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It’s incredibly important to have a healthy brain.

As you know, your brain controls virtually everything you do. It controls stress, emotion, memory, reflexes, heart rate, breathing, muscle contractions, feelings, and a lot more.

Since the brain is responsible for so much, one must keep it in great health.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young and active, middle-aged and sick for the first real time, or if you’re 80 years old and aging gracefully. Brain health matters!

In this article, we’re going to give you 12 powerful tips for a healthy brain. You can use all of these tips immediately.

All of this advice will enhance your brain health within a few days to a few months! We know it’s a little cliche, but some of these tips will very likely surprise you.

Before we start, just one note of caution. None of the information here is a replacement for well-informed medical advice. Do your research here and elsewhere, then if you are going to do anything dramatic to improve your brain health, speak with your doctor first.

Now, let’s begin.

1) Intermittent Fasting Improves Brain Health

If you haven’t heard of intermittent fasting before, let us educate you.

Intermittent fasting is an eating style where you go through periods of fasting followed by periods of eating. Some people use Intermittent fasting specifically to lose weight, and others eat this way year round.

A very popular method is to eat 8 hours in a day and then fast for 16 hours, but you can do this however you like. Some people will go longer, shorter, or do something like fast two days a week.

Intermittent fasting doesn’t necessarily help you lose weight faster, because weight loss ultimately comes down to calories eaten versus calories burned. But for many people, it is a more tolerable way to lose weight. Some people just find it easier to fast and eat all at once than to eat smaller meals throughout the day, especially once they get adjusted to it.

Intermittent fasting has some well-documented health benefits. Not only does intermittent fasting slow down aging and release high amounts of HGH, but it has been shown to have a powerful anti-oxidant effect on the body. This is in stark contrast to the inflammatory state one is in after they eat meals with many processed carbohydrates.

Intermittent fasting puts the body in a non-inflammatory state. It also puts the body in a state of “autophagy,” which cleans the cells and helps with brain function. Fasting has also been shown to reduce seizures in children, and it has been shown to repair cell damage and even the body’s DNA!

As we mentioned, we cannot substitute well informed medical advice. If you have any questions about fasting, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions, make sure you speak with your doctor. This is especially true with intermittent fasting since it is likely very different from how you normally eat.

For more information on Intermittent fasting, see this video. If you are athletically minded, check out LeanGains. You don’t have to be nearly as muscular as he is to get some excellent advice from his website.

2) Maintain Normal Cholesterol Levels

That’s right, cholesterol is important. Unfortunately, it gets a very, very bad rep.

New evidence is out that reasonable cholesterol levels are healthy for the brain.

Approximately 25% of your body’s cholesterol is in your brain. This is largely because your brain needs cholesterol to maintain myelin sheaths, which are wrapped around many of your brain cells. Myelin sheaths are required for quick neurotransmission, which means that cholesterol is needed to make the sheaths to make the billions of neurons in your brain fire properly.

We know that this may be something entirely different from what you’re used to hearing. So read the evidence.

In one study, elderly people with high LDL cholesterol (which has traditionally been considered “bad”) had the lowest risk of dementia. And in another, healthy middle-aged women with higher cholesterol levels were shown to have better brain function.

This is why memory loss is a common side effect of statins. This is very well documented; no doctor disputes this side effects of statins!

Perhaps the most revealing study on this issue was done by the University of South Florida that revealed an analysis of 68000 60+ year-olds revealed that those with low LDL cholesterol lived as long, if not longer than their peers.

We understand if this is new and hard to believe, but remember, the “official” word used to be that fat was bad, carbs were good, corn was great, and so forth. Do your own research with a Google search if you don’t believe the data we showed you.

So look: the best thing you can do is stay in good shape, eat a healthy diet with plenty of antioxidants, and seriously cut back on processed sugar. And either eat a lot of green vegetables or take your Vitamin K2 to make sure your body’s calcium is properly absorbed and not in the bloodstream (but talk to your doctor first, especially if you take blood thinners!).

These tips will keep your body and your brain healthier than anything!

3) Read More For a Healthy Brain!

Reading is great for your brain.

And yeah, you happen to be on a publishing company’s website. How convenient is that?

It doesn’t really matter what kind of reading you do. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, reading is awesome for your brain.

Reading stimulates your creativity and imagination, teaches you important new knowledge, and creates many new connections in the neurons within your brain. This process is essential for a healthy brain.

So not only is reading important for general intelligence and open-mindedness, it may be able to help delay or prevent dementia and keep your brain sharp into old age.

Speaking of reading, it’s time for a shameless plug here, so definitely be sure to check out our books. We have many excellent fiction and nonfiction books to enhance your knowledge and stimulate your imagination.

4) Meditate

Meditation is a very powerful way to improve your brain health. As you may know, it has a ton of other benefits as well.

Meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, slow aging, improve immunity, improve life satisfaction, and improve cardiac and general health.

Is it any wonder why meditation is so popular? You can get these types of benefits even with a few minutes of meditation each day.

If you’re interested in learning basic mediation skills and daily stress relief, be sure to check out Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance. It’s a quick and informative read that will get you started very quickly on this incredible habit.

And for some help with self-guided meditation, check out this video on 6 Phase Guided Meditation by Vishen Lakhiani.

5) Express Gratitude Daily

This may sound odd to some people, but it works.

Every morning, write three things down that you’re grateful for. You can repeat what you’re grateful for from time to time, but you should generally write about new things.

You can be grateful for anything, such as your eyesight, health, relationships, and positive things that have happened to you the day before.

If you do this every morning, it becomes much more difficult to be unhappy in your life. Do this every day for at least several weeks, and see how it makes you feel.

Grateful people are happier people. Gratitude reduces negativity and makes you value what you already have in life, as opposed to what you think you should have.

Not that there’s anything wrong with hard work, of course. Just make sure you value what you have already. It will reduce your stress, make you feel uplifted, improve your brain health, and put your life into better perspective.

This is an incredibly simple step that can do a lot of positive things for your brain health, no matter what age you are.

6) Listen to, or Better Yet, Play Music

Music is very, very powerful for maintaining a healthy brain. In fact, playing music activates every part of your brain. No other activity does this.

Additionally, those who play musical instruments are much more likely to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. They have also been shown to recover from strokes much better than those who aren’t musically talented.

Playing music also stimulates your creativity, reduces depression, helps you sleep better, enhances your coordination, increases your memory, keeps you more in touch with your emotions, and a lot more.

If you don’t play music, listening is still good. It’s just that playing is much better because it is hands-on and requires much more of your brain to perform.

You probably have heard about the Mozart effect, which induces a short-term improvement on tasks while listening to classical music. This effect is very real. Therefore it’s very helpful to listen to some classical music while you work or study.

Another popular type of music when doing work or studying is binaural beats. It may sound weird at first, but listen to these when you have a good set of headphones and you’re working on a project!

7) Exercise Is Essential For A Healthy Brain and Body

Exercise isn’t just great for your body, it’s great for your brain as well.

Exercise opens up the blood flow in your body and to your brain. It repairs old brain cells and it helps new ones grow.

