Self Improvement Archives - Page 4 of 5

Free Personal Development Ebooks

If you are in search of need inspiration, but are on a limited budget (namely $0), this post is for you. Recently I have been roaming the personal development blogosphere is search of free personal development ebooks; the following list is the result of my efforts.

Please note: many of these ebooks require you to subscribe to regular updates or a newsletter to receive the ebook (you can always unsubscribe, right?). If you offer a free personal development ebook that is not on this list please contact me and I’ll add it.

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The Greatest Gift You Can Give Your Kids

By David B. Bohl / 7 Comments

Obama’s kids aren’t impressed by his work.

Back in April, Obama candidly admitted on the Rachel Ray Show that his job doesn’t exactly fill his kids with excitement. “When I call them and they say, ‘Daddy, what did you do today?’ I said, ‘Well, I spoke to 35,000 people.’ It’s like ‘Boring.’ It’s not interesting,” The focus of Obama’s interview was the importance of finding time to spend time with your family, even if you happen to be running for President of the United States of America.

In the past it was thought that being a “good parent” meant spending more time away from your kids – coming to work early and leaving late, schmoozing your way up the corporate ladder after hours, volunteering for extra projects and business trips, etc. But over time, parents and parenting experts have come to realize that it’s not how much you give your kid that’s important – it’s how much time you give them.

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Understanding the Role Humility Plays in Everyday Life

By David B. Bohl / 6 Comments

“Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.” – Henry David Thoreau

When do you consider your life “finished”? At what point can you hang up your hat and say that you truly have done everything you wanted in life, you are perfect in every way and that you have learned all you need to know? The answer for all of us is the same – never. None of us can ever say with absolutely certainty that we have truly arrived and there is nothing more for us to do. Just like life is a never ending journey, the goal of being all that we can be in life is also never ending. We all have work to do – be it in our personal lives, our careers or in our community. There are always areas we can work on improving, new ideas we can learn and new experiences we can have and share with others.

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LASIK Eye Surgery. Have You? Would You?

By Peter Clemens / 38 Comments

If you were to ask me what one thing would dramatically improve my life, my answer would very likely be “to have perfect eyesight”.

At the same time, however, I have always been uneasy with anything to do with eyes. For example, those movie scenes where a sharp instrument comes agonizingly close to piercing the eye have always sent shivers down my spine. This probably explains why, despite wanting to have better eyesight and it being a fairly common procedure these days, I haven’t really explored the option of LASIK eye surgery up until now.

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Who Else Wants to Live a Sweet Life?

By David B. Bohl / 18 Comments

Some things, to me, are very black and white. Take, for instance, the case of a Minocqua, Wisconsin, gas station. A Store employee made the mistake of entering the per-gallon price of gas as 32 cents instead of $3.29. The employee then left, leaving the station unattended, yet open for pay-at-the-pump customers.

What happened? Local residents spread the word to others, and, before the error could be corrected, cars had lined up and 42 people purchased 586 gallons of gas before a local police officer saw the commotion and called the store owner.

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How to Be Annoying

By Peter Clemens / 12 Comments

“You never know just how you look through other peoples’ eyes” – this is a line from a well known song when I was growing up (Pepper by the Butthole Surfers for those interested). There is definitely a lot of truth to this. That said, there are some things that, if you do them, are guaranteed to piss people off.

Now just to be clear here, the following are things I recommend you don’t do. And one more thing: I’m certainly not perfect, and there are a few things on this list that I’m guilty of doing. If anything, writing this list has helped me identify some areas I can work on.

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5 Essential Personal Development Podcasts

By Peter Clemens / 8 Comments

Podcasts are basically pre-recorded audio programs you can download. The great thing about podcasts is that you can download an episode and begin listening to it in just minutes either on your computer or portable listening device (iPod, Blackberry, etc). This means you can listen to them anytime, anywhere (eg while jogging, driving, working out or taking a walk).

Below are 5 of my favorite personal development podcasts. Enjoy!

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Review Your Week With These 7 Questions

By Peter Clemens / 17 Comments

Often personal development material focuses on goals and intentions as the keys to success. It is just as important, though, to take the time to regularly review your life. I like to do a short review of my day each night, but once a week I like to take extra time to drawback and get a bigger picture of how things are traveling.

Whilst the number of questions in this article is an arbitrary number, there is a specific purpose to making this review session weekly. The questions in this weekly review will allow you to rise above what is, in my opinion, the sometimes limiting perspective of a single day. Here then are 7 questions to end your week with.

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How to Be Boring

By Peter Clemens / 11 Comments

Boring people – they’re everywhere. You can tell when you are in the presence of such a person when you have to fight the urge to yawn or your mind wanders off to.. well… just about anything else. Now you too can be boring if you follow these simple, straight-forward tips. (Disclaimer: this is something of a Monday morning rant)

1. Be a fence sitter

Sitting on the fence means taking a position of neutrality or indecision on a particular topic. Now there may be some circumstances where this is needed, but far too often I see people sit on the fence because they are too lazy to think about where they stand on an issue or they are too scared to voice their opinion for fear of offending someone. Boring.

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The Most Important Tip Of All

By Peter Clemens / 7 Comments

Tips. Tips for finding your dream job. Tips for eating well. Tips for becoming a better writer. Tips for improving your life. Everywhere I look on the Internet, I see lists of tips! What’s going on???

The answer is simple: people love reading tips. Because people love reading tips, bloggers write articles with tips. Its all about supply and demand (my old Economics 101 tutor would be so proud!). All these tips are useless though if you don’t practice the most important tip of all…..

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8 Ways to Make Routine Tasks Interesting

By Peter Clemens / 8 Comments

Driving a car….. after the initial period of learning and the excitement of getting your licence it becomes a fairly routine activity. As part of my move to Canada, I am now having to get used to driving on the wrong (ie right) hand side of the road. Its not too hard to adjust, but it is necessary to pay extra attention so I don’t suddenly find myself on course for a head-on collision.

I don’t suggest people start driving on the opposite side of the road to what they should, so here are 8 other ways to spice up seemingly routine activities:

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