Science-Backed Ways To Manifest Your Dream Life RIGHT Now

Most of us will try anything if we think that it can improve our quality of life. And if you're especially into self-improvement, you're always looking for the next big thing. Some trends are grounded in scientific facts while others are subject to individual preferences.

What many people don't understand is that happiness is a state of mind, which means it is also a choice. Happiness doesn't just fall out of the sky and land on lucky people—even though it can seem that way at times.

Scientific studies have shown that people can become happy simply by integrating a number of practices into their life. Something as simple as laughing or smiling more can begin to make you a happier person. While many of us perceive happiness as being dependent on external factors (like money or possessions), what makes people most happy is helping others in times of need and looking on the bright side in every situation.

In this infographic, How to Be Happy: 10 Science-Backed Ways to Be Happier Right Now, you will learn 10 ways to be happier today, confirmed by scientific research.

Knowing how to make yourself happier gives you more control over your own life. Not only is your happiness independent of what is going on in the world around you, but being happy can actually lead to other positive outcomes, such as career success, a richer personal life, and better health. When you start to feel consistently happy, a snowball effect will take place, and all the things that you want in life will come more easily to you as a result.

How To Be Happy

by Tom Casano

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-25933/science-backed-ways-to-manifest-your-dream-life-right-now.html

50 Ways to Change Your Life Today

Redefine Yourself: The Simple Guide to Happiness

In our imperfect lives, we’re constantly pulled in every direction while we attempt to maintain a sense of control and normalcy. Within this chaos, we need a direction-a business plan for change.

After I had finished writing my self-improvement book Redefine Yourself: The Simple Guide to Happiness, I created the list below as a guide for my personal training clients in Chicago as well as myself. Nearly a year later, it’s still posted on my wall as a reminder. While most advice you receive will encourage you to reshape your environment, I urge you to face your toughest challenge first: Reshape yourself. Or as I like to say, “Redefine yourself”.

For the next 50 days, adopt each point in this list into your life. Repeat the statement, observe, accept, adapt, or do whatever is instructed. By the end of this experience, your world will be different even if you don’t change where you stand.

1. Believe that you can redefine yourself.
   2. Create a business plan for your life.
   3. Become a human scientist and study the physical, mental, and emotional you.
   4. Make it a point to understand yourself and others.
   5. Become an outside observer to the mechanics of your mind and think about your thinking.
   6. Practice looking at yourself objectively.
   7. Trust your instincts, your gut, and your perspective, but know where they stem from.
   8. Don’t be a bystander in the course of life.
   9. Adopt the mantra “Keep it Simple”.
   10. Write your new mantra on a post-it note and place it in numerous places as a reminder.
   11. Approach new ideas with an open mind.
   12. Realize that you’re not alone.
   13. Teach yourself to wake up to life around you—and inside of you—at any given moment.
   14. Schedule alerts throughout the day to remind you to “take a breath”.
   15. Listen to your inner voice.
   16. Catch yourself making negative statements about you while randomly doing other things and write them down.
   17. Create a list of positive messages and repeat them to yourself daily.
   18. Become a detective and collect the truth of a moment, observing yourself and every movement, sight, touch, scent, and sound of the world.
   19. Don’t take a leap of faith without stopping first and observing the moment.
   20. Remain aware before making a decision, judgment or movement and commit to a higher state of living.
   21. Soak in the aura of a moment wherever you are as often as possible.
   22. Remove yourself from a situation when necessary (despite your emotional investment).
   23. Sometimes listen to your subconscious when it taps you on the shoulder.
   24. Sometimes ignore your subconscious when it taps you on the shoulder with the same negative message.
   25. Remember this quote by Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leader in the abolitionist movement. Accept that what you discover isn’t always the easiest to handle (and that’s okay): “…I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. I often wished myself a beast.”
   26. Quit complaining and do something.
   27. Accept your ‘selfish friends’ as they are and ignore their ‘selfish’ tendencies. Discuss with them how their actions make you feel or begin dismantling your friendship.
   28. Judge yourself fairly.
   29. Don’t avoid looking at yourself.
   30. Accept that obsessive, perfectionist ambition will lead to a perfect state of stress and an emotional unacceptance of your life.
   31. Don’t multitask (sorry).
   32. Accept that feeling overwhelmed or frustrated is the result of your perspective.
   33. Identify the fears that steer your behavior.
   34. Refuse to allow insecurities to steer your behavior.
   35. Find the root of your insecurities and write down the evidence against these irrational claims.
   36. Accept people’s input, but remember you don’t always have to agree with their opinion or approach.
   37. Leash and manage your emotional output.
   38. Feel confident about your approach, accepting the consequences, and adapting whenever and wherever needed.
   39. Take control of the trends, patterns, and little idiosyncrasies that make up your world.
   40. Don’t say “It is what it is” unless you’ve fully investigated yourself and the possible solutions.
   41. Accept that improving a relationship might mean adapting or leaving it.
   42. Identify the areas in your personal life in which you feel helpless.
   43. Accumulate wisdom through error.
   44. Change bad habits by inserting a new routine, keeping the old cue, and delivering the old reward.
   45. Redefine your boundaries based on your needs (not your wants).
   46. Create conversations with others.
   47. Create a bucket list.
   48. Treat life as an adventure and explore the unknowns.
   49. Smile more often.
   50. Help someone when you notice it.

