5 Key Ways To Boost Your Mental Energy

There are two different types of energy that everyone has. There is mental energy and physical energy. Sometimes a day in the office can be more exhausting than a day spent outdoors hiking. This is because you have taxed all of your mental energy resources.

 

How do you renew your mental energy resources?

 

Some people feel like they are only given a certain amount of mental energy to use throughout the day. Once they’ve reached their limit, they are done. So it’s no surprise that many people have researched how to expand mental energy resources. While there are many ways to keep your mind sharp, here are five of the best ways to keep your mental energy pool running deep.

 

1.    Keep a Gratitude Journal

 

A gratitude journal is a journal that you can write in daily to reflect on the things that you’re grateful to have in your life. It is important to keep a gratitude journal because of the effects that gratitude has on mental energy. Gratitude is a positive emotion and can help you view your life in better terms.

 

Life Hack discusses how gratitude can turn even horrible situations into positive experiences. For example, if you are having a difficult time with your boss you can use your gratitude journal to write down all of the things you are grateful for.

 

Things that you only have because of the pay from your job. This changes the mindset and the dialogue about your workplace and can ultimately change your performance and relationships at the office.

 

2.    Read Something You’ve Never Read

 

To enhance the brains neuronal connections, you need to read something you have never read before. Ahealthblog.com highlights the effect that reading has on your ability to empathize with your fellow humans. It stimulates your imagination in ways that television and movies cannot simulate. 

 

Reading will increase your mental energy because it keeps your brain sharp and focused. Reading new material is better because it introduces new ideas and concepts for your brain to work on.

 

3.    Work in a New Location

 

While you may not consider your surroundings very often, they may have more effect on your mental energy than you realize. INC. notes that working in the same location day after day dulls the senses and makes them slow to react. 

 

Picking up and moving to a location that you’ve never been before can get your brain firing because of all the new stimulus. This is a great way to increase your mental energy. It may also be a good pitch for telecommuting.

 

4.    Use Your Energy Wisely

 

We would all like unlimited supplies of mental energy to use throughout the day. Unfortunately, we just don’t have an unlimited supply. Forbes highlights how negative thoughts and attitudes can quickly sap your reserves of mental energy, leaving you with hardly any energy left over for creative endeavors.

 

Your best bet is to stop focusing on things that are outside of your control. There is no point to wasting your mental energy on problems that you cannot solve. When you find yourself focusing on problems outside of your ability or control, redirect your energy towards more productive activities.

 

5.    Reflect

 

If you’re trying to increase your mental energy, the best thing that you can do is reflect on your daily progress. The Huffington post notes that it’s many people don’t quite have enough time for reflection. Carving out time at the end of the day to reflect on your emotions, behavior, and things you’ve learned will allow you to assess your use of mental energy in better ways.

 

Getting into the habit of daily reflecting will take practice, you can even turn this practice into a progress journal. Seeing written proof of how far you’ve come in your mental energy journey can be highly motivational.

 

While it may take daily practice, you can find ways to increase and conserve your mental energy. Once you find what works for you and what doesn’t, you will be better equipped to tackle the mental challenges you face every day.

 

6 Key Tips To Boost Your Success

Becoming successful at work, or at home, can be challenging. So many different elements can contribute to success or failure that it can be hard to identify where to focus your energy. Boosting your success can be almost elusive especially if you are not sure where you should spend your time.

 

There is no point in trying to spin your wheels just to go nowhere. It’s important to know that the steps you are taking to become successful will to work. Here are six important steps to ensure you are successful.

 

1.    Give and Send Praise

 

When was the last time someone said that you did a good job? Do you remember the impact it had on your day? Most people get a positive boost in performance and satisfaction when they receive praise. The same is true when sending praise to other people. Livepurposefullynow.com suggests that if you want to be successful, you give praise often.

 

The key to frequently giving praise is to make sure it is heartfelt and genuine. You don’t want to give a false sense of encouragement. People don’t trust praise that they feel is unwarranted. Find people you work with, either in the office or at home, to praise daily and see how it improves your success.

 

2.    Create Daily Rituals

 

Daily rituals give you a sense of purpose. Whether you’re an employee, a stay-at-home mom, a CEO, or a student, daily routines help limit distractions and can make you feel confident and energized. CNBC notes that a morning routine such as having a checklist or creating a priority order list can increase productivity and success.

 

3.    Learn to Say NO

 

It may seem counterintuitive to say no to become successful, but learning to say no can be one of the best things you can do to become successful. Saying yes all the time leads to low self-esteem, exhaustion and often depression or burnout.

