All of us have only 24 hours a day. While some people seem to be able to accomplish feats in the span of a day, many of us struggle by finding it almost impossible to even starting our tasks.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could find a way to function like the first group of people? Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop procrastinating and start working on things now?

Well, I have great news for you! Met up with a couple of friends last night and they shared with me steps or things I could do to prioritise my time and to start the ball rolling!

Step one : Plan the night before.
Plan, plan, plan, for if you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail. Sounds familiar? While this step sounds trivial and unimportant, I have found that planning and working towards a goal actually serves to provide a source of motivation and energy! You will also find that you will be able to accomplish more in a day because you already know what you want!

Do not fall into the group of people who always ask themselves ‘So what should I do next…’ because by the time you think of something and sit down to actually doing it, a day might have passed!

Step 2 - Prioritise
We all have important things to do in life. To some it might be replying hundreds of emails, to others it might be sitting down and watching that t.v. show and yet to others, it might be spending time with your family. Given that we have so many ‘important’ things to accomplish in life, it is little wonder why many people, myself included, complain about the lack of time!

Therefore, in order to achieve the most out of your time, you have to prioritise! How do you do it? Let’s group our daily activities into 4 main groups.

Group 1 : Create value and urgent
Eg. An assignment or project that is due for submission very soon,
These are the things that create the most value for us (monetary) and are the most urgent hence require the most attention. Failure to produce would result in suicide.

Group 2 : Create value non urgent
Eg. Self improvement, reading books to increase personal value, studying, exercising,
These are the things in life that help increase our value but are not due in the near future. In my opinion, this is the 2nd most important group and more time has to be allocated to this group.
Group 3 : Urgent
Eg. Replying emails, returning smses, returning phone calls,
These are the things that many people mistake for top priority and do them instead of their jobs. As these activities do not create any value, I feel that emphasis on them has to decrease and the time allocated has to be less.

Group 4 : No value and non urgent
Eg. Watching t.v., surfing the internet for fun, playing computer games,
These are the activities that do not add value to our lives and are things I feel we can do without.
In sum, 80% of our time should be devoted to the groups 1 and 2 and 20% of our time to groups 3 and 4. That way, more things will be accomplished and you will feel a greater sense of achievement at the end of the day!

Just for laughs : Can you imagine what it’d feel like if someone came along and asked ’so what did you do today’ and you went ‘I cleared 200 emails!’

See my point?

Step 3 - The most important question of all
Before you begin any assignment, ask yourself this.

‘If I had only half an hour to do this, what would I do?’

This question will help your brain focus and zoom in with laser accuracy on things that are important and need to be accomplished.

Hope you’ve found this post useful. Drop me a comment!

Never ever stop believing!

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

How many times have you met with a downfall, a failure or a setback? Once? Twice? Chances are, you’d most probably have met with alot of obstacles in life! The most important question here is:

“what do you do about it?”

So many people in life have fallen only to rise to greater heights! People like Steve Jobs of Apple, Sim Wong Hoo of Creative Tech., Soichiro Honda of Honda and so many more!

Did they ever give up? Did they ever stop believing in themselves? I think not! And guess what, if they managed to do it, so can you! Think about it. They are humans, just like you! And being part of the same human race, we have almost 99% of the same genes! So what sets them apart from us? What sets them apart from you?

I believe that everything we do in life is governed by a single principle. Not the supernatural law of nature, but the ‘ultimate success formula’! All I can tell you is this. If you take this formula and apply it to ANYTHING you do in life, you will succeed! It’s that simple but it’s never going to be easy.

Ultimate Success Formula

Beliefs + Goals + Plan/Strategy + Take Action = Result (good or not)

The main difference between success and mediocrity is what we do with the result! We could take that ‘failure’ and treat it as feedback or we could let it consume and destroy us! The choice is yours! If you recieved an undesirable result, you have to re-visit your strategy, change it and then take action again!

This my friends is the power of belief.

“People fall so that they may rise to greater heights”

Reading my last entry, I realised I’d better clarify some things before you start to get confused! What do I mean? Last time I mentioned modelling, matching and mirroring, I failed to include when to do so, how to do it and so on. So how exactly do you match and mirror someone?

Everyone has their own unique set of gestures, facial expressions, posture and personal space. Simply put, different people exhibit different patterns of body language!

