My Favorite Self-Help Stuff

Not all stress comes from lack of time.  There are plenty of other things we stress about all the time, from money to relationships to having to give a presentation at work.

But not having enough time is just about guaranteed to cause stress.  So stress management and time management are definitely closely related.

So what do you do when you have too much on your plate?  There’s only so much you really CAN do. And wearing yourself out by overworking leaves you with no place to go when a “real” crisis comes up.

There are two sides to this: the stress, and the time.  What you want is tools for both of them.  You need a way to ratchet down the stress so you can think more clearly, and then address the time issues.

For stress, you have many options.  You could get my free stress tips report and use some of the tips, or you could get the real thing: My Instant Stress Relief Strategies Resource Guide to stress busting strategies.

That guide hands you a series of strategies from which you can pick and choose.  Experiment, try some out, and see what works especially well for you.

And once you have gotten some stress management tools at your disposal, you can tackle the real issue: Not enough time.

Or rather, trying to cram too much into the time you have. And that often comes from trying to please too many people all at once.

So how to get around that? Well, you may have heard about the 80/20 rule.  And that’s a good start.  But what is part of the 20% that you ought to be doing?

This is where my favorite time management course comes in.  It helps you figure out what to do, how to do it quickly and efficiently, and how make the most of your time.

One of the biggest problems in time management is procrastination. That’s where this program really shines.

And most procrastination has to do with insecurity or indecision. It will show you how to make decisions quickly.  It also teaches you how to quickly make yourself feel more confident (there’s some NLP involved).

And, with the tools that are in this course, it will help you get a tremendous amount done in record time as you cut through procrastination like it was butter on a warm summer day.

So check it out.  It may be just what the time doctor ordered

http://www.IMTimeMastery.com

And here’s another blog post on time management.

And they’re getting better too.  And future ones will get better still — I have upgraded to the pro version since I’m having so much fun with this.

Here are the lastest two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slNC238xqck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8luAaby5a1E

Two of my most popular articles — now as videos

If you want to turn your own articles into videos, you can do that too, at

http://www.drkrecommends.com/articlevideos.php

It will turbo-charge your traffic like you won’t believe!

Now, if you’ll excuse me — I’m going to make some more

Hi there!

Check out my new article video.  On my favorite self help blog topics: stress and time management.

Okay, so the voice sounds a bit robotic — that’s because it IS generated by a robot

It’s my new articlevideo robot (or is it video article robot?).  And the upgraded version which I might get soon, has much better sounding robots.  And of course, I can do the voice over myself, and I will, soon…

Well… but I tried to put it on this page and it was too big! What to do?

I created an extra page for it where I hope you can watch it:

http://www.MyFavoriteselfhelpstuff.com/stress&timevid1.html

And a second one:

http://www.Myfavoriteselfhelpstuff.com/stress&sleepvid1.html

Go check them out please (and let me know what you think)

Meanwhile, I’m going to investigate if there’s a way to get smaller versions of these videos for my blog (also ones that load a lot faster.

Sooner or later, any self-help blog must address the issue of better Time Management.  Of course that word is really a misnomer.  Time cannot be managed.  It does what it does, which is to keep on moving.  What needs managing is us: what we do with that time as it passes or as we pass through it, or whatever.

And stress?  Well, stress tends to come from a feeling of not-enough-ness. Whether there’s not enough money, time, or  love, the result tends to be stress.

Money or its absence seems to be a big cause of stress. But time is even worse. We can always make more money, at least theoretically.  But once time is gone, it’s irretrievably gone.  There’s no way to get it back, let alone get more of it.

So how we handle time makes a big difference to our well-being — and to what we accomplish. It also goes with my favorite quote by one of my favorite (late) stress management experts: Roger Mellott:  He said: “Do what you say you value.”

Now most of us value living up to our commitments.  Most of us also value being liked.  And voila!  A big conflict.  Because in order to be liked, we commit to more than we can handle, and that can quickly bring us into conflict with our need to live up to our commitments. Ouch!

On some level, better time management skills allow us to work more effectively or more quickly, which in turn helps us get more done.  There’s a limit of course.

But still.  That’s the premise, and certainly doubling our productivity can do wonders for our income as well as our feelings of accomplishment.

And it can reduce stress because now we’re living up to the expectations of those w have made commitments to — and to our own expectations. And we may have more money too.

So how can we achieve better time management?  How can we be more productive?  Should we live by the 80/20 rule?  Well, there’s actually an even better way.

Check out the coolest time management courses I have ever come across. It’s by Jason Fladlien. Yes, the same guy who has been teaching people how to write 7-minute articles.  It was just a matter of time before he would expand his principles to other areas.

And his time management course is brilliant as well as a total steal!  It’s a multi-media course with workbook and extensive worksheets.  You can read the book first and then watch the videos for reinforcement and for all the details…  there’s also an audio-only webinar — which was the original time management seminar.

Where can you get it? Right here!  Check it out and get a secret special deal just for my blog readers   Just send me an email by return mail when you get your welcome message and tell me that you want my blog reader special, and I’ll put you on the list for my special delayed-release bonuses — they will be doled out every couple of weeks or so over the coming few months!

