Tag: Freedom lifestyle

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Be More Proactive and Less Reactive to Achieve Higher Success

Reactive people go about life unprepared and unplanned. To put it simply reactive people, wait around until things happen and then decide to do something or not. They have unclear goals and intentions for what they want and often use their feelings and conditions as excuses to not get work done and are often driven by their feelings and emotions.

 

For example, they commonly use excuses like “I can’t run today because it’s raining” or “I can’t do this thing until this happens.” They are more likely to blame others and hardly take full accountability for their actions or lack of effort. They also tend to build their lives around other people’s emotions, making them feel more dependent and reliant on others.

 

Proactive people are the direct opposite. They are and strive to be organized as much as possible and always take accountability and ownership. They always see failure as an opportunity to learn and do better. Their behaviors and actions are a conscious choice as a direct result of their values or morals.

 

They use other people as inspiration but compare it to their values before they react and hardly feel dependent on others. They are confident and believe they have what it takes to get it done, and they never wait for success to come; they make it come to them. They act and never avoid it or make excuses. With these attributes, it’s obvious to see why being more proactive leads to more success.

 

Here are a few ways to be more proactive and less reactive in life:

 

Always Look for Ways to Improve

Research shows that those who look for things to do at work rather than wait for instructions from higher-ups are more likely to get promoted. Don’t wait around for change to happen or for the stars to align perfectly to go after your goals finally.

 

Act and understand that it is your responsibility and only yours to get going. Find more ways to educate yourself and never skip opportunities that allow you to improve or invest in training.

 

Understand Your Values, Morals, and Goals

Have weekly self-evaluations and highlight what you believe in and hope to strive for. Use these morals to guide your day and to control your emotions to stay on the right path.

 

Strive and Welcome Change

Anticipate problems and never expect things to stay the same. Change and stepping out of your comfort zones are crucial to personal and professional growth. Long-term success relies on your ability to adapt and change as needs change. Otherwise, you’ll only be left behind.

 

Ultimately being proactive is about acting and finding what you need to do to get the things you want done. Don’t let your emotions or lack of action take away your chance of success. Use these tips instead to be more proactive with your life and accomplish more of your dreams.

How to Find Your Most Productive Hours

 

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Multitasking Is A Lie

I know that I’m a killjoy. Sorry, but stop saying you’re a multitasker as if you’re proud of it.  Multitasking is really a big lie. You are only broadcasting your lack of understanding of how productivity works. While it may be harsh to hear, scientifically, it is the truth.

 

Your brain cannot multitask the way you think and uses more time and resources to do so. This is because your mind is forced to take the time to switch in-between tasks and to refocus and concentrate, which takes time that could have been used more beneficially.

 

Unfortunately, many organizations and companies have adopted this widely misunderstood and popular term to find the workers or employees that are willing to overwork themselves and do tasks that usually require two or more people—ultimately saving them money. However, productivity is undoubtedly lacking, and there are many more reasons to stop this bad habit.

How to Use the Right Tools and Technology for Your Business

Here are four common reasons why multitasking is actually bad for business:

 

Promotes More Mistakes and Poor Choices

When you multitask, you are not providing your brain the time it needs to filter out irrelevant information. Which, in turn, creates shoddy quality work, more mistakes, and possible injuries that directly harm your productivity and reputation or trustworthiness as a business.

 

Promotes Anxiety and Poor Health

Studies prove that the more you do it, the more harm you are causing to your brain and memory loss. One of the most common reasons for multitasking is a lack of efficiently setting time limits, causing you to speed and increasing anxiety to get it all done. Often the process of going back and forth can be overwhelming as you try to relearn information too. Everyone knows that being in a constant state of anxiety will only cause more harm than good.

 

Inhibits Innovation and Creativity

Multitasking kills your ability to fully concentrate and focus, blocking your ability to be creative. Innovation and creativity are vital to a successful business as, obviously, if everyone had the same business idea, no one or only a select few can make money.

 

You Can’t Enjoy the Process

Just because it is business and requires work doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be enjoying it. Sure, there will be tasks or tedious things that are not enjoyable all the time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something to change it and make it more enjoyable for you. The more you personalize your business, the happier and more passionate you will be about it. Since perception is reality, if you feel more successful, you are more successful. When you are so glad and love something, you won’t want to let it go.

 

As you can see, multitasking is only harming you and your productivity. Instead, break down your work into similar categories and only work each task alone. As you continue to do this, you will see just how much better your work gets and how much more free time you really have in the end.

