The Starfish Story

One day a man was walking along a beach, when he noticed a boy hurriedly throwing things into the ocean. Approaching the boy the man asked ' Young man , what are you doing?'

The boy replied, ' Throwing Starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out.If I don't throw them back they will die'

The man laughed and said ' Don't you realise there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of Starfish? You can't make any difference'

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another Starfish and threw it into the surf. Then smiling at the man the boy said,

' I made a difference to that one'

The Art of Personal Development Planning

To make the most of personal development planning, you need to be able to plan, and you need to develop, which is why many students find it so tricky. The being personal bit is less important. In fact, it is best avoided, especially when it comes to reflecting on relationships with tutors and work-experience bosses.

How you develop and what you plan also matter. Developing an online gambling habit and planning to spend most of your three years playing pool in the student bar are not enough. Or at least they are only enough if you learn to draw every last ounce of value from your experiences.

So, an accomplished personal development planner will use these pastimes to demonstrate "facility with numbers and IT" and "advanced social skills and a competitive spirit".
Any student who has ever been involved in a pub-crawl will be familiar with the three main elements of PDP, which are: planning to do something, doing something, and reflecting on what you have done. They will also realise how important it is at each stage to have the support of someone you trust.

At the planning stage it is imperative that you set achievable goals, and to identify what you have to do, and what help you will need if you are going to achieve them. Goals should be positive rather than negative. It is always more effective to plan to stay sober than to try not to get too drunk, for example.
PDP is an opportunity to ask yourself big questions. What do you want from life? What sort of person do you want to be? What are your chances of becoming prime minister/Keira Knightley?

Don't expect to answer these questions instantly. The process tends to work best if you think about your ambitions over time, seize every opportunity to practise the skills you need, and try out experiences to see if you like them.

It is therefore a good idea to have an action plan. Give this some kind of structure, with separate "to do" lists for academic, career, work-related and social parts of your life, and keep revising it as you progress. Make sure you have as much information as possible to help in your decision-making, and identify people you can talk to about your learning and development as you go along. Find out about the numerous electronic aids to organising your PDP that most universities offer, and use them.

Next, you need to act. Take up that work-experience opportunity, do that bit of volunteering, attend that 9am seminar on time-management.

Finally, think carefully about what exactly you've done. Keep a regular diary or blog. Reflect on specific important events or experiences and how you dealt with them. When you receive back assessed work, don't dwell on the mark, but take time to think about the feedback. Keep asking questions - how could you have done things differently? Was it wise to go on that pub-crawl the night before the essay deadline?
Be honest. You can't claim to attend a weekly language class if you're definitely going to go next week but haven't managed to make it so far. Similarly, you are not on course to become prime minister if you lost out to the university tortoise in the student union elections.

If you completely fail to achieve a single goal or complete any of your action plan, don't despair, and instead remember that absolutely all experience is worthwhile. Just put it down as: "ability to bounce back from failure".

Author ; Harriet Swain 

Investing In Our Most Precious Asset In 2013: Our Beautiful Brains and Minds

Open a weekend New York Times or Wall Street Journal, and you'll find a whole section with detailed information and advice for individuals looking to invest wisely. What you will not find, however, is comparable information and advice for investing in your most important asset of all: your brain. Precisely because it (usually) does its job so smoothly and effectively, it's all too easy to forget that your brain is there and that it needs to be invested in just as with anything else we value and want to continue reaping benefits from.

And with more than 2 billion people worldwide currently suffering from brain-based health and productivity challenges with a resulting global economic burden of more than $2 trillion, according to our research, it's also an issue of some importance.

We've made a lot of progress over the last century in understanding the brain, but it wasn't until the last few decades that we've come to understand the ways in which our everyday behaviors affect, for better or worse, our brain's health and performance.

We now know that certain basic activities, including physical exercise, proper nutrition, stress management, and mental exercise, are integral components of a brain-healthy lifestyle, and people are waking up to the fact that they need to be proactive in monitoring and managing the health and fitness of their brains. As detailed in this new market report on digital brain health, the large majority of respondents to a 2012 survey of 3,000+ decision-makers and early adopters in the field found that the majority believe that brain health should be a health care priority, that adults should take charge of their own "brain fitness," and that digital technologies significantly augment traditional approaches.

As a growing number of consumers, innovators, and decision-makers invest in digital technologies to better monitor and enhance cognition across the lifespan, we are witnessing the rapid growth and development of a new digital brain health marketplace. Right now, the digital brain health market -- which includes both software applications and biometric hardware products designed to monitor, assess, enhance or repair neurocognitive functions such as executive attention working memory and emotional self-regulation -- can be divided into four main customer segments: consumers, health care, senior living, and insurance providers, K12 school systems, and employers.

