Work Yourself Up!

Five Signs of Job Burnout...

Have a lot of people on here who are still working for somebody else. Saw this list today and thought it might be something you guys can relate to...

Sign No. 1: Your co-workers are walking on eggshells around you.
If you find yourself becoming cranky and irritable with co-workers you used to get along with, it may be more than just typical interpersonal dynamics.

Sign No. 2: You come in late and want to leave earlier.
You used to wake up in the morning excited for another day, but now every day you dread heading into the office. Once lunch passes you start watching the clock, counting the minutes to the end of the day.

Sign No. 3: Apathy has replaced enthusiasm.
You feel no motivation, no sense of accomplishment and have no desire to be challenged. Those who have burnout lose their motivation to perform, as well as their feelings of pride for a job well done.

Sign No. 4: You've lost camaraderie with co-workers.
You're no longer interested in the company network. You used to go to lunch, go out for drinks and participate in other company functions but now have no desire in socializing in or out of the office.

Sign No. 5: You're feeling physically sick.
You always feel exhausted, have headaches, feel tension in all of your muscles and are having trouble sleeping. These physical signs are common indicators of job stress, and demonstrate that this can turn into a physical problem.

Sounds like you? Post your situation in the comment section and read the full article.

And if you want something to help you get over the situation...

"Quit Your Job (and Never Go Back) - How to Create, Start, & Market an Online Business for Under $500 in 30 Days or Less (WorkYourselfUp.com Presents)" (David, R Hooper, David Hooper)

The Best Way to Make Money Online

Here's a recent inteview I did with Wendy Wallace of DesireToGrow.com.  In it, I talked about starting my online business in the early 90s, what I've learned about doing business since then, and how I've been able to not only maintain things for so long, but grow them.

Wendy asked me a lot of questions about the best way to get things going, especially when you're under the stress of money or similar situations.  I feel this is a very important aspect of being successful both online and offline, so take a listen if "money stress" is something that you deal with in your life.

After you're done listening, feel free to post any comments or questions below.

Want more?  A couple of things for you...

You can get more insight into my mindset within my new book, Ask, Believe, Receive - 7 Days to Increased Wealth, Better Relationships, and a Life You Love. If you're into self-development material such as "Think and Grow Rich" or similar books, you'll like this one.

For those of you who are interested in more of a "business" process, try my workbook, Quit Your Job (and Never Go Back) - How to Create, Start, & Market an Online Business for Under $500 in 30 Days or Less.

Women and Marketing?

I want to talk to you for a minute about two things I love...women and marketing.  But to really talk about this stuff, I have to separate this post into two sections-- one for men, and the other for women.

MEN - READ THIS SECTION (Women, read the section below...)

I know this from personal experience (and from the hundreds of men that I've talked with about it)... 

A lot of guys in this business  have a problem in that the women in our lives don't understand what we do for a living.  And if you're in a situation like this, you know how stressful it can be on your relationship when you need to some work, yet it seems like you're "just goofing off on the computer again."

And other guys I know, they want a way to get the women of their lives involved in their businesses.  Or to show their mothers, sisters, or daughters the freedom that comes with having a career like this.

Well, I've got a solution for you.  My friend Wendy Wallace is doing a 12-week "Build Your Business" course just for women. 

So if you want to do something nice, which will empower the woman in your life, take a look...

This link has details.

This would make a great New Year's gift.  And it's cheap!!  :)   And by cheap, I mean $97...with a 100% guarantee.

WOMEN - READ THIS SECTION

Let's be honest...  This "business" is run by men.  They're good people, but they don't understand your issues-- the delicate balance of work and family, dealing with kids who need a mother, etc.

And relating to the gurus?  Heck, I'm a guy and even I can't relate to them.

You need somebody who can help you to grow your business, who truly understands you and your life.  Somebody who has walked a mile in your shoes.

Take a look at this 12-week "grow your business" course, run by a woman, made just for women.

This is the ONLY place you'll get this kind of training.  I know you'll like it and I know you'll get results.  If not, she'll refund all your tuition.

EVERYBODY

Hope you have a great weekend!  And I hope you have an even better 2008!

Coming Soon - New Book on Law of Attraction

Just a head's up...  I have a new book coming out in about three weeks.  Right now, the release day is scheduled for January 1.

The book talks about mindset and how you can use it to help both your business and personal life.  If you like books such as the Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale, or Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, you'll like this one.

This book is different from others I have done on the subject in that it gives a specific process that you can follow.  Simply follow the step for the day, incorporate the teaching into your life, and watch the results. 

I have more general books on the subject, but wanted to so something specific to majors areas of life which people have to deal with.  This book focuses on money, relationships, career, business, and health. It's great for people entrepreneurs.

I'll got a big launch planned for the first week of January, so watch this blog for details.

How to Expect the Best

Do you ever find yourself getting stuck in negative thought patterns and expecting the worst possible outcome in every situation?  It's a common mind-set that proves difficult to change when you finally decide you've had enough.  Unfortunately, negative thoughts tend to breed and multiply on their own ñ even when you're not consciously trying to think negatively.

