Wednesday 1 September 2010

A Simple Way To Boost The Effectiveness Of Visualisations (or "Envisualisations")

This is a really quick and simple tip.

If you are trying to visualise something that has not yet happened and you are struggling to create a mental image, there is an additional visual image that you can create that can massively boost the effectiveness of your visualisation.

Imagine the reaction of someone you know well to the outcome of whatever it is that you are visualising. Make sure that there is context to the visualisation so that the reaction could clearly only have occurred if your desired outcome has been achieved, but if you can make this real enough in your mind it can help a lot.

Why does this work? There are a number of reasons, with the following two being at the top of the list:

First, it's a people focus. As human beings we respond well to the reactions of other human beings, so there is an innate, emotional response that is created by thinking about other people's reactions to something.

Second, it's easier to imagine a scenario that is "real" in your mind. You can imagine the real person, in a real location, using expressions that they often use, to make the visual image far more grounded, easier to recall and more believable.

Third, it's easier to focus on the outcome without being tempted to try to work out how to get there. This way, you can leave your subconscious to work out how to get there rather than confusing your thoughts with details that aren't important for this exercise. Even if in order to achieve the visualisation you need to do a lot of conscious thinking, while you are visualising it you should not: you should be focussed on the experience and feelings of the moment that you want to create.

Give it a go: you'll be amazed by how effective it can be.

Monday 30 August 2010

An All-New Term For Visualisation

A slip of the tongue from my wife has created a brilliant, all-new term for visualisation. I'm hoping it will catch on...


What is visualisation?

For the uninitiated, put simply, visualisation is a technique whereby you create an experience that you want to have in your mind.

In some cases this experience is something you have already done, so visualisation can be seen as "mental rehearsal". For this, there is a lot of evidence that rehearsing an experience in your mind, for example successfully shooting a basketball hoop, can significantly improve your performance in that experience in reality.

In other cases, the visualisation may be of something that you have not yet experienced but want to experience in the future. This is actually something that most people do without even realising it, to some degree. For example, an artist will have some idea in their mind of what they are going to create; no matter what you do, you will have some kind of vision of what success looks like before you do it.


Visualisation in everyday life

Another example that you may be more familiar with could be driving into town: you know that you are going to take the car and that you will end up in town. You probably have some kind of idea of the route you will take, where you will park, and so on. This idea of the route and end destination may appear to you as images - even if just momentarily and without you really thinking about it, because it is so natural to do. Visualisation takes this a step further and is the conscious act of thinking through what you are going to do. Some people refer to it as a mental movie that you play to yourself.

There are various theories about the impact of visualisation, ranging from the idea that visualisation is just a way of planning and preparing but not much more, to the more extreme beliefs such as those expressed in films like "The Secret" and in books on the use of the subconscious, which suggest that just by thinking something we can manifest them in reality, and by visualising and end result your subconscious, or even the universe itself, will bend to make it happen.


The new term: Envisualise!

My wife has been talking about what we are going to do to the rooms in our new home and something she always does is to build a vision of what the new room will look like: colours, furniture, patterns and so on. It's the way she's always approached this kind of thing and has never read anything on visualisation or any similar techniques (although she may have heard a term or two like this from me).

She often talks about how she envisages the room and what her vision looks like. Recently, she said to me that it was how she had "envisualised" it. It made us both laugh, but actually I think it's a great term. It's a cross between envisage and visualise: it's the union and evolution of the two techniques.

Brilliant.

I hope you enjoy this new word and start using it to describe your envisualisations from now on!

Sunday 29 August 2010

The Key To Success: Cross-Train!

There is no single way to achieve success in life and there is no "right" or "wrong" path.

Some people seem to be able to achieve all of their goals in an effortless way while others work hard for many years to get there.

There are many books, videos, seminars, courses and other different forms of advice available on subjects of personal development and on specific skills, but which ones should you go on? Should you even bother or can you achieve all of your goals without looking to others for help?

Well, there are people through the ages who have been massively successful without going on any courses. They worked it out themselves - and you could too.


Accelerate the learning process

However, the great benefit of learning from others is that it accelerates the learning process. It is one of the primary reasons for the human species: the ability to pass on knowledge from one generation to another; the ability for us to learn from others to build our capabilities and to avoid repeating mistakes.

I personally am constantly reading and learning. Every experience in my life - no matter how mundane - is an opportunity to enjoy life and to learn something. Even if the learning is simply building on something you already know, it is still all experience.


Multiple "right" answers

There are many people claiming to have "the answer". A lot of these "answers" are quite different approaches to the same thing; many more are re-packaged or re-worded versions of the same approach, with a slightly different spin.

In my experience, many of these "answers" can have some truth in them and can provide some extra insight that will help you.

The most important thing is to evaluate techniques and use your own intelligence in deciding what you are going to take away from them. How does what these techniques provide build on your own view on the world? What additional value does it bring, how will it help you do something better or avoid doing something that is not as constructive as it could be?

At the same time, everything must be taken with a pinch of salt. Many of the people selling these thoughts are very good marketers and will try to convince you that their way is the only way and the right way. Buy their products and you will achieve ultimate enlightenment and a long and happy fulfilled life!

Take the best bits but don't be brainwashed by this way of thinking. We as human being create models to help us better understand the world and to be able to deal with things, but they are only models: only approximations for us to understand and do things that would be beyond our capabilities without these simplifications.