Consumers have become the predominant customer segment, surpassing health care/insurance providers, as the combination of an increase in the diagnosis of learning disabilities, anxiety disorders, an aging baby boomer population with a keen interest in maintaining their mental sharpness, and the trending desire for a healthy lifestyle has consumers looking for healthier, non-invasive alternatives to existing drug-led and therapist-led approaches.

Not only that, self-monitoring options for better managing one's cognitive and emotional functioning are already becoming available to consumers at user-friendly prices and packaging, and strong signals suggest the next frontier in the consumer application of biometrics is going to be brain health.
The overall market has kept growing since 2009 despite the overall economic challenges, both in the software and hardware segments. We estimate the global market for brain health applications of software and biometrics to be more than $1 billion in 2012, and we forecast it will reach $6 billion in 2020. The industry is still made up of many small companies, which has been a limitation for the marketplace's maturation given contradictory, controversial marketing claims. That being said, sizable recent investments by strategic and financial investors suggest booming prospects and the increasing professionalization of the sector.

We can expect several drivers to fuel continued growth and innovation. Equipment that used to be expensive and cumbersome is becoming user-friendly and inexpensive, and tablets and mobile phones are becoming a major delivery vehicle for digital brain health solutions. Heavy investment into online platforms are geared to gain consumer market share, with many companies offering free or freemium subscriptions. Over the course of this decade, we will likely see Big Data and cloud-based applications that will enable truly personalized brain health solutions, and a more developed ecosystem built around users and tools.And while it's unlikely that we'll see people devoting as much time and attention to investing in their brains as in their finances any time soon, digital brain health solutions going mainstream among both consumers and health care providers will be a big step forward.

Because the fact is, we all got a beautiful human brain. We can invest in our brain fitness to better live, love, work, innovate. What are YOU doing to invest in your brain?

Copyright (c) 2013 SharpBrains

Alvaro Fernandez is the Co-Author of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness, recently featured as one of the Best Books on Brain Fitness. SharpBrains.com is the leading clearinghouse website tracking the latest information on cognitive training, cognitive health and brain fitness, combined with brain teasers and games.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7468793

6 Ways To Instantly Get You In a Good Mood

There are times when we feel down. Things don’t seem to be going our way and we run out of energy. We feel down. Sometimes we can feel like this for 5 minutes, 5 hours or even 5 days. When we’re out of it, we can’t always remember why we were in it in the first place. But what are the best ways to instantly get out of this rut? What can we think about to instantly give us that life? That’s what this list is about. Below are just a few of the things we can do.

1. We are in charge of our emotions and how we decide to perceive a situation is how we end of feeling about it

No matter what happens, we decide how to react to it. We are in control of what emotion we want to bring to it, and depending on a conscious or subconscious reasoning, we make ourselves feel a certain way. In the moment after something happens, we have a chance to re-evaluate and not let this moment get us down. We have to understand that this feeling is not productive and will do more damage than good in the long run

2. Think about how stupid you’ll feel for letting yourself feel like this

We know what it feels like to get over our issue and get on with the day. We know what it feels like looking back with regret for ever letting ourselves get into the negative thought pattern. So therefore, whenever we get into this situation again, we only need to think about how pointless this feeling is and this will quickly let you shake it off.

3. Realise how lucky you are

Whatever it is you may have lost, however badly a situation turns out, you are STILL incredibly lucky. I am not talking about the work that has gone in to getting you to the point you are at right now, but I am talking about all the things you DO have. We should be grateful for every moment of being here and the quicker we get out of this, we sooner we can get on with enjoying our time here.

4. Be thankful for the lesson you can learn from this

We all want to be happy. We are constructing lives that will make us and keep us happy. If something happens that doesn’t fit, or it has made you feel terrible, change it and do everything you can to stop it happening again. If we perceive every ‘negative’ situation as a chance to learn something about ourselves and how to make ourselves feel better, there will be no negative situation and this will give you a silver lining in everything. Be thankful for the lesson and move on. Don’t dwell in it.

5. Take a moment to appreciate nature and the world around you

Whether you choose to look up at the stars, or at the nature around you, you cant help but see beauty in it. Think about how amazing everything is. Think about the fact that you are a very very very small thing, floating on a very very very small thing, spinning around a big thing, in the middle of a very very huge thing. Somehow everything that happens doesn’t seem so important anymore and you can decide to move on and enjoy yourself. Infinitesimal situations and emotions are not worth ruining your time over.