By Michael Moody
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/50-ways-change-life-today/

5 Easy Tips To Become An Inspiring Leader

It takes a very special set of skills and qualities to make a great leader and even the most successful managers and directors are constantly finding new things to learn, improve and change as both themselves and their teams grow.

Although you might think that some people are just born with great leadership instincts and everything comes naturally to them when coordinating a team, it’s usually not that simple and it takes a lot of commitment, hard work and passion in order to lead, train and guide others.

Inspiring leadership figures will often admit that they are constantly striving for self-improvement and that the learning process never ends when it comes to understanding how to manage your team.

If you are looking for ways to expand your knowledge on the matter, there are a few things that you can try in order to become better at leading, inspiring and motivating others.

1. Improve your communication skills

Establishing a connection with others begins with communication and knowing more about how your team members think, function and feel will help you find better ways in which to guide them.

Improving your own communication skills will not only give you a more complex understanding of what others are saying but it will also help you voice your ideas, goals, expectations and demands more clearly.

Continuously working on gaining more insight into verbal and non-verbal communication as well as listening skills will help you immensely when giving and receiving feedback.

Non-verbal or body language can give you a lot of useful information about what others are unconsciously saying and about what they feel so learning how to read the signals that they unknowingly send you during a conversation will help you have a more profound understanding of their mindset.

The more you know about the people that you are leading the easier it will be for you to work and communicate with them.

2. Stay positive and calm

It’s easy to become stressed and worried about the many issues that you need to solve on a daily basis and when you are a leader you also have to manage the problems that your team members have on top of your own. Unless you want to give yourself an anxiety attack every other day because of your responsibilities, try to keep a calm and positive attitude.

I know it’s easier said than done when you’re under a lot of pressure, but the reality is that if you have a negative mindset, your problem-solving abilities, self-esteem and confidence can drop considerably — and it becomes harder to deal with your tasks.

So find ways to keep yourself calm and to stay positive throughout the day.

A great way to lower your stress levels is to take on one task at a time and go through as much work as you can instead of making unrealistic to-do lists and worrying about not being able to tick all the boxes.

Putting less pressure on yourself will allow you to work more efficiently and be more relaxed.

One of the best methods of dealing with stress while working is to incorporate meditation into your daily routine. You can find a method of meditation that fits into your schedule and helps you relieve stress and increase focus.

Using such a method will help you improve your concentration and your ability to work well under pressure, as well as maintain a positive attitude throughout the day.

3. Strive for self-improvement

The idea of leading by example is not new to successful managers and business executives and while it may sometimes be easier to overlook it the fact remains that motivating others to work hard and better themselves is much more easily accomplished when you are doing the same.

When others see that you, as a leader, are constantly striving to learn and achieve more they will feel empowered to do the same.

Being a role model can extend to more than just your work ethic and professionalism: being humble and accepting that there is always more to learn about your domain of activity can inspire others to follow in your footsteps and focus on extending their knowledge and skills.

There is always room for improvement when it comes to your business and your team, so the same principle should apply for yourself. Try to stay up to date on the new developments in your field and to keep searching for new ways in which you can improve your professional activity.

Find new information, read engaging books and learn new techniques or resources that you can use to improve your business as well as yourself.

4. Uphold your values

Your personal values and morals will reflect in your work and in your interaction with your team members, so make sure your actions help you uphold them.

Compromising your morals and your beliefs for the sake of business can do more damage than good in the long term, since it can hinder your relationships with others and your success.

Make decisions that are in tune with your values so that you can successfully run your business with a light heart and with integrity.

Not only will that help you gain the respect of your peers and your team but it will also contribute to your professional image and, most importantly, to your own happiness and self-esteem.

5. Motivate others

Recognizing the potential and the aptitudes that others have and encouraging them to develop their skill set in order to improve themselves is a vital part of being a successful leader. Try to get to know and understand your team members as well as you can, in order to discover what empowers and motivates them to work hard and strive for greater achievements.

If you can keep your staff excited, as well as intellectually and emotionally invested in their work, you are bound to have a more productive business and a more pleasant work environment.

