During the course of the workshops, she was helped to realize by other group members that her procrastination regarding travel and painting was related to strongly felt financial obligations towards her twenty-five year old single son and fear of traveling. Despite her years in psychoanalysis, she continued to believe that a child’s needs were more important than the parent’s and felt guilty about spending “all that money on myself” for travel throughout the US, China and Europe.

The group was asked to answer several questions in an exercise entitled: What’s Hidden Behind Procrastination?

1. What are my excuses for not acting on my behalf?
2. What am I afraid of?
3. Do I feel I don’t deserve what life has to offer me?
4. Am I afraid of change?
5. Do I feel that things I wish to do take too much effort?
6. Do I feel guilty and selfish for wanting things for myself?
7. Do I have difficulty letting go of things?
8. What if, what I want doesn’t turn out the way I expected?

You can imagine the vitality the group took on in attempting to address these questions for themselves. Most interesting, however, was the group’s focus on Rita’s dilemma and her defensive attitude expressed in anger at first, but then changing, as the meetings progressed. Feeling “ganged up on” at times, Rita soon began to realize how she had been denying her very powerful need to make the most out of her life.

If you’re curious about whatever happened to Rita, a year later, following the end of the workshop months before, I was pleased to hear from another group member with whom Rita had become friends, that she had had received a postcard from her somewhere in China.

I have a suggestion for those of you struggling with procrastination over minor or major matters. Why not take each of the questions I presented above, and write down a few responses to all, or just a few of them. Don’t feel constrained. You may even devote a page or two for each of your responses. You’ll be amazed at your revelations.

Dr. Rollin is also the author of The Psychology of Communication Disorders in Individuals and Their families as well as Counseling Individuals with Communications Disorders. He has an active therapy practice in Sacramento, California and continues to offer his popular decision-making workshops. Visit his website at http://decisiondr.com.

Article Source: I’ll Do It Later But Later Never Comes

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How to build self confidence in 3 easy steps

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 9:04 pm

Step 1. Take a deep breath. There is a lot of clutter in the brain right now and plenty of negative thoughts that are getting in the way of you thinking clearly. What you need now is mental focus, focus that you need to pierce through the clouds of doubt in your heads and then transport yourself to a place of peace where you can sort yourself out and think about the things in your life that matter to you. Breathing exercises allow you to focus on your mind and breathe in. By using breathing exercises, you are able to meditate in the same way that practitioner use to clear their own mind. One thing you need to understand about the state of mind is that people with low self esteem have plenty of things in their mind, things that are dragging them down to a level that is way beyond their potential.

Step 2. And this is one of the more important steps that you need to consider, and this step allows you to take stock of your strengths and weaknesses. What you need to do is to make a list of the strengths and weaknesses that you have within you. One of the things that is most important in making this list is that you cannot make this list on your own. You need to recruit the help of your loved ones and people that know you best to help you make this list. Once you are able to compare what you think of yourself with what people think are the best points about you, then you are able to see what the disparity is and how you can adjust it so that there is a compromise between the two. Some psychologists actually call this the feel good list and for good reason, this is a list that people use to remind themselves of how good they are and where their strengths lie.

Step 3. This is another facet of a list, and you need to put down a list of everything that you have achieved in your life and with each success, celebrate it in some small way. One of the most interesting things about this list is the ability to slowly elate the person and slowly build them the confidence and self esteem that they need. The building blocks of a person with high self esteem is positivity and in this case, you need all the positivity that you can get to launch yourself out of the doldrums of your life and stretch your potential like never before. With this list, you can slowly rebuild yourself with positive energy.

These are some of the things that you can use to rebuild your self esteem, and as you can see, these methods are pretty easy to do and you can do this in your own time and sometimes, in the comfort of your own home. Building your self esteem and confidence never was so easy.

Click Here to grab your FREE “Unleashing Your Inner Confidence In 5 Easy Steps” Report. Achieve success in life with these proven and tested techniques to allow yourself to be more confident in anything you do. Building Self Confidence was never this easy before.

Article Source: How to build self confidence in 3 easy steps

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How to Eliminate Doubt From Your Aspirations

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 9:04 pm

This is a great technique taught to me by my friend Dr. Will Horton. He calls this the Logical Levels technique. This is how it works.

