[30-Mar-2023 23:09:30 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [30-Mar-2023 23:09:35 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [30-Mar-2023 23:10:21 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 [30-Mar-2023 23:10:25 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 [07-Apr-2023 14:46:00 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [07-Apr-2023 14:46:07 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [07-Apr-2023 14:46:54 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 [07-Apr-2023 14:47:00 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 [07-Sep-2023 08:35:46 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [07-Sep-2023 08:35:47 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function site_url() in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_constants.php on line 3 [07-Sep-2023 08:36:10 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 [07-Sep-2023 08:36:15 America/Boise] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'WP_Widget' not found in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /home3/westetf3/public_html/publishingpulse/wp-content/plugins/wp-file-upload/lib/wfu_widget.php on line 3 Personal Growth – Publishing Pulse https://www.publishingpulse.com The Heartbeat of Modern Publishing Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:51:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.24 How to Smash Your Personal Goals Using The Goal Setting Theory https://www.publishingpulse.com/goal-setting-theory-personal-goals/ Tue, 13 Mar 2018 04:33:59 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=436 If you desire to achieve anything substantial in life, you must set smart personal goals. Then, of course, you must go out and achieve them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you want Read more…

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If you desire to achieve anything substantial in life, you must set smart personal goals. Then, of course, you must go out and achieve them.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you want to do; effective and smart goal setting is essential if you want to perform your best. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to clean your house, learn a new instrument, get in better shape, or win an MMA tournament.

And no matter what your goals are, we have an incredibly powerful goal setting method for you in this article. We’re going to teach you this method as quickly and effectively as possible.

In this article we will:

  • Discuss why smart goal setting is so important for personal success.
  • Briefly teach you about Edwin Locke’s Goal Setting Theory. As you will see, this is a proven theory and method you can use to accomplish your goals.
  • Tell you exactly how to put Goal Setting Theory into practice to create and conquer any of your personal goals.

This is going to be some very powerful stuff.

Are you ready?

Why Set Personal Goals?

If you have any desire for personal achievement, smartly designed personal goals are absolute game changers!

Sure, you can cruise through life not setting clear definable goals, or by setting general goals with no time frame. You may even eventually achieve these goals. But if you do, we can guarantee that it will be much slower and less effective than if you had a real goal setting method.

So you’re competing at something, or if you’re trying to get work done significantly more efficiently, or if you’re just trying to be the best you possibly can be at something, you must set personal goals. Plain and simple!

Well laid out goals, as we will discuss, will do the following for you:

  • Significantly increase your motivation: An achievable but challenging and clearly defined goal will significantly increase your motivation to succeed.
  • Make you learn more: Simply put, when you’re challenged, you learn a lot more about what you’ve been challenged to do. This is because you are put on the spot and you’re forced to use all of the resources and mental energy you have in order to succeed. This makes all the difference in the world!
  • Keep you focused: When you set a challenging goal that you take seriously, you become much more focused on the task at hand. Many people fail to achieve goals because they make them, then they only take them semi-seriously at best. If you clearly lay out your goals, you will be able to look at the list every time you feel that you’re losing focus. The mental benefit of this is huge for many people because it helps them stay focused.
  • Make you feel more alive: Proper goal setting gives you a purpose and a reason to live your life with more vigor! The feeling of vitality because you’ve been challenged is absolutely incredible. Many people shy away from a challenge but they don’t realize exactly how fun and rewarding it is while they’re in the process of overcoming a challenge that they have the ability to overcome.
  • Dramatically improve your chance of success: If you aren’t setting goals, you aren’t 100% serious about what you’re setting out to do. Plain and simple. The combination of all of the above reasons dramatically improves your chance of success.

A Brief Background of Goal Setting Theory

Now that we’ve discussed why setting personal goals is so huge, we can now discuss Goal Setting Theory.

The Goal Setting Theory was developed by psychologist Dr. Edwin Locke in the 1960s.

Edwin Locke primarily studied human motivation. In his research, he determined that people must set very relevant, challenging goals in order to reach their maximum potential.

In fact, he noted that as long as goals were relevant, attainable, and non-conflicting with other goals, the level of challenge of the goal was positively correlated to increased task performance.

His research led him to develop Goal Setting Theory. Goal Setting Theory is perhaps the most respected theory of motivation in all of industrial psychology. In case you didn’t know, industrial psychology is the subfield of psychology focused on improving people’s output in the workplace.

So we now know that Goal Setting Theory is widely considered to be powerful and effective. But how do we set these goals using this theory and method? We’re glad you asked.

How to Use the Goal Setting Theory For Smart Goal Setting

More than just a theory, the Goal Setting Theory does an excellent job of laying the framework for smart goal setting.