Let people know what you can do and what you can’t take on at the moment. Success.com says that competent people know that saying no is healthy and will lead to better success.

 

4.    Learn Delayed Gratification

 

Our society is built on instant gratification. Unfortunately, instant gratification has been shown to be one of the worst indicators of future success. In 1972, the Marshmallow Experiment involved young children who were placed in front of marshmallows with the promise of the second marshmallow if they could wait 15 minutes for the researcher to come back into the room. 

 

This study followed up with the children 40 years later. Researchers found that those study subjects who were able to delay gratification by resisting the temptation to eat the marshmallows enjoyed higher success rates.

 

INC.com highlights how these people who delayed gratification not only had better social skills, higher test scores, lower substance abuse rate but they also were less obese and better able to deal with stress. All of these are indicators that they were more successful in life. It is never too late to teach yourself how to delay gratification.

 

5.    Stop Quitting

 

Success is uncomfortable. Many times before you succeed, you will be at the most uncomfortable you have ever been in your life. Forbes notes that the very moment you want to quit is probably the precipice of success. 

 

So many times people will only go so far and then quit. Stop quitting when it gets uncomfortable, and you’ll find life is exceedingly more rewarding than it would’ve been if you quit.

 

6.    Learn Work Life Balance

 

Life Hack interviewed some of the most successful CEOs and asked them what their key to success was. The CEO of Nike said that finding work life balance was a constant battle. However, those who were most successful had found a way to balance work life and home life.

 

No matter what your definition of success is, these six steps can help get you there. Remember that your success may look different from anyone else’s, but it is still success.

 

6 Ways to Hold Yourself in a Higher Esteem

Having a high sense of self-esteem and worth is one of the most fundamental aspects of living a well-balanced, healthy lifestyle. However, what does it mean to hold yourself in high regard and where do you start?

 

Your self-esteem is the bundle of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, which are unique to each one of us. It’s how much you appreciate your whole entire being - faults and all. It’s constantly changing and has its ups and downs because our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs also have their ups and downs.

 

However, just as you work on building strong muscles, building your self-esteem requires constant upkeep. Here are 6 ways to maintain your self-confidence.

 

1. Highlight your strong suits. Everyone has things they’re strong at and things they’re not so good at – that’s life. Nothing and no one can ever reach perfection. Finding contentment with what you have and who you are now is the spirit of a truly self-confident individual who knows their value in the world.

 

2.  Demonstrate your strengths. When you were young, your mom probably hung your artwork on the refrigerator door so that everyone, including you, can appreciate your hard work. You need to do the same for yourself now. Set realistic goals and break them down into daily, or weekly, assignments. Once you meet each goal with success, you’ll feel a gratifying sense of accomplishment, and your brain will reward you by secreting dopamine, a ‘pleasure’ hormone that’s released into the bloodstream when we have a goal and work towards it.

 

Sometimes we find ourselves taking an all-or-nothing methodology, that’s when we miss out on a lot of happy moments in life. Nothing is ever only good or only bad; life is a concoction of experiences and it allows you to view it through your own filtered lens. 

 

You’re the one who gets to decide whether your lens will show only the negative aspects, or will it point to the positive as well, and take the negative with a grain of salt and move on. 

 

It’s important to remember that your goals and strengths change with time; they evolve and grow, just like you. Nothing ever stays the same so you need to update your self-image to accommodate your current skills and capabilities, to fit in with your present self.

 

3.  Have pride in your accomplishments. Having high self-esteem doesn’t come from empty rhetoric and false hope; it comes by taking action and proving to yourself, then to others, that you are intelligent and responsible. This is followed by positive feedback because people sense your confidence and self-respect. And when you speak, others will listen and pay attention to what you have to say.

 

4.  Dress the part. Even though clothes don’t make the man, they sure give your self-confidence a boost. More importantly, personal hygiene is at the top of the list of high self-esteem. In addition, having good posture is also a confidence booster. Exercising 3 - 5 times a week will not only get you looking sexy and sculpted, it’ll also lower your stress levels so you’re able to look at things with a more stable, calmer viewpoint, and aren’t as likely to let negative thoughts overpower you. 

 

Of course, let’s not forget about your diet. Knowing what to eat and when means you understand your body; its cravings, when its blood sugar levels drop, when it needs hydration, that sort of thing. Being comfortable in your own skin means you have a set of ideals and are very clear about what works for you and what doesn’t.

