Repackage Your Self. Being Confident Does Not Mean You Have To Be Offensive.
The word confidence has several nuances. When you have faith in a person or something, that is confidence; when you believe in your capabilities, that is self-confidence. But when you believe too much in the capability of persons or things, that is overconfidence.

People always associate confidence with success. People who succeed have displayed self assurance. They can talk in front of a crowd without cringing inwardly or becoming speechless with fright. The can talk to their bosses without stuttering. They believe they can do a project without much supervision.  They don’t get scared easily and can react with calm and composure in any upsetting situations.

Being confident does not mean you have to brash and offensive. It simply means you can sail into any situation without having agonizing seizures of insecurities.

Having confidence is separate from having self-esteem; it is about capability of doing something with panache. Self-esteem has something to do with valuing the self.

Have you ever wondered how some people can speak to an audience with ease? They do not only go through the process with such infuriating calm but they can also get people to accept their ideas.

Confidence is not inborn. It is a result of constant practice and effort. There are several ways to have that kind of self-composure.  First keep physically and mentally fit. The mind and body jive is vital to develop positive thoughts. Listen to the way you talk to yourself. Do you always say I can’t do it or do you hear your self saying I want to do it?

Repackage your self. Have a new hairstyle or hair color. You may also want to join fitness program. Maybe you need a change of career, make new friends, and even list your good traits. This will rev up your positive feeling about yourself.

Knowing about what you really want helps you get an edge over others. Knowing how to get what you desire is also another weapon in your arsenal.

Observing people can give you some useful tips. There are really so many things you can do to help yourself gain a level of confidence.

But if you feel you can’t do it alone, you can get professional help from licensed hypnotherapists.  They will help you re-channel thoughts in your subconscious mind. Perhaps you would like to undergo self-hypnotherapy. This can be done in the privacy of your home.

Removing Stress From Your Life: The Art Of Practicing Feng Shui
For over three centuries, the Chinese people have found in Feng Shui the source for of internal and external balance and harmony. We all are searching for a little harmony in our life. Today’s fast-paced life assails all our senses with demands and expectations. Stress, anxiety and tension accumulate as the ongoing demands of work and family, home and free time push us to the very brink. Pushed and pulled by the equally demanding expectations of boss and family. Driven to the end of our rope by the increasing demands of life, the bills and everyday battles we push our own hopes and dreams into the background. Everyday, another e-mail, phone call or traffic jam, pushes us to the limit. In this environment, energy is fast depleted and tension dramatically increased. How to escape this self-perpetuating treadmill? Turn your home into a peaceful sanctuary by utilizing the techniques of Feng Shui.

The concept behind Feng Shui is to harness positive energy. Using the guiding principles, you can identify the difficulties within your physical environment and remove them. While, this may appear to be another project, consider the short and long term benefits. Feng Shui, once learned and applied will provide you with relief from stress increase your personal energy levels and help you to improve your overall sense of well-being. Time learning the correct implementation of the principles of Feng Shui is time well spent.

A life in which energy is unfocused, prevented by the stress of the environment, a life in which all efforts seem wasted, is a life unbalanced, a life without Feng Shui. The accumulation of ongoing stress will, eventually, manifest itself in the physical body. Stress releases specific hormones ion the body. An overabundance of cortisol and adrenaline can contribute to heart disease and other chronic illnesses. The immune system, too, becomes affected, increasing the incidences of colds and flus.

To avoid such possible problems, rest is traditionally prescribed. The ability of sleep to improve your energy levels is magnified- truly heightened, when Feng Shui is employed. Feng Shui will show you how to correctly align your bedroom to obtain the maximum amount of good. It will guide you in the placement of your bed and council you on what accessories are required to reduce stress and increase energy.

The principles of Feng Shui are predicated on obtaining the maximum positive energy. It acts to counteract the negative impact of daily and repetitive stress and anxiety. These negative forces sap the life energy from you. Feng Shui operates to restore your energy, reduce your stress levels and create a positive environment by showing you how to arrange your physical environment to facilitate the flow of Chi energy. Learning how to place objects and arrange your spatial environment to manifest optimum positive energy flow, will help you in all aspects of your life. A Feng Shui designed home will ensure you are provided with the positive energy and harmonious balance you require to not merely live, but thrive in today’s world.