According to the Goal Setting Theory, your goals must have all of the following elements amongst them:

  • Clear: Your goals must be clearly defined and easily measured.
  • Challenging: Your goals must challenge you. However, they should not be so challenging that you cannot possibly achieve them. Edwin Locke and his colleagues noted that the level of challenge of the goal was directly correlated to the achievement, as long as the goals were achievable and non-conflicting.
  • Committed: You must absolutely be committed to the goals that you are setting. No exceptions!
  • Feedback: You must be able to get feedback on your goals. You can either get feedback from an accountability partner or during your own self-reflection. For instance, once a week you can self-reflect to see what you have accomplished thus far, and how to improve as necessary.
  • Considering of Complexity: Complexity of the goal must be considered. A complex goal will require a lot of time to accomplish, and it must be accomplished properly. Therefore, it may be best to break it down into separate goals. See the next section for an example.

Get the idea? We will show you an example below.

Example of Creating Goals With the Goal Setting Theory

Here’s a recent example of using the goal setting theory to create well-made goals.

A friend of ours, John, has been writing a blog. For the last six months, he has been blogging in his spare time after working 40 hours a week.

He has seen success with his blogging and has drawn a respectable audience for a short time.

However, he hasn’t been making as much money as he would like from his blog. Last month he made $120 a month, and before that, he made $105. Unhappy with his progress, John set out to make $500 the next month.

So here’s how he laid his goals for the month, using the principles of the Goal Setting Theory.

  • Clear: John set out to make $500 in a month. This is a clearly defined goal.
  • Challenging: The goal of $500 a month was challenging, considering John’s last earning was $120. But it was not out of the realm of possibility.
  • Committed: John was 100% committed to his goal of making $500 in one month in addition to his normal monthly income.
  • Feedback: John used one of us as an accountability partner. He a lso self reflected at the end of every week to determine whether or not he was getting there on time.
  • Considering of Complexity: John laid out his goal in steps. His overall goal was to make $500 for the month. He laid out smaller goals such as getting a Patreon, getting a Paypal, finding affiliate marketers, and so forth. All of these goals added up to the #1 goal of earning $500 for the month.

So as you can see here, John used the Goal Setting Theory very well.

This set John’s mindset in the right direction immediately. John realized that he had to get on the ball if he wanted to accomplish his goal. He immediately started Paypal and Patreon accounts, which were two things he was previously procrastinating on.

He found more affiliate marketers that pushed out products that he could personally recommend.

He also drove up his traffic by posting more blog posts and by promoting on social media.

And on top of this, John started an email list so he could keep subscribers on his site for the long term. Prior to this, John never considered an email list.

So we know what you’re asking. Did John succeed?

He missed his mark — but just barely. He made $472.53 that month!

But guess what, John is $472.53 richer than he was the month before. And had he not set the goal, he would probably have only made a couple hundred at most.

The goal setting provided huge motivation. John even reported that he felt more alive and determined than he had in a long time.

And this month, John is on track to earn $1000. He aims to make $1500 next month. His six-month goal is $3000 a month.

It’s very lofty, sure, but could you imagine where he’d be if he never set these goals?

Your Final Step: Develop an Accountability Partner

Now that you’ve set the goals that you desire, you should share them with an accountability partner to maximize your results. This will significantly increase your motivation and ultimately your success if done properly.

If you liked this article, be sure to check out our article on developing an accountability partner here. This article discusses exactly how to find an accountability partner, including what traits to look for, how to find the right type of partner, and how to develop your relationship.

We very highly recommend reading it.

Conclusion

We hope you learned a lot from this article.

If you liked this article, be sure to check out our books. We have several great books on self-improvement, motivation, destroying procrastination, meditation, and so on.

Publishing Pulse is a small publishing company oriented at education, self-improvement, and entertainment. We recommend that you follow us on Twitter at @pulsepublishing.

Be sure to sign up for our email list as well for self-improvement tips, new articles and discounts and promotions on our newest books sent directly to your inbox.

The post How to Smash Your Personal Goals Using The Goal Setting Theory appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> Audiobooks vs eBooks vs Physical Books: Pros and Cons of Each https://www.publishingpulse.com/audiobooks-vs-ebooks-vs-physical-books-pros-cons/ Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:17:28 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=67 Audiobook, eBook, or regular books? What are the pros and cons of each? We’re glad you asked. Maybe you’re trying to consider what format you should get for the next book you’re buying. Or maybe Read more…

The post Audiobooks vs eBooks vs Physical Books: Pros and Cons of Each appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

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Audiobook, eBook, or regular books? What are the pros and cons of each?

We’re glad you asked.

Maybe you’re trying to consider what format you should get for the next book you’re buying. Or maybe you’re just looking for some ideas to get the most out of each format of any book.

As technology improves, we have more options than ever to consume information. This is awesome because more options mean we can determine the best method for us as individuals.