When you are matching someone’s posture, you have to notice how they stand, how and where they position their arms and feet. Also, notice the angle which they have their head tilted. A head tilted slightly indicates interest, a head slanted down indicates negativity and doubt. Why are you doing this? This is important because similarity breeds rapport. A similar posture allows you to tap and get a rough feel of the other party’s psychological makeup!

The next thing you can mirror is someone’s gestures. Many people are limited to a set of gestures unique to them. Some people may wave their hands wildly when they engage in conversation, others may fidget. Still others may rub their arms or scratch. A word of caution, when you are mirroring or matching someone’s gestures, do it with a tinge of SUBTLETY!!! Do not attempt to fold your arms or scratch your nose at the same time as your client/date! He may get the wrong idea and think that you are poking fun or imitating him!

Also, do pay attention to your client’s/date’s facial expression. Although I have found this to be slightly more challenging, it does reveal so much about a person when you master it! Universal facial expressions include smiling when you’re happy and frowning when you’re sad or dissatisfied. Research and studies have also shown that a person’s eye movement can tell you rather accurately the part of the brain a person is accessing. For instance, when looking upwards, people tend to be thinking in pictures etc.

What a great mouthful of information! And I haven’t even started on personal space yet! If all this seems so foreign and too much for you, fret not! Take this oppotunity to stretch yourself! Allow yourself to grow to be able to read and absorb more! Trust me! Step by step, little by little, all your improvements will add up!

Ready for the last part? Here we go!

Personal space, while many find it trivial, is the distance between you and your contact. Some people may be slightly claustrophobic and will feel uneasy when people stand too near. Others may prefer closeness and even some form of contact! So position yourself at varying distance and see how your client reacts!

I cannot stress the importance of building great rapport, both for working and social purposes.

Out!

Hey there! Welcome back!

The fact that you’re reading this only goes to show that you would like to know how to establishing rapport with anybody instantly!

What is rapport?

Have you ever bumped into someone for the first time and just totally clicked with them? You felt as though you were both running on the same frequency or the same ‘channel’! No lame openings like “so, erm… what do you do for a living…” or small talk about the weather. Instead, you managed to speak openly and freely about just anything under the sun?

At the same time, have you met someone only to detest them at first sight? You felt as though they were ’shifty’, could’nt be trusted and just didnt understand your point. Everything they said and did, every small little gesture, every word they uttered, just seemed to irritate you more and more and more?

That, is the magic of rapport. Observe it, and you will be on your way to success!
So comes the big question at this point. How do you build instantenous rapport - easily?

Traditionally, many books mention things like using the other persons name frequently or others like sincere compliments. While this is great, lets face it, it doesn’t always work! I’m sure you can think of times when the more you heard your name the more pissed you felt, or ’sincere’ compliments from people just felt like apple polishing. So what is the huge secret?

Using principles from NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, building rapport is as simple as ABC!
First of all, you must understand and respect the other party’s attitudes, beliefs and values.

Next, you will have to adopt similar physiology, tonality and language patterns.

In a nutshell, you HAVE to match them! Or even better still, mirror them to make them feel as if they were ’seeing’ themselves, or even talking to themselves! Don’t believe me? Let’s carry out an ‘experiment’, just to show you how people have been applying this concept, on a daily basis, subconsiously!

The next time you’re out waiting for a friend or a bus, notice how people in groups communicate and behave. If you notice, the people in that group actually look as if they were engaged in a dance! Every sentence, hand gesture and movement is complimented smoothly by another! Now do you see the importance of matching?

That’s pretty much it! I will go into the finer details in my next entry! So just be patient!

Watch this space!

P.S. Because I’m transferring my posts from an earlier blog I had, you might have already read this before!

“Whether you say you can or you can’t, you’re right!”
Everything we do is affected by what we say! Whether you’re talking on the phone or to yourself (yes, we do talk to ourselves) what we say will ultimately determine the results that we get!

Imagine being able to get the very best out of life! To achieve excellent results in your studies, to command the highest salary in your career and to be the envy of your friends! Imagine being the Tiger Woods of your industry! Have I got your attention yet?

Words that come out from our mouths speak alot of our values, beliefs and attitude towards life. Unless we can properly optimize our values, beliefs and attitudes, life will be a constant contradiction! Don’t know what I mean? Here’s an example. Many times I’ve come across friends who say that they would like to be rich. They want to be millionaires, period. Then I ask them, at that instant, what they really really want to do in life. Guess what they said? Did they tell me that they were going to find ways and means to get to the million? NO! Majority of them wanted to ‘chill out’ by the beach or just laze around! In fact, many of them were not planning and working towards getting rich!

