Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of negative feedbacks from friends and ex-colleagues when we met up over a cup of coffee. The usual concerns include:

- Unreasonable Datelines
- Bosses Who Can’t Make Up Their Minds
- Overworked And Underpaid
- Overloaded With Assignments
- Unappreciative Bosses
- Too Much Overtime

When In Doubt, Ask And Clarify. Never Make Your Own Assumption.
This is the single most underutilized tip! I still don’t understand why most employees don’t ask any questions when they are given an assignment? They just accept whatever instructions or assignments that was tasked to them without so much as a “Can I clarify ….?”. Are they afraid of looking stupid for asking the obvious? Probably but I would like to share with you this quote:

“The only stupid question is the one that was never asked!”
- Author unknown.

Most employees make assumptions when in doubt. They assume that their boss knows what he is doing. They assume that certain condition holds true. They assume that whatever they just figured out was what their boss wanted. The least anyone could have done, was to clarify with their boss if their assumptions were true. It’s that simple. If you are not sure how to ask and not look stupid, here is my practical example:

Me: Boss, can I have a moment to clarify with you about project X you passed me this morning?

Boss: Do you need to? I thought my instructions in the file was clear!

Me: Oh, it was but I just want to make sure that I got it right the first time. Wouldn’t want to make your project look bad if I got it wrong.

Boss: OK, go ahead.

Now you get your chance to outline HIS instructions as you think it should be and he will prompt and correct where necessary. It’s a simple technique that will not make him look bad, letting him know you care for his project while not sounding like an idiot. More importantly, you get your questions and assumptions verified. Wasn’t tough right?

Work smart, not hard
Most people I know are hard workers. They work very hard day in and day out. They work hard for each project and each assignment. They work so hard that when there is a real need to work hard, they could not raise to the occasion because they have have totally exhausted all their reserves.

What I suggest is that you should consider to work smart instead of hard. So how do you work smart? Here are my recommendations:

• Work Efficiently - When you are at work, focus on the job and cut back on non-essential activities such as chit chat, coffee breaks, surfing the internet, etc.
• Automate Repetitive Processes - Always be on the look out for task that are repetitive in nature, especially if it is a long and tedious process that repeats daily, weekly or monthly. This type of task are the best candidate for computerization and generally more cost effective to do so. Not to mention that it saves you a lot of manual work!
• Work Within Your Job Scope - I know many of my friends are a helpful bunch but many times they help others at their own expense! I strongly suggest that you focus and complete the task in your own job scope first then help others with your free time and not the other way round.
• Ask For Returning Favors - If you never ask for any returning favors, you WILL be taken for granted and that will attract an unlimited request for favors. By asking for returning favors, you will ensure that only those who are willing to help you back will ask for your help.

Put this recommendations into proper practice and you will find that working is not only manageable but enjoyable too. Overtime and overload will be a thing of the past. Plus, you will start attracting colleagues who work with similar mindset! Now that is a powerful thought.

Work VERY Hard when it matters
There are times when the company really needs you to work hard. Such as during project delivery or implementation, during a company crisis, accounts closing week or end of financial year (if you are in the finance line), etc. It is during these situations that you should volunteer to help out, make yourself visible, draw on your reserve and work your heart out. Why do you want to do that? Well, since it is unavoidable, we might as well make it count and make sure the management know about your contribution.

If you work on a regular basis and the company will take you for granted and treat it as a norm. But if you work smart regularly and put in the extra hard work where it matters, the company will treat you like a prized employee that is willing to sacrifice for the company in times of need. See the difference?

Never Go To Your Boss With Problems Only
Two staff brings the same problem to their boss. The first one explains the problem and ask the boss for a solution. The second one explains the problem and offers 2 or more possible solutions. Which one do you want to be? Better not be the first one because that fellow is known in Boss term as “Complainer”! The second one is a innovator will find himself in middle management sooner then he will realize.

Most bosses love thinking staffs who can see a problem as offers a solution but they chronically hate complainers! Oh, if you can explain the problem, offer 2 or more possible solution, analyze the pros and cons then make a recommendation. You are destined for top management!