Both anaerobic (lifting) and aerobic (running, bicycling) exercise also help reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, and improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin release is pro-inflammatory, which is very bad for the brain and is linked to almost every type of mental illness. Insulin also releases a lot of glucose into the brain all at once, which causes sugar fluctuations that are not good for the brain either.

And of course, exercise makes you feel and look good. These effects alone can significantly reduce your daily stress and make you feel much better about yourself.

So what kind of exercise should you do? Again, anaerobic and aerobic are both great at achieving all of these goals. Anaerobic exercise is important for building muscle mass and strength, which is important at any age. Aerobic is great for heart health, endurance, and proper blood flow.

Ideally, you want to get some of both to maximize the health benefits you get from exercise.

Be sure to talk to your doctor if you have any concerns about an exercise program.

8) A Proper Diet Is Essential for Brain Health

Like pretty much everything we’ve mentioned, a healthy diet is essential for a healthy body and for a healthy brain.

Here are general guidelines for a brain healthy diet:

  • Eat More Antioxidants: Antioxidants reduce inflammation and thus free radicals in your body. This reduces your cancer risk and improves your brain health. Again, inflammation is linked to all sorts of mental health disorders. Antioxidants include almost every type of fruit and vegetable, plus tea and supplements such as Vitamin C and E.
  • Eat Omega 3’s: Omega 3’s, particularly the DHA and EPA found in Fish OIl, are excellent for your brain. Fish oil has been shown to improve memory and reduce depression. It’s also great for your eyes, joints, and a lot more. Try to get at least several grams of EPA and DHA from fish every day. You may want to take even more if you’re concerned about your Omega 3:6 balance.
  • Cut out the vegetable oils: We know, you’ve probably been told that vegetable oils are healthy for you. But they are not. They are highly refined, loaded with pro-inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids, and are thus bad for your brain health. Replace them with oils such as regular butter, ghee, avocado, and coconut oil.
  • Eat eggs. Forget what your mother told you about eggs, cholesterol, and saturated fat. A reasonable cholesterol level is essential to keep your brain healthy. Your brain stores 25% of the cholesterol in your body. Low cholesterol is very bad for your brain health. Read our section on cholesterol for more.
  • Eat less refined carbs and sugar: Refined carbs and sugar produce a large insulin response, which causes inflammation. Carbohydrates do this in general, but refined carbohydrates are the worst offenders. Moderation is fine but cut down on refined carbohydrates as much as possible.
  • Drink tea or coffee. Caffeine is healthy for the brain in moderation. If you drink tea, go for yerba mate tea to reduce the harmful fluoride content. If you drink coffee, use a French Press to make better tasting coffee that reduces your exposure to xenoestrogens such as BPA.
  • Eat enough protein: Not only does protein build your muscles, but it’s also the most filling macronutrient (macronutrients are carbs, fat, and protein) by far. The best sources of protein are animal protein, dairy, fish, and eggs. Other types of protein, such as from grains and nuts are incomplete, meaning they don’t have all of the amino acids required to do their job. You can have some incomplete protein in your diet, but focus on complete protein. Avoid soy protein because it will mess with your hormone levels.
  • Eat less processed foods: The amount of garbage in processed foods is insane. They are loaded with Omega 6 Fatty acids, refined carbs, soy, and other unhealthy nonsense you do not want in your body. They are pro-inflammatory and have very negative effects on your brain health. Cook and prepare your meals as much as possible to avoid these foods.

Following all of these diet tips will lead to a healthy body and a healthy brain.

9) Manage Your Stress

Stress relief is a huge part of having a healthy brain.

There are many ways to relieve stress. Many of these we have repeated before. You can:

  • Write autobiographically. Write about your past, present, or future self. Try Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring program.
  • Breathe deep: When you feel stressed, take a large deep breath through your nose and out through your mouth. Repeat 10-15 times. This slows down your breathing and thus your response to stress.
  • Keep great friendships: You should keep a network of positive people who can help you when you need it. See section 11.
  • Exercise: Exercise is incredible for stress relief. See section 7
  • Listen to relaxing music: The right type of music will calm you down. Try listening to music such as this.
  • Meditate: Meditation is absolutely huge for stress relief. See section 4
  • Express daily gratitude: Mention three things that you’re grateful for each morning. See section 5

Your brain will thank you for managing your stress. Stress releases hormones called catecholamines, which cause inflammation. As we’ve said, chronic inflammation is terrible for brain health and is linked to virtually every mental disorders.

One last note here: you must be able to manage stress, not avoid it. You need to have some stress over important things, such as your health and relationships when things go wrong. You shouldn’t be so stressed that you do not take care of yourself and your relationships.

The key is not to manage your stress levels and not stress over things you cannot control. Proper stress management is a key contributor to a very healthy brain!

10) Get Enough Sleep

Did you know that after less than 7 hours of sleep, blood flow to your brain starts to decrease?

And did you know that in the early 1900s, people averaged between 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night? Yet in 2011, the average amount of sleep each night dropped to six hours!

The effects this has on society’s health cannot be understated!

Sleep is essential to:

  • Reduce stress and anxiety: Your body is in a stressed-out state when you don’t get enough sleep. This is poor
  • Reduce cravings: Cravings get worse when you don’t sleep. Thus, those who sleep less eat more.
  • Maintain memory and attention: As you know, if you don’t sleep, your memory gets worse and it’s harder to focus.
  • Promote general health: Sleep repairs the body and gets it ready for another day. Chronic sleep deprivation causes many mental and physical health problems.
  • Maintain a healthy sex drive: This is true for men and women. Even acute sleep deprivation has been shown to drop men’s testosterone levels significantly. And who doesn’t want a healthy sex drive?
  • Maintain skin health: Have you ever noticed how your skin looks worse when you don’t sleep? Your skin needs rest in order to get proper blood flow.
  • Maintain a healthy weight: When you don’t sleep well, it’s harder to control your bad habits. And thus, you tend to lose control of your cravings, eat more, and gain weight.

So make sure you’re sleeping at least 7-8 hours a night as much as possible. We understand that this is not always possible with a busy schedule. However, almost all of us have bad sleep habits that can be improved with just a little bit of effort and willpower.

Make sure your room is a comfortable temperature, your sheets are comfortable, you don’t let others wake you up, and you don’t put on so many blankets that you wake up sweating in the middle of the night. Also, try not to drink too much water before you go to bed so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night to pee. This is a common mistake.

Any disruption to your sleep can throw off your REM cycles and end up in sub-optimal brain health. While sometimes this is inevitable, you want to avoid these disruptions as much as possible.

11) Maintain Positive Relationships

Maintain a healthy brain by maintaining positive relationships.

People’s energy levels are contagious. Or toxic, depending on who they are.

You should stay around positive people as much as possible. Ditch the negative relationships in your life and focus on developing positive ones. Only spend time with people who have good things going on for them.

If you are a goal-oriented person, then develop a relationship with an accountability partner. These types of relationships are incredibly productive and will keep your brain very healthy. Your partner will give you positive peer pressure to expand your mindset to achieve your goals.

