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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Amazing Motivational Story

Affirmation from Louise Hay

8 Genius Ways to Hide the Fact That You're Nervous

It is hard to escape those moments in life when you are feeling incredibly nervous. Even if we plan ahead and rehearse, our body’s reaction to being nervous can flare up in very uncomfortable physiological ways. We get that rush of adrenaline and our stomach feels like it’s turning upside down. We begin to sweat, our cheeks flush, and some of us even develop a nervous tic—bouncing knee, twitchy foot, nail biting, blinking too rapidly, or speaking too quickly. This fight-or-flight reaction is perfectly normal, although unsettling and, at times, quite embarrassing.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to calm yourself down enough making it possible for you to get through any situation no matter how nervous you become?

Here are some great ways to hide your nervous behavior so you can tackle any nerve-racking event in your life.

1. Breathe

Being nervous can disrupt normal breathing. Your breathing can become shallow and irregular. Is it any wonder we often feel faint when nervous? Take a few deep breaths and find your normal breathing pattern—that deep breath will help you relax too.

2. Don’t Admit It

One of the worst things you can do is admit you are nervous. This brings the focus fully on you and all those horribly natural things that are happening to your body when nervous.

3. Speak Slowly

When we are nervous, we often speak much too quickly. Be conscious of this and make a point of speaking slowly. Even if it sounds too slow to you, chances are those who are listening will think it’s just right. Much better to leave a meeting with your message delivered clearly instead of people scratching their heads saying, “What did he just say?”

4. Relax Your Body

Do a quick body check and purposefully try to relax and calm your body’s nervous reactions—relax your panicked, tightened muscles. Sit up straight, but in a relaxed way, not too rigid. Make sure your feet and hands are calm and relaxed—no bouncing, tapping, or wringing allowed. Relax the muscles in your face so you’re not frowning or looking worried.

5. Maintain Eye Contact

You are screaming, “I’m nervous” when you don’t maintain consistent eye contact nervously glancing around the room instead. Maintain eye contact without robotically staring—it’s okay to look away occasionally to gather your thoughts.

6. Ask a Question

If you are feeling nervous and having a hard time getting your thoughts out, ask a question—the attention is all of a sudden on others, not you. This will give you time to take a deep breath, calm down, and collect your thoughts so you can articulate better what you are trying to say.

7. Be Yourself

Remind yourself that you are fine just the way you are and take the focus off everything going perfectly. Go into situations knowing that you might make a mistake, and that’s OK—you’re human just like everyone else in the world. Don’t force a smile or tell a corny joke. Just let conversations happen naturally and smile or tell that joke when or if it’s appropriate.

8. Still Struggling?

Tried everything and you are still struggling to hide your nervousness? According to Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard Business School, you should turn your nervousness into excitement. Instead of being nervous and saying you’re nervous, be excited and say you’re excited. She observed a fake it until you make it effect on a study group who tried to hide their nervousness by saying that they were excited instead and, sure enough, this group outperformed the group that admitted they were nervous.
She believes that by channeling our nervous feelings into excitement, we tend to focus on positive outcomes instead of all the things that could potentially go wrong when we’re nervous—definitely worth a try!


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3 Proven Ways to Increase Your Confidence

Confidence has a hypnotic effect on people.

The first time I recognized it was at a flamenco show in Barcelona a few years back. I was mesmerized by the performance of a beautiful full-figured middle-aged woman. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her as she danced. My friends and I eventually dubbed her “the most confident woman in the world.”

It was like she bathed in a tub full of confidence on a daily basis. I knew if I had just a piece of what she exuded while on that stage, I would be unstoppable.
There’s data to back that up. Studies show that confidence is closely correlated with success, and even more so than competence.

That’s why it feels like some of the people we most associate with being successful appear to have an abundance of the coveted trait.

But the reality is, confidence is something we all can develop and increase. Even better, science has shown us specifically how to do it.