Why cross-training is so important

We all learn in very different ways and getting lots of different perspectives is a very constructive thing to do as it exposes us to alternative ways of understanding things that may be more in tune with our learning style. It can also "fill the gaps" in the jigsaw of our understanding such that we are able to achieve an even greater insight than even the people who are providing the advice.

If we just look at one way of doing something, we will never be able to achieve this insight.

When I talk about cross-training, I'm not just talking about personal development/self help approaches. I'm talking about everything: relationships, work, technologies, hobbies; academic and practical; subjective and objective.

At work, I often make use of skills that I have picked up from widely different areas of study and experience. It is the fact that I apply this range of skills and continuously build my skills that makes me so effective. Specialism and depth of knowledge is extremely useful, but without the ability to apply it using the range of other skills that we have at our disposal our expertise would remain a blunt instrument.

In the world of personal development, there are loads of different theories and approaches and it really is worth considering a variety of them - even things that may seem dubious to you at first: it was actually a very "fluffy", almost "spiritual" book that I read that had the most profound and constructive impact on me, even though I don't believe all of its pseudo-science, many of the techniques and ideas suddenly made a lot of what I had read in the past fall in to place, and by putting them into effect I have experienced a radical change.

So - cross train and become as rounded an individual as you can be. It really could make the difference in terms of both the amount of success that you experience and in the speed at which you experience it!

Saturday 28 August 2010

Free Online: "The Secret" Video

I just stumbled across a full version of "The Secret" online and the link is below.

I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be up there (it's on some Chinese site) - but I've just watched it and it is a full version in English with Chinese subtitles.

Whether you believe all of the "science" (or pseudo-science) or not, it has some interesting ideas and there is a lot of evidence to support the value of techniques such as visualisation: even if you don't believe the "reasons" behind the theories, I've put a lot of these concepts into action and can confirm that they really have worked for me.


Hope you enjoy. It's good enough that I've decided to buy the DVD for a friend of mine to watch as I think they could really benefit from it. You can find the DVD:
Let me know what you think!

Friday 27 August 2010

Thanks For Your Messages of Support: I Am Back

Many thanks to all of you who have sent me messages encouraging me to continue blogging. To be honest, I didn't realise so many people were reading and am returning because of this support.

It's been over 6 months since my last post, but it has been an amazingly busy and successful 6 months. I have learnt a huge amount and have far more useful insights to share than before. I have also continued to write (as I originally committed to myself that I would) - albeit not on this blog.

This is just an initial post to let everyone know that I am returning and my first proper posts will start appearing over the next few days - so watch this space.

The best thing for me is that all of the work on personal development is really paying off - but at times in ways I didn't expect - so there are various things I can share on that front.

Great things that have happened in my life over the past few months (and are continuing to get better) include:
  • A great pay rise and bonus, above my expectations
  • I have taken on a couple of new roles at work and am now presented with more opportunities than I could possibly pursue, so I am able to pick and choose
  • My wife is expecting our first son, due to be born in November (we were previously told that she might have trouble conceiving)
  • People have been very generous in offering us various good quality baby furniture and toys to get us started
  • We have found a great house that would previously have been out of our range, have sold our house and will be moving in over the next month
  • There have been various great social events with friends and family that I haven't seen in a long time, including a stag do and wedding that were both brilliant
  • ...and quite a bit more - and very recently I had another breakthrough that makes all of these things seem like very small steps in comparison...
So, here I am and I'm glad to be back. Please do get in touch if there is anything in particular you would like to hear about and my first posts will follow soon...

Sunday 7 February 2010

Action Without Direction Is Better Than No Action

Take this post as an example.

I haven't had a sudden moment of inspiration to write something, I am just writing. In line with my commitment to write something every day, I know that taking action and writing something - writing anything at all - is more productive and useful than sitting back and waiting for an idea or direction.

Of course, direction is important to make sure you're going the right way, but more often than not it is better to do something than to wait for that direction. Even if your action means you're taking things forward in slightly the wrong way, at least you are taking things forwards, and if you need to adjust your direction in the future at least you're not starting from scratch and have done some good.

At work, this can sometimes manifest itself in a belief that you need someone's permission to do something that you know is right and will help, but are concerned others will not understand or support you. Many times I've heard great ideas that never went anywhere because the person with the idea was waiting for some permission or other that in reality they didn't need. Whilst at work you do sometimes need to be careful due to the political environment in which you work, often it is better to act and ask permission than ask permission and risk never taking action.

Not sure what you should be doing? Try doing something - doing anything - just to get something done - and you'll probably find that you will find your way, and if not at least you can say you've done something...

Saturday 6 February 2010

End Every Day With A Success

This is a really simple and obvious psychological trick that can massively help how good you feel about every day in your life.

The idea is simple: No matter how bad your day has been, always end it with a success.


You define success

Let's say you've just had the worst day of your life. Everything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong. You get to the end of the day and think to yourself: there is nothing good about this day.

This is where you need to stop.

Step back and think of one thing you can do that is positive and could be seen as a success. Even if it's really small, just something that you will be able to look back on and think "well at least I did that..."

Even if you have something really big on your plate that you know you should do right now, but also know there's no chance you're going to get it finished in time: you're going to fail, it's all going to come crashing round your ears and you're going to suffer the consequences.

You still need to stop.

This horrible situation is out of your control, so make the decision to do no more on it today. You have to stop for the day at some point anyway, so stop and think of that one thing you're going to do that will be successful.

Maybe you're at home and you just want to get one small house chore done that will save time tomorrow- like washing the pots, or washing some clothes. Do it now, and know that you ended the say on a success.

