How to Wake Up in the Morning

Wake Up and Feel Fresh In The Morning

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Oct 10, 2011

In this article I am not going to talk about how to sleep enough to wake up naturally without an alarm clock. Nor will I talk about how to make waking up a regular habit so you don’t need an alarm clock anymore. While I don’t disagree that it may be beneficial and a good habit to wake up at the same time daily, it may not be a realistic option to wake up at the same time for everyone due to various work-life circumstances. I am not in the position to afford the luxury of waking up at a pre-set time daily due to my lifestyle – and I am dependant on alarm clocks to meet my lifestyle demands. Today, I am going to discuss how to wake up in the morning effectively without causing too much stress and strain on your health.

Keep Your Alarm Clock Out of Reach – Do not keep your alarm clock too close. If you do, chances are you will stop your alarm clock and go back to sleep without knowing. When you wake up in the morning, your mind is not fully conscious yet, and even without realising you will go back to sleep again. Don’t keep it too close and not too far either. It should be placed somewhere that requires you to get up and move from your sleeping position to get it.

Use Gentle Alarm Tone – Do not use a harsh or too loud alarm tone. Use a gentle tone that makes you happy or gives you positive vibrations when you hear it. An alarm tone is the first thing you are starting your day with. If this is harsh and annoying, it’s bound the set you off for the whole day.

Don’t Rush Out of Bed – Once you are up and awake, don’t jump out of bed or rush to leave the bed. Take a deep breath in and out a few times, slowly sit up, and then slowly walk to the washroom.

Splash Cold Water – Splash some cold water (not too cold either) on your face, it will invigorate your senses and will make you happy and fully awake. Don’t forget to drink a glass of water.

Take an Invigorating Shower – Taking a shower works perfect for me to make me cheerful and get ready for the day. However, if I plan to work out or need to do some cleaning, I skip my shower right after waking up.

There are some specific things that work for specific people. The art is to find out what works for you and perform those to make your day more productive and a joyous one.

How to Empty Your Mind

How to Clear Your Mind

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com This article originally published on the above website on Aug 24, 2011

Have you noticed what happens when you don’t clear your closet, cabinet, fridge, or anything regularly? Unwanted things start piling up and soon it becomes unmanageable. Our brain is no different than the above situation. In a world of high-stress, work overload, and infinite demands and responsibilities, our mind gets tangled, over-loaded and messy. That’s why we need to untangle and unwind to empty and clear our mind, so it can refocus and work at its fullest potential. Today, I am going to talk about some simple things you can do to empty your mind.

Take Deep Breaths – This is quick technique to clear your mind. Deep breathing puts more oxygen in your body, and your mind benefits from increased level of oxygen. For the same reason, aerobic exercises can clear your mind as well.

Write It Down – Whether on a piece of paper, in a notebook, on a laptop, or on your smart phone, writing down what’s bothering you can clear your mind from clutter. It is a good practise to keep a handy notebook or an online space to write down your thoughts – whether it’s something you want to vent about or it’s something pleasant. If you can’t do it daily, try to do it whenever you can. When you start writing down without worrying about anything else, your mind get rids of its unconscious clutter and makes more room for conscious thoughts.

Talk A Pleasant Walk – A pleasant, unhurried walk around the block, or in the park can empty your mind from accumulated stress and negative thoughts. While walking, try to feel and sense all the bits and pieces of your surroundings. For example, try to smell the air, feel the humidity or moisture in the air, pay attention to the various noises around you, notice anything unusual, and enjoy a beautiful garden, a mild breeze, or a beautiful sunset.

Talk to A Good Friend – Everyone should have reliable friends to whom they can talk without fear or worry of criticism. Share your concerns and thoughts with your friends and you will feel a lighter state of mind than before.

Listen To Light Music – This is one of my favourites. When I feel too burdened, I play some instruments or new age music, lie down or sit relaxed, close my mind, and concentrate on music. Doing this just for a half an hour can clear out my mind a lot and I feel totally invigorated and energized after that.

Enjoy A Great View From A High-Rise Building – As a skyscraper fanatic, I like living in tall buildings. One of the many benefits of living in a skyscraper is that you can enjoy great views from your balcony or through your glass wall bedroom or den (home office). When I feel my mind can’t bear it anymore, I just stay in the balcony or sit in front of my condo glass wall on a relaxing chair to enjoy outside views for some time. This works out perfectly for me to empty out my mind.

These are some tips that work for me. Try some of these to see if it works out for you or not. The art is the find those that work out best for you and apply them to empty your mind for a better yourself.

How to Use Visualization Properly to Achieve Goals and Success

Proper Visualization Techniques to Attract What You Want

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on July 31, 2011

Visualization is nothing but using our imagination to make dreams or what we want come true. Our mind is behind every success in our life and proper visualization unlocks mind to work to its fullest potential. Visualization is not a new concept. Since the beginning of mankind, we have been using visualization – either with or without our knowing in our subconscious mind. In prehistoric times, hunters and gatherers used to draw their vivid hunting scenes on the cave wall. Fighters were also seen to draw their fights on the ground or on a wall. Both of these visualizations would become reality in later times. Today, I will discuss how to use visualization the right way to achieve what you want and attract success and prosperity.