Pick one of your most important goals.

Imagine that on the floor on front of you are six sequential squares in a straight line. This might look like a large ladder lying on the ground or a vertical hopscotch pattern. Each square represents a required level in reaching your goal.

When you have all six levels in line, your life is congruent with your goal. As you will see, if any level is not aligned, your life will be incongruent with your goal which will create conflict. Any incongruence creates obstacles for moving towards your goal.

In the first square in front of you is the Environment Level.

Take a step into the:

1. Environment Level

Is your current environment conducive to reaching your goal?

If you have to study, do you have an environment to do so? Do you have the books, CDs, manuals you need? If not, how can you get them? Who is your teacher? If you are trying to lose weight, stop smoking or drinking, have you eliminated those substances from your environment?

Are the people in your life supportive of your goal? Do they encourage you or try to discourage you from growing? If they are discouraging, is there a way to get them to allow you the space to try? Is there a way to get away from them? Do you need to change your circle of friends?

Do you need to make changes to your environment? Can you create an environment that is supportive and conducive to you achieving this goal? If so, what changes do you need to make? How will you make them?

When you have either determined that your environment is conducive to reaching your goal or you have figured out what steps you have to take to get it to that point move into the next Level.

II. Behavior Level

What behaviors do you need each day and are you willing to do them?

Are your patterns of behavior supportive for reaching your goal? Your patterns of thought and behavior define your life. Are you behaving in a manner that is congruent with your goal? If study is required, are you studying? If applying a certain skill is required are you applying the skill? If abstinence of a certain behavior pattern such as being drink, smoke or drug free is required, are you adhering to that pattern? Are you doing what you need to do each day in order to reach your goal? If not, why not?

As an example, I had the idea for this book exactly 15-days ago. The title came to me at 2:30 in the morning Monday, February 12th. I set a goal to write at least one chapter per day in order to have the book completed by the end of the month. In order to accomplish this goal, I instantly associated massive pain with not writing. If I had any free time, I had to be in front of my MAC banging out chapters. Had I just “had an idea for a book” and left it at that, the book would never get written. The world is full of great ideas, it’s the ability to take action and make an idea a reality that separates the best of us from the rest of us. As a side note, my first karate class was on February 12, 1974 and I got married on February 12, 2000. I don’t know what that means but I think it’s interesting.

Some behaviors will need to be replaced. If you want to stop drinking then you will want to replace the pattern of stopping by the liquor store with a new pattern of driving past it without stopping.

Are you rationalizing poor behaviors? Sometimes we get caught in an analyses paralysis where we spend more time thinking than doing. This level is all about what you are doing not thinking or planning. This is not about what you will do once you have reached your goal. This is about doing the behaviors necessary right now to move you towards your goal.

Sometimes clients will confuse this with the rationalization that, “I’ll do that once I get this done.” For instance, I’ll start exercising when I lose weight. I’ll stop smoking when I get in better shape. I’ll approach a woman after I’ve lost ten pounds. I’ll start studying to get a new job after I get a raise at this one. All of these examples are stall tactics to delay taking responsibility for your actions.

That is not acceptable behavior and you are too smart to let your mind play those kinds of tricks on you. Let the rest of the people in the world deceive themselves, not you.

Once you have defined the behaviors and committed to doing them, you can move to the next square. If you can’t define them, do more research to figure them out. If you are not willing to commit to doing them, your goal stops here.

III. Capabilities Level

Do you have the capabilities required to reach your goal? In order to reach your goal, you may have to develop some new techniques, strategies, mind-sets, or skills. You may already have all that you need to move forward or there may be something that you need to learn or adapt into your life. For instance, a friend of mine has decided she wants to become a court reporter. She has to learn how to use a steno-writer and the fascinating, but challenging methods of phonetically short hand skills. Once she learns the theory for the machine she has to build speed and accuracy up to 225 words per minute. She spends a few hours per night working on her lessons through a home study course.

