Do You Really Want to Change?

 

Believe it or not, it is pretty common for someone to become consciously convinced that they want changes in their life, that if they get those changes, they will be happy and feel fulfilled. However, subconsciously, they are working to keep everything exactly as it always has been.

People go through the processes to achieve changes, such as starting a new project, signing up for a new course, or signing up for a personal improvement program, only to constantly find insurmountable challenges as they approach a start date preventing them from moving forward.

Why would people do that?

Fear

Fear is the prime reason that most people don’t follow through.

Fear of what?

• Fear of success
• Fear of failure
• Fear of what others might think, say, or do
• Or all of the above

They are probably unhappy, unmotivated, and unfulfilled. They know what they need to do but never manage to get it done. They live almost entirely in their heads, planning, buying, and desiring but never actually completing the task.

This vicious cycle of starting and then stopping can cause low resilience, confidence, self-esteem, and high anxiety levels. Not completing what they planned reinforces their subconscious desire to keep everything the same, no matter how good a new future might look.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? If so, what can you do about it?

Is There a Solution? 

One of the best ways to break this pattern is to help someone in need. Perhaps try volunteer work, where your help, energy, and support, are essential.

In this volunteer work, consider how you have a responsibility to others, where you cannot possibly let down those who depend on you. That way, you are not working for your own rewards, but for someone who requires help.

Helping others increases your self-esteem, puts you in a place of happiness, and helps you reduce anxiety levels. You feel you are achieving something greater in life. 

Make a Decision and Take Action

Practicing this, you’ll come to realize that when you make a decision and take action, you move forward.

 

 You’ll also recognize that doing things for someone else allows you to use your talents in a way that perhaps you never did while working for yourself.  

When you find purpose in all that you do, you will also realize that the fear that was stopping you before is gone long ago, that you are taking your power back, and now you can feel a sense of fulfillment in your work.

Through helping others, you’ll come to understand that it doesn’t even matter if you make a wrong decision. You can always make another decision and take action and correct it, always moving, evolving, and creating. 

The important thing is that you keep making decisions and taking action. It’s the most effective way to change things.

The most significant changes will be the ones you experience yourself; however, it may still take others to point them out. You have talents and gifts, and perhaps you are not aware of them until you see other people's lives improved because of your actions.

That’s when you’ll get to see your true, authentic self show up in your smile as you look forward to finally being able to start creating the life you desire.

6 Steps to Stop Feeling Unproductive and Get Back on Track

 

So, you spend hours in front of the computer working, and at the end of the day, you feel exhausted but still unproductive, asking yourself, 'where did the time go?'. You see others achieving results in their life or professional careers; everyone makes it look so easy that you want that for yourself; instead, you end up feeling behind.

If this sounds familiar to you, you are reading the right blog. That's because you are about to learn my simple six-step method to help you stop feeling unproductive.

And the good news is that this method works in every situation, if you are a businessman, a student, or an athlete. These steps are intended to boost your productivity. So give them a try and see if they work for you too.

Step 1: Distinguish between 'busy' and 'productive': I'm pretty sure many of us have fallen for this. You can be busy pretending to be productive, and it is hard to see if you are not aware of the difference.
The first thing to do is to establish boundaries by saying no to those non-urgent tasks; it will help you focus on the important ones.

Note: If you notice you are constantly engaging in non-urgent tasks, ask yourself, Am I procrastinating on the crucial and challenging ones? If yes, so ask yourself. From what am I running?

Step 2: Understand what is getting in your way: Creating systems that support your goals will put you in a direction where you will quickly identify what is getting in your way.
Systems like planning and mapping what your final task looks like, keeping track of how you spend your time, writing down your activities, and having a better understanding of what you do during the day; will help you see if a behavior, person, task, or routine is preventing you from being productive.

When something is getting in your way, staying focused on what will help you be productive isn't easy. 

