How Can You Trust After You Have Been Betrayed?

What do you think about when you hear the phrase “Trust in your marriage?” Trusting in your marriage means to sincerely trust your partner, to be able to reveal yourself, your weaknesses, your failures, and your insecurities.

Such vulnerability can be terrifying, especially after your partner has deeply betrayed you. It is very common to find those fears casting long shadows in the bedroom; the ghost of your partner’s lover or dwelling on ways you believe you have failed in your marriage because of your shortcomings, is very hard to get rid of. But the way to gain back trust is to direct your emotional energies toward rebuilding the intimacy.

Couples who have not made love for a long time cannot use their busy lifestyle as an excuse for further lack of connection. Delaying and postponing intimacy until your stress level dissipates is a cop-out. Life is stressful and there is always something to be busy with.

What you must do is stop rationalizing and start thinking about what you can do right now to get close with your partner. Think about what you used to do when things were happy and it was just the two of you. What do you miss the most and how can you get it back? Spend time together and just talk. By spending intimate time together outside the bedroom, you can begin to regain the intimate time inside.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Does your teenager have an eating disorder?

One of the most difficult jobs that a parent can experience is the important task of raising a healthy, confident, and goal oriented teenager into early adulthood. However, all to often our young children run into serious problems along the way through being a teenager. One such problem that may stay below the parent’s “radar” are eating disorders.

Are you worried that your teenage son or teenage daughter may have some type of eating disorder that they are trying to keep from you and the rest of the family? This type of disorder can be quite common during the teen years, especially with teenage girls. Although we do see teenage boys go through some eating problems as well.

With so much emphasis on looks and popularity today and mixed with the already insecure feeling that teenagers have as their bodies are changing, developing an eating disorder may be an underlying problem in your teen’s life. It is important to understand and educate yourself on the two major types of eating disorders that many of our youths may be going through.

If you suspect that your teenage son or daughter has any type of problem at all, first talk to your doctor. Be hesitant about trying to correct the problem by yourself at first.

Eating disorders always stem from another underlying problem and so by focusing on food as the issue, you will more than likely make things worse for your teen instead of helping him or her. In fact, studies have shown that early discovery and treatment of eating disorders will provide the best chance of recovery.

What eating disorders should you be concerned about? The first is anorexia nervosa. With this disorder, your teen may experience excessive weight loss due to self-starvation. As ironic as it seems, most teenagers prone to this type of eating disorder are typically involved in sports such as dance or gymnastics, where their body size and weight play an important role in success.

The second eating disorder described here is called bulimia nervosa. This involves very frequent episodes of binge eating which is almost always followed by purging the food through self induced vomiting. It doesn’t sound pretty but if your teenager has this eating disorder then they are probably practicing this with most, if not all of their meals due to intense feelings of guilt and shame about food.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Health & Fitness Goals: Are you as fit as you want to be?

There is no honor in being the richest man or woman in the graveyard! I bet you have heard that before, haven’t you? But like many high achievers in our society, health and fitness goals sometimes takes a back seat to our career and money goals.

How much value do you put on your health and fitness levels? Do you think about being in shape? Do you feel that good health is a key ingredient to being happy? Are you secure with your level of fitness and health?

You must change your lifestyle! There is a direct relationship between well-being and health. If your body is strong, so will your attitude be. If your nutrition is high in value, your alertness will increase. And if your stamina is increased, so will your ability to accomplish more goals.

How can this be achieved? By changing your lifestyle! At first it will be a little tough, but once you have gotten into the habit of eating nutritious foods and exercising on a regular basis, you will find that your entire lifestyle will start to work around your new healthy living habits, instead of the other way around.

Having good health is taken for granted by many men and women. The ironic thing is that a lot of these people do not work hard at cleaning up their lifestyle until a disease or illness has put them into the position where they must change for the better.

So how do you determine my goals for better health and fitness? In order to set specific goals for the levels of health and fitness that you desire, you must create a full analysis of your current lifestyle habits in regards to sleep, diet, exercise regimen, and body measurements. You can determine exactly where you stand by filling in some of the basic information below.

1. Determine your weight to height ratio, as well as your waist size. Now how much would you like to weigh? What waist size would you like to have? Write it down!

2. Estimate how many hours of sleep per night you are getting. Do you still wake up tired and feel lethargic during the day? How much energy would you prefer to have?

3. Do you exercise each week? How often? Now how would you change that if you had all of the energy in the world?

4. How often do you eat and how much in one sitting? Do you eat mostly junk food and fast food or do you eat lean meats and vegetables? What would you like to change about your eating habits?