 

5.  Find things you enjoy. Find a hobby, or learn a new skill. You can even discover that you have a talent for doing something you’d never considered before. Moreover, you get to meet new people and experience new ways to express yourself without inhibition or judgment. The important thing is to not compare yourself to others when engaging in any type of activity, and try to avoid people who criticize too much or are overly judgmental.

 

6.  Volunteer. Helping other allows you to connect with others on a human level that has become somewhat rare nowadays since everyone is so busy with work, family, and other things going on in their lives. Studies show that when you help someone out, the brain secretes a ‘happy’ hormone that decreases stress levels and makes us happier and more content.

 

6 Ways To Improve Your Self-Esteem

There are plenty of times in one’s life where you may not think you're the best at something. However, when chronic self-doubting thoughts plague your daily life you may be suffering from low self-esteem. Low self-esteem can cause you to believe you lack abilities you possess and can even make you think you will not be able to learn new skills.

 

What can you do if you have low self-esteem? 

 

If you suffer with low self-esteem, it is not the end of the world. There are plenty of activities that you can do to change your perception of yourself. Here are five sure-fire approaches to self-esteem improvement. 

Positive Affirmations

 

There is a lot of science backing up the power of thought. Your thoughts shape how you view the world and more importantly, yourself. Positive affirmations are a way to hack your brain and rewire it with self-esteem building thoughts.

 

Business Heroine Magazine highlights how positive affirmations can have a positive role in your daily life. When you are experiencing self-doubting thoughts simply turn them into positive statements about your life. Instead of worrying about a presentation you can affirm, “I have prepared for my presentation and put in my maximum effort.” 

 

Changing the dialogue in your head is the first step to improving self-esteem. Once you get good at affirmations, you will notice a change in your outlook. 

Stop The Comparisons

 

Another reason people suffer with low self-esteem is because they spend time comparing themselves to other people. The fact of the matter is, you are the only person on the planet who looks, talks, and acts like you. 

 

Embracing your unique character traits will help you stop comparing yourself to other people. If you are in constant competition, it can be hard to feel good about yourself. Stop the competition and start with acceptance of yourself. 

Identify Problem Areas

 

The fastest way to get to a problem is by ignoring it. This is why The Mayo Clinic recommends that you identify problem areas in your life. Knowing sources of low self-esteem, like financial stress or job performance, can better prepare you to deal with them. Do not spend time running from your problems. Instead, seek them out and work on ways of improving the circumstances.

Ditch All-or-Nothing Behavior and Thoughts

 

The Mayo Clinic suggests that you spend time identifying and eliminating all-or-nothing thinking. This type of thinking is the thought process that says if you don't succeed at a certain task then you are a failure at life.

 

All-or-nothing behavior is easily identified as well. For example, if you have a piece of candy while dieting your thoughts say “I have failed my diet.” Then you behave by eating lots of junk and unhealthy food. Eliminating all-or-nothing thoughts and behaviors can stop negative thoughts about yourself and improve your self-esteem. 

Do Self-Esteem Worksheets

 

Finally, you can do self-esteem workbooks and worksheets to help build self-esteem. Positive Psychology notes that both adults and adolescents can benefit from worksheets and workbooks that focus on self-esteem. These activities can direct your thoughts in a positive manner.

 

Guided work, like a self-esteem workbooks, can help you achieve positive milestones and goals. These workbooks are particularly helpful for those who are having a hard time identifying why they're having low self-esteem. 

Talk Therapy

 

Talk therapy can help you deal with your internal issues to develop a healthy sense of self, and learn to love yourself and all that you have to offer.

 

Now you have six sure-fire approaches to improving your self-esteem and getting rid of your doubt. Working each of these steps simultaneously will help you rapidly improve your mood and outlook. 

 

If you find you are still struggling with low self-esteem after working some or all of these steps a licensed clinical social worker or psychologist can help you. Don't be afraid to seek outside help from a professional in these areas. It can only help you learn more about yourself. 

 

Are You Wallowing In Misery or Looking To The Bright Side?

Bad things happen. However, it’s your response to them that defines the quality of your life and character. You can choose perpetual unhappiness or you can rise above the difficulty and treasure life. 

 

Some of us experience more painful events and struggle more often in life than others. We wonder why it happens to us instead of the bad people in the world. Unfortunately, life isn’t fair. Terrible things happen, and they strike when least expected. When this happens, it’s okay to feel down and it’s okay to cry about the circumstances. It’s even acceptable to feel angry. 

 

However, there comes a point where you have to shake it off and let go of the past. You have to make a choice to not allow it to consume you. You have to learn something from the experience and constructively move forward. 