Step 3: Prepare for Tomorrow: Are you leaving your productivity in the hands of luck or external forces? Plan essential things that you absolutely must do, and write them down.  
When you plan things, you will feel more in control of your life, activities, and successes.
When they don't prepare for tomorrow, many people grant their success to luck; if they fail, fate is against them. They end up living in permanent worry because everything seems out of their control.

Tip: Productive people assume that their success is totally within their control. They plan and follow strategies; they prepare their following steps, knowing that things happen in life, and they can never control them, but they can always control how much they are prepared.

Step 4: Embrace the unexpected: There are things in life that you just can't control, and that's okay, too.
When unexpected things come into your life, you have two ways of taking them, either you get angry, and despair, or you take the opportunity to learn from it and experience new things, try new strategies and benefit from these events.

Step 5: Stop comparing yourself with others: Everyone has a different path and time; yours is different from others, and you need to trust it. Once you stop seeing your neighbor's green grass, you can contemplate the forest that is your garden.
Hard work is hard; forget about "it will be easy." Diligence is essential, and it is not easy to maintain. When you need to push forward even if you don't see results takes optimism and much self-belief. This is one of the main reasons busy people give up sooner rather than later, and productive people keep going. (step 1).

Remember: Believe in yourself, even if nobody does it. Eventually, you will succeed in your task.

Step 6: Have enormous gratitude: Track and celebrate your progress by journaling them, don't keep them just in your mind and relate to the good memory you have; write them down, even the small ones, with no distinction. CELEBRATE THEM and be grateful for achieving them.

And there you have it - a simple 6-step method to stop feeling unproductive. It is pretty simple when you apply those steps. So let me leave you with one last tip...

Allow yourself to be OK with feeling “OK,” It’s perfectly fine not to be 100% productive 100% of the time. Sometimes you need to slow down to gain perspective, ask for feedback, and regain momentum.

Now that you have them all, there's just one thing left for you to do: Take action.

Did you know that most people do not associate their daily problems (feeling unproductive, not being satisfied at work, lack of organization in personal goals, among others) with the services of a professional coach?  
Don't be 'the most people.' Reach out to a professional coach who supports you as you manage your own goals on your way to success.

Questions to Improve Your Self-Awareness

 

Whatever you are doing in life, self-awareness is a crucial component of your success. The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Knowing yourself requires effort and commitment; the bad news is that there is no single pill to help everyone obtain it. However, it is always good news; a way to achieve self-awareness is to explore who you are and examine your skills, dreams, emotions, and feelings.

Here is a list of questions that will help you reflect on yourself. 

To answer these questions, I will advise you not to spend too much time thinking about the answer. Instead, write down the first thing that pops up in your mind; it tends to reflect your actual mindset, situation, and beliefs.

1. What am I good at?
2. What am I not that good at?
3. What am I bad at?
4. When am I at my best?
5. What takes my energy away?
6. Who are the most important people in my life?
7. What is the most important thing in my life?
8. How much time do I take for myself?
9. How many hours do I sleep?
10. What causes me stress?
11. What makes me relax?
12. For me, what is success?
13. What motivates me to achieve my goals?
14. What are the things that I value in life?
15. What type of athlete am I?
16. How do I want others to see me?
17. What makes me happy?
18. What makes me sad?
19. What makes me angry?
20. What kind of person do I want to be?
21. What kind of friend do I want to be?
22. How I want others to remember me?
23. What do I think about myself?
24. What makes me afraid?
25. What makes me confident?

Ok, now that you answered these questions, what next?

Here are some bullet points to help you in this process:

• First, don’t worry about the initial answers you wrote down; there was the first thing that pops up in your mind, and as I said, it tends to reflect your current situation; it does mean it needs to be your permanent one. Second, when you know about yourself, you uncover valuable and harmful things to your success.

• When you have a better idea of what those valuable and harmful things are, act on them. Do more positive things that make you happy and that help you advance. On the other hand, avoid things that make you sad or angry.

• Don’t take this process too literally. I mean, you will discover things that make you both happy and sad, for example, relationships. It does not mean you should run away from any relationship that involves sadness. However, you can avoid those specific things that make that relationship bad or sad; it can be jealousy, egoism, lack of commitment, etc. 