Maybe the new capability you need is not as easily definable as a new career but instead requires a new mind-set or strategy. For instance, if losing weight is your goal, you’ll want to adapt new strategies for eating as we explored in the chapter on Setting New Strategies. If getting out of debt is your goal, then you will want to create a mind-set that spending money, especially on interest, is very painful. Associate massive pain with spending money. Associate massive pleasure with having money in the bank and a shrinking debt load.

Once you have defined the capabilities and determined that you have them or outlined a method of obtaining them, you can move to the next level.

IV. Belief Level

Do your beliefs support this goal? What beliefs do you need in order to make this happen?

If you believe that money is the root of all evil, then setting a goal of saving $100,000 may be incongruent with your belief. If it is your belief that in order to be attractive you must be wealthy, drive a cool car or be in perfect shape, then setting a goal of meeting someone special may be inhibited if you don’t have these attributes. If you believe that there are no opportunities for someone who has not finished high school, then your belief is going to seriously limit your possibilities if you didn’t graduate. Not only will your belief systems change over time, but you can also accelerate the change process and target specific beliefs that you know are holding you back.

Do you believe you deserve the rewards this goal will bring you? If no one in your family has ever graduated, or made a six-figure income, or had a relationship with someone they believed to be “out of their league,” or led a healthy life, then it may be hard for you to believe achieving any of these or your own goals is possible. It’s important to understand that your ceiling of potential is not determined by anyone else but you.

When your belief systems are aligned with your goal, you may move to the next level.

V. Identity Level

Does your identity match that of the new version of you that will reach this goal? Much of the inner dialogue we engage in is with younger versions of ourselves. This helps us to understand how such conversations can create massive self-doubt and negative patterns of behavior. For this exercise, imagine instead what it would feel like to have already accomplished your goal. Project your mind into the future and feel what it will feel like to be the person who accomplished that. Rather than identify with a version of you from the negative past, create an identity of yourself having already accomplishing this goal. This goal projection process is a great way to kick start that process.

I did this exercise once with a woman during a hypnosis session. She had a goal that would make her a celebrity in her field which would generate significant income for her. When we got to this level, I asked her if her identity matched the identity of the person who achieves the goal she wanted. She said, “No.” We then explored this issue and it came down to her being afraid that if she made more money than most men, she would not be attractive to them. This was a beautiful blond athlete whose’ identity was not matching that of the person who would reach her goal.

I walked her through a scenario where she was arriving at an event on the arm of a man who was so insecure that he had to make more money than his girlfriend or wife. I had her feel the feelings of what it would be like to be with someone that weak. I had her imagine what her future would be like under the control of someone else’s insecurities. I had her associate tremendous pain and disappointment with this scenario.

I then had her walk through the same scenario but with a man who was confident and didn’t care how much money she made. He only cared about her and wanted the best for her. I had her imagine what her future would be like with the sincere love and support of someone like this. I had her associate tremendous pleasure and joy with this scenario.

My goal was to help her create the identity that would support her goal. Did it work? It’s too early to say, but when she emerged she said that she had not previously been aware of how money and men played into her identity. That alone is a positive step.

When your identity matches that of you on the other side of your goal, you may move to the next level.

VI. Spiritual Level

If you believe in a higher power, does that higher power support this goal? With few exceptions, in order for a spiritual belief to be aligned with a goal, the goal has to be honest, ethical and positive for everyone involved. For instance, if you goal is one of revenge on someone who you feel has wronged you, it would be a bit of a stretch to say that your higher power supports such a negative goal. Of course, the best revenge is success and that is usually aligned with a higher power.

I like the Logical Levels because it really walks you through the various dynamics that will affect your ability to accomplish your goals. When these six elements are in place, there is nothing to stop you. If any of them are out of place, you are bound to have a more difficult path towards improving your life.

In a sense, the Logical Levels work like a reality check for your goal setting. They give dreams and aspirations a concrete foundation and pathway to becoming reality.

John Graden is the author of The Impostor Syndrome. The Impostor Syndrome is the feeling you’re not as smart, talented, or skilled as others think you are. It’s the feeling you’ve been faking it and are about to be found out. Learn more about the book at:

http://www.theimpostorsyndrome.com

http://www.johngraden.com

Article Source: How to Eliminate Doubt From Your Aspirations

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