It may be hard to avoid negativity if it’s a close family member, but you can do as much to help them as much as possible. You can start by linking them to this article!

Positive attitudes are contagious. It sounds like something you learned in elementary school, we know. But it’s true; stressful people tend to make you feel stressed if you let them. So spend your time with positive people and ditch negative relationships as much as possible.

12) Take Brain Healthy Supplements

Before you take any supplements, remember that diet and exercise are the most important. After you’ve addressed those two, there are some very effective supplements you can take for a healthy brain. And make sure you speak with your doctor before you take any supplement that you are unsure of.

Here are some of the best brain health supplements:

  • Circumin: Reduces Inflammation and has been shown to promote healthy aging. This is good for the body and good for the brain. Many users also report that it helps with chronic pain.
  • Fish OIl: Excellent for all-around health and absolutely essential for brain health. Your brain is comprised of Omega 3 fatty acids, which the Western diet is heavily deficient is. You need to take Fish OIl if you don’t eat fish at least a few times a week!
  • Krill OIl: Krill Oil is said to be more potent than Fish oil, and it has a very powerful antioxidant known as astaxanthin as well. Krill oil has more DHA than EPA, 
  • Vitamin B Complex: B vitamins are very important for proper nervous system and brain health. A large number of Americans are B vitamin deficient. VItamins B6, B9 (folic acid), and B12 are known as the most important for brain health. They work together to prevent mental decline such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Magnesium: Approximately half of the US population is deficient in magnesium! Magnesium is used for over 300+ chemical reactions in the body and is very important to make you feel more relaxed and calm. Make sure you get magnesium citrate because it is the best absorbing form of magnesium by far.
  • Creatine: Although creatine is known to be used by athletes for athletic performance, it is also used for brain health as well. Creatine is the most studied supplement on earth and is widely considered to be safe and incredibly effective. While it might be too much to use Creatine by itself for brain health, you may want to take it for athletic performance and recovery, then enjoy the nootropic benefits of it as a helpful side effect.
  • Nootropics: Nootropics are heavily sought after by those who seek to “hack” the brain. A good nootropic can increase your focus, attention, and mental energy naturally. There are many nootropics out there to choose from, including a popular one known as Clarity.
  • Vitamin D: Vitamin D is absolutely essential for brain health and general health. It is essential for hormone production, proper mood, and prostate cancer prevention. Low Vitamin D levels result in poor cognitive function and are extremely common in Western society. Optimal Vitamin D levels appear to be in the 50-60 nmol/L range. It’s very cheap and easy to get your Vitamin D levels checked by your doctor to know the dose you should take. If you’re Vitamin D deficient, supplementing with this should bring you up to the proper level within a few months. Make sure you’re taking your Vitamin D with some Vitamin K2, but make sure you speak with your doctor if you’re taking any kind of blood thinner before taking Vitamin K2.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of great advice in this post for a healthy brain. In a nutshell, you should have gathered that keeping your body healthy generally gives you a healthy brain as well.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young and trying to get in great shape, or if you’re older and you just want to stay sharp until the day you die. It’s very important to take this advice seriously to have a healthy brain.

If you found this article useful, be sure to follow us on Twitter. And subscribe to our email list for more health tips, self-improvement advice, and new promotions and discounts on our books. And of course, be sure to check out our books.

The post 12 Powerful Tips For A Very Healthy Brain appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> 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.

]]> Why An Accountability Partner Is Crucial to Achieve Your Goals https://www.publishingpulse.com/accountability-partner-personal-accountability-goals/ Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:37:26 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=439 Your accountability partner may very well your best asset in your quest for success. Why do we say this? Because a good accountability partner (or accountability buddy, take your pick) holds you true to your Read more…

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Your accountability partner may very well your best asset in your quest for success.

Why do we say this? Because a good accountability partner (or accountability buddy, take your pick) holds you true to your word.

They share your struggle and can give you solid input on where you’re at with your goals. They significantly increase your personal accountability and help destroy your bad procrastination habits.

We’ve discussed accountability partners before, and now we’re going to discuss them again. Accountability partners are an incredible help to increase your personal accountability. Thus, they help you tremendously with goal setting and achievement.

Goal setting is absolutely essential to achieve your goals, and an accountability partner becomes the person you never want to let down. Believe us when we say you feel a lot worse if you have to tell someone else that you couldn’t achieve your goals instead of only yourself!

Now, before we start in detail: if you haven’t yet read our article on Goal Setting Theory, you should. We highly recommend it unless you have a lot of experience setting goals and you already have your goals set out. This article is essentially part two of a series on setting goals.

How Accountability Partners Help You Maximize Your Personal Accountability and Destroy Your Goals

The reasoning for developing a relationship with an accountability partner is simple. They will dramatically improve your motivation toward accomplishing your goals.

According to the world-renowned Goal Setting Theory, an important factor of goal setting is that you must have clear feedback on your goals. This is one of the five essential elements of setting proper goals, according to the famous psychologist Edwin Locke.

An accountability partner gives you clear feedback on your goals and thus increases your personal accountability.

So how do you go about finding an accountability partner, and what traits should they have? Let’s discuss.

The Required Traits of an Accountability Partner

When you’re looking for a good accountability partner, they should be the following:

  1. A go-getter. Someone who is very industrious and goal oriented.
  2. Ideally, someone in the same field as you or who is trying to accomplish a similar goal. If you’re trying to succeed at a sport, they should ideally be doing the same sport. If you are trying to become a successful blogger, they should be a blogger as well.
  3. Selfless enough that they legitimately want to see you succeed.
  4. Someone who cares about their own personal success.
  5. Somebody who will hold you accountable if you don’t reach your own goals. “Tough love” is the buzz phrase. At the very least, they shouldn’t just brush things off if you weren’t able to accomplish what you set out to do and should offer suggestions for improvement.
  6. Somebody who is available enough that you can talk to them relatively frequently. This depends on the relationship you two want to develop, but on average, several times a week works best for most people. If you rarely talk to each other, it’s very difficult to for them to help you develop your personal accountability.
  7. Someone who has seen at least some success with what they’re doing. Don’t become accountability buddies with people who don’t seem like they’re going to go anywhere.
  8. Someone that you personally get along with. There’s no sense in developing a relationship with someone you don’t click with very well.

You want them to have as many of these traits as possible.

So in short, you just need to find someone who is goal-oriented, available, ideally in the same field, caring about your success, and someone who you get along with well personally.

Other traits of the relationship can be encouraged. For instance, you may have to encourage them to hold you accountable if you fail. Even if they don’t have these at first, traits like this can often be developed over the course of the relationship.

Where to Find Your Accountability Partner

There are two primary ways to find your partner: through your social circle and online. We will discuss both methods.

1) Your Social Circle

Generally, it is best if your accountability partner is already a friend of yours or in your social circle somehow. This is because in most cases, you already know them well and you can make face-to-face contact with them.

Pick a friend who meets the above criteria as much as possible, and who you can talk to as much as you think is necessary. For most people, this will be several times a week.

