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1 College Tip to Rule Them ALL

3/13/2014

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Of all the things I wish I would have known before leaving for college…

There is only ONE, I wish I would have had figured out before I got there.

What I wanted to do with my life.

It wasn't until AFTER flunking out of art college did I understand what I wanted.

For my tip, write down a list of the ten things you want to do with your life, and rank them. Once you establish your top 3, just eliminate the rest.

Once you know exactly what you want to do, research the job market for current jobs, but more importantly growing jobs that will allow you to accomplish the top 3 things on your list.

This will allow you to identify what you want to do, and the jobs to look for to get you there.

My top 3 were:

1.       Start a Business (Ended up with a Business Degree and am now a Proud Owner of a Small Business)

2.       Travel (I studied abroad, am going to Taiwan to learn Chinese, and grow my business contacts.)

3.       Become an International Businessman. (See 1 And 2)

Having realized what I wanted was so helpful in building my college career around it.

Prioritizing your Inner Ambitions

In fact, this concept of prioritizing is useful in boiling down what you truly think and feel.

The ability to identify what you want allows you to have an anchor to build your life plans around.

Because once you find what you want, everything else begins to get trapped in the gravity of your desire and passion.

So next time you want to narrow down your decisions and thoughts. Just list what you truly want and rank them down until you know exactly.

Two techniques:

1.       Word Descriptions - Write the words or themes that describe what you want represented…

a.       Great for Branding – 5 Words to describe your brand

                                                                i.      Simple

                                                               ii.      Elegant

                                                             iii.      Eye-Catching

                                                             iv.      Substance

                                                              v.      Real

b.      With these words, it will be easy to build your marketing message and brand

2.       Ranking List - Write the top things that will help accomplish your goal…

a.       Great to find out what is useful in getting things done – Top 4 skills I need to be successful

i.      Unwavering Mindset fueled by High Self Esteem

ii.      Public Speaking

iii.      Social Skills

iv.      Technical Skills you can sell (WordPress, Writing, etc.)

Have your own tip you wish you would have known before going to college?

Then share with us!

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1 way to workout anywhere....

2/13/2014

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Question.

Have you found yourself at the gym with your favorite machines broken or with a lineup of people extending from it?

Have you been unable to make it to your gym, was stuck with a lighter gym with less equipment than you’re used to, or even worse no gym?

This has happened to me more than I care to say with all the traveling I do and my hectic schedule.

In facing this problem of not having access to the equipment I want, I found a system to get the workout I need from anywhere including the office, at home, while on travel, and even in places with no equipment at all like nature.

What exactly do I do to maintain my fitness anywhere?

It’s quite simple really. Rather than revolving my workouts around a set type of exercises. I revolve my entire workout around the upper or lower body and the muscle groups in those sections.

For example, in the upper body, you have your abdominals, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, lower back, and upper back. And in the lower body, you have your calves, gluteus, hamstrings, abdominals, quadriceps, and hips.

The Muscle Groups

By knowing these muscles groups intimately and having the right order to work them in. You can easily find the machines in a new gym to work those muscle groups. And if you think you’re up to it, you can work out anywhere by simply knowing a few bodyweight exercises for those muscle groups.

And when you become advanced enough, you can even move the order of the muscle groups to get the best workout for you, but for starters take it easy, follow the pattern, and don’t do too much. Because the pattern is designed for continuous exercising and has no break by working opposite muscle groups of the body to refrain from causing yourself injury.

The System

Using the system below you can work out no matter you where go. On the left side you have the individual muscle groups that you need to work out for a full upper and lower body workout. Going along the top of the table is the bodyweight, dumbbell/kettlebell, and cable/machine exercises you can do to work that muscle group.

Workout Example

For example, once you’re done with shoulders by doing 3 sets of kettlebell sumo press, you can go into the machine preacher curl to work your biceps. Once you’re done with biceps, you work into your chest with chest dips, and so on and so forth until you go through the entire table.

Once you’re done, you can repeat the table with a new exercise until you feel you have reached your max, which is usually reached within .5 to 2 hours depending your your current fitness level.