5. Do you smoke or drink alcohol? In what amount? Are you willing to quit or at least taper off?

Now you have a starting basic blueprint of what your health and fitness levels are and how you would like to change them. This is called “Goal Setting”. Congratulations because you are on your way to peak health. Now take action!

Popularity: 15% [?]

How to get instant joy in 5 minutes

Do you want instant peace and joy in your life today? Here is what you do: Watch a child play…

What is so exciting about watching children play? Well if you look very closely you will see the magic that they possess. You can marvel in just how powerful their ability to “believe” is. If you ask a child what their dreams are they will pour out such wonderful fantasies of desires with 100% faith that their little world of belief is real and that nothing can touch it.

This might sound silly but in order to take control of your life, accomplish your goals, and truly go for your heart’s desire then you are going to have to become a kid again. You are going to have to re-learn how to dream big dreams, how to create images of your desires in your head at all times, and your mind will have to be willing to accept that anything is possible – just like you used to when you were a little boy or little girl.

You see, in order to set and reach big goals you are first going to have to pretend that you have already reached the goal. You are going to have to act as if you already have in your possession that which you desire. And this my friend, takes mental effort, especially as an adult whose mind has been so conditioned over the years to forget about that magic, that energy, that ability to reach far beyond the stars for what you deserve to have in life.

Are you ready for a really fun question? Are you ready to bring back that childhood imagination and power of creation? Here it goes: What ‘one thing’ would you set out to accomplish if you had all of the money in the world, all of the time in the world, and with nothing to stop you?

Think about that question really hard, get a pen and paper, and just pour out your soul. Write every answer that you can imagine. Remember, there are no limits here. This goal setting exercise requires your complete willingness to think without boundaries, without limitations.

What would be the first thing you would do? Where would you go? Who would you see? What would you do with your money? What would you buy? How would you dress? What kind of activities would you get involved in?

Don’t let go! Do not let go of this list that you have created. Each morning and each night you are to pull out this list, read each desire and goal that you wrote down, and then ‘pretend’ that you have already reached your goals. See yourself as if you are living with all of your hopes and dreams in the present time. Do this everyday. It’s time to become a kid again and take back the happiness and joy from life that you have been missing all of these years.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Goal setting workshops can inspire participants

There are several individuals and organizations that run goal setting workshops to help participants set and achieve goals. These workshops underscore the advantages of goal setting and explain the various goal setting methods.

The three most popular workshops are: career workshops, health workshops and financial workshops. All these workshops deal with tangible goals, and a participant attending these workshops can hope to become a better manager of personal finances or can end up getting a better career break.

Most of these workshops are run by trained counselors, HR consultants and psychologists. In recent years, software developers have also started showcasing their goal setting applications at these workshops.

Normally these workshops are organized over two days though single-day workshops too are possible. The resource persons take great pains in explaining what are goals, how to set goals and, most important, how to achieve them

The effort is to provide practical tips for setting and achieving goals. Great stress is laid on the writing of goals, use of goal setting charts and goal setting software. The participants are also told the importance of regular reviews, and how not to loose heart if they fail to achieve a task.

Another point that is stressed at these workshops is the need to break long-term goals into short-term goals or sub-goals, and to assign deadlines for each sub-goal. This is useful advice because it is easier to achieve a short-term goal. Further, the individual feels excited whenever a sub-goal is achieved. This, in turn, generates motivation to move on to the next sub-task.

The workshop fees is fixed on the basis of speakers invited to the workshop, the place where the workshop is being held and the food that is to be served to the participants. The more up market the workshop the higher is the fees.

However, there is little doubt that these workshops fire the imagination of participants. Most of them go back determined to set their goals.

Popularity: 23% [?]

How to Accomplish Goals Faster

Have you ever started your day with the intention of working on a specific project that was within the scope of your daily goals, and then discovered that the entire day had come and gone and you never got to it?

Maybe it was a project that you’ve been working on launching for months. Or maybe it was a simple chore your boss asked you to do the day prior. Whatever the task is, not having a enough time or not remembering the goal at hand happens to everyone from time to time throughout life.

There is no specific way that I am going to tell you to prioritize tasks with. You can label them however you want. For example, I prefer to have “A” tasks, then “B” tasks, etc. And within each task letter there may be several smaller goals that make up the entire job. On my list they will be labeled “A1” and “A2”, etc. Breaking your goals down in this way will help you accomplish them and make them feel more realistically doable.