 

This isn’t about clinical depression; this is about wallowing in your misery or self-pity. 

 

You are not Alone in the Sadness 

 

Think of a difficult time in your life. Perhaps you moved across the country for love, only for it to fall apart. Alternatively, perhaps you lost your job soon after getting a mortgage on a brand-new house. When such bad things happen, you are suddenly a victim and your first impulse may be to play the part as if you were competing for an Oscar nomination. 

 

You might burst into tears at the drop of a hat and tell your story to strangers. Often the people around you will show you compassion and pick you back up and brush you off. 

 

No matter how hopeless and helpless you feel, there will always be people in your life that show you that you’re not alone, that you are not unloved. In that situation, you can choose to accept that love or you can allow yourself to be consumed with misery and self-pity. 

 

While you go through your tragedy or upset there are people in pain all around you. They have lost loved ones, are struggling with finances, have terminal illnesses, or are homeless. However, if you are like most people, while you’re in the midst of your misery you don’t care about others. You’re only concerned with yourself and your own gloom. 

 

It often takes a lot of time and space before we can look back on those situations and see there was a lesson in it. It did work out. And we only wasted time by wallowing. 

 

Wallowing In Misery Is A Choice

 

When you let misery take control of your life, it leads to total self-absorption. It’s destructive for your mental health to dwell on negatives. It leaves you with a chip on your shoulder, bitter and resentful. Focusing on hurt means you’re not focused on controlling your life. 

 

When you blaming your circumstances for your place in life, you give up control and responsibility over your life. You can choose to feel sorry for yourself and wallow in misery, or you can choose to rise above it. Self-pity is selfish and makes us unaware of the suffering of those around us. 

 

Instead, you can choose to edify yourself, take charge of your happiness, and enjoy your life. Your happiness is your personal responsibility. You can control whether or not you look on the bright side. 

 

You can continue to feel the hurt and the pain and you can choose to cry and mope if you want to. But those are only healthy when things to do when you do them in order to let the pain go.  

 

You are not alone and you are not unloved. There are people who need you. But you can’t help them if you can’t help yourself. You may not be able to change the past but your future is in your hands. So forget misery and embrace the bright side. 

 

Are Your Self-Limiting Beliefs Bringing You Down?

If you’re having problems moving forward in life, you may be struggling with self-limiting beliefs. If you’re not familiar with the term, self-limiting beliefs are thought that relate to our abilities, skills, looks, motivation, and other personality traits.

Self-limiting beliefs are often self-identified. This means that they are beliefs that focus on oneself rather than the world in general. However self-limiting beliefs may also be about other people or the world.

 

What Are Self-Limiting Beliefs?

 

According to changingminds.org, there are several categories of self-limiting beliefs.

I do/don’t I am/am not: These beliefs define us by things we are or are not. “I am an accountant.” These types of self-limiting beliefs may also be related to things we think we do or don’t deserve. “I don’t deserve a raise because I am a bad accountant.”

 

I can’t: I can’t self-limiting beliefs are based on the self-image. Typical I can’t self-limiting beliefs are statements that begin with I can’t “I can’t do this because… I can’t learn that because…”

 

Value Beliefs: Value beliefs are typically based on norms laws cultural restraints and other conditions. However, not all of these are mandatory, and some are highly limiting. “I must clean my house every day until the floor shines.” This is a highly limiting value belief about cleanliness.

 

Others will/are: these are beliefs based on how other people perceive us or what they will do based on our actions. These are often guesses about other people’s behavior, and they are often wrong. These self-limiting beliefs are wrong because we view people through our own mind rather than through their perception. We don’t have accurate ideas of how other people think because we have not lived their experiences.

 

How Do Self-Limiting Beliefs Affect Your Life?

 

Now that you’re aware of various self-limiting thoughts, the question becomes, how are these thoughts affecting your life?

 

According to Psychology Today, limiting decisions in our lives prevents us from becoming who we wish to become. Self-limiting thoughts do this by affecting our decisions. 

 

Several studies over the past few decades have shown that what we perceive, our emotional state, and how we perform, are all directly tied to our self-belief system. This means that if your self-beliefs are limiting, your actions are going to be self-limiting.

 

Often people with self-limiting beliefs will not even attempt to test that limit. For example, people who think that they are not attractive will never attempt to ask for a date. People who think they are too old for new jobs will not try to find a more satisfying career. These are examples of how self-limiting beliefs can bring you down without you even knowing. Self-limiting beliefs are controlling your decisions every day.