The publishing industry has seen a significant boost in sales with the release of eBooks and audiobooks. This has lead to many changes in the industry, including the revival of older books which are now profitable, and thus, accessible to readers who want them.

Audiobooks have become a booming market. People now are able to listen while they’re on the go, whether they’re commuting to work, walking through a park, or just cooking dinner. eBooks are huge as well, as people can download and store any book on their eBook reader and read from anywhere.

But not everyone is on the audiobook or eBook bandwagon. In fact, surprisingly enough to many, the most popular way to read a book is still just the regular book.

With this said, each format of book has advantages and disadvantages. And that’s normal for any new medium or format of anything introduced. Some people still prefer to write on pen and paper instead of computers or cell phones, for instance.

We are going to go into the utility of all format of books, starting with the electronic book, or eBook.

Electronic Books (eBooks)

Although printed books are still the most popular, many people prefer eBooks as their personal favorite way of reading. There are many reasons for this, as we will now discuss.

Pros of eBooks:

  • Highlighting: Highlighting is very easy with eBooks. You can easily make highlights without worrying about the integrity of the book. On most eBook readers, it’s also easy to scroll through the book to find your highlights. This is a huge plus for most non-fiction readers because a review session is essential to truly learn all of the contents of the book.
  • No Clutter: You don’t have to worry about having a massive library to store your books if you’re a huge reader. This is a huge space saver. If you move to another state or even a foreign country, this is a huge plus.
  • Portable: You can take your library anywhere you go. Everything is stored in your online account.
  • Transferrable: Popular e-reading programs such as Google Play and Amazon Kindle let you easily transfer your books between devices.
  • Easy to Store: With the Kindle and the Nook, all of your purchased eBooks are easily found on your account, which can easily transfer onto your cell phone, tablet, or eReader.
  • Note Writing: Many eReader programs allow you to write notes in the book without messing up the integrity of the book.
  • Can Retain the Book Look and Feel: This is not true of all eReaders, but the Kindle Paperwhite (aside from being an excellent eReader) largely retains the feel of reading a real book.
  • More Connected: You can connect your books to services such as Goodreads to connect to other readers easily.
  • Cheaper: eBooks are cheap to produce and distribute for authors and publishers. Therefore readers can typically purchase these books at a considerable discount from the paperback or audiobook versions.
  • More Accessible: Anyone who can write a good book and market it reasonably well can put their work out there and get paid for it. It no longer takes an author to have a large publishing deal to write a new book. This is particularly true of the eBook format, although it has become true of the paperback as well. Therefore, more quality writing can be released by writers who would have been discouraged in the past.
  • There’s a Market for Shorter Books: We’ve said it before, but we love shorter books. Good short books can give you an excellent background on an issue without getting too in-depth and with too much fluff. eBooks make it profitable to write a high-quality quick book.

Cons of eBooks

  • Not a Physical Copy: Some people just prefer a physical copy of the book they own. Some don’t feel like they’re actually reading unless they have a book in front of them. And others like the look and feel of having a massive library in their bedroom, living room, or home office. To some, having the ability for guests to look through their book collection is a plus.
  • Require Power: If your eBook reader is not charged, you aren’t reading anything on that eBook reader. This can be a big negative if the power is knocked out, or if it’s out of battery with no nearby power source.
  • DIstractions: Depending on what you’re reading with, the notifications that pop up on your device can be extremely distracting. This is especially true when you’re reading eBooks on a tablet or phone instead of a device such as a Kindle. This takes away from your focus and from the experience of reading the book, and this is why we recommend a Kindle Paperwhite (see below).

The Rundown on Electronic Books (eBooks)

Overall, if you like convenience, portability, and easy highlighting, eBooks are your best overall bet.

We generally prefer reading eBooks on a Kindle. For this, we recommend the Kindle Paperwhite because:

  • It gives you the book look and feel.
  • It stores all of your books on the device.
  • It has Wi-Fi to download books and connect online, but doesn’t distract you with popups.
  • It has an excellent battery life.
  • It removes all distractions when reading.
  • It is very reasonably priced.

Overall, the Kindle Paperwhite makes reading easy and accessible. It can be taken anywhere you go and you can easily transfer your library and highlights to any other Kindle-supported device.

Audiobooks

Like electronic books, audiobooks have revolutionized the industry for authors, publishers, and readers. Even many people who don’t like to read books turn to audiobooks to get the information they desire.

Audiobooks have made the information found in books much more accessible to everyone. As we will discuss, they have many advantages and a few disadvantages.