Or you could be at work, and you can look at your long list of things to do and pick off one thing that you can get done now, that will be a success. It may be small, but at least you can leave the office with one success. Send that email helping someone out, or complete that little admin task you've been putting off but still needs doing. Get it done - and you have succeeded.

You can define what that small success is, but make it small enough to be easily achievable as the last thing you do that day.


You'll be amazed

Just this small thing can make a massive difference on your life.

You will never finish a day with that sinking feeling of dread and disappointment. Yes, you still have a load of other things to worry about, but at least you ended on a small high.

In time, you will find that the feeling of success will translate to clearer thoughts and more success elsewhere, including on those big horrible tasks you're struggling with.

This small technique will not solve all your problems, but it will help, and will make you feel better.

Give it a go today!


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A couple of related links

As always when I write about anything, I do a quick search on the subject first.

If you found this article interesting, here are a couple of other articles that may also be of use to you:


One Way To Never Break A Routine

Routines can be a great way to help achieve things that take time and effort, like a new level of fitness or a product that will take a long time to create and can be produced through regular, small contributions.

Whenever we start a new routine, we always have a sense of hope. There is a target we are aiming for, a vision of a better place that we will get to if we stick to it.

The trouble is, it takes work. Even with our best intentions, a routine is something we have to do, consistently and without fail for it to be a routine.


We make and break our own routines

Take a daily routine, like doing a small amount of exercise every day. Or even a weekly one.

The most common cause of a routine like this breaking is missing just one day. We miss that one time and think that we've broken the routine, so what's the point now? It's broken - we're going to have to start from scratch again to get it going.

But is a routine really broken by a small thing like this?

The answer is no.

Routines are an artificial creation, they're just in our mind.

We decide what our routine is, how often we're going to do something, how we measure our own success. So you've missed a day, so what? Okay, so it may "feel" like the routine's broken, but it hasn't. It's only one day.

Say you miss three days and pick up again where you left off. It's still the same routine, you've just had a bit of a break. It's not broken, you've not gone back to the beginning at all. It could be that you've not made as much progress as you would have liked, or your fitness has regressed slightly, but don't let that stop your routine - it's all in your mind. Just start where you left off and continue.

If your routine is a personal one, the only person you are really accountable to is you - so it's up to you whether you beat yourself up about it and stop (which doesn't really help anyone), or just pick yourself up and continue (which is surely a more constructive way forwards).

Some people might suggest that this is somehow deluding yourself, but I disagree. We're not denying that we've missed a few days, and we're not saying we're happy about that. What we're saying is that despite missing those days, we are going to continue regardless. We will persist and succeed regardless of setbacks - the routine is not broken, it has been on hold but will continue.

Have you ever broken a good routine and never started it again? Maybe now's the time to pick it back up. It was only on hold, after all...

Sunday 17 January 2010

Free Online Self-Tests

Creating the free self-assessment tools made me wonder how many similar self-tests and personal development quizzes are available online, so I had a quick search.

In this post you'll find some links to some others that you will find online, some notes on what is good about them and some thing that they miss, and what the self-test tools I'm pulling together do to plug those gaps.

Here are some of the better online self-assessments that I found:

There were also loads that I found that weren't that helpful

A whole range of sites that I stumbled across in my search contained loads of quizzes that had clearly been pulled together purely for entertainment and not to really help understand ourselves or take action.

You commonly find similar quizzes on social networking sites like Facebook and in email chain letters too.

Not a bad thing, but a bit of a waste of time if you're actually filling them in for a real purpose.

Probably the best of these that I found was "Quiz Stop", which provides a good range of different categories of self-test quizzes: http://www.quizstop.com/


Aside from the "purely for fun" ones, are the useful ones really any good?

Well, most of them are okay. None of the ones that I found were particularly ground-breaking - but then, they're not going to be.

All any self-test like this will give you is a fairly superficial indication of yourself - but it is how well that indication is produced and presented, and more importantly how easily you can act on it, that makes the big difference.


The thing that was missing from them

The real thing that was missing in most of them was clear guidance on what the results really mean and what you can do with them.

In particular, in most cases these tests lead to a summary screen that focusses on what you are, with no reference to what you are *not*. Often it is this comparison, the identification of areas for improvement, that can help you take action that makes a difference. This goes hand-in-hand with advice on what you can do to balance out in those areas where you are doing *too much* of one thing or *not enough* of another.

Whilst a big part of this responsibility falls on you, the tests should at least provide some pointers if they are to be of any real use.


The tools on this Business-Life-Success blog don't fall into this trap

The tools I've been pulling together do show exactly where you scored well in what areas, in comparison with other alternative areas, and include some guidance on the "why": http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html

They're based on the book "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!", by Ron Yeung (links to this book on Amazon are provided below).

This is available to buy at the following locations, but you can also download the full book to "try before you buy", along with a whole load of other books, as described in the following post: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/fantastic-100-free-self-help-books-to.html

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Saturday 16 January 2010

Something Different In Personal Development

Ever get the feeling that all personal development and self-help messages are the same?

Ever just want to find something just that little bit different, that changes your perspective on things and takes you one step closer towards a better way of living?


There's a reason they all sound the same

The primary reason that so much information out there is similar, is because there are only so many areas of your life that you can influence and so many techniques you can apply to make your life better.

Think about your life. In what ways do you want it to get better?

Do you want more money, more friends, more material possessions, more fulfilling relationships, more peace? I'm willing to bet that there isn't much on your list that doesn't appear on many other people's lists across the world.

Now think about what you can do to make those improvements and attain those things.