In their book The Confidence Code, authors Katy Kay and Claire Shipman went on an extensive quest to find out how people could increase their confidence. Here’s how they summarized their findings:

“And so fortunately, a substantial part of the confidence code is what psychologists call volitional: our choice. With diligent effort, we can all choose to expand our confidence. But we will get there if we stop trying to be perfect and start being prepared to fail.”

Take imperfect action. Fail. Use what you learn to take action again. Repeat until you consistently get results you can feel proud and confident about.

Let’s take a closer look at how to start implementing these methods:

1. Surround yourself with confident people.

In her best-selling book Grit, Angela Duckworth explained that one of the ways to develop grit, or any other trait you aspire to have, is to spend time with a group of people who are doing what you want to do or possess the skill you desire to develop.

“The drive to fit in—to conform to the group—is powerful indeed. Some of the most important psychology experiments in history have demonstrated how quickly, and usually without conscious awareness, the individual falls in line with a group that is acting or thinking a different way.”

Thus, if you struggle to be confident, start hanging around confident people. Not only will you start embodying the mindset that helps them be successful, but you’ll start to latch on to the activities that enabled them to get there, too.

When I started learning how to dance Argentine tango, everyone I knew danced better than me. My confidence level was at zero. But they kept encouraging me to dance, to go to classes and to try new things while on the dance floor. Their confidence in me fueled my own. And their commitment to practicing to get better made it easier for me to do the same.

2. Take consistent action.

I’ve spent a significant amount of time studying successful entrepreneurs, performers and leaders from many different walks of life. And one of the key markers that fueled their attainment of mastery, that gave them the confidence to perform at such a high level, was taking action. Consistently.
They showed up, day in, day out, over and over again, to do the work that would help them improve their skills.

Performers who sell out stadiums around the world, pro-athletes who dominate their sport, entrepreneurs who appear to have the magic touch—all of them invested significant time in the trenches taking the actions necessary that enabled them to get so good that they could not be ignored.

Confidence comes from knowing you are capable of completing a task to your level of satisfaction. You can’t think your way to that kind of confidence. Deliberate action (not merely busyness) produces the know-how you need.

Data proves this, as well. Dan Chambliss is a sociologist who spent years studying Olympic swimmers and what enabled them to perform at such a high level.

“Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.”

When excellence becomes your habit, confidence will be a natural byproduct. And the only way to develop a habit is to do the work over and over again.

3. Fail your way to mastery.

You don’t get to mastery without a string of failures that point you in the right direction to deliver predictable high-quality results.

Of course, nobody wants to fail. But if you want to succeed, that is exactly what you have to get more comfortable doing.

Failure leaves clues as to how to succeed. And success breeds confidence.

The more often you fail, the more knowledge you obtain about what works and what doesn’t. The more insight you have about how to produce a hit, the easier it becomes for you to be confident that the path you are moving along will bring you the results you desire. The more progress you make, the less likely you have your confidence destroyed when something doesn’t go your way.

Seth Godin is an 18-time best-selling author. Before he published any of his best-sellers, he spent 10 years as a book packager, producing a book a month. Producing 120 books, many of which sold very little, taught him many things about how to deliver work his audience wanted to buy.

James Dyson spent 15 years producing more than 5,000 prototypes before he developed the one that launched his billion dollar vacuum company. He wrote:
“There were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem.”

You can become more confident no matter your starting point. It all starts with recognizing that you can develop the competence you need to be excellent. And then, of course, you’ve got to take the necessary actions that will help you get there.

In time, as your skills grow, so will your confidence, the mesmerizing effect you have on people and your level of success.


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The Answer Lies in How

All successful people ask how. They’re proactive. They’re action-oriented, and the word ‘how’ is like pushing the button on a detonator. I firmly believe in the power of asking how. The answer to a how question always triggers you into explosive action. Read on to learn more!

Ask How and Get the Answers You Need

Truthfully, you can’t ask ‘How do I solve this?,’ ‘How do I achieve it?,’ ‘How do I get there?,’ or ‘How do I overcome it?’ without being triggered into taking some kind of action. That’s the power of how.