Pros of Audiobooks

  • Can Be Listened to Anywhere: This is huge. It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you have a device with your audiobook, such as your smartphone, with you. You can be in the mountains hiking, an airplane, in the kitchen, or anywhere else. This is huge for when you just want to finish the book you’re reading and you have other things to do.
  • No Reading Required: Naturally, audiobooks don’t require you to look at the book and actually read. This is a huge advantage because you can listen to an audiobook while you’re doing almost anything.
  • Productive: As long as you are not focused on a task that requires a lot of attention, such as driving in dangerous conditions or learning to cook a new meal for the first time, you can often “multitask” while listening to audiobooks. Tasks that are automated to your brain, such as cooking meals you know how to cook, cleaning, and driving in an area that you know well (PSA: drive safely), can all be paired with audiobook listening to effectively multitask.
  • Pairable: Amazon allows you to pair a Kindle book with an Audible audiobook. If you use Kindle on your phone or tablet and you purchased the Audible version as well, you can have the audiobook anytime time you want to stop reading and start listening. This can be extremely handy if you want to continue the book you’re reading while you have to do something else, which, again, should be something your brain has already automated.
  • Bookmarking: Although the bookmarking and highlighting method is simply not as good as an eBook or physical book, you can bookmark a 30-second clip of their book with Audible. You can also share this with a friend. This is not perfect but it’s much better than nothing.

Cons of Audiobooks

  • Highlighting is difficult: As we just mentioned, you can bookmark a section in Audible which you can go to later. This is a great feature, but it’s still not nearly as good as if you have an eBook or physical book to highlight. It’s just a lot easier to read your highlights on paper or on an eReader instead of listening to 30-second clips of them.
  • Large files: Audiobooks take up a relatively large amount of space on your device. This may not be an issue if your phone has a large SD card in it, but it certainly can when you combine it with everything else on your device. Audiobooks are typically between 50-300mb.
  • Require Power: It’s worth stating that Audiobooks naturally require a device with a power source. This can be a disadvantage if your phone battery is dying or if the power is out.
  • More Expensive: Audiobooks are more typically expensive than both the eBook and the physical edition. This is mostly because they cost more money to store and distribute than eBooks, and because of studio, labor, and voice-actor costs plus royalties.

The Rundown on Audiobooks

Audiobooks are excellent for learning and listening on the go, but they are less useful if you’re looking to read the book to take notes. However, they can be paired with an eBook version on a phone or tablet to make it easy to listen, read, and highlight the eBook as necessary. For fiction reading, you probably will be less concerned with highlighting, so this is less of a consideration.

If you like Audiobooks, we highly recommend an Audible membership. They will allow you two audiobooks for free for the first month, and the books are yours to keep even if you cancel your membership. From that point on, it’s $14.99 a month for a “free” audiobook plus a 30% discount on the next audiobook you purchase that month.

Overall, audiobooks are excellent for listening on the go, and Audible is a great deal if you listen to audiobooks frequently.

Regular Books

Ah yes, plain ol’ books.

Regular books are not going away anytime soon. Readers, in general, still prefer regular books over eBooks and audiobooks. And frankly, it’s not even close.  This may change in the future, but it’s the trend right now.

So with that said, what are the pros and cons of regular books? We’re glad you asked.

Pros of Physical Books

  • No Power Needed. If the power is out or if your phone or eReader is dead, you can still read your book.
  • “That New Book Feel”: Regular books give you that classic book feel. Some people just prefer the look and feel of a new book over reading one on their Kindle.
  • You Own a Physical Copy: Many people just prefer to feel like they own the book, and they feel that they don’t actually own the book on an eReader or cell-phone.
  • No Changes Can be Made: One cannot change the words in a book. This means that there’s no chance of censorship. While censorship has not been an issue with books, it has become an issue with other online mediums such as YouTube, Facebook and Google. There’s always a chance this can spread to books in the future, so hard copies are good for this reason.
  • You Can Build a Physical Library: Some people want to actually own a library in their home. They look classy and they like that people can come over, borrow, comment on their library, and so forth.
  • Easily Borrowed: If you want to lend a book to a friend, it is easily done with a physical book.
  • Distractions Can Be Eliminated: Regular books take away distractions if you allow them. You can take a book out to the park, for instance, and leave your cell phone at home. Reading in nature without any distractions is awesome.

Cons of Physical Books

  • You Can’t Read in the Dark: Not without a reading light, at least. Some readers like the atmosphere of a dark room with a good book, and many just find it easier to do with an eReader instead.
  • Space: If you’re a regular reader, your books end up taking up a lot of space in your home.
  • More Expensive: Most books are incredibly cheap compared to other things you can buy. However, when you compare the prices of different types of books, regular books are more expensive than eBooks. This can be a much bigger problem for large hardcover textbooks students need for school.
  • Highlighting: Some people don’t like to highlight in their books because they feel like it damages the integrity of the book. Without highlighting or at least having a note system, you really aren’t getting the most out of a book. Although some people don’t care, this can be a big downside for many readers.

