When it comes to self help and a spiritual path in life, everyone is different. There is no set of rules that can be applied to anyone across the board because each person has their own individual set o circumstances that are specific for them. Personal self help means finding out what your specific issues are that are different from other peoples and then finding a way that you can fit these issues into a more common form of treatment that is convenient and readily available. Every alcoholic or drug addict that ever existed enters a treatments center or a twelve step meeting with the idea that “I am different from thee people” and every one of them is right to some degree. Regardless of this truth, however, the same solutions often work for many different people and, even though your specific problems may be different, they can still be applied in similar ways to a solution that works. Personal self help does take into account the differences that each person has and yet it also takes those differences and helps to bring out the similarities that can be seen with countless other individuals that have felt the same way. For example, it really doesn’t matter how many different drinks or how many drugs you have ever taken, as an addict and alcoholic it is imperative that you get away from all drugs and alcohol and get away from the people who you previously used to drink or take drugs with. Personal self help can also take into account your differences in terms of the manner n which your spiritual path can progress once you have first accepted the fact that you aren’t entirely different from anyone else. You may follow a path which believes in a certain religion or a certain spiritual practice because of your own preferences but this will only come after you have had the humility to admit that your problems aren’t as unique as you would like to think. Some people pursue yogic practices or learn how to perform seated meditation. Others prefer to take up a career or start a business to fulfill their highest potential. Others besides these may throw themselves into their religion as a way of finding new meaning in their lives. It really doesn’t matter which path you pursue once you recognize that basic health first comes by following certain principles of self help that are true for everyone. One of the most basic and fundamental values that exists throughout all spiritual practices or any kind of endeavor which aims at success is that you cannot be a self-centered person and be successful. Even the most self-centered people who have struck it rich on television or movies have eventually found that they weren’t truly happy without a meaningful relationship with other people in their lives. Self-centeredness breed’s unhappiness and it is therefore paramount, when you are first starting out on your self help journey, to learn how to get outside of yourself and to open yourself up to the lives of others in some way, shape or form. The basic principles of self help were first laid out by Dr. Sigmund Freud years ago when he recognized that the ego is at the center of all of our problems and raising our consciousness is part and parcel to discovering a more healthy lifestyle. Dr. Freud and others who came after him such as Dr. Carl Jung and Dr. David R. Hawkins have paved the way for a brighter tomorrow. They have shown us what our personal path to self help can look like if we are truly dedicated to healing ourselves and finding a better life. Personal self help is something that everyone can now benefit from and something that you should take advantage of yourself before it is too late.

Let’s face it: this little thing we live called Life can get hectic sometimes. Between the various things we accomplish in one day, it can be hard to keep up with life sometimes. We all could use a little help every once in a while, and that’s okay. Franklin Covey and Coupon Cart are here to help you plan for life and save money in every way that you can, so rest easy knowing you can afford the tools to get your life together and on paper. Franklin Covey is also a great place to get many books and other paper products, all at great prices. You can also get audio versions of many books as well, not to mention binders and even leather briefcases. Coupon Cart is offering savings on shipping, $10 off a purchase of $50, and a discount on briefcases as well. On the Franklin Covey website you can get information on time management seminars and software, but in the meantime you can start organizing your time from the bottom up, and Franklin Covey can help you along every step of the way. If you need a little bit of reading material, you might want to check out a book that is available through Franklin Covey called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Including time management, the book discusses all of the aspects of being a well rounded and successful person, and outlines things that successful people do. The book is written in a way in hopes that it will motivate you to model yourself after people who are successful in hopes of becoming successful yourself. If you have a basic need, Franklin Covey has a great variety of assorted and rather stylish binders, business cases, day planners, productivity tools, and even handhelds. They really do help you get organized and your day on track, the way it should be. Time keeping, recording, and organization are what Franklin Covey is all about. Since their conception, they have evolved to offer a wide variety of products including books and audio books, but their main forte is time and organization. The great thing about Franklin Covey products is that not only are they important to have, but they are stylish as well. No funky doodads or other things involved here; Franklin produces only top quality, b business class and professional looking business cases, calendars, day planners, and binders. If professional leather is what you are looking for, whether it is for your laptop case or just your daily planner, Franklin Covey has exactly what you are looking for and always at great prices, and with free shipping offers! Stop in at your local Franklin Covey store (if you don’t know where one is in your area, check out your local shopping mall) or http://FranklinCovey.CouponCart.com today.