 

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Managing Your Energy Is A Must

Fatigue leads to poor choices, potential injuries, and more problems that will only waste your time and deplete your skills. For maximum productivity, you need persistent consistency, which requires you to manage your energy. Burnout will destroy all the work you put in along the way. To better manage your energy, you must add it to your plan, ensuring that the habits you build work for you, not against you.

 

Here are four ways to help you better manage your stress so you can be more productive in life:

 

Adopt the Right Diet and Exercise Routine

No one likes to hear it, but it’s crucial and one of the most valuable tips to managing and harboring energy. If you don’t adopt the proper diet and exercise routine, it won’t matter how many other habits or practices you adopt. If you are unhealthy and your body needs crucial vitamins, you must listen to your body.

 

Being a professional athlete or adopting the next fad diet isn’t required for success here. You need to find the proper balance that works for you and your schedule. This requires honesty and mindfulness to be done successfully. Providing your body the right food and resources it needs go far. If you’re serious, you’ll research ways to use up all the extra energy you have instead.

How Sleep Impacts Your Productivity

Stop Being Busy All The time

Believe it or not, the most productive people have free schedules. They are not always busy because they understand that it’s more about the quality of their work and how it impacts their ultimate goal that leads to productivity. The goal is to do less, with less but achieve more or maximum success.

 

Being busy drains your energy and prevents you from performing at your best, and makes you forget your life goals as you work to get through each day. When you give yourself a more realistic schedule, you can better use your energy to master your skills and achieve goals more efficiently with ultimate focus and precision.

 

Stop Trying to Make Everyone Happy

Unfortunately, you won’t, can’t, and shouldn’t please everyone. This high expectation will only overwhelm you and lead to poor communication and engagement among your audience. You would have to juggle a million different personalities to please them all successfully. In everything you do for your business, all focus should be on your target audience — only. Your target audience is unlikely to be everyone and is something you should narrow down right away if you haven’t already.

 

Don’t Dwell on What You Can’t Control

Stop negativity in its tracks and only focus on the things you can control. It’s a draining and exhausting never-ending rabbit hole otherwise. You can’t make everyone buy your products, but you can control the quality of work and put the best product out there to change their minds, hopefully.

 

As you can see, with a bit of change of perspective and adopting the right habits, you can manage your energy efficiently. Maintaining your energy is essential so you can consistently use it to focus on what truly matters for you and your business needs.

 

 

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Why Your To-Do Lists Are Failing You

Did you make a to-do list for the day? If so, how far have you gone, or did you completely forget about it already? Well, don’t worry too much. As roughly 41% of items on most people’s to-do lists never get done, you are not alone.

Get Your Goals into Your Calendar

Most people are not making the right to-do lists either.  The best way to fix it and have it work for you and not against you is first to understand the common reasons why they fail in the first place.

Here are five common reasons to-do lists fail and how you can do better:

 

Way too Many Things to Do

To-do lists should never be pages long or used for the long term. Instead, they should focus on daily tasks within a certain period of time you plan to get to work. Meaning you should have multiple to-do lists, not one overwhelming one that will surely get you lost.

 

Unclear Deadlines

You must set hard deadlines and have the discipline to follow through. A to-do list without them only gives you the permission to take your time or not do it at all. Understand how long it really takes to do each activity, including prep, and clean up – and never assume you can do double the amount of work you can do overnight.

 

You Don’t Account for The Unexpected

No ones’ schedule is perfect, so don’t plan it that way. Account for flexibility and always include an extra fifteen minutes each day for the unexpected. You may end up in the bathroom or traffic a little longer than you realized, for example. So, don’t schedule important meetings or errands to accomplish back-to-back with the idea that everything will go smoothly.

 

It Was Created with A Long-Term Mindset

In other words, you are giving yourself too much time to complete tasks or are creating to-do lists for more than one day. Your to-do lists will guide and maintain your 90-day action plan. They are not meant to replace it. Be sure the lists are to the point and a direct path for achieving your primary objective for that day or even a 90-minute period.

 

Unorganized and Unclear Main Objectives

Taking the time to dissect and pinpoint what you want to achieve is crucial to accomplishing them. If you can’t have a firm grip on what you want, you can’t be sure you will have the right plan either. Unclear objectives lead to unorganized plans, ideas, and actions. Learn to understand what you need and want and prioritize to get things done in a timely and orderly fashion.