Removing Life's Clutter
I love the Fall, the crispness of the air, the beautiful colors in God's creation, but I also realize with the Fall comes clean-up! I keep looking at the leaves in my yard and realize that if we don't get them up soon they may just overtake the yard! How often do our lives become cluttered with unnecessary businesses, events or situations that drain us and at times overwhelm us. It doesn't take long to feel cluttered and bogged down.  Maybe it's time for a little Fall cleaning. Let me ask you some simple questions. What can you let go of? What can you eliminate from your schedule? Anything?  What can you discard from you life right now? What is important and what is not so important right now? How could your daily life run more efficiently? Are you trying to do it all? Do you need to ask for help?  What would make things easier for you?

Without evaluation and reflection, we just keep on keeping on with the same old thing and wonder why we are so tired and run down and overtaken by the demands of life.  Let me throw out some suggestions that might be helpful. First, prioritize. What is important? What can simply wait until another day? The one thing that I frequently hear from women is there are not enough hours in a day. Reality is that everyone has the same amount of time in a day. If I am a stay at home mom, I can clean my entire house today or I can clean my bathroom and tackle another cleaning project on another day. If I clean just my bathroom, I have some time for myself or family that I might not have had. Either way the house gets cleaned. What's more important?

Second, organize. Organization includes having a place for things, and it also includes having a schedule to live by. Nothing is worse than trying to find your car keys when you are in a panic to get out the door. Can you put your hands on important documents at a moment's notice? Do you know where things are? What about a schedule? Many times the day spins by us and we don't know what happened. All the things we intended to do didn't get done.

Sally called for a spontaneous lunch.  You drop everything to go and then get behind on some things you really needed to do. As a result, you stay up late to catch up with your work. It's not that the social event wasn't important. Does it fit in with what is priority for the day and does it fit in with your schedule? If house work is important, does it all have to be done today?

Third, eliminate. What can you eliminate from your life? What can you let go of? Are you too busy? Do you have time for your family? Do you have time for you? Are you on your schedule each week? What are you doing for yourself on a weekly basis that is life giving to you? I don't believe we were put on this earth to be self-absorbed, “me first” people. Real joy and satisfaction comes in life when we give and serve others; however, I don't believe God intends us to serve everyone else until we are depleted of all energy and joy. If you don't take time for you, you will eventually get burned out. What could you do for yourself this week that is simply fun or relaxing for you? What gives you life?

Do you know? For every woman it is different. For some, it's a long bath with candles. For others, it's hanging out with girlfriends or pursuing a hobby. Whatever it is, are you pursuing it intentionally?  Do you have you on your day-timer or schedule? As women, we are often great at care-taking, but not so good at taking care of ourselves. Everybody else comes first and we are last on the list. If you don't become intentional about making time for you, then trust me you will get lost in the shuffle. After all, aren't you as important as your family, friends, and those you minister to?

If you are not nurtured and strengthened, what good are you to anyone else?  When you carve out some time for you, you become refreshed and life looks so much better! What can you eliminate from your schedule so you have time for you? Finally, what about your relationships?  Do you have more negative relationships than positive? Are you weighed down with too many toxic relationships? How could you change this in your life? Are there relationships that you need to eliminate because they are destructive and unhealthy? Have you created an unhealthy dependence? How could you go about finding positive and uplifting people to begin to associate with? There is a time for ministry and a time for healthy friends that you can laugh and have a good time with. Even Jesus didn't go around every waking hour ministering to and healing people.

Fall is a great time to do some deep cleaning. Will you take the time to do some soul searching about your life? What do you need to give priority to right now? What is really important to you in this season of life? How can you organize your life so that there is time for the things that are really important to you, yourself included?  What and who can you eliminate from your life to give you more freedom to be you.