Some of your friends will not be good accountability partners, and that’s fine. If they don’t have the traits listed above, don’t pick them as a partner. Some friends are simply better for hanging out with than trying to help you increase your personal accountability.

So pick your company wisely. As they say, you’re the average of the five people you hang out with the most!

If you can’t figure out anyone who can do this in your social circle, you can look online instead.

2) Online

You can absolutely find an accountability partner online.

This is doable when you are achieving goals that can be measured and shared either online or on the phone. Since your partner is probably not going to meet you in person, it is crucially important that you are open and honest with them.

You can start your search by publicly posting on Facebook, Twitter, or a message board on a site about your interest (such as blogging, bodybuilding, overcoming stress, etc).

State that you’re looking for an accountability partner, and state what your criteria are. Mention your goals and why you want a partner to help achieve them. In fact, you should link them to this article so they know what you’re looking for.

Depending on how many people are interested, it’s likely that you’ll get a handful of “applicants.” Go through the list of applicants to see what kind of person you think is best to be your accountability buddy. You can even interview them.

Then, figure out how you’re going to contact them. Ideally, you should give them your number and talk to them on the phone to touch base with them.

Most life goals can be shared by someone online. This might be a little worse for certain athletic goals. You may want to share pictures or videos as proof of your accomplishments or talk on video chat through a program such as WhatsApp or Viber.

Overall, finding an accountability buddy online is a great alternative if you have nobody in your social circle willing or able to help you.

The Next Step: Lay Out Your Goals

After you’ve touched base with your accountability partner and made the criteria clear, you must both lay out your goals.

Go over your goals for the time period. We generally encourage monthly goals as a good start. They can be broken down into weekly goals as well.

Then listen to their goals. Provide input on how they can best achieve their goals based on your own experience. Encourage them to set challenging, measurable, and attainable goals, and help them as much as needed.

If you’re both looking to accomplish a goal in the same field, then help them with what you know about the subject. In most cases, the closer you two work together, the better.

The most important thing is that by the end of this, you both have set challenging, attainable, measurable goals and you have a clear idea of what each other’s goals are.

Develop and Maintain Your Relationship

After you’ve laid out your goals with your accountability partner, you have to actively develop and maintain your relationship.

Any relationship based on personal accountability requires commitment, honesty, and good communication. You must make sure that these elements are a strong part of your relationship.

You must also add value to the relationship. Add whatever knowledge you can to what they’re doing.

It doesn’t matter if the knowledge is related to the subject you’re setting goals on, or if it’s related to motivation and goal setting, or something else. Just make sure you’re legitimately adding value. You should be able to clearly state what they are getting out of the relationship.

A good accountability partner will discuss your goals with you at the end of the goal period. You should always have this conversation! At the end of your goal period, you should discuss:

  • What goals you achieved.
  • Which goals you haven’t achieved, if any.
  • What you learned from the process.
  • How you could do better in the future, and possibly set even more challenging goals.
  • What goals you plan on setting for the next period.
  • Anything else the accountability partner wants to discuss about their own goals.

If you do this, you and your accountability partner will have an excellent relationship.

As a final note, we will say this: if something isn’t working out, such as your accountability partner just isn’t responsive or helpful, then politely end the relationship and look for someone else.

There’s absolutely no shame in this. You want to make sure you’re spending your time and energy on the right people.

But if not, feel free to enjoy the relationship and continue to achieve your wildest dreams!

Conclusion

Seriously, everyone, we cannot say enough about the importance of accountability partners. As we’ve said plenty of times, they dramatically enhance your personal accountability and help you achieve your goals.

So get out there and find your accountability buddy. Let this article be your guide. Be sure to bookmark it and refer to it as many times as necessary. And if you think you know someone who you should send it to, make sure you share it with them!

PS: If you found this article helpful, you’ll love our email list. We will send you actionable self-improvement tips, plus discounts and promotions on all of our newest books directly to your email.

Also, follow us on Twitter at @PulsePublishing for a lot more self-improvement tips designed to enhance your life.

And finally, be sure to check out our books here. We have many titles you will love on topics such as meditation, procrastination, copywriting, and more.

The post Why An Accountability Partner Is Crucial to Achieve Your Goals 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…

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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.

]]> Short Books vs Long Books: The Pros and Cons of Each https://www.publishingpulse.com/short-books-vs-long-books-important-pros-cons/ Mon, 05 Mar 2018 20:09:57 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=395 Short books versus long books, what are the pros and cons to each? We’re glad you asked. Perhaps you’re looking for a new book to read and you’re trying to determine what length it should Read more…

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Short books versus long books, what are the pros and cons to each?

We’re glad you asked.

Perhaps you’re looking for a new book to read and you’re trying to determine what length it should be. Or maybe you’re trying to decipher what the advantages are of reading a short book versus a long book in general.

We can certainly tell you that there pros and cons of each. We’re going to briefly discuss these with you. Some of these pros and cons will likely make you look at books in a different light.

For the purpose of this article, we will refer to short books as anything less than 100 pages, and long books as anything more than this.

Now, let’s begin.

Short Books

Especially since the release of e-readers such as the Kindle, short books sales have become a larger chunk of the market.

We see this as a very good thing because it gives the customer more opportunity to find exactly what they’re looking for. More accessibility for customers generally results in more satisfaction.

There are many advantages of shorter books that you likely haven’t considered. We will go through them in detail, along with some of the cons.

Pros of Short Books

  • Easier to Finish: Yeah, we know this is obvious, but it’s worth stating. It’s easy to finish a short book. The overwhelming majority of readers do not finish the books that they purchase. There are simply too many distractions out there.
  • Easier to Reread: We believe that this is one of the most underrated advantages of shorter books. It is much easier to review all of the information in a short nonfiction book. This can be extremely beneficial to the reader. If you are reading a nonfiction book, you almost always have to go back to have a method to review the information to get everything out of it. It’s simply easier to do with a short book.
  • Cheaper: This should be obvious. Short books are cheaper because there’s less information and they don’t take as long to write. Therefore, you can get a good introduction or a good in-depth viewpoint on a particular subject for a cheap price.
  • Excellent Introduction to a subject: Short books give you the ability to test the waters of any subject before you truly dive into it. You can read a short book on Meditation, for instance, before you decide to purchase a full book or to take a meditation class. You’ll learn much sooner whether or not you like the subject, as well.
  • Niche Information: Shorter books often cover niche information that may not need a full book. For instance, How To Make Money With Twitter, How to Market Kindle books, etc. This is not always the case, as you can often find full-fledged manuals for a lot of niche information. But this often is true.
  • Talented, Lesser Known Authors: Short books are often written by talented part-time authors that don’t have big publishing deals. This means that anyone can write a book with less barrier to entry, and of course, anyone can read it.
  • To the Point: Short books often have less fluff than a long book. Therefore, they have to get to the point quicker to teach you about the subject they discuss.

