Rapid Improvements

If we look closely at our lives, there are many moments in which we have low-quality time. For example, when you are standing in line or commuting (especially with public transportation), you do practically nothing that demand your focus. Instead of letting such moments wasted, it will be wise if you increase the quality of the time.

One way to increase the quality of your time is through audio learning. When you are standing in a queue, for instance, rather than doing nothing why don’t you use the time to listen to some useful audio programs? Through audio learning you can learn about practically any topic you want. By the time you do other activities that demand your full attention, you will have been a more knowledgeable person. Do this consistently and the difference over time will be significant.

Perhaps a question you ask is: how can I get good audio programs? Fortunately, there are a lot of good audio programs that you can enjoy for free. Just go to iTunes and subscribe to some podcasts that interest you.

In the previous post, I wrote about how you should make time for the important things in your life instead of finding the time. So, of course, it’s a good idea to free up your time so that you have more time available for the important things.

One way to free up your time is by watching less TV. Sometimes it’s amazing to see how much time we use to watch TV. Many people spend two to five hours a day to watch TV. Just imagine how much more they can accomplish if they use that time to do important things that have long term impact. Your time is valuable, and letting it be consumed by something non-essential like TV is sad.

I’m not saying that you can’t have fun. What I’m saying is your time is valuable and you should use it wisely. Are you sure that watching TV is the best way for you to spend your time? Are you sure you can’t use the time for something that will be more useful for you in the long term?

Sometimes people say that they don’t have enough time to do the important things in their life. Well, I believe that if something is important, you shouldn’t find time for it. Instead, you should make time for it. There is a big difference between the two. With finding time, you do your activities first and then see if you still have time left. With making time, you make the important thing a priority at the expense of other activities, if necessary. If you make time for the important things in your life, you won’t say that you don’t have enough time in a day.

So learn to prioritize your activities. Which ones do you think are essential? Which ones do you think are not essential? Then make the essential ones your priority. Don’t let yourself procrastinate by doing other activities first. Instead, do the important things first. This way you will have a much more productive life.

There is one secret to enjoying life you need to understand. This secret is so simple that many of people take it for granted and don’t give it the attention it deserves. The secret is being grateful for the things you have. Being grateful works like magic to improve your happiness. By having a state of gratitude within your heart, suddenly things feel much better around you. Not because anything outside of you have changed, but because your attitude toward them has changed.

Being grateful means that you are looking at the positive side of things. You don’t look at the negative side. Yes, most things do have negative side, but by looking at the positive side you increase the chance that you will respond in the right way with confidence. Besides, you also help people around you build their optimism. They can in turn help you when you are down. So, as you can see, being grateful can start a chain reaction of happiness that will take you and the people around you to higher levels in life.

No matter how much you learn about something, there is one thing you must have without which everything else is useless. That one thing is taking action. You need to take action if you want to achieve anything in life. You can’t just sit and wait for things to happen. You need to actually get yourself moving and reaching out for the things you are dreaming of. Without taking action, you are just wasting your time and – I’m afraid – your life. You won’t achieve anything if you don’t take action.

Of course, people may be reluctant to take action because they are waiting for things to be perfect. Don’t do that. There’s no such thing as perfect time to start. Even if you start and fail, that’s fine. Failure is normal. Failure is just your stepping stone to success. It’s through failure that you will learn the right way to do things. By taking action now, you will learn how things are working in the real world, and you can adjust yourself accordingly based on the feedback you get. Those who don’t take action, on the other hand, are just leaving their dreams on the corner gathering dusts.

You need to have big dreams if you want to realize your fullest potential. This is essential because often we underestimate ourselves. While you are actually capable of doing great things, you limit yourself by aiming only for mediocre things. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s sad.

You need to dream big dreams. Have dreams that are big enough to realize your fullest potential, even if you don’t think you can do that much. By having big dreams, you don’t limit yourself with your own mind. Instead, you let yourself go after the highest place possible. The nice thing about it is even if you fail, you will still end up higher than most other people who don’t have dreams. Isn’t that great? So be a dreamer; don’t limit yourself with your own thoughts.

There’s no doubt that we will encounter difficult times in life. No matter how good you think things are, there is always possibility that the opposite could happen. When such difficult times come, it’s important to stay strong and not get discouraged. But how can we do that?

I believe that enthusiasm plays an important role here. Things will be much easier in difficult times if you are enthusiastic. Enthusiasm will make you do things with a positive attitude. As a result, not only will you do things better, you will also feel better about yourself.

So, in difficult times, keep your enthusiasm high. Remind yourself of the bright possibilities you still have ahead of you. Be optimistic about life. Things will feel much easier then.

If you want to grow to your fullest potential, there is an important barrier you need to remove: your limiting beliefs. Having limiting beliefs is like having a small box that keeps you inside. While the world outside of the box is huge and beautiful, you are limited only with what you see inside the box. You can’t move much either. The sad thing about beliefs is that you create the small box yourself. You are the one who limit yourself from the vast, giant world outside.

So it’s essential to identify your limiting beliefs. How can we do that? A simple way is to observe your own thoughts. Whenever you encounter a thought that has the word “can’t” attached to it, stop for a while and look closer at it. Chance is you find a limiting belief. Be careful to remove the word “can’t” from your mind and replace it with something more positive like “can”.

By observing your thoughts continually, you will be able to identify the limiting beliefs you have. After identifying them, your job is to replace them with empowering beliefs.

Do you love to read quotations? If you don’t, I think it’s a good idea to start doing otherwise. There’s a good reason for that: reading quotations will teach a lot of life lessons. You will be able to learn from the wisdom of other people without having to go through the hard way. It’s like they go before you and then tell you what to do and what not to do so that you can save a lot of time.

There is also one other advantage of quotations: they teach you lessons of life in a concise way. Unlike reading books thay may take days or even weeks of your time, reading quotations take only a small amount of time. But in that small amount of time you will be able to learn a lot. It’s as if people take the lessons of life and present them to you in a compressed format.  Isn’t that great?

Having the right perspective about failure is important for you to achieve success. That’s because failure is inevitable on your way to success. If you don’t have the right perspective about failure, you will be discouraged when you experience failures along the way. Even worse, it could cause you to stop pursuing your dreams.

So you need to treat failures the right way: treat them as stepping stones to success. Failing simply means that you are trying. You never fail if you never try. But you also never succeed if you never try. The fact that you dare to try means that you are now one step closer to success. After all, you can extract lessons from the failure so it’s time well spend.

If you treat failures this way, you won’t be discouraged when you fail. You won’t be disappointed if you can’t achieve your goal just yet. You will realize that it’s part of the process you must go through. In fact, you can be happy because you are now closer to success.