Visualization is simply a technique for imagining or creating a mental image of something we want to obtain in the future. Yes, it’s just like daydreaming and daydreaming can make your dreams reality. However, you need to use visualization techniques properly. When you envision something you would like to achieve a goal or anything in the future, don’t concentrate on only the outcome or end results. Instead, focus on both the actual process the makes the outcome possible and the outcome itself. Your visualization should be a balanced combination of both process and results. Don’t focus on any one of these too much or too little, leaving the other one.

Let me give you an example to clear up what I mean by a balanced combination. Currently I am working on my second book “Save Now.” So, seeing “Save Now” published is my goal. How do I use visualization the right way to make this happen? I am creating a mental picture of the whole thing. When envisioning the process of writing this book, I am seeing myself going to a coffee shop and working a few hours to write this book. I am seeing myself working even harder during my vacation as I have a full-time regular job. I am seeing myself going to an isolated location and stay in a hotel for a week or two to work on my book without any interruptions. There are many other details – but these are the main elements of my mental visualization of the process part. How do I envision the outcome or result part? I imagine that “Save Now” has been published and make its place to Chapter’s bookshelves (just like “Invest Now”). I also imagine that A Dawn Journal readers across the globe are reading and discussing about “Save Now” … and much more like these.

Just visualizing what you want will not do anything unless you take action. Use visualization with hard work and positive mental attitude to reach your goals. Visualization can be a powerful tool to help our mind to go beyond its limited circle, to change our limited thoughts are beliefs, and to create necessary behavioural change to work towards achieving our dreams.

Dressing For Success

Importance of Dressing For Success

Yes, it is a common thing you will hear from various self-help gurus, but the thing is that it does work. When you dress for success, you are dressing to appear as the person you want to be. For example, if you get up in the morning, put on the shirt that you have been wearing for days, which is wrinkled, and sweatpants, well you are not dressing for success. You are dressing to be someone who does not plan to do much that day, and that is exactly what is going to happen. You are not driving yourself because you are showing an image of yourself as someone who is lazy.

Now, look at someone who dresses well, wears suits or nice blouses and carries themselves well. What do they have? Well, the one thing they have, that you need, is confidence. They dress confident because they are confident and that is what dressing for success is all about. So, how do you go about dressing for success then? Is there a trick to it? No, there is no trick to it, it is just about doing the following.

1. Look at the people you admire and how they dress. Determine what it is about that that you admire, and what about the way they dress you like. At this point you don’t copy what they are wearing, but you understand why they are wearing what they do.

2. If you like that a person dresses as an individual, then you should to, so you can reflect who you are by what you wear. However, if the person dresses in a suit that is well-ironed, then you should look at dressing the same way because you want to ensure you dress as a professional. The professionalism is what you like, hence that is what you want to emulate with how you dress.

3. Buy clothes that you can afford that reflect not who you are but who you want to be. If you want to be a professional businessperson, then dress the part. If you want to be a confident musician, then dress the part. That is all you have to do.

Dressing as a professional and dressing with confidence changes you. When you look in the mirror wearing a dirty shirt, with unkempt hair, you will not always feel good about yourself. However, if you look in the mirror and see a well-dressed individual, you will be happy with what you see and you will want that person to be who you are. Hence you will try to become that person. You want to be the person you see in those clothes, on the inside, and that is what dressing like a professional will do for you.

It does not have to cost a lot to dress for success thanks to cheap deals on the internet, just make sure that the person you are dressing as is the person you want to be. Don’t dress like you think people want you to dress, dress for success as the person you want to be.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on June 27, 2011

How to Catch Up On Backlog Tasks

Handling an Accumulated Backlog of Work

I have a schedule for most of the tasks I perform on a daily basis. I know exactly what I am going to be doing on each day of a week. For example, I know what my assigned tasks are for next week’s Monday, or even for next month’s Monday. This strategy works out to be perfect because instead of doing one big task for hours, I break it down into days and I don’t feel like I am doing something that is draining my energy and taking too much time. The main problem with this strategy is that if you skip a day (due to an appointment or some unexpected events) or a week (due to vacation or business trip), you will be overwhelmed by the accumulated backlog of tasks and it will not be easy to get back into the flow again. How can you handle situations like this when you are way behind?

My simple solution is that I let go the days or week I missed and start again from the beginning of the cycle. Let me give you an example to make it a little clearer. My workout schedule is something like this:

 - Monday: Yoga

- Tuesday: Lower Body Workouts

 - Wednesday: Squash

 - Sunday: Upper Body Workouts

Now, if I miss one day, there is no point in me doing the rest because each of these is part of a program and they complement each other. So if I miss one day, instead of going to the next day it makes sense for me to start it all over again from day 1.

Another example should make it even clearer. Instead of writing a full article in one sitting, I break it down into parts and write a little bit every day. Let’s say I am scheduled to write an article for the Entrepreneur Journey site this week. I would write a little bit daily for the whole week to make it a complete article. Now, if I miss a couple of days in the beginning or in the middle, there is no way for me to finish the full article on time. So, instead of pressuring myself, I would set aside writing for that week and start again the next week.

The strategies mentioned above may or may not work for you – depending on how you handle your daily tasks. If you like to tackle one big task at a time, this may not work for you. In that case, you need to come up with other strategies to get rid of your backlogged tasks. However, if you handle smaller tasks daily like me, take a break if your are off schedule – you will be surprised to see the renewed level of energy and enthusiasm when you restart your cycle after a few days of unexpected but calculated break.