 

Don’t let your to-do lists fail you anymore. To-do lists are great to utilize and guide your day to ensure you are on the right trajectory to long-term success, as long as they are done correctly.

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Monetizing Your Email Messages

You have created an extraordinary and compelling lead magnet that is persuasive and solves one problem in a hurry for your ideal customer, depending on who you’re targeting in their buying journey, but just getting people on the list is not the end. You have to find ways to make money too. You only make money by making paid offers.

Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Use

  • Promote a Product You Use – If you’re part of your own audience, the products and services you use to solve those problems are of utmost interest to your audience. Tell them what you think about each resource you use and invite them to use it, too, with your affiliate link.

 

  • Promote Your Own Products and Services – Every three to four emails, send information about the products and services you have created for them. Anytime you bring up one of these problems, you can promote the solution.

 

  • Promote a Service You Love – Did you use a service you like recently that will be useful for your audience too? Let them know about it. Just like you’d tell your best friend about the yummy restaurant you went to last night, you should tell your audience about the services you get results from.

 

  • Tell Your Audience About a Product They Need – Even if you don’t use the products because you’re not part of your own audience, you should tell your audience about the products you need. Just like a doctor tells their patients what they need.

 

  • Create a New Product or Service – As you learn more about your customers, create products that fit into your niche that solve their problems.

 

  • Promote Memberships and Subscriptions – Continuity programs are awesome to promote whether you own them or not. Subscriptions and memberships usually require a monthly payment, which can really add up over time.

 

  • Sell Another Product on Your Download Pages – Anytime you create a thank you or download page, add the next product or service based on what they’re getting now, whether a freebie or not, as a suggestion.

 

  • Maximize Error Pages – Edit your error pages to take advantage of the space by recommending products, freebies, or whatever your current promotion is at the time.

 

  • Host Flash Sales – Keep your audience open and ready for more email messages by surprising them with list member-only sales periodically that thanks them for being VIPs.

 

  • Segment Your Audience Based on Their Behavior – Remember that you can keep segmenting your audience even after getting on your list by telling them about your newest offers, freebies, and so forth and using the automation inside the autoresponder to segment and tag them based on their actions.

 

  • Set Up Low-Cost Tripwires – A tripwire is a low-cost product that tests your audience’s interest. Usually, the cost is less than $27 dollars and is also a great way to build your list with your ideal audience.

Value Ladder

  • Up-Sell, Cross-Sell, and Down-Sell as Needed – Send the right offers to the right people. Based on their behavior, you may need to send information for up-sells, cross-sells, or even a down-sell if needed to keep their interest.

 

  • Remarket to Your List Members Via Paid Ads – One effective way to keep your list active is to use technology such as remarketing ads via social media. You simply upload your email list, and only those who are on that list will get your ads. You can use this to remind them to check their email.

 

  • Email Regarding Abandoned Carts – If you have a shopping cart, set up automation that automatically sends reminds to them if they abandon their shopping cart. You can do this via email, but you can also use remarketing ads to bring them back too.

 

  • Offer Coaching and Consulting Services – Personal one-on-one services and consulting is a very lucrative way to earn more money. Make these offers to those who have purchased most of your products and services.

 

The more ways you can offer opportunities for your audience to buy something you recommend, the more money you’re going to make. That’s just math. Make more offers, make more money.

 

 

 

 

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How To Manage Your Energy

Life is not meant to be done at full speed twenty-four-seven. It’s not a sprint or a race; It’s a long and steady marathon or voyage. You can’t expect to do anything right or get work done if you are exhausted all the time. You need to slow down and find ways to manage your energy better to be more productive and flourish within your business or personal life.

 

The following are five ways to help manage your energy:

 

Learn to Let Go

You don’t need to be in control of everything. In fact, the only thing you are even allowed to control is yourself. You cannot possibly do each and everything on your own in a realistic amount of time. Learn to let go of control, especially in areas you don’t understand and only cause you pain or frustration. Find ways to outsource or automate the process.

 

Create and Follow Realistic Schedules

If you don’t set aside enough time to finish certain projects or tasks, you will always feel like you are rushing to complete your work on time. The less you put things off for later or “I’ll do it Monday,” the more energy you will have to get through the day.

 

Create Proper Routines and Take Breaks

Always take breaks and schedule more time than you think you need. Ensure you know exactly how much time you need for each task and always include a little more time than you need to account for the unpredictable. This way, you are sure to never go over schedule, miss meetings, important deadlines, or worse, be late and affect other people’s schedules.