6. Do something good for someone else

Give away the emotion you want to have and you will get it in return. Do something nice for a loved one or a stranger without any expectation and you will feel better. If there is no one around, donate to a charity that you love. Call someone and give them a compliment or reconcile past differences. Give something good to the world and you will get it in return.

How to Find Your Creative Spark

I recently read an article about two young women, engineering students, who came up with an amazing invention. It's a soccer ball that stores the gyroscopic energy it gets from being kicked around and converts it into power for an LED lamp. The women had these balls and lamps produced and gave thousands of them to children in impoverished countries. Now the kids can do their homework at night even if their homes don't have electricity.

It's such an elegant solution, you wonder why no one thought of it sooner. It got me thinking about where great ideas like these come from.

In the case of the ball-powered lamp (dubbed the Soccket), the women were brainstorming and someone thought of those emergency flashlights that get their power from being shaken.

Collaboration is one way people come up with innovative solutions like the Soccket. In other cases, the solution arrives via solo daydreaming. For me, brainstorming sessions get my mind pumped, but then I need to let the ideas sit. Take some quiet time and wonder. This combination helps my brain make connections it might not see right away.

What's your creative style? Perhaps you're competitive by nature and like the energy and interaction of a group. Or maybe you need to be alone in order to think. Do ideas tend to come to you while you're out on a run? After you sleep on it? Do you need to put a whiteboard in your shower?

Whichever method works best for you, here are some ways to get and keep those creative juices flowing.

o First of all, let go of the belief that you're not the "creative type." Just because you're not a concert pianist doesn't mean you're not creative.

o Flexing your brain will help it get used to generating ideas. Try this exercise: sit down and make a list of 50 ways to use a safety pin, drive to work, or solve some small but annoying problem. The sheer length of this list means you have to think fast and accept whatever pops into your head. Don't censor yourself. Give yourself permission to be silly and serious.

o Remember, not every idea has to be a winner. Many of us are perfectionists and have a hard time conceptualizing anything that might not be successful. But in order to be creative, you have to put that perfectionism aside. Just as in the safety pin exercise, give yourself permission to churn out ideas without the requirement that you must implement them all. Later, you can choose which ideas are the best fit for you and your company.

o Relax! Some of the world's greatest thinkers and inventors say they arrive at their ideas while not thinking about the problem. Not only do great inspirations happen in the shower, but while you're doing the dishes, walking the dog, even while you're asleep. Sometimes, in order to solve a problem, you need to step away from it for a while. Give yourself permission to daydream.

o Take care of yourself. Get enough sleep. Coming up with ideas when you're exhausted can be a real challenge. If you're considering using chemical assistance, don't: it's more likely to hurt than help. All those tortured geniuses who supposedly produced their masterworks while downing a fifth of scotch or ten gallons of coffee? In real life, creativity doesn't work that way.

o If all else fails, go for a walk - preferably in a natural setting. Mother Nature is the undisputed master of innovative solutions. Something you see in the environment may give you just the nudge you need to make that idea burst forth.

The end of January is a good time to approach creativity with a new mindset.How can you build regular creativity time into your schedule?

Andrea Novakowski, MBA, is an executive coach who has been helping clients align their professional goals with their personal values since 1997. She guides executives from strategic vision to measurable action plans, and works with high-potential employees seeking to move up in their careers. By tapping into Andrea's knowledge, tools and skills, clients are able to meld career development and personal growth to reach higher productivity and deeper levels of job and personal satisfaction. Learn more at http://www.coachandrea.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrea_Novakowski

This Year… Make Your Life Better… Every Day!

Most people are disappointed for what they have achieved in life within a year. Actually, you can start changing your life for the better this year! It is not really difficult to make and begin the changing. What you just need is to have a plan, execute it, and keep reviewing it to ensure you are on track to achieve your goals.

Here are 7 tips that should help to improve your life:

1. Start at home by sorting out what you want, and don’t want, in your closet, kitchen, refrigerator, garage and garden
Tidy your home! Go to your closet. Take out the old clothes that you never wear in years. Keep what you really want and need to wear in this year or so, and give the rest to charity.
Then go to your living room, windows and kitchen. Start cleaning the floor, vacuum the carpet, clean the window glass or mirror with using glass cleaner. Wash the dishes, mugs and clean your stove, oven and microwave.
Finally, take out all the garbage in the trash can. Do all these a little every day, rather than once a month. Afterward, you will have a much nicer home with clean and much more space every day. Plus you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping the needy.