Again, it's the usual suspects: define clearly what you want and how you want to get there, work out how you're going to get there, replace bad habits with good habits, reduce procrastination and replace it with action, change your mindset to appreciate what you get etc. etc.

Sound familiar?


Why more of the same can result in something different

Ok, so some advice is a bit different. Sometimes we read something and it sparks something; it triggers a new way of thinking, a revelation.

Sometimes even things that we already know, when presented in a subtly different way, can lead to something great.

Which is why more of the same is not such a bad thing.

The more people write about the same things, explore new possibilities in the same areas, the more likely we are to stumble across the next great revelation. Also, the more people who are likely to be exposed to these ideas for the first time.

Just because you or I have heard it all before, doesn't mean that everyone has. The number of times I've read a book that was written years before another, and realised the "new" ideas that I had been blown away by were actually a slightly more developed version of something that had been written years ago, isn't a bad thing. It's actually reassuring: at least they were onto the right thing all those years ago, and at least people are still working to take those ideas even further now.

The more recent books are often better too, even if just slightly better articulated or incorporating a few extra little lessons and examples.


Re-hashing ideas for the sake of creating content is a bit of a shame though...

In my "daily rubbish" posts, I am writing just to ensure I write something on a regular basis as much as anything, so sometimes there is a risk that I fall into the trap of re-hashing old ideas - but I will always try to add something extra, a new insight or a bit of commentary that is relevant to me or might be useful to others.

What does sometimes frustrate me is when I read other's blogs and articles that are clearly just taking credit for ideas that come from somewhere else, that are not only a repetition of often-told stories, but also add nothing new and are so abstract they provide no guidance on how to apply them.


How do we make things different?

There are plenty of things we can do to take these ideas forwards and make them different, a bit more useful and tangible. If you look at the best books and websites out there, they all have several things in common. Below are a few examples - if you have more please let me know:
  • They include specific, real-life examples. They're not just a load of theoretical text regurgitated from a psychology textbook, they include stories on how the ideas were applied and how they worked in real life to the author or to someone else specific.
  • They provide extra ideas or commentary that extend the original concepts
  • They condense or re-present the ideas in a far more interesting, accessible and understandable way that more people can relate to
  • They provide exercises that you can do yourself
  • They provide new tools or templates to use in your own personal development

What I'm looking for is something different in personal development. Have you found it?

Identifying Your Style of Influencing - Free Self-Test Tool - Available Here First

This is the fifth of our useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-assessment spreadsheets, as introduced here: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html


This self-assessment tool is taken from Chapter Three of "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (which can be found on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COMhere).

The purpose of this self-test is to assess your style of influencing, which will help identify where your strengths and weaknesses are and areas for improvement.

Instructions on how to use it are included in the spreadsheet.

Download it, have a go, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it useful.

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Friday 15 January 2010

Your Style of Tackling Tricky People - Free Self-Test Tool - Available Here First

This is the fourth of our useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-assessment spreadsheets, as introduced here: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html


This self-assessment tool is taken from Chapter Two of "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (which can be found on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COMhere).

The purpose of this self-test is to assess your style of dealing with tricky people, which will help identify where your strengths and weaknesses are and areas for improvement.

Instructions on how to use it are included in the spreadsheet.

Download it, have a go, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it useful.

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Thursday 14 January 2010

Measuring Your Political Skill - Free Self-Test Tool - Available Here First

This is the third of our useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-assessment spreadsheets, as introduced here: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html

Download it here: 2-2 - Self-Test - Measuring Your Political Skill

This self-assessment tool is taken from Chapter Two of "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (which can be found on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COM here).

The purpose of the self-test is to provide an indicative measure of your own political skill and to identify areas for improvement.

Instructions on how to use it are included in the spreadsheet.

Download it, have a go, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it useful.

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Sunday 10 January 2010

Identifying Politics Where You Work - Free Self-Test Tool - Available Here First

This is the second of our useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-assessment spreadsheets, as introduced here: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html


This self-assessment tool is taken from Chapter Two of "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (which can be found on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COMhere).

The purpose of the self-test is to identify the politics at your work, which will help respond to any challenges or opportunities that the political environment may raise for you.

Instructions on how to use it are included in the spreadsheet.

Download it, have a go, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it useful.

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Saturday 9 January 2010

Available Online For Free - The Science of Getting Rich - A Self Help Classic

"The Science of Getting Rich" is one of those timeless self-help classics along with the likes of "Think And Grow Rich" and "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin".

The principles it promotes are as valid today as they were back then. Whilst some people may criticise it for its "pyscho-babble" (being all about acquiring wealth through creative thought and the "law of attraction"), and for its complete focus on obtaining financial riches rather than general personal development, if you do give it a chance, it does have some great, thought-provoking ideas in there - and it's short and to the point so at least worth a go!


Read it for free

The book accessible for free online at the following site: http://www.jamesallenlibrary.com/the-science-of-getting-rich.html

If you're like me and prefer to have a book to read, you can get it from Amazon (links below) - but the great thing about it being online is that it's available for you to check out beforehand and confirm whether or not you want to buy it.


A load of other free books

All of James Allen's books are also available online at the same site: http://www.jamesallenlibrary.com - thanks to whoever it was that posted the comment on my post the other day to let me know about this (Fantastic - 101 FREE Self-Help Books To Download).