4-Steps To Eliminating Self-Limiting Beliefs

 

The lucky thing about thoughts is that you are in complete control of them. Anytime you have a thought,whether it is positive or negative, you can change it. Psychology Today has a four-step process to eliminate self-limiting beliefs. Learning these steps and going through them can help you see more success in your life by reducing your self-limiting thoughts.

 

1.  Write the limiting belief down. Find out how strong each belief is and what emotions they make you feel.

2.  Acknowledge that they are beliefs and not truths. Many people struggle with this step, but the reality is a belief is not a fact. Many self-limiting beliefs are limitations that are based on fictional ideas we have about ourselves. When we realize that these are not real or truthful limitations, we free ourselves up to act against these beliefs.

3.  Try on a different belief. This may take some practice, but over time, you will be able to change your belief system. An example that psychology today used was to change a self-limiting belief about not being good with money. Instead of saying, “I am not good with money and that is why I have financial difficulties.” You would change that belief to “I am experienced with money because of my past, and I have learned how to handle my finances.” These simple tweaks in your internal dialogue can help you change your actions.

4.  Take different action. The final step is to take action on your new belief as if it were true. If you now are trying on the belief that you are a successful artist, you may enter your first art show. While this is very scary, it is also an important step in overcoming negative and self-limiting beliefs.

 

Confidence in Yourself Makes Anything Possible

Having confidence means knowing your own self-worth, what you’re good at and conveying it to others. But who has the time to explore their self-confidence? We’re living at a time when appearances can be deceiving, and it’s very easy to lose yourself in all the hype of how we should dress and talk and eat and act - social media has everything laid out for us.

 

Everyone’s self-confidence fluctuates every now and then. Let’s be honest, who isn’t afraid of failure? But confident people know how to overcome that fear. They have a set of ideals and values they follow, and aren’t afraid to speak their mind. They know their likes and dislikes, their passions and beliefs. Confident people don’t seek others’ approval before their own. Their happiness doesn’t depend on how others see them.

 

On the other hand, they’re accepting of constructive criticism because they know how to use it and become stronger for it. Confident people praise the success of others, and rarely judge or are overly critical of what other people do or say. Needless to say, they avoid negative people since negativity can be contagious and powerful.

 

Those who have a high sense of self-confidence aren’t afraid to ask for help. They’re aware that they don’t know everything there is to know, and that it’s okay to seek the help of others. Another great quality of confident individuals is that they don’t shy away from new experiences. They try new things and are open to new ideas. And if they make a mistake, they use it as a learning experience. 

 

They’re constantly challenging themselves, and as a result, enjoying more of what life has to offer. It could be they’re learning a new language or how to play the guitar; the point is they embrace life and are living it, instead of just skimming on the surface.

 

When you’re comfortable in your own skin, people tend to sense it and somehow take some of that confidence with them into their own lives. Killing off negative thoughts becomes second nature. At the same time, replacing that negativity with a more positive, balanced outlook on life becomes easier. And the more you feed the positive, the stronger it becomes, boosting with it your self-respect and worth.

 

You know that saying, “practice makes perfect.” Well, it goes for building up your self-confidence as well. Through continual practice, your confidence increases and you become adept at listening to your inner voice. Some of the things you do every day can either make or break your confidence, such as:

 

• Smile and make eye contact. When you’re talking to someone, or a group of people, a key ingredient to bolstering your self-confidence is by looking your audience in the eye and smiling. When people feel that you’re connecting with them on some level, they tend to relax a bit, listen better, and take in that self-assurance you exude.

• Take care of yourself. Personal hygiene is fundamental because when you feel good about how good you look and smell, your confidence will shine through.

• Exercising and a healthy diet are also crucial to having a well-balanced sense of self.

• Good posture. Studies show that those who lack self-confidence tend to slump their shoulders to avoid attention. Pull your shoulders back and take a deep breath. That’s all you need to shine.

• Help others. When you help a stranger, or even someone you know, you get a better sense of who you are in the world and how much we truly depend on one other. Feeling that connection can give you feeling that you can do anything.

• Discover new things. Learning is an ongoing process. And the more you learn, the more empowered you’ll become. Read, take courses, meet new people - it’s up to you.

• Be prepared. Make a “Handy Helper” type of list so you’re ready whenever you’re faced with a problem at work or in your personal life, you can use it to get you back on track, like a backup plan. Knowing that you have something whenever you face a tough situation will bolster your self-confidence and enable you to go into any situation with more self-reliance and composure.