Conclusion

And an anywhere, anytime workout program, simply follow the body-weight only exercises, and use dumbbell-type items, available to you to do the DB/KB exercises. For even more options, you can bring bands with you.

Now, you can print this and follow the examples, or simply remember the pattern Shoulders, Biceps, Chest, Lower back, Triceps, Abdominals, and Upper back for an upper body workout. And Calves, Gluteus, Hamstrings, Abdominals, Quadriceps, and Hips for your lower body workouts.

This will allow you to maintain your fitness wherever you go.

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Are you being defeated by distractions?

12/18/2013

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Have you ever been working on an assignment when… *BAM*… you find yourself on Facebook whittling away the few hours you had to write it?

Yes?

Of course you have, even the President] has found himself distracted by the entertaining things in life.

The real question is: How do you avoid it? How do you keep yourself from watching that twentieth video on YouTube? From playing video games with your best friends?

What do you need to keep the distractions at bay?

You need a plan and a strategy

Thinking ahead is a good place to start in finding not only what distracts you, but why. Understanding why is important. Learning to spot out when you’re being distracted and understanding why, makes it easy to find your distractions, plan for them, and implement a strategy to defeat them.

Why do you respond to texts, calls, and Facebook while you study?

Because the phone beeps every time I get a message, and Facebook is always open in my browser.

Limiting your technology. To defeat those nagging blinks and bloops by turning your cell phone off, shutting the internet down on your computer, and closing all unnecessary programs. Keeping them out for good.

Why do you end up hanging out with friends when trying to research for a project?

Because their always coming over to see what I am doing.

Managing your space and time. Keep your friends and family from barging in every ten minutes by telling them that you are taking a few hours today to finish your work. There will be plenty of time later to hang out. And put on the finishing touches with a closed to signify you are busy and need time to work.

Why do I play video games while I try to study in my room?

Because they are visible from where I sit, enticing me to play when I am bored.

Simply finding a place away from distractions with peace and quiet is the sometimes the best thing you can do. A place perfect for setting the work atmosphere and away from it all. Stopping those pesky video games from staring you down from across the room. Here’s looking at you Xbox One…

Why do you avoid studying in the first place?

Because there are irritating parts I just don’t want to do and keep putting off.

Doing the irritating things first to get them out of the way or doing the easy things first to get you motivated for the hard parts. By spotting what irritates you and outlining what you need to do, can smooth out the rough patches to make the assignment easy and painless. Making avoiding your studies into defeating your studies.

But what do with all that pent up tension after completing your assignment and keeping your distractions at bay?

You indulge yourself of course. You use those distractions as the best reward you ever received because you got your work done and you deserve it.

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Ask for $100’s and $50’s

12/15/2013

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When you cash your check or take money out of the bank or ATM. Try to get $50’s or $100 dollar bills. This is because psychologically, people do not like to break bills higher than $20.

This comes from the fact that most people either don’t like the extra bills or they see a higher value in a hundred dollar bill and find it harder to give it up.

The credit and debit card version of this is to keep your accounts low or have a cap that you can’t exceed per day. This will make it seem like too much work to constantly transfer.

Using these techniques and making it into a habit will help curb those compulsive buys and help you save a little change in the process.

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Things You Might Be Doing Wrong

11/14/2013

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Have you ever felt like you don’t understand the things you do? Felt like if you stopped doing certain things and started doing certain other things, you’d be so much happier?

If your unsure, here is an easy-to-use, Self Development tool for understanding just that. With it, you will know exactly what you do and be able to figure out if it’s worth doing.

This simple tool is known as an Actions Audit. It’s a simple list of the actions you take in your life on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis with the positives and negatives that action has on your life.