Buying the books

These books are of course also available on Amazon - below are direct links to some of them for quick access if you are interested:

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For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Establishing Your Values - Free Self-Test Tool - Available Here First

This is the first of our useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-assessment spreadsheets, as introduced here: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-self-assessment-tools-adapted-from.html


This self-assessment tool is taken from Chapter One of "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (which can be found on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COM here).

The purpose of the self-test is to understand your own personal values, which helps to focus on the areas that are important to us in life and also identify any areas where you may want to make changes or improvements.

Instructions on how to use it are included in the spreadsheet.

Download it, have a go, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it useful.

_______________________________

For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

New Personal Development Book Stores


I've created a couple of Amazon book stores, tailored to personal development and career success.

The front pages of these include the top 9 books that I have got the most out of over recent years - so if you're looking for something good to read, do have a look:


Free Self-Assessment Tools - Adapted From The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!


Download useful, easy-to-use and FREE mini-self-assessment spreadsheets from the Business-Life-Success Blog!


Where are the self-assessments taken from?

One of the 100 Free Self-Help Books that I highlighted that are available to download, is a great little book that is full of little self-assessment exercises and tools, providing practical, repeatable little tests that you can do to things like:
  • establish your career priorities
  • bulk up your CV
  • measure your skills
  • deal with office politics
  • move up in management
  • negotiate a big pay rise
  • learn to network
  • change your career track
Whilst some of these activities aren't the most "sophisticated", they are all interesting and thought-provoking exercises that provide some useful indications or suggestions as an output.

The book is called "The Ultimate Career Success Workbook: Tests and Exercises to Assess Your Skills and Potential!" (get it on Amazon.CO.UK here, and Amazon.COM here).
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Turning the exercises into easy-to-use tools for you

A number of the exercises involve agreeing or disagreeing with a set of questions, and adding up the results of your answers under a number of "categories". I found that the easiest way to complete these exercises was to copy and paste them into a spreadsheet and to create simple formulas to do the adding up for me.

Each time I created a spreadsheet like this, I realised that it was in itself a mini tool that could save people a lot of time and make completing these exercises a lot easier.

So, I will be publishing each of these mini-tools over the coming weeks and linking to them from this page. I still recommend downloading or buying (UK - here / US - here) the book for the additional exercises and explanation, because there's some good stuff here that I would just end up re-writing if I wanted to include it here, but hope that these mini-tools that I have adapted from the multiple choice exercises will be useful.

_______________________________
For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Friday 8 January 2010

Great Free Online Tools

Ever been in a situation where you needed a technique or tool but couldn't remember what it was called, couldn't remember how to use it or couldn't remember where to find out more about it?

Here's a great selection of free websites and online resources to help you in your career, in visualising information at work, for general business activities and personal development tasks, and for self-evaluation.


Tools for your career


For a wide range of common business and management tools, check out Mind Tools for some great overview pages:


Each section of the site provides an overview of the tool, its purpose, how to use it, and for many of them you can download free templates to use too.


The tools are grouped by:

Visualisation

Representing and communicating data or other information visually is a common task, that can often benefit from the inspiration that a few examples can provide.

See the Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods as a great starting point.


Other free online templates

Business Balls have another wide selection of free templates to download, covering business and personal development topics: http://www.businessballs.com/freeonlineresources.htm

This list is a bit longer and less structured, but is a useful resource.


Self-assessment tools

Finally, a key part of effective personal development is taking a step back and critically reviewing yourself: your current state, your values, your personality, where you want to get to and so on - so that you know how far you need to go to achieve your goals.

Here's a list of example self-assessment resources, many of which are free (it tells you next to each link): http://www.rileyguide.com/assess.html


I've pulled this list together so I can use it as a reference point in the future. If you found it useful, make sure you're looking at this specific post and bookmark it so you can find these resources again when you need them too...

Thursday 7 January 2010

PopURLs - What's Hot Now

http://popurls.com/ - a great site that aggregates the most popular content from across the web.

If you're keen to stay on top of what's hot, cutting edge views and opinions, it's a very good place to start.

Also a good place for if you're looking for business ideas and opportunities based on current trends.

If this is something you're interested in, another site to look at is: http://addictomatic.com/ - another good, customisable content aggregation site, which is along similar lines to iGoogle (http://www.google.co.uk/ig or http://www.google.com/ig), and PageFlakes (http://www.pageflakes.com/).

Fantastic - 100 FREE Self-Help Books To Download!

I don't know who posted this, but 100 self-help books are available to download for free from the following site: http://www.ebookee.com/100-Collection-of-Self-Help-books-220MB-_400928.html

The direct links to the files are:
You'll need a program that reads "RAR" files to be able to unzip them (I don't think WinZIP reads ZIP files - e.g. I'm using WinRAR).

Using the links above, you can either pay for a fast download or get the files at a very slow speed (which is what I did - and yes it does work).

I was amazed by the quality of the books included e.g. it includes the extremely well known and respected book, Think and Grow Rich: The Original Classic, among others.