Cons of Short Books

  • Less Depth: Short books, in general, give you less depth into a subject. This is generally true unless they are written about a very specific niche topic that requires previous knowledge of the subject discussed. Since there’s obviously fewer pages in the book, there’s generally less room to go in as deep and branch the information out.
  • More Amateur (at times): Since shorter books are sometimes written by less experienced authors, sometimes the books just aren’t as good. However, you can easily avoid this by reading reviews before you make your purchase.
  • Possibly No Physical Copy: If you’re a reader who loves to have physical copies of your books, you’ll find that shorter books aren’t sold in physical format. This is not always true, but it is more likely with shorter books instead of longer books.

Long Books

As you can see, we really think short books are great. So now that we’ve discussed short books, we can draw up a comparison between short and long books.

Long books have one major advantage: depth. Despite the fact that short books can be pretty great, a solid in-depth long book on the information makes a good long book worth the read. And in the case of fantasy or fiction, a long book can truly immerse you in the world.

Pros of Longer Books

  • More Depth: As we’ve mentioned, the biggest benefit of longer books is that they can go into more depth into the story or the subject. This reason alone is often the best reason to buy a longer book if it is well-written and isn’t made longer with fluff. And if you’re reading a fiction book, the depth can truly immerse you in the story.
  • More Likely To Be Written by a Big Name: Most renowned experts don’t write very short books. Almost every famous figure or author (or ghost writer) usually writes a bare minimum of 150 pages. This certainly doesn’t mean that experts don’t write shorter books, but this is almost always true about any bigger author or celebrity.

Cons of Longer Books

  • Much More to Review: As we’ve said, you should go back and review the information in non-fiction books. This is because you simply cannot learn something just by reading it once. You must read, make the information yours, put the information into practice, and re-read it again as necessary. Long books have a ton of information in them, so they take much more time to review. This often discourages readers from going back and reviewing the content in the first place.
  • Fluff: Many long books are loaded with a lot of fluff. Even some of our favorite books are guilty of doing this. You often find this complaint made in many book reviews. Fluff may help the book’s message stick a little better, but frankly, it isn’t necessary overall.
  • More Expensive: This is obvious. Longer books are more expensive because they have more information and take more time to write. Books are cheap in general so this is all relative.
  • Harder to Finish: This, we believe, is a significant disadvantage. We live in a time where everything is constantly competing for your attention. Most people can hardly sit down for a few minutes without getting distracted. Thus, it is naturally more difficult to finish a longer book.

Conclusion

You would think from the list of pros versus cons in this article that short books are simply better than longer books.

As many advantages as short books have, this is certainly not always the case. A great book is a great book. So really, whether a long or short term book is better depends on the book itself, but there are certain advantages to both.

That said, we generally prefer short books, unless a longer book can keep up with the quality throughout the entire book. There are simply many advantages to shorter books, as we listed above. But we certainly don’t discriminate; a great book is a great book!

Anyway, this is all we have to say about this subject. We hope you enjoyed this article. If so, be sure to subscribe to our email list to get many awesome self-improvement tips, plus discounts and promotions on our new books. And be sure to check out our books, we’re sure you’ll love what we have to offer.

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]]> 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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]]> The Painful Reason You Must Overcome Chronic Procrastination (And How) https://www.publishingpulse.com/painful-reason-overcome-chronic-procrastination/ Thu, 18 Jan 2018 23:41:15 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=274 We’re going to go out on a limb here. You’re probably reading this article because you’re concerned about your chronic procrastination habits. And hopefully, you’re also here because you want to do something about it. Read more…

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We’re going to go out on a limb here. You’re probably reading this article because you’re concerned about your chronic procrastination habits.

And hopefully, you’re also here because you want to do something about it.

Let us tell you now — severe, chronic procrastination is a serious issue. As serious as it is, however, you are far from alone in experiencing it.

But despite its commonality, severe procrastination has a dramatic effect on our physical health, mental health, finances, and our self-esteem. It’s a habit that has a serious snowball effect on our lives.

The less you aim for achievement and the more you procrastinate on your goals, the more this reality will set in for you. Unfortunately, it adds up in often subtle ways that you don’t realize until you’ve changed your habits.

If you procrastinate on going to the gym or starting a new diet, it will negatively affect your health. If you procrastinate on finding a new job, it will affect your finances. If you procrastinate on telling someone close to you something that’s on your mind, it will affect your mental health.

Plus, chronic, severe procrastination will seriously damage your self-esteem. When you procrastinate all the time, you simply don’t feel good about yourself. This has a serious effect on your mental health and your self-image and will spill over to virtually every aspect of your life!

Additionally, if you are a severe procrastinator, you are less likely to take initiative and start new projects. You’re more likely to be overweight and unhealthy. You’re more likely to suffer from some degree of depression. And you’re more likely to have negative relationships with others.

Have we scared you enough yet? If this sounds like you, you need to take action immediately!

The first step is to educate yourself on how to stop procrastinating. The second step is to act upon it.

Our article, Three Actionable Tips to Stop Procrastination Now! will give you three actionable tips on how to stop procrastination that you can start now. And if you like that article, our book, The Sexiest Book On Smashing Procrastination You’ll Ever Read is loaded with tips on how to stop procrastination forever. You will agree that if you’re a chronic procrastinator, this is indeed the sexiest book you’ll ever read!

The book is very inexpensive and gives you a whole list of procrastination destroying tips that you can start immediately. And of course, you can use the book as a reference forever any time you need to revisit it. We highly recommend you pick up a copy. It’s incredibly useful and dirt cheap!

With that said, let’s talk about the easiest way to reduce procrastination for most people.

The Easiest Way to Reduce Procrastination and Significantly Improve Your Productivity and Mental Health

You must start by asking yourself exactly what your goals are. They can be one-day goals, one-week goals, one-month goals, or even longer if you want.

So first, figure out what you want to do, then ask yourself a reasonable timeframe to do it.

If you want to slim down, for instance, commit to eat fewer calories and go to the gym at least four days a week. With basic research, you know that approximately 1lb a week of weight loss is considered healthy for your average person, so you can start with that when setting your time frame.

Next, ask yourself how you will accomplish it in a reasonable manner. Figure out how you can split the tasks required into digestible steps that you can do every day. Make it a measurable goal that you can easily determine when it’s done.

With the gym example, let’s say you want to lose ten pounds in three months. You promise yourself to go to the gym four days a week, and you will measure your weight in the beginning, then several times a week until three months are over. You keep track of your progress until you reach the goal you intend.

If you’re procrastinating on a huge project, ask yourself how long it should reasonably take to complete. Break it into digestible pieces and commit to work on it the first thing every morning (another time may work best for you, but most people find that forcing themselves to do what they don’t want to do the first thing in the morning is the best!). If you think it will take two weeks to complete, then divide the project accordingly and work on it in divided segments every day.

Or maybe you want to clean your entire house, one room at a time until everything is spotless. Or perhaps you just want to read that book you said you’d get around to, or make that important phone call you said you’d make. All of these goals are easily measurable and you can set a reasonable time frame on them.

A word of caution: make sure your goals are realistic and healthy. If your goals are fitness or weight loss related, make sure you have spoken to a weight loss expert and/or have done your appropriate research first. Do not attempt to do anything unhealthy just to reach a number that you arbitrarily set.