Go to your fridge! Do you have a lot of old, out-of-date stuff in there? Just take them out. Make sure it is only fresh and healthy food you put inside.
Make up your garage! Bin the rubbish, and store the ladder, tools, or whatever, neatly. Start placing those in its place and in order. You may suddenly find you even have room for the car!
Tidy your garden! If you are lucky enough to have a garden, make it nice and regularly maintain it. You will enjoy it much more, and it will help keep you fit as well!
By doing these things, you will even find that it helps you to have a clear, fresh – and tidier! – Mind. It is a great way to start your new life.

2. Create Your Plan
What is the purpose of your plan? What are your goals for the year? You have to decide what you want to accomplish in the short term, midterm, as well as the long term (over a year). Write it down. This should include your financial targets as well. Make sure you have the income, and the security of income, you need.

3. Look after Yourself
It is true we cannot do things right if our health is not in good condition. So enjoy regular walks, or perhaps even challenge yourself to go jogging a few times a week (Take medical advice as appropriate). Of course, you could maybe play sports that you like. Good exercise can be great fun!
Eat and drink healthy food. Vegetables, especially organic vegetables, fruits, whole meal bread, fish, non-fat meat, etc. Drink more mineral water daily.
Avoid drinking too much beer or alcohol as this impairs your mind. A good diet will give you a better life, and often a longer one.
Remember, little changes can make a great change!

4. Read more nonfiction than fiction books
Read good articles which suit your needs. I recommend you read the stories of successful people, as that will motivate you to do as they have. Make notes on what you have read, as that will help you absorb and understand it better. A great mind is an inquisitive mind.

5. Appreciate yourself for what you have done and accomplished
Give yourself little rewards as you achieve your goals. This will make you feel much more confident that your plan is working. You will feel a better person. Indeed, you will be a better person!
Of course, inevitably, sometimes your plan may not work as you hoped. Don’t fret! You can simply revise the plan and get back on track. It just needs a little work and positive thinking to carry on.
Don’t work all the time! You need to entertain yourself by, say, going to the movies, hanging out with colleagues or friends, going to the places that make you happy every weekend, and so on. This will make your mind fresh again and ready to execute the plan in the following week.

6. Get enough sleep
Your body is working the whole day. It needs a rest and sleep. You need to have a quality of sleep. Set the time to go to bed and to wake up. Follow this rhyme every day and stay disciplined. This will regenerate your mind, passion, and ideas clearer.

7. Do meditation
Meditation is helping your ideas and plans not only in your mind, but also in your heart, and loving them.
Do this meditation 15 minutes before you go to bed.
Imagine what you have achieved today, how much you appreciate your work of today, and what you are going to do tomorrow. All the burden, resistance and fear for what you are going to do next will be diminished. You will have a big burning desire to move forward in the following day.
Therefore, follow the 7 tips above, and you will change and improve your life to be better, and with good habits this year.

About the Author
Ramunsyah Utama is a Financial Planner for an insurance company in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is working hard because he cares that people have a good plan – for assurance, and for life!

Being Motivated Everyday

Regardless of what you do for a living staying motivated will always make the journey toward success more fun.

It is almost impossible to achieve any worthwhile goal without staying motivated. Although, you may have precisely written goals and your plan of action is perfectly etched in stone, motivation will give you the energy to keep moving toward the finish line when you hit the rough spots on your success journey. In addition to staying energized, motivation increases your ability to stay focus and creative. Staying motivated is an essential element in goal achievement, but it is not always easy to keep the fires of excitement ignited, especially when things do not go as planned. The tips listed below will help you stay the course:

1. Always Use Positive Language - When a problem arises and you feel motivation dwindling, swearing, calling yourself or others negative names, or downing your project will only lessen the motivation you were feeling and attack your confidence. Recognize all problems as an opportunity to learn a better or different way of handling things. If you do slip up and blurt out something negative, immediately replace any negative phrases you used with positive ones.

2. Read Positive Phrases - Start and end each day by reading something positive. You might try reading a favorite verse from the Bible or go to the bookstore in your area and find a book of "positive quotes". Another great place to look is the internet. Simply Google "positive quotes" and you will find lots of options. Selfgrowth.com is a website that has self-help articles, positive and inspirational quotes, and inspiring video clips. There is no shortage of positive information, so keep it light and keep it positive, you will be glad you did.

3. Visualize Positive Results - No matter what your reality looks like, imagine that you have already achieved your goals and are enjoying the fruits of your labor. See yourself living a life that is perfect for you. Also, see yourself as a person of power and imagine that you have solved every challenge you encounter in any project. When you imagine a victory in every challenge, you will always have something to look forward to and to remind you why it is worth it to continue until you achieve your dream. When visualizing, be sure to think big.