The good news is that turning a negative outlook into a positive one just takes a bit of patience and persistence until the positive thoughts begin to take over.

Below you'll find three simple steps to begin forming positive expectations on a daily basis:

1)    Develop self-awareness to recognize negative expectations. 

One problem with negative thoughts is that they often form below your conscious level of awareness, and you get so used to them being in your head that you hardly notice anymore.  To turn the tide of negativity, you'll have to develop a stronger level of self-awareness.  One good way to start is by performing self-checks several times a day.  Pay attention first to how you feel.  If you're feeling positive and productive, most likely you've been thinking positive thoughts.

However, if you notice that you're feeling irritable, pessimistic or stressed, you're probably focusing more on negative thoughts.  When that happens:

2)    Challenge and change the negative thoughts.

Believe it or not, it's fairly easy to challenge and change negative thoughts with a little willpower and concentration.  For example, if you find yourself feeling doubtful about your ability to finish your work on time, you might engage in a bit of self-talk like this:  "Okay, so I'm feeling a bit worried right now, but really everything is okay.  I'm strong, I'm smart and I'm capable of finishing my work on time.  I'll do my best and everything will work out fine."  Even though nothing has changed in your outer circumstances, this type of self-talk can get you thinking and feeling more positive.

3)    At the same time, while you're changing negative thoughts to positive, work daily on developing a general positive expectation habit. 

Each day when you wake up, affirm confidently, "Today is going to be a great day!  Everything will go my way and I'll enjoy plenty of lucrative opportunities and fun!"

When you encounter obstacles or problems, see them as opportunities to learn, grow and strengthen yourself.  Perception is 99% of the game!  If you simply work on shifting the way you look at the experiences of your life, you can easily conquer your negative thought habits.

The more you focus on changing your perspective to emphasize the positive, you'll empower yourself to create better circumstances in your life.  Before you know it, you'll be enjoying better and more frequent opportunities and attracting other like-minded, successful people to connect with.   

How To Break a Bad Habit

One dictionary defines a habit as “a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.”   In other words, a habit is something done habitually such that it becomes a cognitively engrained behavior that often escapes conscious attention (it is done unconsciously and automatically). 

Habits can be either good habits or bad habits (or at least they are regularly perceived as such).  Now, most people aren’t interested in changing their good habits but are, on the other hand, often desirous to change their bad habits.  A bad habit is a habit that one deems undesirable and often finding difficult to break.  Examples of “bad habits” include: smoking, drinking too much/too often, spending too much money, eating poorly, avoiding exercise, etc.  All of the aforementioned can have a detrimental impact on the individual.

If one desires to change or “break” a bad habit, be forewarned—it isn’t an easy process.  And while there is no one-size fits all approach or a perfect “ten step” program that works for everyone, there are some general principles that can be followed to help one break free from the bonds of a bad habit.  There is some confidence to be found in this simple fact—It was one’s choices that led to the formation of the bad habit in the first place and other, better choices can lead to its dissolution.

1. One must first recognize and define the bad habit.  If one does not first see the bad habit as in fact bad, he or she will have no desire to change it.  What is the habit?  How does this particular habit affect you?  Is this habit detrimental to your health, relationships, finances, etc.?

2. One must not only recognize the habit as bad but must also desire to be rid of the habit.  This involves the commitment of the will to achieve the goal of freedom from the habit.  Ask yourself, and answer honestly—Do you truly want to be rid of this habit?  And are you prepared for the struggle that is to come on the path to extinguishing the habit?  For example, smokers often to say that they wish to quite smoking while it is often the case that they in fact do not truly wish to quit and thus set themselves up for automatic failure. 

3. One must take definitive action to be rid of the habit.  Breaking a habit takes both action and time—action over time specifically.  Depending on the particular habit that one desires to break, certain systematic steps must first be taken that bring one ever closer to the goal of being, ultimately, freed from the habit.  State exactly what it is that you wish to change and how you intend to go about changing it.  It is of the utmost importance that you be realistic in stating both your goal and your plan of action lest you set yourself up for failure.

Essential to a successful program of bad habit breaking is the replacement of the bad habit with a good habit.  It is much easier to substitute one behavior for another as opposed to simply doing away with a behavior altogether.  For example, for the one desirous to quit smoking, when the urge to smoke overcomes him or her, he or she could have a drink of healthy juice instead.  While this seems rather simplistic and perhaps silly even, over time the urge to smoke will dissipate into the satisfaction produced by the new habit, drinking juice, eventually vanishing altogether.  In the end, a healthy new habit has replaced an old bad habit.

The most important thing to remember when attempting to establish new good habits and do away with old bad habits is to be patient with yourself.  Change takes time but change is very possible.  As stated above, it is choices (less than ideal choices to be sure) that led to the establishment of your current bad habit and better, more ideal choices can help you vanquish that same habit and replace it with a new, better, “good habit” even. 

Thanksgiving - Good for Your Business!

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States.

When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me, "David, be sure to thank people when they do something nice for you.  Show them you're thankful and they'll want to do it again."