It’s no wonder why so many of us feel confused and lost in life! Alot of times we act like walking contradictions! Now do you understand the importance of aligning your values?

Enough said. If you’d like to know so much more, and be the person you’ve always wanted to be, check out :

1) Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement
2) How to master your mind and design your destiny - Adam Khoo

Click on the title of the books!

Hope you will be able to find what you want in life!

Out!

I went to watch superman returns a couple of days ago. I know. It’s been out for awhile now and I’ve only just caught it. How slow can I get? The main reason I’m typing this post is not to tell you the story. Neither am I going to tell you how pretty the actress was! In this post, you will find out 1 of the many ways to make yourself feel better, or even more powerful, instantly!

Did you catch superman returns? Do you remember the part where he managed to stop the airplane from crashing into the earth? What happened after that? The whole world literally cheered for him right? How did you feel sitting there in the audience listening to the roar of people clapping?

Did you feel great? Did it make you feel powerful? Did you feel any difference at all? Studies have shown that one can change one’s mood by the use of auditory tools. Meaning to say, the music or the sounds you hear can have an immediate effect on your mood!

Laughter, clapping and cheering can be used to make you feel better instantly! Then again, different people have different stimulus. For some it may be the sound of drums banging over and over again, for others it may be a war cry of some sort.

Movies and television shows make use of sounds to ellicit different moods. Why don’t you? The next time you’re feeling down do 2 things.

1) Say “Shut the F**** up” to that little voice in your head that’s going “you’re not going to make it you lazy bast****”

2) Imagine being surrounded by the sound of laughter, clapping, drums banging and people singing (a 500 strong choir perhaps?) and increase the volume 10 times and then another 10 times and another 10 times until you feel your stomach trembling with power, joy and happiness!

Go ahead, give it a shot!

Remember the competition I mentioned a few posts back? Well, I’m actually taking part in a SEO competition!

SEO is basically the short form for Search Engine Optimization. This competition involves signing up for it and optimizing your page so that it comes in top 3!

For more details, check out ambatchdotcom seocontest here!

Ciao!

I fell for it! I’ve told people not to fall for it and I still fell for it!

If you do not know, I’ve been teaching at a daycare centre where the kids there aren’t exactly what you call angels. If you want to find out more about them, you could read the previous post I did on them!

Well, while teaching one boy today, I unconsiously allowed myself to fall into a huge trap! I fell into the trap of categorising him as someone who wasn’t really very bright! While you might think this is normal, I don’t! My personal philosophy towards teaching is this.

“There are no stupid students, only inflexible teachers!”

Perhaps I was thinking too much about other things. But that’s no excuse! I’m sure there’s a way to get to him. I’ll do everything I can tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

Havent posted in awhile. I actually wanted to just let this blog die out when I realised that people were still coming to look see! The numbers on the counter were still increasing so I decided, what the heck!

Much has happened recently. Been out with the guys (my church friends) having one too many ‘emo’ sessions. You know those lil sessions where guys/gals go to talk about their emotional probs? Goodness. I’m not alone!

While these groups tend to make you feel that the world isn’t all that bad, that your life isn’t the worst, I guess there really isn’t much use of it! Heh. That’s not to say that I didnt have a great time but if you think about it, the suggestions that your friends give to your problems are rarely the best solution!

Just caught ‘Pretty Woman’ today!

I must say that it’s a wonderful show starring Richard Gere(I think he’s super sexy!) and Julia Roberts! Ok, I know it’s an old show but… go catch it if you havent!

I’m entering a competition!

I’ll tell you more about it the next time I post! Have fun, have a great day and never let the world pull you down!

Hey friends, bloggers and visitors!

I NEED YOUR HELP!

Yes! I’m literally shouting out here! Because I’m getting desperate and I need your help!

Here’s the problem. For those of you who’ve been reading this blog faithfully, (thank you so very much), you most probably know that I’m teaching and coaching a group of kids at a daycare centre.

The thing is this. I’m looking for a new and interesting way to teach them spelling! Other than using phonics, memorizing and beating them, ok, I was kidding about the beating part, I want to know what kind of techniques you use to learn a new word!

For example, if I wanted you to learn the word ‘perspicacious’ (ok, I know that there are some of you who are smart so no offense!) and I was going to test you in 1 minute, what would you do?

Please feel free to leave your comments by clicking on the ‘comments’ button or just leave a comment in my tagboard! Thanks alot and cheers to you!