4. Do Something to help someone else - Nothing can motivate you better than the joy you feel after you have done something to help someone who really needs you. A part of our reason for being is so we can help each other or give of ourselves when it is most needed. If helping someone else involves taking a brief break from your goals, do it. You may need that time to gain a different and refreshing perspective. Constantly taking, pulling or expecting others to give to you, can be a real downer when things do not go the way you expected and that kind of one track energy will not empower you to reach for your best. Take the time out to give of yourself and much more than you expected will find its way to you, automatically. You may find that burst of energy that you need to complete your project.

5. Dress Up - Sounds strange? Think back to when you were a kid. Remember, how good you felt when you wore a new pair of shoes, a new dress, or new slacks to school? Well, nothing has changed. No matter how old you are putting on your favorite outfit or purchasing something new (Don't go overboard,) will make you feel better about yourself. When you feel good about you, no matter how many challenges you are facing, you feel motivated to handle whatever life is bringing your way. Of course, simply putting on a new outfit may not erase the feeling that you have challenges to handle, but when you put on a new outfit somehow, it makes you feel more progressive. Creating a feeling that you are making progress is one of the keys to nurturing the desire to move forward and successfully finish whatever you have started.

6. Spend Time Around Positive People - When your motivation feels like it is dying down, one of the best ways to re-energize is to call your mentor. If you do not have one, take the time to find one. If you are open to receiving wisdom from others, finding a mentor will be easy. There is a saying, "When the student is ready the teacher will appear". If you truly need the kind of wisdom that can jumpstart you and put you back on track, then a mentor is available to you. However, until you find the right mentor, seek out other people who have a positive attitude. It is okay to borrow a little positive energy from others. This is one of those times when 'strength in numbers' could work for you. We all need a little re-charging every now and then.

7. Go Out and Have Fun - We spend so much time being grown-up and serious, until we forget to release the child within. We forget to have fun. Focusing on challenges can be a de-motivator and it can actually stifle your problem solving and creative abilities. When that happens it can be difficult to find the answers needed to get back on track. Taking a day to do nothing, but have fun will make you feel better and you will be surprised at how many solutions and new ideas come to mind. It is so important to lighten up and laugh as much as you can, because when all else fails, nothing charges your motivation battery like laughing and having fun!
Keep these ideas in mind as you work to achieve your goals and they will certainly make success come easier.

Pat Council is a success consultant, radio show host, speaker and writer who specializes in help others recognize their potential. Listen to her show. "Designing Your Life Today" daily. For information visit: http://www.designingyourlifetoday.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pat_Council

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How to Forget the Past and Live in the Present Moment

When your nights are long and you have sleepless nights. When your days are weary and fruitless, when all your efforts tend to go with the wind, it's time to rethink about your life and put the past behind you.

There is no one who doesn't want to be happy but many times our past weighs us down and gives us a bleak picture of the future. Happiness means that you have to forget your past failures, frustrations, unmet goals, disappointments and all other things that would bring unhappiness in your life. When you dwell on the past, you waste so much energy which you would have used to accomplish your dreams.

At one time or another in your life, you have said to yourself "I wish I did not do this or that" or '"I wish this did not happen" "I wish I had thought ahead of time" "I wish this sickness did not befall me" "I wish I knew" but do all these wishes add any value to your life? They don't. Instead, they make you feel hopeless, frustrated and a loser in life. But is that the end of you? NO. What you need to do is to turn your tables around and start life a fresh.

A wise man once said that "the great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction are we moving. With this kind of hope you can accomplish so much in life than you had ever thought.

How to forget the past

In the 21st century there are a lot of challenges faced by people in all walks of life on daily basis. Many are always in a grip of inertia just because of their past. You may not want to recall or revisit what happened in the past just because of the pain and sorrow that it may bring to you, but it is important to learn from it and try to resolve it, rather than letting it to eat you up from within. In order to forget the past, there are a couple of things that you must have in mind.

Change starts with you: you can change your pasts mentally, but you can't change it physically. So it is ideal to embrace the present and forget your past failure.

Don't believe what somebody said about you: you may have been abused, bullied or demeaned. All these can lower your self-esteem or even make you not to even think of yourself. So it's important to focus on your present life rather than dwelling on what people say about you.

Always have friends who will be there for you: never mind about those people who did not respect you or appreciate you. You have to let go and appreciate your living in present time. Friends always give a shoulder to lean on so you have to stick to true mates.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7447940