 

Leave Easy and Mindless for Last

These tasks don’t need your full energy and attention, so don’t give it to them. It may seem more straightforward to go ahead and get it out of the way, but you will only use your most productive hours and energy on activities that really don’t matter—giving you less energy for more important things.

 

Do It or Else

In other words, create things or activities that are non-negotiable for you, just like how you can’t live your whole day without going to the bathroom. You can make this same concept in every area of your life. Don’t permit yourself not to do it.

 

Fully understand the consequences and remember your “why” for establishing the goal in the first place. As you keep making yourself do it no matter what, it eventually will become a habit you can’t or won’t want to break.

Setting Boundaries: It’s Not Selfish to Go After What You Want

In the end, you need to be realistic, honest and evaluate your actions to be sure they are helping you sustain your energy, motivation, and determination. For better energy management, be sure you really know what it takes to crush your goals, eat healthily, create realistic schedules, and stick to it.

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5 Ways Mentors Can Keep You on Track and Lead You to Success

Do you ever wish someone else could just tell you what to do, give you a little nudge when you feel demotivated, or tell you to knock off those bad habits before you get too far? Thankfully, you are not alone, and many people use these very questions as part of their mission statement. Mentors and coaches can provide exactly what you need to lead a more successful life.

 

The following are five ways mentors or business coaches can help you be more productive in life and business:

 

They Provide Knowledge from Hands-on Experience

Mentors can provide experiences, knowledge, and expertise from hands-on experiences. They can warn you or prevent you from making the same mistakes they did, providing you industry education and a way to save your time and frustration.

 

They Provide Networking

Mentors and coaches know a lot of people. They have to in order to be successful. If they don’t know anyone, who are they coaching? Mentors love to find others to share similar interests to discuss ideas or different concepts to grow their knowledge and gain different perspectives. Opening doors to people or opportunities you wouldn’t get to meet or have the chance to do in the first place.

 

They Build Up Your Resilience

They show you that even with failure or mistakes, success can happen without you going through the trouble yourself. If anything, they show you that your industry is a viable income source and can provide for you if you stay consistent and provide value somehow.

 

They Increase Your Self-Esteem and Courage

Mentors are great at providing motivation and inspiration to tackle your goals. Their job is to get your true goals out of yours and help you create an actionable plan to get there. They show you that just with a bit of push, you have exactly what it takes to continue as long as you keep taking action.

 

They Are Your Accountability Partner

Most importantly, mentors keep you accountable without really doing much work on their part. When you know you will have to go over your activities with someone else and not just yourself, you will want to do better. Impressing people and feelings of validation is normal to feel accepted and can motivate and inspire you to keep going.

 

If you keep struggling to get where you want in life, whether to achieve personal or business goals, give mentorship or a career coach a try. As you can see, they are a wealth of information, knowledge, and motivation. If anything, it’s another opportunity to continue your education and get to know yourself a little better. It’s easy to get productive when someone else besides you is counting on it.

Business Plan Resources You Can Use

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Delegate More Effectively: 5 Tips

It’s hard to let go and let others do the work, but if you want to run a successful business, it’s likely something you will need to do eventually. You really can’t be an expert in everything, and even if you were, there is not enough time in your day to do it all. You need breaks to stay healthy and efficient, just like everyone else.

Delegate

If you are not used to delegating, here are a few tips on how to do it more effectively:

 

Know What NOT to Delegate First

What are the things and activities you do well and feel the most comfortable in? These are things you shouldn’t delegate because you can likely get them done fast or efficiently. Other areas to keep in mind include tasks that require your personalization or communication that you can’t replicate.

 

While it may be easier to get an assistant to make all your calls, for example, that doesn’t mean your customers appreciate it or make it easier for you. Ensure it works for your business idea, strategies, and skillset.

 

Understand How to Complete Each Task Fully

Even if you are not the best one for the job or even perform the job, it’s important to know how to complete it before telling someone else to do it.

 

This way, you can be sure it gets done correctly in the most efficient amount of time by someone who is best for the job and can better communicate if something were to go wrong. You may not understand every part of the job, but you can better help assign tasks and guide them to get the job done if you know how to get it done.

 

Be Open to Questions and Changes

Allow others to let you know they are actually not the best ones for the job. Sometimes you might not be correct. However, allowing for open communication or questions can speed up the process and prevent errors by moving the assignment to the next person right away.