The Rundown on Regular Books

Physical books are great for those who want a physical copy for various reasons. They still remain the most popular method of reading, despite the increasing popularity of eBooks and audiobooks.

Conclusion

We hope this article helped you look at the pros and cons of regular books, eBooks, and audiobooks in another light. Perhaps you learned something new, or you thought of a new way to use one of these mediums to your advantage.

Or maybe not. Maybe you think our articles are useless.

Probably not though, we think they’re pretty good.

Anyway, if you liked this article, be sure to check out our awesome offerings. We primarily focus on self-improvement and nonfiction but we also offer fantasy and romance fiction.

Also be sure to subscribe to our email list to for awesome self-improvement tips delivered directly to your email, plus discounts and promotions on our new books. 

The post Audiobooks vs eBooks vs Physical Books: Pros and Cons of Each appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> The One Underrated and Powerful Method to Reduce Stress Now https://www.publishingpulse.com/underrated-powerful-method-reduce-stress/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 19:01:00 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=342 If you could learn a simple, powerful way to reduce stress on a daily basis, would you do it? Of course the vast majority of us would. It’s normal to have a degree of stress Read more…

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If you could learn a simple, powerful way to reduce stress on a daily basis, would you do it?

Of course the vast majority of us would.

It’s normal to have a degree of stress every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s from our jobs, our kids, our friends, our significant other, or from any other source.

Since stress is normal, it’s important to know how to manage it. When stress starts getting uncomfortable and hard to control, it really, really sucks! It starts triggering a host of uncomfortable symptoms in your body, such as shakiness, nervousness, heart palpitations, or even a full-grown panic attack.

As you may already know, high stress levels are bad for your health. Excessive stress is linked to heart disease, diabetes, depression, stroke, inflammatory conditions, and a lot more. This is one of many reasons you want to have some methods for stress relief.

Since it’s so important to know how to reduce stress, we’re going to teach you one of the most powerful methods to do so. In addition to the powerful method we are going to teach you, we’re also going to give you some additional stress reduction tips to fit into your lifestyle. Plus, we will give you further reading if you’re interested in learning a lot more.

Let’s begin!

We Are Often Our Own Worst Enemies With Stress

Unfortunately, we often are our own worst enemies when it comes to stress. Many of us, for instance, have self-defeating thoughts that make our stressful situations much worse.

No matter what we don’t like about ourselves — whether it’s our performance at something, our appearance, our perceived flaws, or anything else; our negative thoughts about ourselves become our worst enemy.

If you find yourself constantly attacking yourself as your worst critic, rest assured, you are not alone! Unfortunately, this is extremely common.

If this is you, there is a book you will love called Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance by Jason Jacobsmith.

This book will teach you some basic meditation techniques, and it will teach you how to become more mindful and self-compassionate to reduce stress on a daily basis. It clears up many misconceptions about meditation and teaches you exactly why meditation is excellent at clearing your mind and reducing stress. Even if you have never meditated before, or if you have any hangups about this subject, this book will teach you what you need to know in clear, easily understood terms.

But of course, we have some great tips here for you to read as well. This article will expand on many concepts you can find in Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance to help you reduce your stressful thoughts forever.

Specifically, we will now discuss the power of reframing negative thoughts. This is easily one of the most powerful and underrated techniques to reduce stress!

Reduce Stress by Changing Your Mindset and Reframing Your Thoughts

Your mindset is the key to how you see the world. It’s almost like an operating system for a computer, except it’s for your brain. Your brain and nervous system control your body, so your mindset is the essentially the key to where your body goes and what you do with it.

Now, to illustrate the point we’re about to make, let us give you a quick psychology and anatomy lesson.

Anytime you have a stressful thought, your brain triggers a hormonal response through your sympathetic nervous system. This triggers catecholamines (stress hormones) to be released from your adrenal glands, which are on top of and connected to both of your kidneys.

You most likely have heard of cortisol, the primary catecholamine (or stress hormone). And you undoubtedly have heard of adrenaline. When these two hormones are released, they increase your blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and blood flow to your muscles, they slow your digestion, as well as a host of other responses.

If that’s more anatomy than you want to learn right now, then just know that your brain directly releases stress hormones when you have stressful thoughts.

These stress hormones make you ready for a “fight or flight” response, but when they are released in excessive amounts, they are extremely uncomfortable and bad for your physical and mental health.

You can shut a lot of this process off by avoiding stressful thoughts as much as possible. And believe it or not, yes, you can train yourself to do this.

We will now teach you how to do this.

A Powerful Method to Reduce Stress by Reframing Negative Events

In the book Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance, Jason Jacobsmith discusses the importance of reframing thoughts to significantly reduce stress. This is an extremely useful, powerful, and underrated technique that many people have never thought of.