You must put your most urgent and important tasks first; the goals that will immediately impact your bottom line most. My most urgent things to do are the ones that have serious repercussions if I don’t get them done. Those involve commitments to others, usually, and you need to be careful that you’re not saying ‘yes’ too much. Right after that come the things with an immediate, direct impact on my life – like making money, eating right, maintaining healthy relationships.

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An example would be my work requirements. I can’t go to the office and play on the computer all day, so I label my main priorities in accordance with my work before I begin my work – often I do this the end of the previous workday. Plan your work, then work your plan.

I make a list of 6-8 ‘mini-goals’ each day. I then label them as A – B – C – or D.

An ‘A’ goal has a direct impact – it’s picking up the phone to close a sale, it’s eating a healthy meal, it’s buying flowers for my wife. Call it an important, instant gratification goal.

A ‘B’ goal is something that is ‘planting seeds’ – in the future, down the road, it stands a very good shot at paying off. Education, working out, marketing my business. To be clear, these are all very important – but they don’t have the immediate impact on my life as an ‘A’ goal and that’s why they’re a lower priority.

A ‘C’ goal are those routine tasks that need to be done – but often they can be systematized, automated or delegated. If you want to take a giant leap forward towards success learn to deal with ‘C’s in this way and remove as many of them from your own plate as possible. If your skill set is worth $50-100 per hour or more, don’t do $10 jobs.

A ‘D’ goal – well it isn’t a goal and it shouldn’t be only your list. It’s a time waster. It’s calling back the guy who’s never going to do business with you and you know it. Sometimes it gets on your list because your trying to be ‘nice’ – these will kill you. In time you’ll begin to recognize that you have ‘D’ goals on your list everyday. Go ahead: Write them down, recognize them and enjoy the gratification of simply crossing it off your list. It’s like Benjamin Franklin said “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Many people tend to get into the bad habit of putting off their bigger goals by doing the less meaningful tasks during the day – the C’s and D’s are what you’ll find most people putting their time into. This leads to procrastination and then you wonder why you are not accomplishing your goals.

Set aside a lot of time to reach your major daily goals. Since most of our important projects or tasks can’t be completed in one sitting, you’ll make your life easier and reduce your stress level when you can work on them with plenty of lead time. You do a little now and a little later and before you know it – you’re done!

Popularity: 15% [?]

Two Keys To A More Successful Career

Are you worried that you might not have what it takes to make it on the job in the future? You’re not alone. In a survey of 100 personnel managers by the Cambridge Human Resource Group, a consulting firm, more than 40% said that their firms’ employees worry about what talents and abilities will be expected of them in the future.

Below are two broad themes to remember for improving your odds of on-the-job success:

1. Further your education. Consider these telling statistics: For every dollar earned by a college graduate, the average high school grad makes about 57%. Holders of doctorate and professional degrees take home roughly twice as much as those who have B.A.’s. A fast-tracker’s learning curve shouldn’t end with any particular degree. By building up new skills at work, you stand to enhance both your career and salary.

What abilities are most sought after in corporate America today? Computer know-how, for starters. Workers who use PCs to ply their trade earn roughly 10% to 15% more than those who don’t. Other top talents include technical writing ability and managerial wizardry. Regardless of your line of work, in our global economy foreign languages can give you added leverage. As a banker, think of the edge you’ll have with a fluency in Spanish; if you’re a corporate lawyer, think of the punch you’ll pack with crack Japanese. Luckily there are plenty of places that can help keep your skills competitive. Hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide offer executive education seminars and short courses. For a quick tune-up in a specific area, say, negotiating prowess, don’t forget community colleges and professional associations; many offer a wide range of career classes.

2. Don’t thumb your nose at lateral moves. “Up” would seem the only logical career climber’s destination. As corporations continue to strip away management layers, however, you can count on more job openings to be sideways moves. In fact, over the next decade roughly half of all job moves are expected to be lateral ones, not vertical. Such career zigzags can carry you farther than you might think.

By testing out new opportunities in other departments and divisions at your current employer, you may gain valuable experience, not to mention great networking contacts and a better view of how the overall firm functions. Although your pay and prestige probably won’t spike right away, such experiences can help stem job boredom, broaden your career prospects, and eventually help you to move vertically. So if you’re in a rut and don’t see much chance for a step up at work, ask your boss for a lateral transfer.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Using Association To Rid Being Absentminded

You are absentminded when your mind is absent; when you perform actions unconsciously, without thinking. There is a distinct difference between seeing and observing - we see with our eyes, but we observe with our minds. If your mind is “absent” when performing an action, there can be no observation; more important, there can be no original awareness. Absentmindedness is probably the most widespread of minor self-annoyances. Although it plagues most of us, it seems particularly to affect the elderly. The techniques we’ll discuss here have succeeded in eliminating absentmindedness for countless people, including the elderly.