The Questions Unsuccessful People Ask

 

 

If top people think about what they want and how to get it, what is it that unhappy, unsuccessful people think about most of the time? Well, let me tell you. They think about what they don’t want or who’s to blame. That’s the basic summary of all abnormal psychology. They think about what they don’t want, which makes them unhappy. Then they think about who is to blame, which makes them angry. 

In order to achieve, you need to move past this mindset. The goal is to mature to the point where you realize that you are in command of your own life. You’re in charge. You make things happen. You’re not a victim. That was then, this is now.

Never allow your past to determine your future. If you want to find success, think about what you want and how to get it.

The Questions Successful People Ask

 

When you turn toward the sunshine and start to think about what you want and how to get it, the shadow of negativity falls behind you. You realize you can’t change any of that stuff from the past anyway, so why fret over it anymore? You have control now. Now you can ask how.

One of the easiest ways to waste life away is to be upset about something that happened in the past that you can’t change. Instead, you need to think about what you want in the future and how you’re going to get it. Keep your mind so focused on the future that all those other things just peel away like dead skin.

Don’t allow unhappy experiences in the past to keep re-emerging in your daily life. This is what holds us back. This is what stops people from succeeding.

Maybe some things happened to you that were beyond your control. Maybe those events had consequences that detoured or even derailed some goals in your life up until this point. You may even still be living with those consequences today. However, you are responsible for your life now. You are responsible for asking the right questions, for understanding the things that you want and how to get them.

Nobody is smarter than you. Nobody is better than you. If they are doing better, they have just figured out how. You can figure out how, too.

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Feeling Stressed? Try These 3 Meditation Techniques

Stress negatively impacts businesses each day. Overworked, overwhelmed employees often feel as though they’re running in circles, never quite getting anything accomplished. Over time, this feeling can lead to burnout, severe job dissatisfaction, and susceptibility to a number of diseases and illnesses.

The positive effects of meditation have been well documented over the years, but time-challenged professionals hardly have time to go to yoga every day. Luckily, you don’t have to take a regular class to put valuable meditation techniques into use in your everyday life. Here are some meditation practices you can bring into your daily stressful situations:

1. Practice mindful awareness.

One of the most useful aspects of yoga for your daily life is mindful awareness. In a meditation session, this involves merely clearing your mind and focusing on the present moment. By centering yourself and thinking only about your breathing and posture, you can move yourself away from the stresses of the day and truly be in the moment.

There are tricks you can employ in your daily life, too, without closing your eyes and sitting still. Try using observation to appreciate the environment around you—as you wash your hands, focus on the feeling of the water as it hits your skin, or as you open a door, truly feel the doorknob. You can also focus on one object to the exclusion of all else to relax your mind, like a leaf blowing on a tree outside your office window or a dust particle floating through the air—anything that provides an appreciation for natural objects.

Raj Jana, the founder of JavaPresse Coffee Company, created a meditative practice through something as simple as grinding his morning coffee. “In this period of mandatory downtime,” Jana explains, “my hands are too busy to text, and I’m too occupied to think.” All of his energy and focus is devoted to grinding the coffee, from noticing how his hands are moving to taking in the aroma of the beans.

2. Find a mantra.

Mantras are often associated with the word “om” and are used in many meditation sessions to refocus the mind. But your mantra can be any word you choose. Popular modern mantras include Norman Vincent Peale’s “I change my thoughts, I change my world” and Gandhi’s “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Choose a saying that reminds you of your own goals and dreams and use that mantra to quiet your mind and center your thoughts.

When you find yourself feeling overly stressed, find a quiet place where you can clear your mind and relax. In time, you’ll likely find that you can use that mantra in any stressful situation to calm yourself. Your colleagues will respect your ability to remain cool under pressure and react to every situation professionally.