I think if you will take the time to remove the clutter from your life, your life will take on new color and vibrancy just like this beautiful Fall season.

Remove Your Driving Test-Related Anxiety
As youngsters, you might have dreamed of owning a car and driving away into the sunset. As soon as you are old enough, you will naturally take a licensing exam and pass it before you are allowed on the streets. Some people will pass the practical and written exam with flying colors while others will have a difficult time doing so because of anxiety and fear of failing the exam and not being allowed to drive.

Being worried or anxious is actually normal since driving should be considered a serious matter. Driving tests are designed to gauge your road-worthiness. There are people who failed the test because they were really not ready to be out o the other. But what about those people who fail these driving tests? Is it because they were not road-worthy or they were just too nervous to get the answers right?

Surprisingly, many people suffer from anxiety during driving tests. The pressure to pass is just too much for them to handle. Signs and symptoms of a person suffering from driving test anxiety would include inability to start the test, feeling panicky, sweating profusely and even feeling dizzy or nauseous. If you are about to take a driving test and worries that you will have the same panic attack, you should learn how to manage it as quickly as possible.

The first thing you can do is to study well for your driving test. You can ask a family member of a friend to help you out. An effective way is to take a mock exam so that you can determine where your weakness lie. If you are well-prepared, you will feel less anxious since you are confident about your knowledge and skills. You should also try some relaxation techniques that would help you focus on the driving test and distract you from your anxiety. You can try doing some breathing exercises that will make you calm down. Make sure you get a good night’s rest before the day of the exam and try to arrive before the appointed hour so you will feel less panicky.

To remove your driving test-related anxiety, you could always try hypnotherapy. It is an effective way of treating fears, phobias and even addiction. If your anxiety is manageable, hypnotherapy can cure it in as short as one session. For more information on the effectiveness and availability of hypnotherapy, you can look at websites over the internet that offer genuine hypnotherapy services for a reasonable cost.

Religion Induced Anxiety
Is Religion Induced Anxiety Good For You?

The fact is that no anxiety, whether religion induced or not, is good for you.

Anxiety has some serious long term side effects that should be taken into consideration, and a healthy, stress free lifestyle should be priority #1.

The state of the world after 9/11 has left us fearful, depressed, and stressed.  

An event that shocked the world, and brought many people closer together, and unfortunately, tore others apart.

Throughout the ages, many acts have been committed in the name of religion, and unfortunately, for those people who are nearby when these acts happen, religion induced anxiety is inevitable.

Like any form of anxiety, Religion induced anxiety can be repressed, or cleared completely, by preparation, and a focused lifestyle.

Things like Yoga, meditation, reading calming material, and avoiding negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, hate, and sadness, can have a positive long term effect if you are ever put into a situation that is brought about by Religion induced anxiety.

The most important thing to keep in mind though, is that these ‘acts’ that occur, are not a major part of life, the more you focus on them, the worse they seem, and the worse they seem, the more anxiety you feel.

This is why meditation is such a key ingredient to living anxiety free, be it Religion induced or not.

By increasing your stress tolerance levels, you are able to avoid feeling anxious in any event, you become the unmovable mountain, the eye of the storm, the calm before the wind.

One such program that you can use to help with increasing your stress tolerance is Holosync.  Holosync works on frequencies, and, without going into much detail, works by taking you into a conscious meditative state.

While it is one of the best programs out there, nothing beats taking yourself out to a quiet, peaceful place, either in the mountains, in the rain forest, or beach, and just sitting quietly by yourself, and letting your thoughts go.

The bottom line is, Religion induced anxiety, is no different to any of the other forms of anxiety, and while there is medication that you can take when an anxiety attack occurs, it is best if you can follow preventative measures, to ensure that it doesn’t occur.  The only way to truly do this is to lead a stress free, anxiety free lifestyle, by increasing your stress tolerance, practicing meditation, and allowing yourself to feel free.