Throughout my St Albans motivation courses, I make it clear that in order to be motivated you need to be moving. The word motivation leads us to think about being enthused, inspired and driven and these are important qualities for a human being to posses. They are the feelings that get us out of bed in the morning, that enable us to work in pressurised environment and that help us to grow. Everything in the universe is either growing or dying, and if you want to avoid the latter for as long as possible, there needs to be something in your life that helps you to feel as if you are growing. This is where St Albans Motivational courses can help. Most people seek this growth from the work that they do, in their every day job. Others find it in a hobby. The challenge occurs when the work you are doing is not motivating, or not motivating enough. This can lead to a “flat” feeling or worse still, real negative emotions, but the lack of motivation may also prevent any action being taken that could potentially change things for the better. A lack of motivation will eventually filter its way through into other areas of our lives, because these things are all interlinked. A person, who feels a lack of motivation at work, may be in bad spirits when they get home, and therefore not give the best of themselves to their relationship, or perhaps they will go wild socially to attempt to rebalance, and this could then have a negative impact on their health. In fact, this is the most common scenario and I have witnessed it firsthand. Many people I worked with in the past- and even myself, have been in disempowering or unstimulating jobs, and then spend Friday and Saturday night drinking too much, eating too much and generally over doing things. Now I am in a job that I love, providing NLP, Hypnotherapy and Life Coaching for motivation to those in St Albans, that constantly sets me worthwhile challenges I can say that I have a much more balanced lifestyle. People require motivation for many different areas of their life- some need it to get them to the gym, others to give up smoking and others to change their career. In order to be completely committed to gaining motivation there are two things you must be willing to accept. One is pleasure (oh good!) and the other is pain (oh dear!). It’s the typical carrot and stick scenario and you must think of it this way: If you want to do something that you are currently not motivated to do, the chances are, you have probably considered all of the pleasurable ways it would be good for you to do it. For example, if you want to be motivated to go to the gym, you might list the following positive (pleasure/carrot) reasons: 1) I will look better when my body is fit 2) My body will be physically healthier 3) Exercising will help me to sleep better 4) I will meet more people Now read Motivational Courses using Hypnotherapy, NLP and Life Coaching 2/3

I lost my water bottle. Change was bound to happen after that. I know it is really no big deal as it’s just a little thing – but I really liked that water bottle! It fit perfectly in the cup holder of my car, it had an easy to open lid, a spill guard that made it easy to drink out of and it was decorated with some cool stickers that really spoke about me that I’d acquired over the 3 years I had used it. I drink a lot of water and I carried it with me everywhere. My water bottle was very personalized and I was quite attached to it. Of course it also didn’t help that I only very rarely lose things. I can probably count on one hand the number of significant items I’ve lost in the last 5 years. Though not highly materialistic I am usually quite attentive to my material possessions and do not misplace them often. So I was a little confused and a little disturbed when I realized my water bottle, a very important part of my life, was missing. Change is an interesting process. Psychologically speaking it goes like this: Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Determination, Action, and Maintenance. But it’s more than just a process of decision making and taking action. Change is an emotional journey. PRECONTEMPLATION At first I kind of stumbled around for a couple of days thinking it would just “show up” somewhere. I back tracked my path since the last time I knew I had it and checked in with the places I had been (at least 6.) One person even had a recollection of seeing it there at some point but it was still nowhere to be found. I pined about it for days! I was struggling with letting go of my attachments to this old water bottle. I was feeling lost, sad, disappointed and, well, thirsty. I was going through an emotional process of understanding and release – not sure whether I could make it and not sure I was willing to accept the loss of the water bottle yet. CONTEMPLATION Finally though, after almost 2 weeks, I came to grips with the fact that it was lost and not coming back. Surely I had left it in a coffee shop somewhere and without my name or number on it someone had very likely picked it up and taken it home with them. I realized that holding out hope that the old water bottle would