There you have it, 4 simple tips for the smart employee that I am sure you want to be or already is. Put them into good practice and your days at work will never be as “hard” again!

Love,
James

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Hey Folks,

Today I will talk about something that has been talked about countless of times but I will talk about it again based on my perspective of the subject and the subject for today’s post is the Law of Attraction.

There are many explanations or definitions for The Law of Attraction, from Quantum Physics point of view to New Age movement to New Thought philosophy. I shall offer my view of what Law of Attraction means to me, how it works and why it works the way it works.

My Definition Of The Law Of Attraction
To me, the Law of Attraction is nothing but the reflection of ourselves! Yes, you heard me right the first time. The Law of Attraction is nothing but a reflection of ourselves. What you think, you become. It is without prejudice and it does not know the difference between a positive and a negative thought. It reflects what you are thinking and helps you attract whatever you are doing.

That is why people with an abundance mindset always seemed to able to find solutions to a problem or get good deals where none seems to exist. While people with limiting beliefs always seemed to find more problems and get no opportunities at all! Same situations with different thoughts and they get different results!

Testing My Definition
You can test out this theory anytime you like and it will work every time. I like to use driving as an example. When I am in a happy mood with ample time to take a relaxing drive to my appointment, I will tend to focus on positive things I encounter on the road. I will spot drivers signaling before changing lanes, I will tend to give way willingly and be happy about it, I will keep within the speed limit and stay off the overtaking lane. In general, I will find everything enjoyable about driving.

When I am in a bad mood and especially when I am running late. I tend to curse all the way to my destination about inconsiderate drivers hogging the overtaking lane. Why? Because I am trying to overtake on that lane too while driving at excessive speed sometimes. I get even more frustrated as I focus on little things that gets me frustrated. Oh and I won’t even notice that 70% of the other road users were nice that day.

Go ahead and try it but it may be a good idea to bring a neutral party along (preferably someone who is close to you), they tend to see the difference clearly. Karen (my wife) is usually my mirror in all these situations.

Practicing The Law Of Attraction
There you go. No complicated explanations, just simple observations that even my grandpa will understand. So if you want to apply the Law of Attraction in the positive way to get a better life, here is how you can do it in 3 simple, yet practical steps:

Step 1: Understanding Your Thoughts
Before you decide that you want to change, you must at least know from who you are changing from. I cannot decide for you what you need to change, you will have to look inwards, sort them out, discard what you don’t want and keep those that you want. Then look at your “new self” again and decide if that is what you want.

For me, thoughts that I had decided to throw away are:

- Procrastination
- Laziness
- Shyness
- Arrogance
- Fear of Failure

Now decide if there is any beneficial thoughts that you are lacking that you want to have. Add them in your “new self”. For me, I have added:

- Responsibility
- Gratitude
- Perseverance

Review your “new self” again. If you like what you see, write the qualities of your “new self” down on a piece of paper, a reminder card, your vision board or anything that you can easily and conveniently remind yourself with.

Step 2: Change Your Thoughts
Now that you have decided the new qualities you would like to have in your “new self”, you need to let your new thoughts grow its roots while you weed out those thoughts you want to throw away. The first thing you need to do is to believe in yourself and believe that you can change for the better.

Next write down a list of actions/habits that would overcome those thoughts you decided to throw away and a list of actions/habits associated with those new beneficial thoughts that you would like to gain. Here’s my example:

Habits To Overcome (Thrown Away Thoughts)
- Just Do It (Procrastination)
- Do It Now (Laziness)
- Just Asked, No One Is Going To Eat You (Shyness)
- Empty Your Cup And Learn (Arrogance)
- Gain Knowledge And Just Do It (Fear of Failure)

Habits To Inculcate (For Thoughts Gained)
- Don’t Blame Anyone But Yourself (Responsibility)
- Be Thankful For Every Little Thing (Gratitude)
- If You Start, Don’t Stop (Perseverance)

Done writing them down like mine? Great! Now erase the bad thoughts (first section, in brackets) away leaving only the habits portion! It should look like this now:

Habits To Overcome
- Just Do It
- Do It Now
- Just Asked, No One Is Going To Eat You
- Empty Your Cup And Learn
- Gain Knowledge And Just Do It

Habits To Inculcate (For Thoughts Gained)
- Don’t Blame Anyone But Yourself (Responsibility)
- Be Thankful For Every Little Thing (Gratitude)
- If You Start, Don’t Stop (Perseverance)

Now you have to focus on drilling in your new habits. To do this effectively, you need to remind yourself that this are the habits you want, consciously, by reading what you have written daily. Reward yourself when you followed your new habits successfully - this actually strokes your sub-conscious mind and reprograms it to accept your new thoughts/habits.