Residential Alcohol Treatment Can Help Control Drinking
If you get a feeling that you hit the bottle too often and too much, and are unable to control the drinking habit, and if you want to do something about it, then you must seriously consider enrolling in a residential alcohol treatment course. Most residential alcohol treatment programs can help those who can't stay away from alcohol to give up on the habit and can't stay clean. One big morale booster that the program offers is that you would be amidst people who, like you, are determined to stay away from alcohol. Plus, there are counselors too, who give you their professional advice and guide through each stage of the process; food and stay are included.

The counselors give you valuable tips on how to stay clean once you are through with the program. Enrolling on these programs may be either prescribed or voluntary – courts may recommend these programs to someone who's committed any type of alcohol-related charge, while some people join them because they feel they need help.

Self-Help: How To Go About It

If you wish to rid yourself of this alcohol problem on your own, then you must seek out a residential alcohol treatment program around your vicinity or futher away depending on your discretion. If it's the cost that is inhibiting you, then you can always check with an insurance company and find out if they have plans that cover these programs – you must know that many insurance companies do cover these treatments. When you check-in, you will be familiarized with the surroundings and the schedules (meal times, activities, meetings, etc.) of the facility. The activities are built and designed to ensure that you stay away from the bottle by indulging in other wholesome pastimes that keep you engrossed so much that you do not have the time to think about drinking.

About The Activities

Most residential alcohol treatment courses clue you on to mind-stimulating activities that help you stay clean. Majority of these activities are group-oriented. In these group activities, you will find yourself partnering with other fellow inmates with the same goal – to stay away from drinking. The activities comprise of role-playing or story-telling sessions and they boost your morale and make you think that you are not alone while dealing with this problem. For example, when you are through with the program and feel the urge to drink, it will help to recall an experience you have had or a story you have heard at the residential alcohol treatment facility. Such a story or experience will give you the necessary strength and willpower to stay clean.

Most residential alcohol treatment programs can really help you in kicking that vile habit of drinking heavily. Once you have completed the treatment, you will find it easier to lean away from alcohol and you will also wonder why you ever couldn't give it up earlier.

Resistance

"Resistance is thought transformed into feeling. Change the thought that creates the resistance, and there is no more resistance." Robert Conklin

Resistance is your mind saying NO. Then your mind translates that to your body. When I feel resistance, I feel a stuck feeling in my body. It is as if the natural humming flow has congealed. Watch for that experience while you are working on changing your life. Consider it information. See if you get any ideas what it’s about.

Three Signs of Resistance:

1. Forgetting or becoming too distracted to complete that is important to you; for example, while working with a self-help book, all of a sudden you seem to forget your transformation project and find yourself watching TV or playing computer games or some other distraction that takes you away from your intended goal.

2. Becoming too busy to complete things that are important to you and believing you have to do something for someone else; for example, while working with your self-help book you find you are too busy to do what you thought you wanted to do in the book or you have to help a friend in their life.

3. Losing interest in completing projects or following through on things that are important to you; for example, while working with your book, you seem to have lost interest in the project.

Any one of these signs is most likely resistance speaking. Having a support partner relationship in place helps assure that you overcome any resistance that arises.

As you begin to watch for it, you will likely find resistance is quite familiar. Resistance is just the opposite of willingness. You may be using resistance to give yourself a breather, however, monitor your breather and challenge yourself to go beyond it and stick to the changes that will give you the life you want.

Restaurant Accommodation
Your restaurant seats are highly important in dealing with accommodations for your restaurant. There could be a lot of people who would want to make reservations especially during Friday or Saturday nights but you have to make sure that you decide wisely on this.

Before deciding if you’re going to accept reservations of a big group for a Friday or Saturday night business, try to check your records first of the history of reservations you usually receive. If you don’t keep a record of this, make sure you do starting now.

The point here is that, you need to find out how much percentage each person from a large group can contribute to your bottom line during these times (especially that your restaurant can get full-packed) then, compare them to the smaller groups of reservation you receive during the same time. By doing this, you’d get a concrete estimation of how big your chances are going to be in earning more if you accept groups of 2 or 4 persons through walk-ins or reservations. If this is the case, you can now turn down the reservation for the larger group.