Here is a template that goes into detail of how it works:

Actions Audit

1. Put the name of the act here

Pros – put the positives of doing the act
Cons – put the negatives of doing the act
Improves – Put if it’s worth continuing the act or how to improve on the cons of the act

Here are a few examples:

1. Exercise

Pros- Improve Fitness, Health, and Body
Cons – Excessive time consumption
Improves – Find ways to exercise at home to decrease time consumption

2. Going out on the weekends

Pros- socialize with my friends, meet new people, and feel good
Cons- spend too much money on over-priced food and drinks, never hear from the people I meet again, break my diet and training habits, and feel terrible the next morning
Improves – Stop drinking and focus on finding other ways to meet new people and hangout with my friends

3. Academics

Pros – Increase Career Potential, Improve Mind
Cons – Time Consumption
Improves – Invest in new study methods to cut study time down

By just writing down these three things I do on a weekly basis, I have found that I can maintain my academics and exercise as they supplement my life goals. On the other hand, I found that going out to party on the weekends is not helping me and is detrimental to the very things I want to accomplish.

With this simple tool, you can easily do the same by refocusing your perspective on the things you do, and understand yourself and your life a lot better.

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How to form, maintain, and maximize your habits for Success.

11/11/2013

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You are your habits. Everything in your life from success to happiness is a summation of your habits. Therefore, to be successful is to have successful habits.

When looking at how habits form, they follow a three stage pattern, called the Bliss, the Struggle, and the Acknowledgement.

Stage 1: THE BLISS

This stage is known for the bliss you feel when you’re motivated to change your life. This is the most important stage as your motivation is highest to prepare the foundation to change.

The most important part of this phase is setting Reminders to trigger your new behavior. This can be alarms on your phone that go off when you want to do your new habit or combining your old habits with a new habit (For example, by putting your razor on top of your tooth brush will remind you to shave every morning). To institute this changes, you must schedule your reminders into you’re planner to make it a part of your routine.

Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior) – A good reminder such as an alarm clock on your phone, a posted note on wallet, or a timer app that keeps you moving (Timers4me Application)

Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take) – institute the reminders into a written schedule or phone schedule

Stage 2: THE STRUGGLE

This phase is where most people quit their new habit due to having a poor foundation, missing their triggers, and having a fall-out of motivation.

A few techniques to help you in this stage are Recognition, Self-Talk, and the Reward.

Recognition – Recognizing that you are struggling to uphold your habit and need to stay on track by using self-talk and rewards.

Self-Talk – Telling yourself to stay motivated by using positive criticism (I can do this), creating a rival (I can do better than them), or having a goal (If I do this, I will be successful and accomplish my dreams.)

Reward – Giving yourself a reward when you maintain your habit (I ate healthy all week and I deserve one piece of chocolate cake.)

Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behavior) – start small and build gradually instilling small victories along the way to that ultimate victory

Stage 3: THE ACKNOWLEDEMENT

In this stage, you acknowledge your habit as second nature. However, problems can overrun your new habit causing a relapse.

What to look out for:

DISCOURAGEMENT: Moments of weakness where you feel the habit isn’t working or isn’t delivering the results you want.

DISTRACTIONS: Detracts your focus from forming the habits you want by taking you out of your routine. (Emails, Texts, Social Media, etc.)

SATISFACTION: Being satisfied can stop you from maximizing your habits potential as you stop focusing on the things that made you successful in the first place.

Tips for Habit Formation:

Forming new habits is easiest when you are in a new setting such as a new apartment or while on vacation because all your old triggers to your old habits are gone. This lets you start fresh and build new habits that you can carry on into your daily life.

The best way I know to discover a good reminder for your new habit is to write down two lists. In the first list, write down your habits chronologically that you do every day that you can combine new habits with.

1.       Wake up

2.       Weigh Yourself

3.       Make coffee

4.       Make Breakfast

5.       Brush teeth

6.       Drive your car

7.       Check the mail

In the second list, write down things that happen to you each day that can be used as triggers for a new habit.

1.       A commercial comes on

2.       Getting a text message

3.       Getting an email

4.       A song ends

5.       Stopping at a red-light

This gives you a wide range of things that you already do and already respond to each day that are perfect reminders for new habits.

Works Cited

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York.: Random House, 2012. PDF.

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1 College Tip to Rule Them ALL

1 way to workout anywhere....

Are you being defeated by distractions?

Ask for $100’s and $50’s

Things You Might Be Doing Wrong

How to form, maintain, and maximize your habits for Success.

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