You guys with employees (or spouses) know this.  When you show people appreciation for something, they'll do more of it.

Same is true for the universe in general.  When you appreciate what you have, more of that follows.  Earl Nightingale said, "You become what you think about."  And you get what you think about also.

I believe in the concept so much that I wrote a book on gratitude.  If you can relate to what I'm saying here,  and want more detailed thoughts on the subject, you may want to check it out.

The Habits of the Highly Successful

Success is a habit for some.  Why?  Because many have mastered the habits of the highly successful.  These habits are commonsense and easy to implement into one’s life.  Want to learn about the habits of the highly successful?  Read on…

Success is intricately bound up with behavior.  We each and every one reap the benefits (or the contrary) of our behaviors.  Certain behaviors will take us far in life and others will hold us back—simple law of the universe.  With this in mind, one desirous of success should seek to make habitual in his or her life those behaviors which are most conducive to and prerequisite for success.

The Habit of Organization.  A life free from clutter is a life more conducive to success.  Organize all around you (your home, your office, your car, etc.) and you will find yourself calmer, less agitated, and more prone to take action.  Clutter interferes with productivity and takes focus, energy, as well as time from us that we could otherwise be utilizing for progress toward our goals.

The Habit of Prioritization.  Face it; we are all seemingly busier today than we ever have been in the past.  We have countless things competing for our attention.  There is our family, our friends, our jobs, and so on.  One must separate out that which we wish to accomplish and need to accomplish in each arena and prioritize in order of importance.  Otherwise, the mundane and secondary things will divert us off path and perhaps place us even further behind than we were to start with.

The Habit of Taking Action.  Once you have organized your life and environment and have subsequently prioritized your goals, you are then in a position to take action (though not prior to this).  If there is one habit that highly successful people share it is that of action taking.  Procrastination itself is an action that one chooses to take…why not use your choice more wisely and put your energy and efforts into a more positive course of action?  Taking action is like taking steps.  You do so one at a time but before you know it you’ve walked a hundred miles!

The Habit of Pursuing Victory.  The successful pay no mind to failure, victory is always the goal and they will do anything to attain it.  One must want to win to in fact win.  Develop the habit of pursuing victory and seeing failure as it really is—a speed bump or detour on the path to success perhaps, but not itself a dead end.

Success is not an elusive, ethereal entity that some simply luck up upon by serendipity.  On the contrary, it is something concrete and there for the taking of all who pursue it.  It will most readily be found when the above habits are in place.  Implement them today in your life and achieve the success that you so desire. 

Want More Money? Study Music!

A poll by Harris Interactive, an independent research company, showed that 88 percent of people with a post-graduate education were involved in music while in school, and 83 percent of people earning $150,000 or more had a music education.

Why? 

"Part of it is the discipline itself in learning music, it's a rigorous discipline, and in an ensemble situation, there's a great deal of working with others. Those types of skills stand you well in careers later in life," said John Mahlmann, of the National Association for Music Education in Reston, Virginia, which assisted in the survey.

The Win-Win Situation

Despite common misconception, everybody can win.

One of the paramount skills in achieving success in whatever ways you define it is the ability to create win-win situations. That is, to identify a way for a situation to be resolved in a way that meets the needs of everyone involved, and then to choose it.

The myth at the heart of all conflict is that one party has to lose in order for the other party to win.  To playground scuffles to lover’s spats to world wars, this Win/Lose mentality is at the core. And it is a total fallacy.

The nature of the universe is infinite abundance. Not only is there enough of everything for everybody; there is more than enough.

To locate the Win-Win solution to any situation, identify the needs underlying the conflict. It may be (and is probably so) that a possibility not yet considered can satisfy one or both parties’ needs just as well as the path or outcome the party has been fighting for.

The Art of the Win/Win is not to be confused with the act of compromise. Compromise implies giving up something yourself in order for another person to gain. Identifying your core needs beneath your requests and demands frees you to allow more options into your realm of possibility. Invariably an option exists that will satisfy the other person’s needs without sacrificing any of yours.

A dedication to the pursuit of Win-Win Situations is noticeable. It makes a person stand out, and in all the right ways. People pick up on it when someone shows is committed to other people’s needs as much as (though not more than) their own. People appreciate that, and they respect it.

The “end result” is that a Win/Win situation triggers a chain reaction of further Win/Wins, in contrast to Win/Lose situations which leave you back at square one with each new challenge; every victory but a doorway into yet another battle.

Since money seems to be such a common symbol of Winning, let’s look at those people we perceive as the grand Winners: the Rich. The difference between a happy rich person and an unhappy rich person (or, put another way: a rich person and a wealthy person) may be whether or not that person lived by a code of Win/Lose or one of Win/Win.

A person committed to achieving their visions of success at the expense of others suffers for it in loneliness and lovelessness. The person who raises others up along with him by his choices is the true winner.

The concept of the Win-Win situation is used regularly and to great effect in the worlds of business and politics. They can be put to equally effective use in your home, family, and relationships. They will add fuel to the achievement of your goals and desires. And they will make for a happier and more peaceful environment, outside and in.