• Writing down your thoughts is a great way to keep knowing more about yourself. Ask yourself the magic question “why?” of a situation or thought. An example can be: today I am feeling sad. Why? Because my parents did not allow me to take the car. Why? They said it was too late, and I was too tired. Why? Because they care about me.

• Once you start to be more aware of your thoughts, you will also recognize your feelings attached to these thoughts. The next step is to externalize them. The best way to do so is by talking with friends, relatives, teammates, and coaches to discover more things about yourself, and at the same time, you will be able to have feedback. 

What makes self-awareness difficult is the introspection that we must do, and to be honest, we often prefer to lie to ourselves because the truth is scary. 

It is a choice only you can take. Be open and make your life easier, or don't be honest and deny that significant improvement you can obtain for your life. It is up to you.  

5 STEPS TO HELP YOU BOUNCE BACK FROM BIG MISTAKES

 

As a volleyball player, I was thrilled to watch the VNL finals between the USA and France. These two are great teams, I saw all their emotion and effort to get the so-much-wanted gold medal, and they made only a few mistakes throughout the game.

Gold medal match: France vs. USA highlights   (4:16) The match arrives in the 5th set; everything can happen now. The score is 10 - 14 for the French team; the game is still on. The setter gives a ball to David, number 20, the middle blocker from the USA team, and hits the ball into the net. 10-15, and France wins the gold.

Errors are the last thing anyone wants to make. Nevertheless, mistakes do happen; we all know that. When our mistake results in the winning point for the other team, it's not easy to accept and deal with it; at least, I never found it easy.

I couldn't stop thinking about David after that ball. How has he been feeling since then? I hope he has the right tools and assistance to handle it.

There is a feeling that I know; you tend to forget that on the other side of the net, there is a team trying to beat you. Also, after a mistake, you tend to forget that you are a team that loses and wins together. As a result, you tend to blame yourself for losing the whole game, as if you are the only one to blame for it.

I remember the times when this happened to me. My mind wandered back and forth, thinking about that moment, reliving that action (including every emotion) over and over.

What could I have done better? Why didn't I take a better option? At my level, I shouldn't have done that. Does this sound familiar? I was filling my mind constantly with these questions and affirmations.

But the truth is, dwelling on that mistake did not help at all.

So how did I learn to bounce back from a big mistake (and still learning)? Let me share what I learned to apply to get things back on track.

1. Accepted my mistake. I would begin to bounce back sooner if I accepted that I'm not perfect and everyone makes mistakes; why should it be different for me?
2. Made no excuses. When things don't go as planned, it can be easier to blame the ball, the set, the lights, or noises in the gym, even esoteric causes or bad luck. I understood that taking full responsibility for my mistake would allow me to recover sooner.
3. Recognized that I'm not the mistake I made. This step was difficult to achieve. Understanding that the error I made did not define me as a person or athlete; it didn't make me a less valuable or less worthy athlete. I was not that mistake; I made that mistake; these affirmations are two very different things.
4. Talked about it. Because I felt embarrassed and guilty, I usually isolated myself from coaches and teammates, only worsening the situation. However, I learned that talking to my mates, coaches, or family members about it eased my pain. They often said something that sheds light on what happened that I may not have seen, and their words made me feel a little better. If you need to talk with somebody, let me know, I'd love to be there for you.
5. Found a lesson from the mistake. Once I could draw a lesson from it, I could see it with different eyes as an opportunity to learn and grow, and suddenly my negative emotions started turning into more positive ones.

I'm still a work in progress, and I learn every day. As I've always said, I don't have the solution to everything; it's not my goal. However, sharing is powerful because people understand they are not alone. There are other athletes out there who have gone through that same situation or are still dealing with it.

I hope these steps can help you or a teammate today or on a day when you feel your mistake is too big to deal with.

And remember,

"There are no mistakes, only lessons."