3. Just breathe.

There’s a reason breathing is so closely connected to yoga and meditation. When you take deep breaths, it actually tricks the body into reversing the physiological effects of burnout, such as rapid heartbeat, tense muscles and dilated pupils. Deep breaths slow your heart rate, improve oxygen delivery and lower your blood pressure, effectively reducing the health problems that can result from too much stress.

For best results, practice breathing exercises when you’re alone. When a stressful situation arises, you’ll then be well versed in the art and able to put it to use to calm your mind, even if you’re in a business meeting or facing a hostile co-worker in your office. You can choose from several different types of breathing exercises to find the one that works best for you, including abdominal breathing, progressive relaxation and guided visualization using an online meditation audio tool.

When used correctly, meditation is a great way to battle the many stresses professionals face every day. By practicing these exercises when not in a stressful situation, you can prepare yourself to use them when others are around.


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Motivational quote

Quote - Dr. Demartini

Morning Routine: 10 Teeny Tiny Things You can do to Start One

A meaningful morning routine can make all the difference in how you move through your day, the way you treat other people and in how you feel. My morning routine has been on the fritz this summer. I haven’t been as consistent or engaged as I usually am.

When I stopped meditating every morning, nothing bad happened. When I stopped writing 3 pages every single morning, I didn’t notice a big change at first. Slowly though, I noticed.

Just like when I noticed the benefits of practicing a morning routine consistently over time, I noticed the negatives over time too.

Without a consistent morning routine …

• I’m not as focused throughout the day.
• I feel more sluggish when I wake up.
• It feels like something is missing.
• I’m less present.
• My creative ideas don’t flow as well.

While none of these negatives are life shattering, it’s clear that when I am practicing my morning routine, I am more focused, energized, creative and loving. Those things are important to me so it’s time to get back on track.

Whether you are starting a new morning routine or getting back on track with me, you don’t have to overhaul your morning or your life to get started.

10 teeny tiny things you can do to get started

1. Stop saying you aren’t a morning person.
It’s a great excuse but it doesn’t matter. Start your morning routine whenever your morning starts, even if it’s in the afternoon.

2. Be grateful.
Wake up and write down three things you are grateful for. If you can’t think of anything, remember what made you smile yesterday, the first person you thought of when you woke up, or the last thing that made you laugh.

3. Stretch in bed.
Wiggle your toes. Roll your hips from side to side. Reach your fingers to the ceiling. Stretch your lungs too and take a few deep breaths.

4. Hide your phone.
Do whatever it takes to be digital free until you’ve enjoyed your morning routine. Eventually you may want to use a meditation app or other tool on your phone during your morning routine, but start without it so you aren’t tempted to check email, news, or other apps.

5. Make a list of morning routine activities.
Eliminate the painful process of making decisions when you first wake up. Instead, make a list of what you’d like to include in your morning routine and choose two or three to start with.



6. Create a morning not to-do list.
You may have more clarity on how you want to spend your morning minutes after clearly identifying what you don’t want to do. Make a list of the things that don’t add value to your mornings. Here are a few things you may want to include on your not to-do list.

7. Put pen and paper nearby.
Journaling is a great way to leave your worries on paper, work through an issue or release some of the excess thoughts clouding your mind.

8. Create accountability.
Challenge a friend to 10 days of practicing a morning routine. Agree to text each other a simple, “I did it” after your practice.

9. Turn on the music.
Quiet background music can help to keep you engaged and present in your morning routine. Create a 5 minute playlist and practice your morning routine for as long as the music lasts for the first week. Add a minute or two to your playlist and routine each week.

10. Show up.
Even if you don’t do anything during your morning routine, show up for it every morning for a week. Dedicate five minutes to getting on your yoga mat, sitting at your kitchen table, on the floor next to your bed, or wherever you’d like to be. Just show up.

Sometimes my morning routine is hours of writing, walking, yoga, and meditation but tomorrow I’ll just take a teeny tiny step and write for five minutes. Where will you start?

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Jack Canfield: First Step to Achieve Your Dreams

Quote - Dr John Demartini

Abraham Hicks �� Realize How Close You Are To What You Really Want!

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