 

Clearly Outline Your Expectations and Provide Necessary Resources

Communicate your expectations and what you expect to receive when the work is done. Provide links, your ideas, or any information that’s required to get it done fast. Avoid too much back and forth with questions. Just supply the information right away.

 

Overall, you must understand exactly what needs to be done, the tasks you need to keep to yourself, the resources it takes to get there, and always have clear and open communication to delegate more effectively.

The Ultimate Boost in Productivity: Automation and Outsourcing

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Eat the Frog! How That’s Actually Great for Business

No, don’t eat a real frog unless you like frogs’ feet. The point of this common phrase is to put a big emphasis on how much easier your day can be if you get the hard things out of your way first. In other words, if used correctly, this concept can increase your productivity to live a longer and more successful life.

 

Here’s how “eating the frog” leads to more success and higher productivity:

 

Get the Most Crucial Thing Done First

Whatever activities required to accomplish your ultimate goal are the things you should get done first. This concept works because you use your energy and most productive hours first. Allowing you to be more creative where it matters and get done faster.

 Productive or Just Busy?

Get the Stuff You Dread Out of the Way

When you dread something, you are likely to slow down and allow procrastination to take over and ruin your daily schedule and good habits. It stays on your mind no matter what you try to do next, keeping you distracted. Creating a spiraling effect of poor performance, mistakes, and ultimately affecting your mood. Instead, get dreaded tasks completed first and don’t permit yourself to do anything else. When you get a dreaded task done, you will feel relieved, and it will help you focus on the next task.

 

Go for The Most Exciting Thing

You don’t always have to go for the hardest, you can get the most exciting thing done first, too. This will probably benefit your day even more than the other way around. The energy produced by your excitement will trickle down throughout your day. Not only that, if you are ready for it to happen, you won’t be able to give anything else proper attention anyways.

 

Take Control and Achieve Your Goals

Most importantly eat the frog means taking control of your life or business and only do what is necessary to achieve your goals. Take control of what is required and get it done, even if it’s uncomfortable.

 

It means to take charge by fully understanding what it takes to accomplish your dream, designing actionable goals, and following good daily habits to achieve them. It takes the action, the right action. Without action, there is only failure.

 

It’s important to note that your frog will be different each day, and the same task you do one day as your frog won’t be the next. It really depends on your mood and overall objective for that day. Eat your frog first, and you can smoothly sail through the rest of your day.

 

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The Impact of Music on Productivity

Research shows that music can provide many benefits to your brain and overall cardiovascular health. It can increase your blood flow, making it easier to concentrate and relax. Increased blood flow protects your brain from memory loss, allows you to de-stress, and reduces inflammation that can damage your body’s healthy cells over time.

How to Find Your Most Productive Hours

Music even works the other way around for high blood pressure due to illness or stress. The key to music and productivity is that it makes you happier. It is creating a positive spiraling effect throughout your day.

 

Music impacts your productivity in many different ways, including: 

 

  • Boosts your performance and accuracy.
  • Improves your focus, motivation, and inspiration.
  • It releases dopamine improving your mood.
  • It stimulates your brain and improves your energy levels.

 

Music can be incredibly beneficial, however, too much of it, or wrong implementation, just like anything, can have detrimental effects.

 

Tips to keep in mind when playing music:

 

Choose the Right Song

Find the tune that is right for you and the work you are doing. If the tempo is wrong for your needs, you can accidentally make a mistake. If the song is too slow, you will soon see yourself at the same pace or fall asleep; too fast, and you may start dancing instead of working. You must pay attention to your feelings and the thoughts that are going on for the music to work on your side.

 

Be Mindful of Your Tasks

In other words, some tasks require your complete and undivided attention to do safely and correctly. Be mindful of which tasks you are doing and carefully evaluate them to ensure your music doesn’t prevent you from doing your best.

 

Take Notice When It’s Not Working

Music only works if the person who is listening to it likes it. Keep this in mind. If you slow down because the tempo is slow, or it irritates you, or even because you like it too much, immediately change the music or request to turn it off, just like with anything, especially technology – it only works if the user knows how to use it and pays attention to their actions while being mindful.

 

Make Sure It Promotes Happiness

While it may not feel like it, the music is actually what’s making you productive. It’s the fact that the music is making you feel and be happier. This is why it’s so important to pick the right song and keep it personal. If it doesn’t make you happy, you likely will slow down and produce the opposite results.

 

As you can see, as long as you pick the right music, it can lead to happier and more productive days. Next time you get to work, put on a good steady beat and see just how much faster you get things done.