magically reappear was resisting the truth of reality. It was time to accept that I needed a new water bottle. I almost felt like I was grieving the loss of one of my most important possessions. The process of grief is long and challenging as well. Pile that on top of the emotions of change and I felt like I was spinning. I know this seems like I am making a mountain out of a mole hill but change can be difficult for me – which is ironic given my life and profession. So often my life is a constant vortex of shift and change and evaluation and growth as I navigate my personal and professional world. I am constantly supporting others in the process of change and growth and discovery. I often can’t help but reflect that change into my own life and that’s not even to mention the areas I’m doing my own change and growth work on a continual basis. As a result I work hard at building stability in my life in other ways and sometimes that is accomplished with the little details and the tangible objects. So letting go of the lost water bottle represented a big challenge for me. DETERMINATION When I finally accepted that it was time to purchase a new water bottle a very subtle shift occurred for me. I realized that there was an opportunity here. My old water bottle was made of plastic that scientists say have health concerns. I had known this for a while but wasn’t quite ready to let go of it. What I realized was that there was an opportunity to make a new and healthier choice. Not only had I made the decision to accept the change but I’d taken a step up to move forward in the process of change with new ideas, new information and a new sense of ownership. This was perhaps the most important part of the change process for me. Change can be as simple as making a simple choice between two rather irrelevant options or it can be as complex as shifting behavior patterns or beliefs. In this critical stage of change is an opportunity to make critical shifts. The stage of determination is where we can have the largest impact on our lives. Whenever the opportunity for small change arises we also often have an opportunity to make a large shift in the direction of our choices. Think of it in terms of navigating a plane. At the start of a long flight a directional difference of just a few degrees can result in a final destination hundreds of miles apart! The ways we choose to engage shift along with change can make the difference between health and happiness in the long run – or not! I chose to make the shift to health and happiness this time. ACTION So I did some research and determined what I wanted. A quick trip to the outdoor store and I had exactly what I was looking for – a large, metal, wide-mouthed new water bottle! Emotionally I had reached a place of empowerment. I knew what I wanted and I had acquired it. When I bought the new water bottle I felt really good about the choice I’d made. But my process of accepting change wasn’t over yet. MAINTENANCE After just a few days of using the bottle I realized just how clean it was compared to my 3 year old plastic bottle and how much cleaner it was then my other old easy plastic straw water bottle that I used when I was at home. I have been a big water drinker for many years but recently I have had trouble drinking as much water as I was used to largely, I think, due to the taste transfer in the bottles I had been using. So I started using the metal water bottle all the time. Once I switched over my water consumption started to dramatically increase and I felt healthier and more hydrated than I had in months. That was entirely unexpected. EMOTIONAL SHIFT A little thing like a different water bottle was affecting my health. A simple choice to switch from a plastic to a metal was having a deep impact on my life. What I began to realize was that while my focus is often on large changes such as healing old relationships, changing my behavior emotional patterns, career shifts, understanding new and powerful differences in using language, etc. I almost never focus on the little details of how my daily life happens. It’s almost as if I’m so acclimated to big change that the little change somehow gets lost in the mix. The truth for me was that sometimes the most subtle thing in my life can be one of the most important. Maintaining my health is strongly linked to how much water I drink. So although it might seem like something really little it in fact has a huge impact on all of my life. The healthier I am the more active I am. The more active I am the happier I am. The happier I am the more I attract the activities and people I want in my life. So something as simple as how much water I drink could affect my overall happiness if it produced a significant enough change in my body – just like navigating a plane. Understanding the difference between little and big changes, how challenging or important they were and how they affected me made all the difference. What had seemed like it might be a mountain out of a mole hill was actually a small volcano. Sometimes it is the little things that make for big changes an I had found one of them!