Notice that we never even mentioned anything about bad thoughts? We only focus on the good habits that can overcome the bad thoughts. Why is that so? Because you don’t want to be reminded of the bad thoughts and in the process attracting them back again!

Step 3: Follow Your Thoughts
I have been told that it takes about 28 days to change one thought (completely) so does it mean that you need to change one thought at a time? I am not sure because I did it all at once. What I am sure is that you need to at least follow your new habits, keep track of your progress for at least 30 days, probably more. But once you cross that imaginary line where your new habits take hold. You will be surprise at the benefits it brings.

I believed that you have heard of the phrase “Birds of a feather flock together”. That’s what will happen once you are transformed, you will start to notice that you get to know more people with similar thoughts. If you got rid of procrastination, those “friends” that procrastinate will drift away from you and you get to attract new friends that are oriented towards taking action. The more you attract, the more you are motivated to do whatever is in line with your thoughts.

Summary
By now some of you may be asking “I thought this was about using Law of Attraction to attract things that I want?”, well, that is where most people got it wrong! Many believers of “Law of Attraction” just sit around trying to manifest their dreams. When their dreams are small and only requires a shift in focus to achieve, it comes true. But when the dream is beyond their current capabilities to attain, it will never come true no matter how hard they manifest. This is especially true when they have some limiting thoughts. Then they start to assign blame.

The natural path of “Law of Attraction” begins with changing yourself. When you are properly geared towards achieving success, even the sky won’t be a limit. This is my way of applying “Law of Attraction” practically. It is that simple and it has been around for ages!

I believe each human being has the potential to change,
to transform one’s own attitude, no matter how difficult the situation.
- 14th Dalai Lama

I believed that everyone can change and be successful if he allows himself to be. Nothing I say or do will have any effect until you are ready to receive. If you are ready, the way is open. Do leave me a comment to share your thoughts.

Love,
James

If you have benefited from the post, you could help us spread the word by stumbling, vote, digg or social bookmark it! Good things are meant to be shared not kept! I told you I got rid of being shy right!

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Hey Folks,

In yesterdays post, We mentioned that there will be a post every Tuesday where we will share good post from other bloggers. Our objective is to look for articles relating to positivity, tips or suggestions to help our daily life or in simple terms, anything that we feel would benefit you. We will also write a short blog intro about the blog where the article came from.

Today we have only one article to share but I love it, it is simple to apply and the benefits goes a long way and you don’t need to be a genius to figure that it will work. The post is called “Nine extremely simple and easy tips to take stress out of your day“. It outlines a basic principle that we could, and should, take care of little non urgent task in our life so that that it won’t become an urgent task at the worst possible moment. That is what causes unnecessary stress in our life!

The principle outline in it is, well, nothing new and we had probably heard out mum nag about doing this and that since our childhood days! But as we grow older and had more “important” tasks to accomplished daily, we forgot about this little habit that , if practice regularly, could seriously reduce a lot of stress!

Think about it, if we had done some of what Gretchen mentioned, such as “Put your keys away in the same place every day”, we would not be running around the house hunting down that pair of key when you are running late for work! I could think of hundreds of little non-urgent things that could get back at us at the worst possible moment, such as:

1) Check your household essentials so you won’t run out of Toilet paper!
2) Check your grocery stockpile so you won’t run out of milk, coffee or tea at the last moment.
3) Make it a habit to close the window when you get out of the house, even if it is for a short while, so you won’t worry about rain.
4) Always pay your bill when it arrives so you will never miss the dateline.
5) Get your office documents needed for morning meeting ready before leaving office on the previous day.
6) Type out your minutes of meeting the moment you leave the meeting; to list a few.

