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This can be applied to making any improvement in your life but here I’m going to use improving English as the example.

A lot of people tell me they want to improve their English. I ask them how they are going to do it. They tell me something like, “spend more time studying”. Their intentions are good but they are likely to fail. Their plan is not specific enough. They don’t have a plan for how they will study and when they will study. You need to know exactly what you will do and when you will do if you want to be successful.

Let’s look at this plan: “I’m going to read for 1 hour every night”. Is that a good plan? It’s better than the first one but still not good enough. You need to know what you are going to read and when exactly you will read it. If you say you will read at 8:00-9:00 every night then if it is 8:05, you know that you should be reading. If you just say you will read for an hour every night, what is likely to happen is you will keep delaying the reading until you are too tired, and then go to bed thinking that you will just start tomorrow.

Here is an an example of a good plan: “I will listen to one English podcast everyday starting at 8:00 pm. I will then go on the China232.com forum and ask any questions I have about the podcast, and if I have no questions, I’ll practice writing by answering one of the other questions, or writing my opinion on one of the topics”.

Now you have a good plan that you can put into action. Use this plan or make another one equally specific for your English study. Make sure you write down exactly what you will do and when you will do it. Try it for 30 days. See if you can do it everyday for 30 days. Once it becomes a habit it will be easier to maintain.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Andy

Learning and Improving English Phrases and idioms Self Improvement

I’ll be honest. I don’t like mornings. A “morning person” is someone who easily wakes up early and feels their best in the morning. Unfortunately I’m not one of these people. I usually don’t start feeling my best until late in the afternoon. I’m often tired and stupid in the mornings. In the morning I can easily waste a couple of hours in front of the computer without really getting much work done. I almost feel like I don’t remember who I am and what I want to do in life. It usually takes me several hours to get back to the good state of mind I was in the night before. What a waste of time.

I started to wonder why that is. I often hear that some people are naturally “morning people” while others aren’t. I really don’t like that simple explanation and I have set out to become more of a morning person.

I realized that in order to feel my best, I need to have done certain things that day. If I just crawl out of bed and sit in front of the computer, I’ll feel sluggish (tired) and lazy.

I made a small full-body exercise routine that I do as soon as I get up. After that I take 10 full deep breaths, then I do some stretching. That all takes me about 15 minutes. The purpose of that is to get my blood flowing and give me the feeling that I can move my body easily. This also releases hormones that fight fatigue and make my body feel awake.

After I do that, I jump in the shower, get dressed, and then make a healthy breakfast and one cup of coffee. By this time I’m feeling pretty good physically but I still have some more work to do until I’m feeling at my best.

At this point I read a few affirmations to myself that I think will help put me in a good frame of mind. An affirmation is a statement that you want to believe is true. Here are three example affirmations:

“Today is going to be a great day.”

“I am going to eat only healthy food today and feel great about it”.

“I’m going to be relaxed today and not let little things stress me out”.

You can make any affirmations that you think are appropriate for your own life. I think they are useful to remind me how I want to live. If I read these in the morning, I find I am much more likely to follow them.

Then I ask myself some questions that help me plan my day.

I ask myself some questions like:

“What do I want to do today for work?” “What do I want to learn about today?” and “What am I going to do for fun today?”

After I ask these questions I’m feeling great and ready to get on with my day. The whole morning routine takes me about an hour but I think it is definitely worth it. I suggest making your own morning routine or improving the one you already have. I’d love to hear about what works for you. Maybe I can learn from you and improve my routine.

Andy

Self Improvement

I’ve talked to so many people recently who are unhappy with their situation in life. The problem is that most of these people feel as though they have no other options. They make excuses for why their life is the way it is and just keep on being unhappy with it. When I ask them what they plan to do to change their situation in life, they have very few answers.

I think a huge problem for most people is that they don’t even consider most of the opportunities available to them. They seem to only consider the opportunities that seem the easiest, or the most obvious.

In reality you could do almost anything. You could move to another city or country. You could go back to school. You could look for another job. You could go on a holiday and take time to think. You could get a gym membership and get in the best shape of your life. You could take some interesting class after work. You could start hanging out at different places and try to make new kinds of friends. You could do any or all of those things.