Do I have the course?  Of course I do.  In fact, I’m actually in it!  And when Jason offered me the resale rights, I immediately took him up on it.  The course is that good!

Go take a look:  Jason’s Time Management Course.

And let me know what you think.

Have a fantastic — and very low-stress day, especially with your new-found Better Time Management Skills.

Elisabeth

I’m working on an article on how to overcome overwhelming stress and was thinking of some “intervention” strategies, things you can do to cut through the stress and get back to a state of calm or at least semi-calm functioning.

And as I was looking around on the web, I came across an amazing article by Eric Grey on now he uses the five elements (of Classical Chinese Medicine) to eliminate overwhelming stress.

So before I even go add my own 2 cents, I’ll give you the link to that article:

http://deepesthealth.com/2007/how-to-use-the-five-elements-to-eliminate-overwhelming-stress/

Here are a few of my own strategies that I was going to suggest:

If you’re with someone, get a good long hug.

If you’re alone, take a hot bath, preferably with relaxing aromatherapy.  If possible, with soothing music.  I really like Steven Halpern’s music for that, but there are many other kinds of soothing music out there.

I also highly recommend that you learn EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).  If you get my FREE stress tips report and then email me in return email with “Please send EFT ebook” in the title, I will send you my Easy Intro to EFT.  It has enough information to make a big difference in your stress levels within minutes.

There are many more things you can do, on a physical as well as on a mental and spiritual level, and I’ll talk about those next time, but for the moment, I just wanted to give a few tools to short-circuit the loop of intense physiological reactions you may get caught up in when you get into overwhelming stress.

More soon.

Elisabeth

I just came across a GREAT article by Jason Fladlien.  Jason is one of my favorite internet gurus and friends, and also quite the renaissance man, with a broad range of interests and expertise.

He’s also a great teacher of a range of things, from time management to copywriting, and I’ve pretty much subscribed to his stuff.

To think that I first found him when he offered a $4 ebook on how to write articles in 7 minutes.

As an English professor, I was almost insulted by what I thought was the devaluation of my craft.  But I was also curious and so I bought it.  And found myself very impressed.  While I still fall short of the 7 minute goal, Jason helped me reduce my article writing time to a fraction of what it used to be.

And with that $4 book came upgrades, and the book just got better and better.  Eventually I bought more ebooks.

But that’s not the subject of today’s post.  The following is:

Jason has a very unique and cool approach to NLP.  Much more straightforward and simple than what you can read in other places.

And in the article I”m going to point you to, he walks you through an exercise you will probably find just as useful as I do.

And no, there’s nothing to buy.  This is a freebie!

Check it out here:

Jason’s excellent article on NLP

Enjoy! And Happy Holidays!

Dr. K (also known as Elisabeth)

As far as stress tips go, this one is key:

Focus on what you DO want!

When we get stressed, we can easily get so wrapped up in our stressful situation that it’s hard to see beyond it.  That’s a recipe for staying stuck and even making things worse.

Whatever we focus on, we get more of.  Have you ever noticed that?

Now, you may say for example, well, you focus on wanting money, but where is it?

Well… when you focus on wanting more money from the perspective of not having enough of it, guess where your focus REALLY lies.

And speaking of affirmations, especially prosperity affirmations…

I remember that once, on my quest for finding good affirmations for prosperity, I came across the advice to repeat the following affirmation:

“I am a debt-free Millionaire”

Uhm…  I was very far away from debt-free OR a millionaire, and both I and my subconscious knew it.  So where was my focus really when I said that?  On lack!

Not good.  In fact, that sort of thing will only increase your stress and other negative emotions, and probably add despair to the equation.

So what can we do to get around that? Abraham and Abraham-Hicks have some great advice on that, and I’ll introduce you to another amazing resource I’ve been finding very helpful lately in the next few days

The key of their teachings is this:

Focus on what you DO want.  But phrase it in a way that doesn’t trigger contradiction.

So instead of saying, “I have a million dollars in the bank” when you don’t, why not say the following:

“I’d love to have a million dollars in the bank.”

or:

“The idea of having a million dollars in the bank feels really good.”

Doesn’t that make sense?

Ditto for any other issue you might be facing.

And if you’d like some support on your quest for a less stressful life, check out my the next post for a special offer or go to my Coaching page.

And have a fabulous day!

Elisabeth

P.S.: For lots more stress tips you can also get my ebook at http://www.instantstressreliefstrategies.com or you could first get my free stress tips report at http://www.freestresstipsreport.com

I just came across some interesting stress facts:

You know how when you have a deadline you almost feel inspired to better and faster work — as long as the deadline is within reason and not so impossible that you just want to throw up your hands in desperation and give up — or your mind goes blank.

Well…  I just read in Prevention Magazine they’ve done research on stress that showed the following:

when people feel stressed by the task they’re doing, that is actually often beneficial and it doesn’t cause too many problems if it isn’t excessive.

However, if people are trying to do a task under pressure and they’re ALSO feeling stressed about something unrelated to the task — personal finances, what their kids are up to, a sick child, marital problems, and so on, it actually hurts their brain and really affects their performance.