The mere mention of a “test” seems to be a four-letter word to the mind of many students. Not only do they become anxious, but also there are a few changes in their behavior on an involuntary basis. Remember the high school teacher that would proudly walk in and announce a daily “pop quiz”. It is almost like the world stood still, the sound echoed and slowed to half the normal speed. Almost like a warp zone. That is because test taking illicit’s fear in the human species. They are terribly afraid of failure or looking dumb, so they work themselves in to a panic attack without even realizing what is happening. There are ways to calm your mind and body when you are about to take a test. Following the below listed tips can give you a successful strategy for passing that test! Study Guide To The Rescue If you have a chance to purchase a study guide, do not let your shirt tale hit your bottom before you do so. No matter how much it cost it is the key to the test. When someone has built a study guide, they have reviewed the material backwards and forwards in order to determine what material is the most important. The study guide does most of the work for you, because it is like having your own personal researcher that did the footwork for you! If you have trouble in affording the reference material, make sure that you ask mom and dad or get a group in the class together allowing everyone to split the cost. Psychological Helpers There are a few tips and tricks that counselors want to charge you for sharing. Here they are so use them and enjoy this free gift to you! If you are nervous, and most people are with a test, you can use mental imagery to calm your body. When you are sitting in your chair take you index and ring finger and hold them together at the very tip of the fingers. Now close your eyes and take a deep breath, hold it a few seconds, now slowly release it. Practice this as we go through! Do these three times all while keeping your fingers together. Now imagine that the stress, tension and anxiety are draining from the top of your head to the very tips of your fingers that is holding it in your body. As the anxiety, fear and stress moves down your arm slowly release your fingers allowing the anxiety to drain from your body. If you really concentrate and use imagery it really feels like water is dripping from your fingertips! Pretty cool, huh! Taking Your Time Do not rush through the test, take your time and allow your mind the ability to catch up. If you are in a hurry or so nervous that you are half way reading the questions you will most likely read it wrong. Reading a small part of the question or answer can prove a red mark across your test. Hurrying through anything will cause you to make mistakes and unfortunately have caused many students to fail a class. Most professors give you ample time to complete the test and do not worry as if you are diligently working and the time is up, most will give you time to complete the entire test. Test anxiety has become a hot topic in the last twenty years as some very famous individuals have suffered. The Old 1-2-3 That Mom Always Preached The older that we get the less “dumb and out dated” that mom really becomes. You know in younger years all of those test tips that mom gave always went in one ear and out the other. Now we find ourselves struggling to remember them, because we are anxious about an upcoming test. Here they are again: * Go to bed at a decent time – one of the leading indicators of poor grades is sleep deprivation. Did you know that sleep deprivation can cause you to be sick, miss an important pass or hit in sports, and even lead to accidents? * No empty stomachs – Making sure that you have had something to eat before a test can actually calm your nerves. One of the reactions of the body to stress and anxiety is the release of acids that can upset one’s stomach. Have something of substance in your stomach to soak up the nervous juices! * Be prepared – Do not wait until the night before the exam to try and cram the information. Chances are that you will not do yourself any good and will only frustrate yourself. You do not need any more frustration so prepare ahead of time. Remember look for a study guide! * Clear your mind – Do not worry with the electric bill, neighbors barking dog, or how to ask him/her out on a date when you are about to take a test. Remember to use your newfound mental imagery to clear your mind and take your test in the Caribbean! Hey the mind is a wonderful and miraculous tool.