Now, to do this properly, it is a several step process that takes some awareness, repetition, and practice.

But once you do it, if you keep at it by making it a habit, you’ll be amazed how powerful this is at relieving stress.

This is a several step process. Are you ready?

  1. First, you must notice the labels you stick on your experiences.
  2. Then you must challenge the unhelpful judgments and assumptions we make about yourself and your perception of reality. These, combined with the labels you put on your negative experiences, are your trigger thoughts.
  3. Then you must redirect the excessive focus you put on negative events and reword them into positive terms. This is known as reframing.

Are you following us so far?

We’ll give you two examples to make this clearer.

The First Example:

Again, the first step is to be aware of our trigger thoughts that start the process of negative thinking.

For instance, all of us have worked with someone we don’t like. In this case, the trigger thought might be “I really hate working with him/her.” This causes a mindset of anger and annoyance, along with a release of stress hormones.

Here’s what you must do in this situation.

  1. Identify the label you create when you think of this person. In this case, you associate your thoughts with this person to that of hatred –  “I really hate working with him/her”. This is bound to cause stress! Here’s your trigger thought.
  2. Next, challenge the unhelpful assumptions that you make. Do you really hate this person? Can you learn something from working with them? Is there something you can do to make the relationship better?
  3. Now, replace this trigger thought with something much more helpful such as “I may not enjoy working with this person, but I can bear it. I have done this many times before and I can do it again.” This is your reframe.

Do you see the difference already?

You must practice this! Write this down if necessary, and say it to yourself every time you have the initial negative trigger thought.

We’re not saying that you can totally remove your dislike for this person just by reframing your thoughts, and we’re not saying that every negative experience will automatically become a positive. We are saying, however, that you can turn many negative thoughts into neutral or positive thoughts and learning experiences.

And this mindset makes a huge difference in your view of the world as well as how it affects your daily stress.

Now, let’s go through another example.

The Second Example:

Trigger thought: I’m going to get fired from my job if I can’t do this.

Reframe: This is a stressful task, but how likely is that to happen? I have a valuable set of skills and it would be very inconvenient for them to fire me. The boss likes me and will probably forgive me if I make a mistake.

A lot of people think that just because they can’t get something done perfectly, or if they make a mistake, they’re going to get fired. Many play up this fear to an astronomical level, yet the threat never happens. Even if they do get fired, they find a new job within a month. The stress of the threat is more dangerous than the actual event!

Now, if you find yourself in a situation like this, ask yourself this: what are the chances of getting fired? We’re not saying that it’s impossible, but it’s not nearly as high as you think in most cases.

Would it make sense for your boss to fire you? Would it be convenient for them?

And if you got fired tomorrow, what would you do? You probably live in a first-world country that would take care of you, if necessary, while you looked for a new job. You have skills to offer to the world (you have to in order to have a job!), and you would be able to find another job in a reasonable amount of time.

Thinking this out should be very helpful and comforting. If you reframe your thoughts in this direction, it will dramatically reduce the stress you undergo when you face this type of adversity.

How to Practice This Technique

The classic technique is to create a two-column chart in a pocket notebook. Any time you have a negative (triggering) thought, write it down on the left column. Then, write down a reframed, positive thought in the right column for that trigger thought.

This makes it easy to identify a negative trigger thought with some time. Every time you have this thought, you can look at your chart to remind yourself of the proper reframe.

Over time, this becomes a very positive habit. After a short while you won’t need to have your chart with you all the time, but it’s great to keep around as a reference regardless.

Practice this for anywhere between a week to a few months and see if it helps you.

Assorted Tips To Reduce Stress:

Now, just because we like you and we want you to be as stress free as possible, let’s give you a few other stress reduction tips:

  • Exercise bare minimum three days a week. Anything from a daily walk to a dance class to heavy weight lifting; all of these are excellent at reducing stress.
  • Eat a clean diet. Reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Eat fruits and vegetables. Have low glycemic carbohydrates. Eat adequate protein. Protein keeps you full and spares your muscles from breaking down.
  • Make sure your diet has enough Omega 3 fatty acids. This is crucial and is a totally overlooked problem with the modern diet. The research is very clear about this issue.
  • Make sure you are getting enough Magnesium in your diet. Magnesium deficiency is directly linked to high stress levels. Since magnesium, like all electrolytes, had to come from the body to enter the bloodstream, blood levels of magnesium can be normal but your cell levels can be low.
  • Meditate. We’ve said it enough, we know, but pick up a copy of Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance to learn some basic meditation techniques very quickly. Meditation is excellent at making you more mindful and thoughtful, and thus it helps dramatically relieve stres.
  • Control your finances and get out of debt. An excellent book on this is Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is being sold for dirt cheap at the moment.
  • Have an emergency fund in case things go wrong. What’s better, going on an expensive vacation and buying the newest IPhone, or having enough money saved up that you can handle a job loss for several months? This can be huge for reducing your stress levels.
  • Become more productive and learn how to destroy your procrastination habits. Action is the opposite of depression.