Once you’ve done the above, the next step is just to get to work!

And if you want to really kick yourself in the butt, commit to a goal publicly. Tell your friends and family exactly what you’re going to accomplish. Psychologically, you’ll be significantly more motivated to accomplish your goals because you put your skin in the game!

We have talked about the importance of accountability buddies in the past. Whether you know them in person or you meet them online, they need to hold you accountable for your goals. See tip #2 in this article for a lot of information on how to find an accountability buddy. The right accountability buddy will be a very powerful motivational tool.

You must have goals, and you must commit to them. When you are inspired and dedicated to your goals, procrastination tends to go down dramatically.

It might not disappear entirely because even the goals you are most passionate about often have tasks within them that you do not like to do. But with this in mind, having goals you are passionate about will seriously help you escape the procrastination cycle.

You’ll see that when you set goals, it starts to have a serious improvement on your mental health, self-esteem, and your overall well being! Productivity towards worthwhile goals is an incredible feeling, especially when you’re used to the exact opposite!

Conclusion

We will conclude with one final thought.

We know this is a touchy subject for some people, but we’re going to talk about it anyway. Antidepressant use in the United States is skyrocketing. We’re not saying that these drugs do not have legitimate uses, but do we all honestly believe that approximately one-sixth of the United States population should be on anti-depressants?

It takes more effort to smash bad habits, eliminate procrastination, and work on your physical and mental health, but it’s infinitely more rewarding.

Destroying your procrastination habits is an essential first step to feel better about yourself and your life as a whole. Many people report that they feel dramatically better every day after they’ve improved their procrastination habits. Procrastination has a huge effect on your life!

Want More Information?

If you found this article useful, make sure you read our article Three Actionable Tips to Stop Procrastination Now!

And if you like the tips in these two articles (there’s a great chance you will), check out The Sexiest Book on Smashing Procrastination You’ll Ever Read. It has many actionable tips that will help you stop procrastination immediately. It’s an excellent resource that will give you real-world steps to jump-start your life and productivity, and it’s dirt cheap!

You owe it to yourself to accelerate your life, improve your daily well-being, and stop procrastination forever. Give it a shot. Read the book and apply just a few of the tips within, and we guarantee your life will dramatically change for the better.

Good luck!

PS: Be sure to subscribe to our email list as well! We will alert you when our newest books are out, we’ll alert you to discounts and promotions, and we will send you all sorts of useful self-improvement tips to jump-start your life. We do not spam you, and if for some reason you don’t our emails, you are free to unsubscribe at any time.

The post The Painful Reason You Must Overcome Chronic Procrastination (And How) appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> Three Actionable Tips to Stop Procrastinating Now! https://www.publishingpulse.com/tips-stop-procrastinating-now/ Tue, 26 Dec 2017 22:49:06 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=237 Are you here because you finally wanted to learn how to stop procrastinating? We hope so. In fact, you’re probably here because that important deadline is looming over your shoulder. If you’re like most people Read more…

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Are you here because you finally wanted to learn how to stop procrastinating?

We hope so. In fact, you’re probably here because that important deadline is looming over your shoulder.

If you’re like most people who have to do a task you don’t want to do, you will probably procrastinate on it somehow.

This means you’re probably going to push it near its deadline before it gets done. It’s probably going to weigh on your mind, even if subtlely until you finish it.

You may not be consciously thinking about the task that needs to be done, but it still tends to weigh on your mind regardless. Often times you try to mentally suppress it when you know you should do it.

Perhaps every time you say you’ll do it but end up pushing it back, you do something unproductive instead and feel guilty about it. Does that sound about right?

Whether that’s your style or not, procrastination hurts you in some form or another. It’s a problem that can get us in huge trouble.

Procrastination hurts us at work if we procrastinate on an important email, meeting, or phone call. It hurts us at school if we delay studying for an exam and cram for it instead. It hurts us in our daily lives if we put back things that are absolutely necessary that end up causing us unneeded stress and anxiety.

So just imagine how great it would feel if you just got whatever you need to do out of the way — right now!

If you’re reading this article, you have at least shown that you want to stop procrastinating. That’s a critical first step — and fortunately for you, we’re here to give you the kick in the butt you need.

In this article, we will give you the advice you need to stop procrastinating for good. However, it’s up to you to follow through and deliver the results!

The Definition of Procrastination

Before we talk about how to eliminate procrastination, we must first ask: what does it mean to procrastinate?

Merriam-Webster defines procrastination as “to put off intentionally and habitually” — that seems simple enough.

This means that the definition of a procrastinator is one who procrastinates. Again, nothing complicated about that.

All of us have procrastinated at some point in our lives, so by definition, we have all been procrastinators at some point. However, there’s a difference between an occasional procrastinator and a chronic procrastinator, and anything in between.

Being an occasional procrastinator can be a nuisance, especially as you get older and become hopefully more focused on achievement, but being a chronic procrastinator is a terrible affliction to have.

Why Procrastinating is A Terrible Habit

There’s no shame in having procrastinated in the past, but it’s a big problem if we chronically procrastinate on important tasks. Chronic procrastination leads to stagnation, a lack of achievement, low self-esteem, poor health, and even an earlier death!

So as you can see, being a chronic procrastinator is not a good thing. It may seem funny, it may be a common joke, but if you want to accomplish anything in the real world, you must smash your procrastination habits!

Procrastination also causes us to be late, inefficient, stressed, and a lot more. The negative effects of procrastination add up to the point where, in most cases, we honestly aren’t aware of what they are until we actually stop procrastinating.

In fact, some people are such bad procrastinators that they push something off to the final deadline, only to decide at the last minute that they are not going to do it after all. They often justify it by telling themselves it was not an important task in the first place. No matter how they justify it, this type of behavior is very negative.

Has that ever happened to you? The mental stress of procrastinating on a task, followed by never actually doing it is a ridiculous thing to go through. It’s silly to go through the unnecessary mental stress even when you actually end up doing the task.

None of this is necessary and can be avoided with some education and some follow-up action. This is why we have some excellent tips below on how to stop procrastinating.

Now, let’s get started!

Three Highly Actionable Tips on How to Stop Procrastinating Now

Please note that the following methods are easy with a little practice, but they require a strong degree of commitment. You cannot just read about them; you have to do them, and you have to commit them to your actions and lifestyle.

In other words: read about them, do them, then make them a habit immediately. After you’ve tried them for a little while, you’re free to modify them as necessary to see what works for you.

You’ll find that once you do commit to doing these things correctly, they become second nature and will benefit your life immensely.

Without further ado, here are some of our favorite ways to stop procrastinating.

1. Increase Your Commitment and Urgency

There’s no way around it: you have to see a task as urgent, important, or essential to your life in order to truly prioritize it. If you don’t see it as important, you need to kick yourself in the butt (figuratively, but if literally works too, then go for it!) to get yourself started.

Urgency causes you to do things that you would not do otherwise to achieve your goals. A task can either be legitimately urgent, or you can trick your brain into doing making it urgent.