The full list of books (some of which appear to be short eBooks, others being fully-fledged self help books that you can purchase via Amazon), is below:
  • 10 Essential Key To Personal Effectiveness.pdf
  • 10 Life Changing Technologies.pdf
  • 100 Action Principles - By Bill Fitzpatrick.pdf
  • 101 Golden Keys To Success And Fullfillment In Life.exe
  • 101 Things I've Learn In My 50 Trips Arond The Sun.pdf
  • 12 Dirty Habits That Prevent You From Developing Exceptional People Skill.pdf
  • 18 Powerful Words And Their Usage - Kenrick Cleveland.pdf
  • 21 Success Secrets - Brian Tracy.pdf
  • 38 Ways To Win An Argument.pdf
  • 50 Self-Help Classics - 50 Inspirational Books To Transform Your Life.pdf
  • 7 Little Known Success Secrets Of The Rich And Famous.pdf
  • 7 Part Affirmations.exe
  • 9 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Any Book.doc
  • A Guide For Creative Thinking By Brian Tracy.pdf
  • Abcs Of A Successful Selling Career - Tom Hopkins.pdf
  • Acres Of Diamonds - Russell Conwell.pdf
  • Amacom.Time Power.pdf
  • Anthony Robbins - Personal Power Ii.pdf
  • As A Man Thinketh - James Allen.pdf
  • Be A Successfull Consultant - An Insider Guide To Setting Up And Running A Consultancy Practice.pdf
  • Best Of Jim Rohn.doc
  • Boc Proctor - Making The Impossible Possible.pdf
  • Brian Tracy - The-Keys-To-Self-Acceptance.pdf
  • Brian Tracy - Thinking Big.doc
  • Buzan, Tony - Speed Memory.pdf
  • Buzan, Tony - Super Creativity.pdf
  • Buzan, Tony - Use Your Head.pdf
  • Buzan, Tony - Use Your Memory.pdf
  • Can You Believe It - Vic Johnson.pdf
  • Career - Career Warfare 10 Rules For Building A Successful Personal Brand And Fighting To Keep It...
  • Career - Resilience At Work How To Succeed No Matter What.pdf
  • Charles Faulkner - Creating Irresistible Influence.pdf
  • Charles Faulkner - Metaphors Of Identity Booklet.pdf
  • Charles Faulkner & Steve Andreas - Nlp The New Technology Of Achievement.pdf
  • Complete Idiot's Guide To Verbal Self-Defense - Isbn 0028627415 - 559s.pdf
  • Dale Carnegie - Goldenbook.pdf
  • David Lieberman - Never Be Lied To Again - Get The Truth Out Of Anyone.pdf
  • Habit.Busting.A.10-Step.Plan.That.Will.Change.Your.Life.pdf
  • How To Be Happy At Work - A Practical Guide To Career Satisfaction.pdf
  • How To Speed Read.doc
  • How To Think Like A Computer Scientist Learning With Python.pdf
  • How To Think Like Benjamin Graham And Invest Like Warren Buffett.pdf
  • How To Think Like The Worlds Greatest High-Tech Titans.pdf
  • How Would You Move Mount Fuji.pdf
  • I.Went.To.College.For.This.pdf
  • Imprint Books - 2003 - Mondays Stink!.chm
  • Inside The Minds Of Winners.pdf
  • Jack.Welch.Winning.pdf
  • Jesus Ceo.pdf
  • Jossey Bass - Creativity At Work.pdf
  • Jossey-Bass Dont Give Me That Attitude 24 Rude Selfish Insensitive Things Kids Do And How To Stop...
  • Keys To Becoming Confident.pdf
  • Lawrence Erlbaum Associates - 2004 - Experiments With People Revelations From Social Psychology -...
  • Lead The Field - Earl Nightingale.doc
  • Leil Lowndes - Conversation Confidence - Workbook.pdf
  • Lessons From Jack Welch.pdf
  • Loophols Of The Rich.pdf
  • Love Yourself Into Life.pdf
  • Make Your Own Miracle - Achieve The Impossible.pdf
  • Mastermind Marketing - Jay Abraham.doc
  • Mcgraw Hill - No Lie Truth Is The Ultimate Sales Tool.pdf
  • Mcgraw Hill - Who's Pulling Your Strings (How To Break The Cycle Of Manipulation And Regain Contr...
  • Million Dollar Habits - Brain Tracy.pdf
  • Millionaire Women Secrets Of Success.pdf
  • Napoleon Hill - Think And Grow Rich.pdf
  • Next Economy E 03.pdf
  • Nicholas.Brealey.Publishing.Living.The.80.20.Way.Work.Less.Worry.Less.Succeed.More.Enjoy.More.Isb...
  • Nlp - 7 Keys To Personal Change.doc
  • Nlp Reading Body Language For Seduction.pdf
  • Non Verbal Communication.pdf
  • Principles Of Success - Brian Tracy.pdf
  • Roger Love - Set Your Voice Free.pdf
  • Russ Kick 50 Things Youre Not Supposed To Know Ebook-Een.pdf
  • Say It Right The First Time.pdf
  • Self-Employment - From Dream To Reality.pdf
  • Seven Steps To Goal Setting.pdf
  • Shad Helmstetter - What To Say When You Talk To Your Self.pdf
  • Simple Steps To Impossible Dreams.pdf
  • Skconfidence.pdf
  • Skmemory.pdf
  • Skperseverance.pdf
  • Strategies 4 Success.pdf
  • Superpowermemory.pdf
  • The 3 Most Powerful Ways To Get Yourself To Achieve Anything Despite Pressure, Deadlines, And Pro...
  • The Best Kept Secrets Of Great Communicators.pdf
  • The First Time Manager.pdf
  • The Gentle Art Of Verbal Self-Defence - Suzette Elgin.doc
  • The New Nlp - Abundance.doc
  • The One Minute Manager - Blanchard & Johnson.pdf
  • The People Puzzle.doc
  • The Principles Of Excellence.pdf
  • The Science Of Getting Rich - Wallace D Wattles.pdf
  • The Ugly Truth About Milton Friedman.pdf
  • The Ultimate Career Success Workbook.chm
  • The Winner's Circle - R J Shook.pdf
  • The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook.pdf
  • The.Photoreading.Whole.Mind.System.Ebook-Een.pdf
  • Time Power By Brian Tracy.pdf
  • Tips For Increasing Reading Speed.pdf
  • Tony.Buzan.-.Use.Your.Memory.pdf
  • Turbocoach A Powerful System For Achieving Breakthrough Career Success.pdf
  • What Smart People Do When Dumb Things Happen At Work.chm
  • Who Am I A Book That Will Change Your Life .....pdf
  • Who's Pulling Your Strings (How To Break The Cycle Of Manipulation And Regain Control Of Your Lif...
  • Wiley Create Your Own Future How To Master The 12 Critical Factors Of Unlimited Success.pdf
  • Wiley,.How.To.Feed.Friends.And.Influence.People.(2005).Yyepg.Lotb.pdf
  • Winning Attitude.pdf
  • Working Identity Unconventional Strategies For Reinventing Your Career - Harvard Business School.chm
  • Working Peoplesmart 6 - Strategies For Success.chm
  • Your Forces And How To Use Them - Christian Larson.pdf
  • Zig Ziglar - Goals Pro Chart.pdf
  • Zig Ziglar - Self-Talk.pdf
Brilliant stuff. Hope this is of some use to you!