All of these are crucial lifestyle tips that will help you dramatically reduce stress.

Please note that no health-related information here is a replacement for informed medical advice. If you have any concerns, be sure to see your doctor before you begin any type of exercise or supplementation.

Conclusion:

If you take nothing else from this article, just remember that reframing your negative thoughts can have a serious effect on providing stress relief.

Again, if you liked this article, there’s much more on meditation and how to reduce stress in Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance. There is a lot of excellent information on meditation, mindset, and stress reduction. If you read through the book and apply the techniques within, you can expect to reduce your stress significantly.

We can’t promise you’ll never have stress ever again (organisms literally die when there’s never any stress!) but if you can reframe and eliminate your ruminating thoughts, we can promise some significant stress relief.

That’s all, everyone. Hopefully, this article helped you think in the right direction to reduce your daily stress! If you enjoyed this article, be sure to follow us on Twitter, and sign up for our email list for a lot more incredibly helpful self-improvement tips, as well as discounts and promotions on all of our books!

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]]> Why You Should Read Daily To Accelerate Your Personal Growth https://www.publishingpulse.com/read-daily-accelerate-personal-growth/ Sun, 04 Feb 2018 17:53:29 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=303 We should all strive for self improvement and personal growth every day of our lives. If you’re reading this article, you may be asking yourself why exactly reading is so beneficial to your personal growth, Read more…

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We should all strive for self improvement and personal growth every day of our lives.

If you’re reading this article, you may be asking yourself why exactly reading is so beneficial to your personal growth, or your life in general.

If you’re not asking yourself that, that’s fine. We’re going to tell you anyway — and we’re going to make you understand some facts about reading that will help you look at it in a different light.

And just because we’re that great, we’re going to give you a useful resource on making your non-fiction, goal-oriented reading at least twice as efficient at the end of this article.

Please note that throughout this article, we will be primarily discussing non-fiction reading for self improvement, as opposed to fiction reading for entertainment.

Now, let’s begin.

Why Should Reading Be A Part of Your Routine?

Frankly, if you’re concerned with your personal growth and self improvement, there are many things you can do.

You can:

  • Write in a daily journal.
  • Get in shape.
  • Learn a martial art.
  • Learn meditation.
  • Learn a valuable subject such as world history or geography.
  • Travel to a distant location.
  • And probably thousands of other things.

All of these are worthwhile ways to spend your time and expand your personal development.

But if you’re concerned with your personal development — whether you want to build a business, travel the world, learn a new skill, or just enhance your knowledge for your own boredom or self-interest; reading must be a part of your routine!

Reading is a classic way of learning that will never go out of style. No matter what type of reading it is; books, ebooks, magazines, online articles, or anything else, reading materials are cheaper to mass produce than ever, and thus are the most economical way for someone to get inside the head of an expert on their respective subjective.

It seems these days that almost every renowned expert or even semi-famous celebrity has a book, whether they wrote it themselves or it was ghost-written with their guidance.

There’s a reason for this. Not only does it grant them perceived authority and credibility as an expert, but it’s a classic and easy medium for spreading their ideas. And, of course, they also make money.

If you’re a big fan of someone, you’ll probably read their book. Among many other reasons, this is often because reading their writing gives you a solid perspective of how their mind works.

For instance, if you want to know how a successful investor looks at the world, you’d probably want to read a book such as Rich Dad Poor Dad. By doing this, you’re delving outside of your world to see the world from the viewpoint of the rich, and thus, you’ll be taught crucial techniques on money management that you likely never thought of before you read the book.

Even if you read just an average of 30-60 minutes a day, if you read enough articles and books over a long course of time, you’ll get a ton of viewpoints on the world that will provide you a ton of knowledge you wouldn’t have obtained otherwise. This bodes handsomely for your personal growth and success, especially if you choose to use that knowledge to take yourself further in your life.

And look, despite the fact that people generally prefer to watch Youtube these days, the power of the written word has not changed. Authors know that they’re literally telling you what to think for the duration of your time reading their books. That’s power for the author; and for a reader who wants to hear the author’s message, that’s incredibly powerful as well.

So why else should you become an avid reader? We’ll give you five more reasons.

Five More Reasons Why Reading is Great for Self Improvement and Personal Growth

1. Reading is the cheapest and easiest way to get in-depth knowledge from an expert on their given subject.

While experts might sell seminars or charge you expensive hourly rates for their personal time, what they deliver in book form is exponentially cheaper than anything. Reading allows you to access an expert’s mind for dirt cheap.