I hope this article and some of my little additions had benefited you. If you like it, leave a comment to let me know. So at least I know that I am heading in the right direction

Now, a little about the author. This article was written by a beautiful lady name Gretchen who runs a blog called “The Happiness Project” where she shares her experience to live in happiness! I love her weekly post on Wednesday where she share simple tips such as the one I just shared.

Till next Tuesday. Stay Positive

Love,
James

If you have benefited from the post, you could help us spread the word by stumbling, vote, digg or social bookmark it! Good things are meant to be shared not kept!

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Hey Folks,

Todays Monday and we are free and easy again. We will be return some loves that was showered our way in the past 3 weeks. They included mime games, tags and awards in Part 1 and some article loving in part 2.

Part 1
We don’t usually play tag games, so we were kind of hesitant when Aldian tagged us 3 weeks ago (sorry for the delay man). James was like “Geez, should I or should I not” and he actually had a draft post still in “draft”. Then came the 2nd Tag from Fion, then the 3rd from Rani and a 4th from eBestAgentCoach and so we thought we better do something! So here we are, returning some loves (nope, we won’t be continuing the game, just didn’t feel right) but we’ll give a blog intro (it’s too short to be a review of any kind, just a blog intro) to all of you, our readers, about these friends of mine.

1) Aldian Prakoso over at Bright Beginning!
Aldian is a full time Internet entrepreneur living in Jakarta, Indonesia. In this blog, he shares methods and ways to promote your online business, particular through the use of blogs. So if you have any desire to attract more attention and readers to your blog, drop by his blog (no surprise here) to take a look.

2) Fion Lim over at scrapbooking-ideas-and-tips.com
Fion is from sunny Singapore and she shares her love about scapbooking on her blog. We never realized that there were so much to do about scapbooking until we saw here blog. Hmmmm …. anyone interested in Digital Scapbooking?

3) Rani over at Flower Girl’s Rural India
Rani gave me a Schmooze Award over at her other blog “Under The Sun” but we thought we would give her other blog “Flower Girl’s Rural India” some coverage as it was more interesting to us. In this blog, she talks about everything in and about India from events to customs to place that I could not pronounce! And every single post is covered with a generous dose of pictures. Go on and enjoy the glory of India!

4) eBestAgent over at eBestAgent
eBestAgent is a licensed Real Estate Broker from Southern California and he shares his knowledge and experience working the the Real Estate Industry over at his blog. So for you folks wanting to get a hot property in California, you know who to look for.

Part 2
Last Friday James wrote an article titled “10 Things That Only You Can Take Responsibility For” and was syndicated by 2 well respected bloggers, Aaron Potts of Today Is That Day and RT Cunningham of Untwisted Vortex.That got him thinking about syndicating good post from fellow bloggers right here at our own blog!

We did a “Positive Articles” post sometime about about getting rid of procrastination so we thought we would like to do it on a regular basis. So here it is, from today onwards, Tuesday will be a Positive Articles Day! There are so many good articles out there and so many friends to make, we could wait to get started. Hurray!

Love & Hugs,
James & Karen

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The greatest weapon against stress
is our ability to choose one thought over another.
-William James

Understand this - if you don’t change the way you work or improve your skills in stress management, it does not matter how many jobs you change, you will end up in same cycle again. In a way, you are attracting the stresses you are experiencing at work with the way your handle your assignments, colleagues and bosses.

Let us take a look at what are the sources of stress at work:

Assignments
Assignments are whatever task that is assigned to you by your boss and sometimes by higher management (anyone above your boss). You need to get this concept right. Only jobs assigned by your boss - yes, the fellow that does your appraisal - and by higher management counts as your assignment (since they matter to your boss) and NOT those from colleagues, other department, clients, suppliers, etc.

Assignments are stressful, even when we define it in such a narrow scope because they can be unending. You finished one and get another two! You finish two and get another four! So accept it. In a way, you may have attracted it by being too efficient. Be proud of it, don’t get stressed over it. But you need to do something to manage it. We will talk about it later.

