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asking for help

How Asking for Help Makes You Grow

We live in a society where we more or less consciously are told that unless you take care of yourself, no one will – at least in the Western world. You’re on your own. This can be exhilarating. You have the power over your own future. But it also implies that unless you do it yourself, you didn’t deserve it. You cheated somehow. We have all seen the lone wolf entrepreneur who single-handedly launches a successful company or two, fuelled by caffeine and applauded as a genius by us mortals. We’re almost conditioned not to ask for help.

When you have a problem, asking for help sounds like an obvious solution. Yet we so often choose to struggle with our problems alone, sometimes even going so far as to isolate ourselves or pretend that everything is all right when that is far from the truth.

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graze

Don’t Study the Basics, Learn By “Grazing”

If you really want to learn something, don’t worry about learning the basics first. Just go about gathering knowledge wherever you find it, doing things you like to do. Instead of trying to build a house of knowledge, one brick at a time, starting from the foundation, try to learn by “grazing”, following whatever attracts your interest. You will find that apparently aimless “grazing” will take you over increasingly familiar ground, and your grasp of the subject will naturally deepen.

At school we are taught that we need to learn things in a certain order, according to the curriculum, so that we can pass our tests. Learning is divided up into short spurts of activity, with the class subject changing every 30-40 minutes. The teacher decides what we are going to learn and at what pace. We are usually dissuaded from going ahead of the teacher to pursue things that interest us. We don’t have the luxury of staying with a subject of interest for a whole morning, let alone weeks at a time.

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change quotes

10 Great Quotes About Change and Growth

Often, quotes can be a source of inspiration – or illumination! I’ve chosen ten that I enjoyed below, and I’ve added a few words about each. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, too.

#1: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

This has been one of my favorite quotes since childhood. It’s known as “The Serenity Prayer” and reminds me that, while I can’t control everything, I can and should have an influence on some things.

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how to find your passion

How to Find Your Passion in the Next 5 Minutes

I read a wonderful post on this blog recently about we don’t FIND our passions, they come THROUGH us: Our passions are already there. This is very, very true.

I was reminded of this over the weekend while teaching a workshop on finding your passion and creating income from it. We were in the portion of the class in which I did some *laser consults* from the front of the auditorium. I was helping one man come to understand his true *Passion*. In fact, he was close, because he already knew that he wanted to be a Professional Speaker. However, he couldn’t choose WHICH of many topics he wanted to speak on.

I put it to him square: “What would you do with your life’s work, if you were going to die tomorrow?”

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Are You Letting People Help You?

How often have you tried to change something, only to give up a few weeks later?

I know my list of failed changes is pretty long. I often have great intentions (about getting up earlier, or eating more healthily, or taking more exercise) – but I don’t always manage to follow through.

If it’s the same for you, perhaps you’re lacking one crucial component of change: other people.

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growth mindset

How to Change Your Mindset for Growth

Pop quiz. Which of these do you agree with? 1) Intelligence is fixed at birth. 2)Some people are creative, others aren’t. 3) You can become a world-class expert through enough practice, whatever your starting point. 4) You can change your personality.

If you agreed with the first two statements, you’re coming from a fixed mindset. If you agreed with the second two, you’ve got a growth mindset.

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‘Rock’-ing Your Gift

I grew up with a mother that, loving though she was, believed that people with great talent – artists, writers and the like – are born with their special gift. She would often watch a program on PBS, say a broadcasting of one of the MET’s operas, and say afterward, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to….’ (Fill in the blank for the specific talent).

You can imagine how hard it was to believe that I could accomplish much, given my mother’s feelings about human genius being confined to the few born into it.

I think a lot of us were raised with parents like this.

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stand out from the crowd

How to Stand Out from the Crowd

The world is full of competition. There’s always somebody else trying to out-run us so that they can get to the top. This can be discouraging because we might feel we can’t compete on their level. But I think we should see competition as a good thing. It helps us to stay motivated in the things we do, and it helps us to do better for ourselves and others.

Sometimes we get to a point where we just kind of lie dormant, not really progressing much in our lives. For example, sometimes in our careers we lose hope and think that there’s just too much competition and there’s no way for us to get ahead. Simply put…not true! Part of wanting to make positive changes in your life involves giving yourself that extra boost to stand out from the crowd.

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