2. Reading is an inexpensive, productive past time in general.

It is way cheaper to be an avid reader than an avid hunter, car collector, or anything else. Not that we have anything against vacations, but a “staycation” with a great book can be very relaxing and mind opening. For best results, take a staycation to somewhere local, peaceful, and beautiful, then bust out the reading!

3. Reading is among the highest ROI (Return on Investment) activities for personal growth.

Again, due to the inexpensiveness and insight you acquire from reading, reading is one of the best ROIs activities you can do. Just make sure you follow up reading with action (which we will discuss soon).

4. Most books are loaded with the information you need to get started on or dramatically improve your knowledge in a given subject

You really don’t need to go to an expensive class or seminar. If you want to start a business or a side gig, reading a book and then putting the principles into action is a lot cheaper and often more effective than going to school for it. It depends on the subject, of course, but you can read about the majority of subjects, then put the practices into action and become very well versed over a course of time.

5. Reading makes you a better communicator.

If you have any interest in enhancing your communication skills for any reason, whether it’s through writing or speaking, reading a lot will make your communication skills much better. Reading will teach you how to tell a story, how to persuade, how to educate, and a lot more.

We think these are all great reasons to read for personal growth. Have we convinced you yet?

How Reading is Changing

Now, let’s mention something interesting and important to note. Although reading will never go away, the way we’re reading is changing.

As we all know, e-books are becoming much more popular, even if they are not taking over entirely. At Publishing Pulse, we love Kindles because they are excellent at just giving you the book to read with no distractions. It’s totally different reading on a Kindle versus a cell phone or tablet because the latter options will distract you anytime a message comes up from a friend or just one of your 5000 installed apps. Distractions make you dramatically less productive!

But many people still have a hard time putting down their distractions. And because everything is constantly trying to grab our attention, it’s a lot harder to sit down and read an entire 200+ page book for most people than it used to be.

Fortunately, there’s a market for this. You can get an excellent introduction to a subject with a book that doesn’t take you more than an hour to read. If you truly like the subject, then you can dive in much deeper with another book.

For example, if you’re wanting a quick but still detailed dive in meditation, you would want to pick up a copy of Self Compassion and Mindfulness For Healing and Acceptance to learn some basic meditation theory, techniques, and to reduce your daily stress. The chances are very high that you’ll love the book, get a ton of value out of it, and want to learn even more about meditation. But if you realized you had no interest in it, you only spent $2.99 and an hour of your life, and still probably learned something useful anyway!

If you’re interested in a quick tutorial on eliminating your procrastination habits, you would want to pick up a copy of The Sexiest Book On Smashing Procrastination You’ll Ever Read (we know the title is funny).

Although detail can be very useful, you often don’t need to spend a ton of time researching certain subjects. Often times you just need a few great ideas, and you just need to act on them. Procrastination is one of those subjects, and thus it’s generally wiser to read an informative but shorter book to get to the important information quickly— otherwise, you might just procrastinate some more.

Anyway, perhaps we ranted a bit there. If you want to read longer books, there’s no shame in it whatsoever. We believe that longer books and shorter books both have their places. The point is that the industry is changing, and that means more options for you as a reader.

And of course, we’re a business — so we wanted to slyly plug some of our shorter self-development books that we are very confident will help you!

Let’s Not Pat Ourselves On the Back Too Soon….

Let’s make one final point that we were hitting at. If you want to accelerate your personal growth, you cannot just read.

As we love to say here at Publishing Pulse, if you are reading a nonfiction book for self improvement, you must apply the information that you are reading into your life as much as possible.

While we say it’s better to be a bookworm than someone who never takes any time to read or do any real activity towards self improvement and personal growth, it’s even better to be a doer than only a reader.

Remember, information comes first. Action comes second. If you’re reading for self improvement, you absolutely must act on what you’ve read to put it into use.

If you want to learn about how to get the most out of your reading, make sure you read How to Dramatically Improve Your Efficiency Reading Any Nonfiction Book (In Under 5 Minutes). There are some excellent tips in that article that will help you ensure that you’re getting the most out of your non-fiction reading for personal growth. As we said at the beginning of this article, this article will at least double the amount you’re getting out of your reading if you aren’t reading efficiently.

Conclusion

Read daily to accelerate your personal growth. Then act on that knowledge.

It’s a simple habit and it’s extremely powerful.

Whether you are an avid reader or just one who reads as a hobby, reading will make you a much more well rounded, more intelligent, more successful, more complete person.

If you enjoyed this article, sign up for our email list to get all of our new ones delivered directly to your email address. You will also be alerted to any special promotions, discounts, and new releases on our excellent lineup of books, and if for some reason you don’t find our information helpful, you can unsubscribe at any time. You can also follow us on Twitter for much more commentary and advice on reading and self improvement.

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