_______________________________

For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

Wednesday 6 January 2010

How To Stick To ANY New Habit, Resolution Or Routine

It doesn't matter when you decide to start a new routine, or replace an old bad habit with a new good one, or change an area of your life.

The important thing is (1) that you do make the decision to make the positive change, and (2) that you can stick with it once you've started.

Persisting and seeing it through is often the most challenging part, but also the key to success. Even if the change is very small, making it last will multiply its value over time.


Loads of advice

Here are a small selection of excellent articles on how to set and stick with your new goals, routines, New Year's resolutions, or whatever it is you're trying to change:


A. Lifehacker - "This Year, I will"...

This is an excellent article that I strongly recommend reading.

Lifehacker made it onto TIME's list of top blogs for 2009 and with loads of articles as useful as this on a range of topics you can see why.

The key recommendations Lifehacker pulls out are:
  1. Think progress, not perfection
  2. Set up a scheduled review
  3. Conquer huge backlogs with a DMZ or half-life approach
  4. Make it into a geeky game
  5. Utilize public shame
  6. Use a timer
  7. Pick only one actual resolution
  8. Create a reminder network
  9. Distract yourself at the moment of temptation
  10. Roll 12 habits into one resolution
It's possible that the priority of these could change from person-to-person, but it's a good list. Do have a read of the main article, as it includes commentary on each.

Interesting that there isn't anything specific on setting direction: I guess this assumes you already know the direction and is all about how to stick at the actions needed to get there.


B. Web Worker Daily - "For the New Year: A Success Toolkit"

Another New Year Resolution-focussed article, this one covers:
  1. Attention to small steps
  2. Discipline
  3. Having a destination in mind
  4. Constantly switching from big picture to small picture
  5. Support
  6. Leaving behind limiting beliefs
  7. Encompassing valued traits
  8. Appreciation
Some similar themes, although I think I actually like this list slightly more than the Lifehacker one.

Both #1's ("Attention to small steps" and "Think progress, not perfection") are related, and I do think this is key to achieving real change: long-term goals are important for setting direction (see point #3 above), but it's the smaller changes that are easier to see progress, easier to stick to and often most surprisingly effective. These are then supported by

For more on discipline and commitment, also take a look at the following article on the Small Business Branding blog: http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com/1789/will-you-harness-these-two-important-aspects-of-success-this-year/


C. Adam Khoo - "Achieve Your Goals & Change Your Life in 2010"

This article looks at the common stumbling blocks and how to overcome them:
  • Reason #1 Vague, Unspecific Goals;
    Solution: Get Clear on What You Want

  • Reason #2: Lack of Consistent Focus;
    Solution: Focus on What You Want Daily

  • Reason #3: Interest But Not a Commitment;
    Solution: Make a Public Commitment

  • Reason #4: Lack of Personal Power;
    Solution: Take Charge of Your Mind and Take Action
#1 - Getting Clear On What You Want - is a very common "starting point": how can you make progress if you don't know where you're going? Of course, you could just pick up some "standard" goals and direction to get you started whilst you're working out your real destination, but I agree that having a clear view on the end game is important. This is the same as #3 in Web Daily Worker's list.

#2 Focus on What you Want Daily - appears to be one of the most important ones to me. #2 on Lifehacker's list - the scheduled review - links to Benjamin Franklin's approach (http://www.flamebright.com/PTPages/Benjamin.asp), and is an approach that Og Mandino advocates in his books. It's also something I am doing with my "daily rubbish" and "daily reflection" posts: "Big Plans, Small Actions, Lots on the Way..." to read more about the overall routine, and "Daily Reflection Template" for more on the daily reflection.

#3 is all about getting others to hold you to account, which supports Lifehacker's #5 (Use Public Shame) and Web Daily Worker's #5 (Support).

#4 is more about personal beliefs and values, taking charge and taking action, which links to Daily Web Worker's #6 and #7.


D. A few more great blog lists

Finally, here are a few more lists of "best of" blog posts that will help support in all of the areas explored by the posts above.



What are you doing to stick to your resolutions today?

Tuesday 5 January 2010

New Year Is an Awesome Time Of Year For Inspiration

New Year is a time for reflection, for review, for considering what went well in the last year, what could have gone better and what you're going to do differently this year.