Don’t think just because a large group of diners who want to have reservation for your restaurant could already mean good profit. Make sure that you conduct a study of these matters before you make your final verdict. After all, what you’re trying to do is for the overall benefit for your income.

The opposite thing may happen as well. You could be expecting that a large group makes a reservation on a Friday or Saturday night and yet you get reservations for 2 or 4 persons. All you have to do is to take chances. You can never be too sure of what could happen on a night like this but if you continue to keep your restaurant records, you’ll realize that it would be okay not to rearrange your seating arrangement and yet, earn extra by utilizing what you already have in your restaurant.

Restaurant Employee Theft
Restaurant owners don’t run a cash machine 24/7. They face the reality of being observed by thieves undercover and this alone is a serious threat not only to the business but to the safety of the management, staff and customers. The most difficult part about this harm is there is no certain point one realizes that there is a thief lurking around the corner waiting for the right time to attack. And the sad part about it is there are a big percentage of theft casualties done by employees.

Yes, that’s right. Employee theft is one of the serious threats that a restaurant owner has to accept. Each year, there is an estimate of over $52 billion loss because of this reason. The percentage is up to 95% and the numbers already indicates a high risk of getting robbed by one of your employees anytime.

The fact is, there is no actual way of stopping this sad reality but it’s best to still think one step ahead of the culprit. You need to start to work on your very own backyard to prevent employee theft. Make sure that you’re aware with your employees’ behavior physically, mentally and professionally. Analyze your employees’ habits such as the borrowing property of others without permission or borrowing money from co-workers regularly.

Also, what your employees do outside work is one of the possible factors of employee theft. Does this employee drink a lot or does she have a habit of buying items more than what she earns? Family and previous employment background also gives useful clues in learning more about your employees’ behavior. Of course, you don’t need to do this to every employee since it will take much time and it’s even incorrect to meddle with the personal lives of others. Just do extra investigation to certain individuals who give off clues unconsciously during work hours.

Don’t accuse anyone without proper evidence. If something has been stolen, be sure that you report it the police and let them do rest. The one responsible for the crime may not admit it and even lie to you directly but don’t take justice on your own hands.

Retirement Planning And Why It's Dumb
Know what? just this morning, before I popped open my laptop, a heretical thought crossed my head.

It's this: planning and anticipating your retirement is like insurance policy. Never Ever take it as the sole reward to the years of working. Simply, it is a mere hedge against what we all fear at the end of life: becoming so decrepit,that we can't physically mow lawns to buy ourselves a Happy Meal.

To my mind, retirement as the final goal of an executive is darn stupid for three critical reasons.

First it's hinged on the presumption that you abhor what you are doing throughout the most physically productive years of your life. Is this how you want to trudge out to work the next 30 years of your career- feeling that you gotta endure decades of hell before well-earned respite? Millions of shmoes out there are unhappy, depressed and leap buildings when they deem work as much fun as getting a triple bypass.

Second, many folks will never retire and maintain even a greasy-microwave-chicken-for-dinner standards of living. Think about that. Even Five Million is a loose change in a stinking economy where your retirement might last twenty years; and runaway inflation delfates your purchasing power 4% to 11% each year. Doesn't add  up, doesn't it? Your golden years become Ghetto-class life revisited.

Finally, if you do save up for  a comfortable, much-desired retirement, it implies that you're one ambitious, hardworking son-of-a-gun. So what happens? Three days into lounging at that luxury home for the decrepit, you'll be flaming bored, you'll want to kick every senior citizen and her cat out of your way. You'll start scanning the job market and even start a new corporation- in your flannel pajamas. Hmmm.. quite defeats the purpose of waiting for retirement, huh?

So what's my point...? I'm not saying don't plan your retirement. That wouldn't be wise. What I'm saying is, never mistake retirement for the end goal. That's really dumb. Instead, look to each day as as source of new inspiration, an opportunity for great things that you can enjoy NOW and instead of at retirement.

Stop and think about that.... Imagine what life will be like if every week was a of mini-retirement? Now that's heaven!