If you are a negative person, you could probably read each of those possibilities I gave you above and tell me some reason why it would be really difficult for you to do it. The point is that if you really wanted to do any of those things you could probably make it happen.

The reason people get caught so easily in bad and boring situations is that they are afraid of the unknown. They are afraid of change. I know what that feels like. Although boring, it’s much easier to keep living the same way you always have and to keep doing the same things you’ve always done. Even though you know it would be exciting, making a big change is scary because you don’t know exactly what will happen. I know; I moved across the world. Unfortunately, if you keep living the same way you will keep getting the same results. Your life won’t change at all unless you do. Only fools would rely on luck.

Even if you are pretty happy with your life, I’m sure that there is at least one area that you would like to improve. For me, I’d like to start meeting new kinds of people. I’ve noticed that I’ve been going to the same bars and hanging out with the same people for the last 6 months or so. I’m in a “comfort zone”. I realize that I need to start doing some new things this year in order to make some new kinds of friends. My problem lately has been that I haven’t even been paying any attention to what kinds of new things I could be doing. Even though I live in a huge city with so many things to do, only a few ideas come into my mind for what I could do. I need to change this.

If you want to change jobs, don’t waste time complaining about it! Start looking for a new job. If you have been looking lately but haven’t found anything, start looking for new ways to find a job. Look for new job websites. Don’t be afraid to contact different people to get their advice on what you should do.

Whatever it is you want to change or improve, start it right now. Don’t live tomorrow the same way you lived today unless you want to be in the exact same position tomorrow as you are now. Also remember, don’t just try something. Try something different that you have never tried before. If that doesn’t work, try something else.

I’d love for you to share your experiences!

Andy.

Self Improvement

I noticed the other day that my mood and the emotions I feel at any time, are very often unrelated to the present situation that I am actually experiencing. For example, if I hear my alarm clock go off in the morning and I know that I have to wake up to do something I don’t want to do, I’ll feel pretty annoyed and I won’t be in a great mood. On the other hand, if I hear my alarm clock go off in the morning and I realize that I have to wake up to get ready to catch an airplane to go on a fun vacation, I’ll be in a great mood.

I find it interesting that my mood can be so different even when what I am doing is exactly the same. For example, getting ready to do something I don’t want to do is the same as getting ready to do something I would love to do. I have to wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast, put my clothes on, etc. (I actually put my clothes on before eating breakfast!)

If you are unhappy with your job or another part of your life, it is easy to allow that unhappiness to affect other areas of your life. For example, if someone doesn’t like their job, they are not only unhappy during the 8 hours at work. They often are also unhappy when they wake up because they are thinking about how bad the day is going to be, they are unhappy while driving to work because they are thinking of how boring their job is, they are unhappy after work because they think about how boring the next day will be.

What you think about is so unbelievably important for feeling good (or feeling bad). What you think about determines your emotional state much more than what you are doing does. You could be at work doing a really boring job, but have a big smile on your face because you are thinking of a joke that your friend told you. You could also be at a really fun party with your best friends, and be feeling bad because you are thinking about how you are still angry with your boyfriend or girlfriend for something they did a week before.

Try not to allow yourself to feel bad for no good reason. If you are feeling bad, just realize that it’s most likely because of what you are thinking about, not what is actually happening at that moment. What you are actually doing at that moment probably isn’t really that bad. Try to think of things that you like to think about instead of thinking about what you hate. If you don’t like your job, think of a good plan about how you can get a new job, or how you can make your current job better. If you can’t think of something to make your situation better, then think about something else that you enjoy. Don’t just waste your time thinking about how bad something is. That’s ridiculous!

I always look forward to your comments!

Andrew

Self Improvement

“Complacency” is the feeling you have when you are satisfied with your current level or ability in some area of your life. This feeling can cause you to stop putting in 100% effort to improve. It makes you feel relaxed and unmotivated. Complacency is a big reason why so many people achieve an ok level at something, and then stop improving.