One way to “trick” yourself into making something urgent is to create public pressure on the goal you wish to accomplish. Tell your closest friends or family members that you will accomplish a task by a certain time. Tell them to question you about it during the process, and to grill you even more if you don’t achieve it.

Benjamin Franklin was known for making major press releases on tasks that he had not accomplished yet in order to increase his urgency, and thus his productivity, and it worked! While we don’t necessarily recommend going that far, you can do something similar by following this method, and/or the one below!

2. Develop a Relationship With an Accountability Buddy

This is related to the last tip in many ways.

An “accountability buddy” will personally keep you accountable for your goals on whatever you’re working on.

Ideally, you and your accountability buddy will have many of the same goals, but this is not absolutely necessary. You can either know them in person or online — but either way, you want to at least make voice contact with them at least once a week. More contact is generally better if they are a good accountability buddy.

If you know any good friends who are responsible and meet many of the criteria below, try to make them your accountability buddy.

If you can’t think of any good real-life friends to be accountability buddies with, then you should meet one online.

A good way to meet an accountability buddy online is to find them on a forum on a topic to whatever your goal is. For instance, if you are looking to start a new blog, Google “blogging message boards,” find one you like, and post a topic on it explaining your goals and mention that you want to develop a relationship with someone who will hold you accountable for your goals. Mention that you will do the same for them, and explain the benefits of it if necessary.

Then find a list of people who respond and “interview” them. Once you’ve touched base with them and decided on a few good candidates, you should call them on the phone or via an app. Develop a personal relationship with them and arrange to talk with them at least once a week via apps like Skype or Whatsapp, on the phone, or in person.

It’s very important that you have at least voice contact with them and that they’re not just an online person behind a screen. The human element is essential.

When you’re looking for your accountability buddy, here’s what you should look for:

  • Someone who personally cares about their own success.
  • Someone that has aspirations for the future and has a plan to achieve their goals.
  • Someone who isn’t too nice and will hold your feet to the fire a bit if you fail to accomplish your goals. Think “tough love.”
  • Someone who legitimately wants you to do well.
  • Someone that you personally get along with.
  • Someone who is available to talk to, and can be spoken to at least once a week.
  • Someone who provides value to your relationship and can receive value from you.
  • Someone who will motivate you to stop procrastinating on your goals.

It sounds like a lot, but you can find them. There are many who will be interested in your success if you can convince them that you are interested in theirs.

You can share a lot with an accountability buddy. They often are going through many of the same struggles you are. Again, they don’t necessarily have to be going for the same goals as you, but it’s generally ideal if they’re doing something similar.

Using the blog example again, if you’re developing a new blog, it’s useful for your accountability buddy to be a blogger too, because your goals and struggles will likely be similar. You could also share your blogging advice while keeping each other accountable.

They may be further along than you are, or vice versa. But regardless of who is more knowledgeable or accomplished, it’s important that you both add value to the relationship.

You may have insight into what they’re doing based off of prior experience with other tasks, or vice versa. Figure out how you can help them and make sure that they are helping you and keeping you honest with your goals.

Even if you have little advice to provide based off of their goals, if you legitimately provide value to them by keeping them accountable for their actions, and vice versa, you’re providing enough value for most people to want to maintain the relationship and prosper together.

Overall, accountability buddies are a powerful way to help you stop procrastinating. Do not underestimate how useful they can be!

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you may procrastinate doing this as well. The best advice is to just go and do it right now! Think of who in your life would be a great accountability buddy, and if you know nobody, then meet one online with the advice above.

If you develop a relationship like this, you can really surprise yourself with what you can get done!

3. To Stop Procrastinating, Develop a DAILY To-Do List

This is a very simple but important method that must be done properly to be effective.

Either the night before, or immediately when you wake up, use a notepad or any note-taking app to make a brief to-do list for the day. Update your to-do list as the day goes on, crossing off everything that you’ve done already.

Evernote is a free app that will store and organize your notes between two devices (it’s $34.99 a year for the “Plus” plan, which will allow you to have everything stored on as many devices as you desire). You can use any note-taking app as long as you make it a habit to use it every day, but Evernote is our personal favorite due to its low price and ability to share between devices.

The “daily” part of the to-do list is very important because you want to set goals that you can achieve every day. If you have a goal that takes more than one day, break it down into multiple steps.

The keys to this method are:

  • Make it a DAILY to-do list. You can make a weekly list as well, but focus on daily first.
  • Make SURE your list is somewhere you WILL see it multiple times a day. The front page of your cell phone is a great place to put your to-do list.
  • Check off everything that you do when it’s done.
  • Set realistic goals you can accomplish in one day. Break a large goal into pieces if it will take more than one day.
  • If you couldn’t accomplish everything, push off no more than one task a day to the next day. If you do this, make it a high priority task for the next day so it doesn’t linger on your to-do list and get pushed off daily.
  • Include at least one thing you don’t want to do every day (this is very important). Try to do this goal early in the day so you can get it out of the way.

There are many, many variations you can make with your to-do list, but these are the keys for it to work for most people.

You’ll notice that we mentioned that you want to include one task that you don’t want to do each day. Put it on the top of your list to do early in the day, if possible. If it’s a large task, break it into multiple pieces.

Because you’re doing one task you don’t want to do every day, you’re not overwhelming yourself with tasks you don’t want to do all at once. This makes motivation a lot easier, and it really adds up by the end of the week.

If you take this list seriously, this is a very effective way to stop procrastinating!

Another common method is to include at least one easy, one moderate, and one difficult or unwanted task per day. The moderate or “difficult” task could be something as simple as cleaning your apartment if you tend to procrastinate on that. Try to get the hardest stuff out of the way early and the rest of your day will be smooth sailing in comparison.

You can also make an Anti To-Do list, which has been shown to be very helpful psychologically to procrastinators! For more on this method, read our book, which we explain in more detail below.

If you haven’t tried the simple daily to-do list, then you definitely need to try it. It’s simple and effective, and if you follow the keys above and take it seriously, it works.

Want More Tips?

If you found this information helpful, there’s much more to be found in our book The Sexiest Book on Procrastination You’ll Ever Read.

We know the title is funny, but we guarantee that if you want to stop procrastinating, you’ll agree that it is a very sexy book.

It’s a brief read, loaded with a ton of useful information, and it’s only $2.99 for the e-book version!

The tips above are only some of the methods you can learn from that book. You will very likely find something else in this book that will work even better for you.

$2.99 is absolutely nothing to smash your procrastination habits, so why not get started right now?

Think of that $2.99 as the price of invaluable information that will give you the habits you need to make thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of more dollars throughout the course of your life, and eliminate stress.

$2.99 is nothing compared to the incredible value you’ll gain from the productivity you’ll acquire reading The Sexiest Book on Smashing Procrastination You’ll Ever Read, and by applying the principles within.

Conclusion

Whether you purchase the book or not, we hope that this article was a big help to you.

Procrastination is a terrible habit that absolutely must be eliminated. The advice that you found in this article and in our book, if used correctly, is absolutely invaluable information that will help you destroy your procrastination habits forever!

Good luck, procrastinator, and get to work!