As a result, you get loads of people writing interesting and often inspirational articles on their blogs and websites and in newspapers and magazines.

There are almost too many articles and ideas flying about to know where to start - so it's also important to avoid information overload and to avoid going into analysis paralysis, resulting in you never writing anything because there's so much you want to do, so many unfinished articles, how could you possibly get through them all?

So you will see a theme forming here...

Act now.

Write stuff now. It doesn't matter what, just write.

And keep a list of all those great sites you want to comment on. You don't need to do them all today. Maybe you'll be in the mood at some point and do a load of them. Maybe you won't, but don't let that stop you from tackling at least some of them.


Why You Don't Need Inspiration To Write

It's easy to write.

It's also easy to publish.

The challenge is writing something that's good.


Writer's block doesn't exist

You can write about anything. There's no such thing as writer's block.

The thing that holds writers back when they see a blank sheet of paper is not a lack of things to write about - it's fear.

This fear is all about how good the writing will be. We don't want to waste our time. We have an idea of the "shape" of the words in our heads, and are afraid that it won't come up as we envisage it when we actually put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

That's exactly what these daily rubbish posts are about. It's about just writing. I may not be particularly happy with all of the output. It's not as polished and well structured as I'd like it to be, but at least it's tangible output. At least I'm writing. Eventually I'll write something that's good. Even the stuff that I'm not as happy with may help someone. That can't be a bad thing.


Just as I was writing about it...

I stumbled across this post by Scott Berkun: http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/54-writing-hacks-part-1-starting/

The message is absolutely in line with my thoughts, and he provides a set of specific "hacks" for overcoming writing block - and just starting writing. You can read his post for details, but on a high level these hacks are:
  • Start with a word
  • Write about how it feels not to be able to write
  • Have a conversation
  • Read something you hate
  • Warm up
  • Make lists
  • Switch to something harder
  • Run like hell
  • Whiskey
  • Rummage your scrap pile

Writing something "good" is different

Well, kind of.

It takes time - and in my experience it helps to define the structure up-front.

It also takes a number of iterations - whereas just writing to "get into a flow", you just write it once.

I could go back and re-write big chunks of this post, but I'm not going to, because it defeats the object of what I'm trying to achieve.

Some day I may come back and write a new post, with better structure and more polished words on this topic. But at least this is out there. At least I've done some writing. It's progress, it's learning, it's useful for me and for you.


Even with structure you need to do unstructured writing

Even if you are trying to write something that's "better", when you have the structure you need to fill that structure with words. Doing this requires more open, free writing like this, followed by several reviews, revisions and iterations to make it better until it's write.

Therefore, these "hacks" are just as applicable if you're a perfectionist as if you're not. The reality is, if you're too much of a perfectionist you'll never write anything and never get anything posted. However, if you're a perfectionist who understands this process, you will be comfortable to write rubbish the first few times and to shape and craft the words into what you want them to be.


Sunday 3 January 2010

Anyone Tried Bookmarking Demon?

I have a small site that I've been using to test out some affiliate marketing campaigns on but it's currently heavily dependent on Google clicks and is therefore not very profitable (I've made a profit of just over £100 in 5 months - although considering I've only spent about a day working on it, this isn't too bad as a first-time experiment).

I have been thinking about giving Bookmarking Demon a go to increase the amount of "organic" (i.e. non-PPC) traffic I receive. Has anyone given this a go before me?

I'll write up my thoughts on the product once I've tried it out. It's one of those products that you hear a lot about online but it is an affiliate product itself so it could all just be hype to get you to buy it...

Saturday 2 January 2010

Is Just Setting Goals Enough?

If you're a strong believer in the "Law of Attraction", maybe just setting Goals is enough to start making progress towards the achievement of your aspirations (read more on Wikipedia here, or on Steve Pavlina's blog here).

However, this is rarely enough.

For starters, just setting your goals doesn't actually move you much closer to them. Even if you just live by the "law of attraction", you'll need to continuously re-enforce your belief in your ability to achieve the goals, by regularly reviewing them and/or using techniques like daily affirmations. Steve Pavlina advocates the use of a "belief board" for this.

Furthermore, even advocates of the "Laws of Attraction" are quick to highlight why goal setting alone fails: http://darrenhardy.success.com/2009/12/db10-why-pt1/.

In summary, you need to use your goals to create plans, and execute those plans through action.

If you already have a routine of setting yourself to-do lists, of forward planning and actually successfully completing the tasks you've set yourself, then maybe just formalising your goals and reviewing them regularly will be enough: through regularly review, your thoughts and actions will start to align to these goals and you will progress towards them.

However, if you don't have a good track record of forward planning, you're going to need to use your goals to work out a plan going forwards. What do you need to do to achieve your goals? How can you break these things down into smaller steps? Do you need to do some things before others? What is the first thing you need to do? When will you do it?

The great thing is, as with everything, even small changes can have a massive impact if they're consistently applied.

For example, if you get into a routine of setting yourself a small to-do list on a daily basis (e.g. 3-5 achievable things that, if completed, will give you a sense of success at the end of the day) and combine this with the regular review of your goals, you will find yourself making immediate progress. By combining these tasks, your to-do list will align with your goals, so small actions taken on a daily basis will make small steps towards your longer-term goals. Regular reflection on achievements made against these small tasks will also create a feeling of success that will spur you on to continue with your routine, encouraging you to do more and more.

These small steps all add up - and the sooner you start, the sooner you'll notice results. So if you haven't started already, start now! I promise you won't regret it!