Noises
Noises are any task that are not assignments! But they look just like assignments to your and the fellow who assigns them usually make a hell of a lot of noise if you don’t comply!

Commonly:
- Your colleagues asking a favor
- A colleague from another department demanding that you finished their task first even when the dateline is 2 months away
- You client demanding for a certain report/listing that you never heard of
- Your company’s dance society asking you to join them for practice for a upcoming dinner and dance

Well, you get the drift! In general, anything not stated as part of your Key Performance Indicator (KPI) as defined to you by your boss are noises. They can stress the hell out of you because you tend to do them first because they make noise consistently around you and won’t stop until you are done with them. But IF you comply, you end up having no time to do what you really needed to do. Now you are doubly stressed. And since they got you to do it once, you can be sure they will be back for more. See, you attracted it.

Need It Yesterday
Another huge factor of stress at work place is the date lines given for the task assigned. I call it the “Need It Yesterday” Syndrome. It typically goes like this, “James, I need this piece of assignment done, NOW! Actually I need it yesterday but now it is really urgent so get it on my desk in an hours time.” Sounds familiar? I bet you do.

Feeling Responsible
This last one is the difference between being stressed and not knowing what stress is. Responsible people feel more stress than people who don’t take responsibility. So what am I preaching now? Don’t be responsible? Hardly. You just need to know what you are responsible for and the answer is, Not Everything!

So I have listed 4 things that contributes to stress at work. So how do we manage them and make working an enjoyable experience? Well, maybe not totally enjoyable but definitely less stressful.

Knowing What Is Important To Your Boss
Most people know that working smart is better then working hard but how do you work smart? To me work smart is working on things that counts towards your goal. Your goal at work is, of course, getting a good appraisal that will result in a good pay increment and a promotion! So what you need to focus on are assignments that counts, such as those we defined earlier on.

Focus on assignments that counts towards your KPI. If an assignment is not listed as part of your KPI but your boss insist that it is important, get him to include it into your KPI so they count! If you have to do the work anyway, make them count! Oh, if you boss never set any KPI for you, you are in deeper trouble then you will ever know. Since you have nothing to measure your performance against, you WILL NEVER get a fair appraisal.

But the most important factor here is to know what IS really important to your boss! Find out which assignment matters most to your boss and put your heart and soul to it. You must have heard of those cases where a boss promotes and all his underlings promote together with him, right? That’s what you are aiming to do here. The trick is to ASK him what is important, never assume or second guess!

Eliminate Noise
As defined earlier, any assignments from people who could not possibly appraise you or affect your appraisal in any way are noises. Entertained where necessary and more importantly when you are free to do so.

Noises from supplier and clients are a little trickier. It is a common practice for clients to sometimes ask for anything under the sky, especially at the clerk-to-clerk or executive-to-executive level. Some are routine request that are completely within the contractual obligation for you to provide (your boss would have told you so), but very often they are not! The best way is to ask your boss if you should comply with an incoming request from clients or supplier. Let him decide so that you only do what is necessary and your boss gets to be responsible for all the “NO’s” to the clients and suppliers.

Get Your Responsibility Right
Remember your goal at work is to get a good a good appraisal that will result in a good pay increment and a promotion! So your responsibility is to yourself and to your boss. When you get your responsibility right, you would not feel responsible to noises or feel obliged to respond to them.

Managing Boss’s Expectations
Last but not least, what if your boss is the one that is stressing you out with too much assignments? You manage him, of course! The simplest way is to inform him of your current work load to make him aware of what you have on hand and the estimate time of completion. If you need more time then was scheduled, tell him so and explain the reasons.

When he assigns new task to you, ask him of the importance of the task. If it is real important, ask him which other current task would he like to knock off the schedule? If you let him do the talking and he will convince himself of the new schedule. You won’t even have to provide a reason for shifting any dateline, if he is reasonable.

Oh, for unreasonable bosses that never rewards their staffs, do yourself a favor and change them. They are not worth your effort and you will never meet your goal at work. This is just being responsible to yourself!

So there you have it. 4 factors of stress and 4 simple ways to manage them. It’s your turn to talk

Cheers,
James

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