This can happen in any area of your life, but let’s take a look at your English level. As I’ve said many times before, if you can use this website, it means your English level is already fairly good. You can “get by” in life using English. You know that you should improve, you say that you want to improve, but in a lot of ways there is no real pressure for you to improve. Let’s face it; you can already communicate with people in English at a reasonable level. You also are starting to realize that the more you study, the less noticeable your improvement is. You could probably spend an entire day studying English, and neither you, nor anyone else would notice that you improved. That’s a sad thought and that feeling certainly makes it difficult to find the motivation to study.

I believe that complacency is one of the biggest differences between highly successful people and regular people.  The most successful people are always trying to improve. They want to be the best they can be. Regular people get satisfied easily. Think about Roger Federer. He still practices tennis everyday, even though it is almost impossible for him to improve because he is already so good.

Here is the truth: There are literally millions of other people like you around the world who speak English as a second language and have reached an ok level. Most people in this group reach an ok level and then stop improving. They get lazy. Very few people reach the next level because of complacency. Just because your English level is ok, don’t let that stop you from studying really hard. Reaching that next level will give you better job opportunities and the ability to interact with more people. You will feel comfortable reading anything, and speaking to anyone about any topic easily and with no stress. The hard work will eventually pay off, and deep down you know that too. Keep focused and don’t let the disease of complacency get to you.

I’m interested in hearing about anytime in your life where you’ve let complacency take over and prevent you from giving a 100% effort. I really hope that if this is happening with your current English study habits, you will STOP IT!

Andrew

Learning and Improving English Self Improvement

When I ask people what they would do to increase their intelligence it surprises me how many people say, “go back to school”. So many people associate school with learning and have a hard time thinking of other ways to improve their minds. I believe that intelligence means a persons ability to handle new information and make good decisions with that information. I also believe that you can be intelligent in certain areas and a complete idiot in other areas. Some intelligence is “natural” but I think that most people focus too much on that part. I think that most people can become intelligent in areas that they are currently weak in.

The human brain is a special machine designed to take in information from the environment and make adjustments and improvements to how it will tell you to handle that information. It’s important to challenge your brain with many different kinds of new information. This information that I’m talking about is anything that you can see, hear, smell, touch, or feel. Basically anything at all that you can notice that is happening around you. If you are doing the same thing every day, your brain is taking in the same information all the time and it has no chance to grow or improve itself. People who interact with different people all the time increase their social intelligence. They are able to see how different kinds of people react to different things. Their brains can then use that information to make adjustments and give them a better plan for dealing with people. You learn from experience what kinds of things make people laugh, what kinds of things make people feel uncomfortable, what kind of things make people want to do business with you. If you only socialize with a small group of the same people all the time, you will know what to expect and you won’t learn anything. The key is to always be doing new things and challenging yourself. Any other area of intelligence is the same. If you want to be better at solving computer problems, the only way to do that is to always give your brain different kinds of computer problems to solve. You’ll get faster and better at doing it the more you do it. Your brain is always learning from the new experiences. Its not simply the amount of time. You could spend hours on the computer just writing emails and chatting with your friends and you’d learn almost nothing. You could also keep doing the same task over and over again. Again, you’d learn nothing. The key is to keep challenging yourself with new experiences. If you want to improve your English, you must learn new words and talk about new things that challenge you. Its easy to get stuck at one English level. Many people get to a level where they have no problem in daily communication but seem to never be able to talk about more advanced topics. It’s not because they aren’t smart enough, its just because they keep talking about the same things and doing the same things.

If you want to increase your intelligence in any area you must be constantly doing new things. Ask yourself how many new experiences have you had over the past month. If your life seems to be almost the same every day than you are probably learning very little. Make a point of reading something new, making a friend with a person unlike your other friends, eating a new kind of food, going to a new place for a vacation, playing a different sport. Make sure you aren’t doing the same thing day after day, watching the same TV shows all the time, and hanging out with the same kinds of people all the time. To start out, make sure that at least once a week you will do something that you’ve never done before. Even if its go to a new restaurant or read a new book. Start out small but make sure you are making more and bigger changes as you grow.
I’d love to hear your comments and experiences.
Andrew

Learning and Improving English Self Improvement

What are beliefs? Well, simply put, beliefs are what you believe to be true. Does it mean they actually are true? Not at all. It just means that you believe them to be true. Here I want to focus on beliefs that we have about ourselves. There are helpful beliefs and limiting beliefs. A helpful belief is something you believe that inspires you or could help you improve the quality of your life. An example of a helpful belief is, “I am confident that if I work hard, I can create a very successful business”. A limiting belief is something that holds you back from doing something, or lowers your confidence. An example of a limiting belief someone might have about themselves is, “I am not smart enough to create a successful business”.