Look for creative and successful ways of giving your team members that extra push they need to strive for greatness and keep using the methods that work well for your staff.

People respond differently to incentives and positive reinforcement, but everyone enjoys having their efforts acknowledged so figure out what the best way to encourage your team is and build from there.

Most importantly, try to relate to your staff on a human level and empathize with them: understanding what a person cherishes, thinks and feels is the best way to build a successful relationship, whether it be a professional or a personal one.

By Helen Daniels

http://www.finerminds.com/career-entrepreneurship/5-easy-tips-become-inspiring-leader

7 Reasons Why People Who Play Music Are More Likely To Be Successful

If you look carefully, you’ll find musicians at the top of almost every industry.

Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, plays the guitar. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard. The co-founder of Google, Larry Page, played saxophone in high school.

Whether they only played music in high school or continue to play it today, a lot of successful people have gone through the process of learning to play an instrument.

If you’ve ever heard about “the Mozart effect”, you might not be surprised that listening to music leads to higher brain activity and improved performance on certain mental tasks.

However, there’s a huge case to be made for the effect that playing music – of any genre – has on your mind and the positive impact it can have on your life.

Things like.

1. Reinforces confidence in your ability to be creative

At its heart, music is a creative process. When you pick up that instrument and start making a beautiful sound, you’re tapping into your mind’s ability to create something out of nothing. The instrument itself is just the medium in which you let out that creative drive.

And creativity itself is a skill that is required for almost every area of your life. Whether you’re trying to find a solution to a problem or thinking of a new way to get work done in the office, a creative mind is advantageous.

Playing music is about funneling that creative force into something constructive and useful.

2. It helps you learn how to be collaborate with others

Music naturally lends itself to collaboration. Performing in groups – whether it’s in a school band, or another ensemble – is something familiar to most musicians.

It’s not enough to be good by yourself. You have to work as a team with everyone else in the group. Good music naturally flows from the harmony you create as you come together.

All of this promotes the idea of teamwork and collaboration with others. It teaches you all the positive results that can happen from working together as a group. And, as it turns out, working in groups like this can make you, quite literally, play well with others.

3. Thinking in patterns and new connections

When you play an instrument, you’re not just making a single note – you make a string of them together – that’s what makes the music flow. As such, music isn’t just a series of single notes, it’s about how they connect together to form a coherent piece of music.

Playing music teaches you to visualize all those notes together and find the pattern they make – why coming together the way they do works. Playing music teaches you to find the interrelationships between the notes.

The ability to spot patterns and seeing interrelationships is a critical component of intelligent decision-making. By combining past experience, intuition and the ability to recognize patterns, we’re better able to predict the consequences of one action over another.

4. It strengthens mental skills like discipline, self-control and concentration

Learning how to play an instrument and read music is quite a difficult task when you first start out. Most of us are not naturally born musicians so we need hours and hours of practice to sound decent.

That requires a lot of mental focus, determination and patience to turn the flat and lifeless music we first create into something with a lot more pep and rhythm. And hearing yourself play better, is a wonderful reminder of how all that discipline and focus pays off. That’s a lesson you can take with you in so many other areas of your life.

5. It improves your emotional intelligence

Playing music makes you a more attuned listener. And being a good listener is important for interpersonal relationships because emotions are often conveyed by the tone or melody of voice or speed of speech. It’s not surprising that studies have shown that musicians are more perceptive in interpreting the emotions of others.

6. Your memory gets better

Learning to play your chosen music piece correctly means remembering what note comes another the other. In some cases, the amount of memorization is astounding – for instance, a soloist for a symphonic concerto usually performs for twenty minutes or more from memory alone.

All that concentration on what note follows another strengthens your mind’s memorization muscle. And that can extend into other areas of your life.

Playing music has been shown to increase your ability to remember words and helps auditory learning skills. Some have even shown that musicians have better retention skills while reading.

7. It improves your ability to plan and strategize

Playing music is actually quite a complex task. Your brain needs to coordinate motor control and auditory information – there’s a lot of planning strategizing and paying attention to detail going on requiring simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects of the music.

When you’re playing music, you have to coordinate your brain’s activities to carry out all the steps to making the musical piece work. That takes following instructions through a series of steps, detecting and correcting errors and anticipating what’s coming up.

Keeping track of all this activity not only connects multiple processes of the brain, but studies have shown that it creates greater interconnectivity of the two hemispheres. So, in effect, playing music helps connect every area of your brain together to focus on tasks you’re trying to accomplish.

Steve is the writer behind Do Something Cool where he blogs about travel, motivation, self improvement and adventure. He’s always looking for ways to make life more interesting. For fresh ideas on living life to the fullest, join his newsletter.

BY STEVE BLOOM
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/7-reasons-people-play-music-likely-successful/