To some people, absentmindedness may seem to be a trivial problem. Perhaps they don’t realize how much time, energy, and aggravation they spend on searching for items they “just put down for a moment,” or on worrying about whether they have turned off the oven, locked the door, unplugged the iron, or on retrieving items they have left in trains, buses, cars, offices, and friends’ homes.

The solution to the problem of absentmindedness is both simple and obvious: All you have to do is to be sure to think of what you’re doing during the moment in which you’re doing it, That’s all, but obviously it’s easier said than done. How can you be sure to force yourself to think of a minor action at the moment you’re doing it?

There’s only one way, and that is by using association. Since association forces Original Awareness - and since being Originally Aware is the same as having something register in your mind in the first place, at the moment it occurs - then forming an instant association must solve the problem of absentmindedness.

Let’s use a quick example: You’re writing at your desk and the phone rings. As you reach for the phone, you place the pencil behind your ear, or in your hair. The phone call is finished - that took only a few minutes - but now you waste time searching for the pencil that’s perched behind your ear. Would you like to avoid that aggravation? Well then, the next time the phone rings and you start to place the pencil behind your ear, make a fast mental picture in your mind. Actually “see” the pencil going into your ear - all the way.

The idea may make you shudder, but when you think of that pencil, you’ll know where it is. That silly association of seeing the pencil go into your ear forced you to think of two things in a fraction of a second: 1) the pencil, and 2) where you were putting it. Problem solved! Solved, that is, if you make an association each time you put down your pencil, wherever you put it. Just make it a habit. Keep the idea in mind the first few times, force yourself to form the associations, and after that it will become habitual.

Popularity: 15% [?]

The Keys To Happiness

Everyone wants to be happy, yet many people base their happiness on whether they have what they want or whether they want what they have. Doing so puts their emotions on a roller coaster that’s controlled by what happens in their lives.

One key to happiness is humility. The reason is simple: Humility reduces stress. Humble people don’t believe that they have to have all the answers; consequently, they don’t have to fake having those answers, which reduces anxiety. When anxiety goes down, happiness goes up. Humility certainly improves your relationships. A humble approach enables you to be genuinely interested in and to respect other people. And they, in turn, become genuinely interested in you.

Another key to happiness is your willingness to accept that happiness is a “here” and a “now” - you can’t wait for it to come to you. Will Rogers said it well: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Of course, certain activities increase your chances of being happy - for example, when you do something for someone else for purely altruistic reasons and have nothing to gain except delight in rendering a favor or doing a good turn. Committing selfless acts is a major step toward real happiness.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Setting Up Your Children For Success In Life Through Values

Children are exposed to many different values. They receive conflicting and confusing messages about values because many adults in their lives do not share the same value system. Parents who want to see their children grow up happy and successful will want to help their children sort out the right messages from the wrong ones. Here are 8 steps to take as you share your value system with your children.

1. Identify your own values. Before you can teach your children, you need to be clear about what you want them to learn. Don’t take a casual approach to this important parental responsibility. Take the time to develop a complete list of those qualities you plan to teach your children.

2. Tell your children what your values are. Learn to state clearly and concisely what you believe and how these values influence decisions in your life. When telling your children about your values, paint word pictures, use analogies, and tell stories. Have your children tell you what you said to ensure that you have communicated clearly.

3. Explain the values. Telling children to be kind, loving, polite, generous, or patient does not give them sufficient information about what you expect. Instead, describe to your children the behaviors that demonstrate those qualities. Let your children know that when they behave in these ways, you are pleased with their choices.

4 Explore the values. Help your children understand values by using a variety of teaching methods, inviting discussions about values, and allowing healthy debates. The more children understand individual values and how these are demonstrated in our lives, the more likely they are to adopt these values.

5. Model what you want your children to say and do. Your choices and commitment to values determines and shapes the kind of person you are becoming. You will want your children to observe you as a living model of the values you teach.

7. Apply values in everyday experiences. The key to passing on values is to help children see how those values apply to daily life. Explain that choices reveal values. For example, a person who does a kind deed for a stranger demonstrates that kindness is one of his or her values. Look for and use teachable moments that provide an opportunity to choose between right and wrong, between good and bad. The situations may be real, on television, in a story you are reading, or something that happened in the past.

8. Reinforce values through games. Your children learn a lot about life as they play. Learning about values is not a boring, academic activity. Be creative and you will find many ways to make learning a game.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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