It’s interesting that with either of those beliefs, the person does not really know if the belief is accurate. In other words, the person wouldn’t really know whether they actually could create a successful business. They really would just be guessing based on other beliefs they have.

What’s the purpose of having any belief that would hold you back? They are designed to protect you. For example, if you stood at the top of a tall building, it would be a good idea to have the belief that if you decided to jump off the building and land on the road, then you would be too weak to survive. If you believed that you wouldn’t be hurt at all from jumping, then you might decide to jump because it would be fun floating through the air. Even having a belief that you are not smart enough to create a successful business is designed to protect you. Creating a business takes a lot of time, energy, and often money. This belief is to protect you from losing those resources.

The problem is that in reality, some of our beliefs are harming us, even though they are all designed to help us. A lot of our negative beliefs are trying to protect us from the fear of failure. They are what cause us to not put our best efforts in. If you believe you will fail, you likely won’t even try. People often make a lot less money than they deserve because they believe that they are not worth any more. They would be afraid to ask their boss for a raise because they think the boss will certainly say no. Often these people really have no idea what the boss would do and are simply guessing. What about people who believe they aren’t attractive enough, successful enough, or interesting enough to date someone they really like. They often won’t ask and will never know.

Take a moment to write down 3 beliefs you have about yourself that you feel are limiting your life in some way. Think of things like, “I’m not smart enough to…” “I’m too old to…” “I’m too young to…” “I don’t have enough experience to…”. Recognizing and identifying these beliefs is the first step to changing them.

I will be writing more on beliefs very soon and how to control them to make a positive difference in our lives.

Please share your thoughts.

Andrew

Self Improvement

A lot of people tell me they that they really want to study English but they are too lazy. I don’t believe there is such a thing as laziness. Here’s why; suppose I told you that I would give you a million dollars if you studied English for 2 hours per day for a whole week. If you really believed me, would you do it? Absolutely you would! (If you wouldn’t then I suppose you really would be lazy). Now suppose you studied for the whole week and at the end of the week I told you that I lied and I was no longer going to give the million. Well, you’d be really pissed off at me for lying to you but you would have studied for the whole week; something you usually wouldn’t do. It’s interesting to think that you only studied because you thought you were getting some reward for it. Nothing else.

So why do some people study and some don’t? In other words, why are some people are what we call lazy, and others are not? The answer is just motivation. The people who do choose to study are people who are better at seeing the benefits of studying. Now you might tell me that you know the benefits, you know you’d probably get a better job, you know you could communicate with more people, you know you could travel around the world more easily. So if you know the benefits, why are you not studying. The reason is the benefits seem too far off and hard to achieve. Let’s be honest, if you study English really hard for one day, it’s not going to make a huge difference in your life. You might not even notice that you’ve improved at all. In some ways it feels like a waste of time because you don’t notice the improvement. Of course you are smart enough to know that you are probably improving, but the reward still doesn’t feel great enough. That’s why you don’t do it.

So what do you have to do then? Somehow you have to make your brain believe the benefits are worth all the effort. You need to reward yourself when you finish the task and punish yourself when you don’t. If your goal is to study an hour per day, you should think of some kind of reward you will give yourself when you finish. Maybe you will watch a great movie when you finish, maybe you will go and do something fun with your friends. Choose something that you would enjoy. If you don’t study, you must make sure that you don’t do this fun thing or anything else fun. In other words, don’t reward yourself for failure. You should also punish yourself for not doing it. Don’t let yourself watch TV, don’t let yourself talk on MSN, don’t let yourself talk with your friends. That is the hard part. If you can get in the habit of rewarding yourself when you do complete your study goal and punish yourself when you don’t, you will find that you spend a lot more time studying. Good luck.

Please write to me and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from all of you.

Andrew

Learning and Improving English Self Improvement