The post Three Actionable Tips to Stop Procrastinating Now! appeared first on Publishing Pulse.

]]> How to Dramatically Improve Your Efficiency Reading Any Nonfiction Book (in Under Five Minutes) https://www.publishingpulse.com/how-to-dramatically-improve-your-efficiency-reading-any-nonfiction-book-in-under-five-minutes/ Wed, 22 Nov 2017 22:24:02 +0000 https://www.publishingpulse.com/?p=63 In the last article, we mentioned that most readers aren’t getting the most out of their nonfiction reading. This is because, as discussed in the article, most readers don’t have the best reading habits. If Read more…

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In the last article, we mentioned that most readers aren’t getting the most out of their nonfiction reading. This is because, as discussed in the article, most readers don’t have the best reading habits.

If this is you (and it probably is), we can change this right now.

The information contained in this short article will help you dramatically improve your time efficiency, as well as the quality and quantity of information you get from any self-improvement oriented nonfiction book.

The benefits of this easy-to-use method are outstanding: you’ll be able to save a lot of time, retain a lot more useful information, and be able to greater utilize that information in your life.

If you make this method a habit right now, it will improve your life forever. That sounds like a lot of utility out of one short article, right?

Absolutely. But remember, we like to focus on quality information over quantity.

If you put in the time and effort to apply the information in this article, you will see results from this process very quickly — guaranteed.

Two Examples

The following process can be used in any self-improvement oriented nonfiction book.

Let’s say you’re interested in designing an online business around your lifestyle. You would probably want to read a book such as The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris.

If you were interested in a primer on learning meditation and reducing stress, Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance by Jason Jacobsmith would be ideal for you.

No matter what subject or what book you read, you have to get the most out of it. You want to maximize your use of the information within to improve your life the best way possible.

The Reading and Highlighting Process

With any nonfiction book, you have to be an active learner and reader. Here are the first two steps of this process:

  1. Read through the book as you normally would with no distractions. Take time to comprehend and understand the information.
  2. Highlight the most important information. With any phrase, sentence, or concept that seems important, you must have a way to mark it.

As pretty much everyone knows, the most common strategy is to highlight any parts of the book that you want to come back to.

You want to color-code when you highlight. You can color-code by one of at least two ways:

  • Order of importance. For instance, yellow may be least important but still noteworthy, orange may be of medium importance, and pink may be the most important concepts in the book.
  • Meaning. For example, if you use blue, maybe it’s to dedicate highlighting sections for a book review, or because you’re highlighting important terminology or vocabulary.

You can also do both methods together if you would like.

If you are reading a physical book, you want to use a cheap pack of good multi-colored highlighters.

Some people prefer not to highlight because they don’t want to mark the book. This is up to you; but remember, if you don’t highlight, you still need to have a method of marking the book’s most important concepts.

If you are using an e-reader, especially a Kindle or most reading apps on your smartphone, highlighting is an easy-to-use function of the app. You can easily change or remove any highlights later. You can skim through the book (the Kindle app has a skim option) and look for your highlighted sections very quickly.

Many people prefer to use colored post-it tabs to mark important pages. These are very effective because they’re color-coded, inexpensive, removable, and don’t clutter the book. You can color-code the same way you would with highlighters as well. You may want to mix it color-coded tabs with on-page highlights.

If you are listening to an Audiobook using Audible, use the bookmark feature in the app to mark the section you desire to come back to later. Under the bookmarks section of the app, you can review a 30-second clip of where you bookmarked, or you can directly go back to the bookmarked section. You can also send 30-second clips of the bookmarked section to friends if you like.

You can also write down any important lessons if you wish. Some people prefer to do this by writing important pages down, or by writing out the most important content in their own words.

If you’re a book reviewer, the process of writing a book review makes you comprehend the information within much better. Sometimes people write reviews on books just to have a greater understanding of the book.

No matter what method you use to mark important concepts, you must do something. Relying strictly on memory will not be nearly as effective!

The Learning Method

Once you figure out your method of highlighting the most important points, do the following:

  • When you identify a lesson is important, you must assign its importance in your own mind. Do this by:
    • Restating the lesson in your own words.
    • Visualizing yourself using the lesson.
    • Actually applying the lesson by putting the information into practice.
  • Review and repeat as necessary. Spaced repetition helps you consolidate and solidify the information that you learned.

You can come back at any interval you want. If the information you wish to review is very important, you should come back to the book anyway to review the information you highlighted.

The more you utilize the information from the book, the less you’ll have to review it. The actual use of the book’s material means you will have internalized the information you’re using. Regardless, you’ll always want it as an available reference down the road.

An Example of the Technique

Again, if you’re interested in the subject of meditation and stress relief, you’d want to grab a copy of Self Compassion and Mindfulness for Healing and Acceptance by Jason Jacobsmith on Amazon for $2.99.

Toward the end of this book, there is a table about reframing negative thoughts into positive thoughts. In this section, Mr. Jacobsmith mentions the exercise must be carried out by the reader in order to truly be effective.

The contents of the chart are below:

 

Trigger Thought: I can stand him/her/this.

Reframe: Wow, this is really aggravating, but I’m patient enough to bear it. No matter what, it’ll be over soon.

Trigger Thought: I sounded so stupid/I seemed so stupid right now.

Reframe: If these people are worth hanging around with, they’d never judge me for my awkward moments.

Trigger Thought: Why did this have to happen?

Reframe: So it goes.

Trigger Thought: (thoughts of horrible future event/accident death)

Reframe: How likely is that to happen? Worse-case scenario, even if it that did happen, how big of a deal would it actually be? If it is a big deal, I’m still strong enough to get through it.

 

If you were very interested this material, you would want to mark the chart in a color that indicates high importance to you. Afterwards, go through the chart and:

  • State the differences between the trigger thoughts and the reframes. Verbalize the difference between the negative and the positively framed thoughts. Ask yourself how and why this information would help you.
  • Visualize yourself using the reframes in various situations that provoke negative thoughts.
  • Commit to the information. Apply the information to your own life by practicing positive thoughts every time a negative situation comes up.
  • Talk about the method as if you were teaching it to someone else. Better yet, actually teach it to someone! Teaching a subject makes you learn the subject more thoroughly!
  • Come back to the section again down the road, especially if you feel like you haven’t been utilizing the information as well as you could have. Remember that it should be highlighted a color of priority. You want to have a method to remember this; so it’s probably best to put it on a to-do list.

And that’s it! You have to be an active, engaged learner to maximize what you get out of a lesson. This is exactly how you do it.

Conclusion

You must have some type of efficient method in place to get the most out of your non-fiction reading!

Your method only needs to contain the basic principles explained above. Practice this routine until it becomes second nature, and adjust anything as necessary and see what works for you.

This is not a difficult thing to do, but it takes practice, effort, and internalization before it comes second nature to you! Once it becomes second nature, it’s easy!

Even if your method ends up being slightly different, if you follow these principles, it’s absolutely guaranteed that you will get a lot more out of your reading.

If you found this article useful, sign up for our email list! You will get free articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox, plus news and promotions on all of our new books! It’s a book lover’s dream.

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