What do we learn from that?  For starters, to take stress very seriously.  It’s not just something that we all deal with that we’re just going to have to live with.

It’s something we have to LEARN to deal with proactively.  For example, if there is a way you can take care of the non-work thing that stresses you, you’ll be in much better shape.

If that’s not possible, or at least not in the moment, learn some techniques to calm yourself down and learn to put stress on hold.  Basically, this means, to compartmentalize stress.  Yes, it’s hard. And it takes some practice.  But it helps.

You’re welcome to my FREE stress-tips report.  It’s a start and will help you feel better.  Or, if you prefer, get my actual instant stress-relief strategies downloadable book.  It has some very powerful techniques that will help you tame some of your worst stress, and quickly.

Remember the empty plate club? Nowadays, what we really need is the too much on my plate club…

I wrote a book about how to stay sane under stress, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also find myself in way over my head situations. Too much on my plate club indeed.

What to do? Step one: calm down. And yes, you can find out how in my ebook, “Instant Stress Relief Strategies,” and also on this blog if you browse around some… Or if you go look up my ezinearticles.com articles, which you can find by clicking on that cute little ezinearticles.com Expert Author button on the right.

Or you can go to http://www.elisabethsarticles.com.

And then, there’s step two: take stuff off that plate!

Yes indeed. Just because it’s on your plate doesn’t mean you have to eat everything on it, empty plate club rules notwithstanding! You can take some and pass it on to others (delegate) and you can also renegotiate deadlines.

If worse comes to worst and you really just can’t get everything done, you can still practice damage control. Which of these things will cause you the least trouble if you skip or postpone it?

One VERY handy tool here is Abraham’s Placemat Process (see the Abraham-Hicks section in the Categories list).

That will help you pick out the ones that absolutely MUST be done now, and increase your chances that you actually get those done and will feel good about it. Then repeat the process with the next batch the following day, and so on and on.

And soon enough, you’ll find that things may get done without you. You’ll find out that some of the stuff has become moot. Or someone else already did it. Or it didn’t need to be done after all. I remember a letter I was supposed to write and it just got lost in the shuffle. I felt guilty about it for quite a while, until I got an email from that person that said that the other letter hadn’t actually been necessary, but now would I please write one. So I did. Funny how some of these things work out.

And in a worst case scenario? What will happen if you really can’t do it? What would happen if you fell over with a heart attack? They’d cope, right? Well… you DON’T have to get a heart attack first.

So learn to practice portion control when you allow stuff onto your plate (yeah, I know, I find it a challenge too). And if there’s too much on it already, take some of it off the plate

And yes, sure, if you like, there is this handy dandy ebook I wrote on how to calm yourself down instantly (or very quickly anyway) when you’re so stressed that you can hardly catch your breath anymore.

You can find it at Instant Stress Relief Strategies. Those strategies work. I’m using them myself and they’ve helped me (and my friends, and some of my students) through some very rough times.

I hope you have a very relaxing day!

Elisabeth

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What does the Law of Attraction have to do with stress management?

A lot! Stress is among the many feelings that basically push the incoming good away and attract bad stuff.

While we may not always exactly attract what we worry about, we are likely to attract something similar, and, as one of my favorite spiritual teachers once said, “Believe me, it will be adequate.”

So there is much to be gained from getting a handle on stress. But how? All the things that people tell you about, good nutrition, planning ahead and deep breathing just feel like Band-aids when the going gets really rough.

And retail therapy can get you into even bigger trouble when your finances are at the root of your stress.

Here’s what I’m going to do about it:

I’m going to create a special edition of my ebook that is focused specifically on stress and how to relieve it. It’s called “Instant Stress Relief Strategies” and you can get it at www.InstantStressReliefStrategies.com

At the moment what will happen when you go there is this:

You’ll see the new “sales page” but the book that will appear for download is the old version.

Not to worry. For a very limited time, i.e., until I have the new version finished and uploaded, you will get BOTH the old version “Feel Better Quickly” AND the new version “Instant Stress Relief Strategies” for the price of one. I’m even working on a special bonus that I will sell separately, but IF YOU BUY THIS WEEK, I will send it to you for free when it is ready. Seriously.

What is it? Well… I told you I’ve been there when it comes to stress, and at one point, I was literally on the verge of a heart attack with a blood pressure of 220/110 and killer triglycerides of 551. I was scared out of my socks of taking blood pressure meds, so I researched alternative blood pressure lowering information and took concerted action…

In my special report, I will share all the things I did and that worked and maybe even a few new ones I’ve discovered more recently.

So get it soon if you want that report. Everyone who buys my ebook THIS WEEK will get my special blood pressure lowering report FREE as soon as it’s ready.

Why the hurry? Because I’m trying to raise some money fast for my upcoming trip to New Zealand (to participate in a conference). More about that in a new post above…

But whether you buy my book or not, do remember that lowering your stress levels will go a long way towards making the Law of Attraction work for you so much better. Oh, and it will lower your blood pressure too!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Elisabeth

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