Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Your Three Biggest Enemies

Published on February 25, 2008 in Mental and Personal. 0 Comments Tags: , .

For many people, self-improvement becomes somewhat of a hobby. These people know that by challenging themselves they stand to gain personally, professionally, financially, and spiritually. But why do other people stop trying to improve themselves? With so much to gain, what is it that prevents some folks from moving forward in life? When you get right down to it, there are three major bumps on the road to self-development. You need to know what they are and how to overcome them so you can reach your highest potential.

1. Fear- This one emotion can stop someone before they ever get a chance to begin. Fear comes in many forms. There’s the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of change, the fear of success. The list goes on and on. Every time you step out of your comfort zone you’re going to feel fear. The problem is that the only way you can grow and improve is by stepping out of your comfort zone! A little fear can be a good thing. It lets you know you’re moving in the right direction.

2. Despair- This little bugger is often a side effect of failure. It’s that feeling that you’re no good, that you can’t do it, and that you were a fool for even trying. Whereas fear prevents people from ever trying, despair prevents people from ever trying again. In order to avoid despair, you need to embrace failure. When you try something new, you need to realize that you’re going to fail at first. In fact, you’ll probably fail a lot! Take these little failures as learning experiences that you can build into great successes! Don’t despair. Every time you fail brings you one step closer to your goal.

3. Fatalism- Fatalism is a way people rationalize despair. After a particularly hard failure you’ll hear people say thinks like, “I guess God just wants me to be a ditch digger.” Or, “This must be my lot in life.” These people see their destiny as fixed. The problem is, if you think your destiny is determined by someone or something else, you’ve lost all power in your life. You’ll never improve because you don’t think anything you do will help. This way of thinking can lead to depression in a hurry. Don’t think for a second that you deserve any less than the very best in life!

The best thing to combat fear, despair, and fatalism is knowledge. The more you analyze a fear, the more you realize how irrational it is. Then the fear loses power over you. The more you know about why you failed, the less likely you are to make the same mistake again. Failures become learning experiences. Finally, if you take time to learn about yourself and think about why you deserve to succeed, you become less and less likely to accept your “lot in life” and demand more.

Speed Reading: Science or Science Fiction

Published on February 21, 2008 in Mental, Personal, Professional and Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: .

Volumes upon volumes have been written about speed reading. In addition, there’s plenty of software available to help students and professionals maximize their time by cutting down the hours they spend reading. But does speed reading really work or is it an illusion created to rake in the almighty dollar? Let examine some of the facts.

Believe it or not, speed reading has a foundation in psychological research. The concept first developed when scientists in the US Air Force proved that people could recognize a group of four words in one five-hundredth of a second. Unfortunately, the story begins to turn a little bit at this point. Apparently it’s easier to recognize a group of four words quickly than it is to read a page quickly and even when high speeds are achieved, reduced comprehension usually accompanies it. For example, top contenders in the World Championship Speed Reading Competition read between 1,000 and 2,000 words per minute but their comprehension rate is about 50%. For those of us who read for information, 50% retention is utterly worthless.

Don’t despair though! You don’t have to read at 2,000 words per minute to benefit from speed reading. The average adult only reads at about 250 words per minute and with a few simple tips, you could easily read at 600 to 1,000 words per minute. How?

1. Read Chunks of Words- This technique is appropriately called “chunking.” Instead of looking at each word individually, you try to see words as 3 to 5 word phrases. It takes a while to get the hang of it but once you do, your reading rate will shoot upwards.

2. Avoid Subvocalization- Can you hear yourself when you read this sentence even if you’re not talking? If so, you’re subvocalizing. You don’t need to hear the word “car” to picture a car. If you’re used to subvocalization, then this tip may be the hardest for you. Don’t get discouraged! Work at it and soon you’ll be visualizing your books rather than vocalizing them and visualizing is a heck of a lot faster!

3. Use Your Hand as a Pace Car- This technique was named after its founder Evelyn Wood. The Wood Method is accomplished by moving your hand across a sentence at the speed you’d like to read. The method works because as humans, we’re highly attuned to motion and you eye will naturally follow your hand. Try it! It’s an easy way to get started speed reading.

While there are reports of people who can read 25,000 words per minute with perfect recall, those cases are few and far between. You may never finish War and Peace in one sitting, but with a little practice you may be able to finish a Harry Potter book in a couple of hours.

Who is Steve Pavlina?

Published on February 19, 2008 in Blogs, Educational, Health, Mental, NLP, Nutrition, Personal, Professional and Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Steve Pavlina, once a felon, is now a personal development blogger who maintains a site at www.stevepavlina.com. His interests vary. While some of his posts are the run-of-the-mill personal development articles that describe how to energize your life and get things done, other articles boarder on the weird. The arena of personal development has no shortage of blogs on the web so the question is, “Is Steve’s blog worth your time?”

First I’ll say this; you will not be bored on this blog! You could spend a day on it reading a wide variety of articles ranging from “How to Give Up Coffee” to “The Meaning of Life.” The articles are generally well written and are frequently backed with Steve’s experience on the subject.

One of the articles I found particularly interesting was “30 Days to Success.” It’s one of those things that you read and think, “It’s so simple! Why didn’t I think of that?” Basically Steve suggests that major changes in your life should have a 30 day trial period. Have you been thinking of starting a new diet? It can be a daunting task to change the way you eat forever, but if you just want to stick with the diet for 30 days, it becomes much less of a mental hurdle. The beauty of this principle is that new habits take about 30 days to form so if you find that you’re reaping health benefits from your new diet after the 30 day mark, you’re much more likely to continue. See what I mean? The principle presented is simple, yet powerful.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some things Steve writes about that I’d recommend a lot more research on before trying. One such idea is polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep is taking many naps throughout the day rather than sleeping in one long span of time. Steve suggests that this is possible because you train yourself to enter REM sleep faster. That statement caused little alarms to go off in the part of my brain that holds a psychology degree. I remember reading that a person will go directly to REM sleep if they’re sleep deprived and exhausted. I don’t think people trying this sleeping method are really training themselves. I just think they reach a point where they’re so exhausted they go right into REM sleep. Polyphasic sleep also seems to ignore thermal fluctuations that your body goes through during wake/sleep cycles. For me, polyphasic sleep left too many questions.

The truth is you don’t have to agree with everything Steve Pavlina writes in order to benefit from his site. There are plenty of good ideas there and it’s definitely worth your time to check it out and play around for a couple of hours. Who knows? One of Steve’s ideas may change your life!