Self Improvement Archives - Page 3 of 5

5 Skills to Improve Your Coping Ability

One of the personal qualities that helps most with handling change is called self-efficacy. It’s an odd word, and not one you hear a lot in everyday conversation. It’s been around since the 1970s, though, when Albert Bandura invented it as part of his theory that the beliefs we have about our abilities affect our actual outcomes. Or, as Henry Ford put it many years earlier, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”.

In 1979 Ralf Schwarzer and Matthias Jerusalem came up with a test to predict how well people are likely to cope with daily problems and stressful life events. Since then, a lot of research has gone into showing that, in fact, our beliefs about our own abilities do affect our success in many different areas of life.

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How the iPad Will Change Education

By Steve Kaufmann / 5 Comments

An optimist always thinks that change is for the better. In his book, The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley describes the progress of human knowledge, a process of accelerating, spontaneous, change. Larger and larger human communities connect and exchange goods, information, and ideas. Only the best ideas survive. As these ideas accumulate, they become part of our collective intelligence. The result, in the last few hundred years, has been a dramatic improvement in living standards and a reduction in the number of hours of work necessary to acquire basic goods and services.

Education has been an exception. In the US, the cost of K-12 education, in constant dollars, has increased by 350% since the 1960s with no improvement in results.

The iPad , and the next generation of cheaper and better electronic tables that will follow it, are symbols of the dramatic change that is sweeping through the world of education.

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7 Ways to Develop a Magnetic Personality

By Srinivas Rao / 36 Comments

I was never the “cool” kid in school. I was an angst-ridden band geek, and my only friends were the “smart kids”. Over the years my personality has definitely gone through some major changes. As I started to understand how to overcome the fear of who I am and find my most magnetic qualities, I’ve also learned quite a bit about people in general.

As part of my Personal Power II project that I’m working on, one of the things I’ve started incorporating into my daily routine is power questions. One of my questions that I’ve been using in order to make changes in my life is “what makes me attractive”?. Everyday I come up with different answers and the idea is at the end of 30 days my brain will make a connection between being awake and all these states. Today, when I was asked myself that question, the answer I came up with was making people feel good about themselves.

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6 Virtues that Can Radically Improve Your Life

By Stacey Porto / 14 Comments

“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” ~Aristotle

Moral excellence, as Aristotle says, is a result of habit. Like anything else we want to master, to become morally excellent or more virtuous takes practice. Typically, we don’t go through our day thinking about whether we need to practice more kindness or more commitment or even more love. Morals or virtues are usually ingrained in us and come naturally, right? Yes, but if we became more mindful of the difference that the practice of virtues can make in daily life, we will undoubtedly lead a more fulfilling and happy life. Mainly because we are striving for excellence; our personal best based in virtues such as love, kindness, gratefulness, courage, and integrity.

By practicing the following six virtues, your life can radically improve in the form of better relationships, peaked performance, and fulfillment of your dreams.

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10 Practices for Learning While Doing

By Tara Mohr / 8 Comments

A while ago, I came across an insight by blogger Angie Mizzell that has stayed with me:

“They never really tell you how unsettling it feels,” she wrote, “to be a parent, while simultaneously trying to figure out how to be a parent.”

So well put. It struck me that these words hold true for almost everything important we do. We are husbands and wives while we learn how to be husbands and wives. We care for aging parents while learning how to care for aging parents. We learn how to deal with fear while afraid. We learn how to lead while leading. We learn to do our jobs while doing them. We have to fix the plane while flying it.

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Free Online Audiobooks: The Essential Guide

By Peter Clemens / 10 Comments

One of my favorite things to do is curl up with a good book. However, with a long commute and a couple of young, energetic boys (ages 2 & 3) it’s rare that I get time to kick back and read. That’s why I love audio books so much – they allow me to enjoy books while I’m on the go.

I typically listen to 3-4 audio books per month. Two of these audio books I get because I’m a member of Audible (the world’s largest provider of digital audio books for download). In the past I also downloaded the other 1-2 audio books from Audible, but eventually I got tired of paying extra for these and decided to see what free audio books were available online for download. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

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How to Escape Mediocrity

By Vlad Dolezal / 32 Comments

“Mediocrity is the worst enemy of greatness.” – Icelandic proverb

Imagine you sit down on a hot radiator. In a few seconds, you will feel intense heat on your bum, jump up, curse, then go sit down somewhere else. And you’ll be ok.

Now imagine you’re in an uncomfortably hot room. But you’re feeling lazy, and the discomfort isn’t quite enough to make you get up and open the window or turn down the heating. So you stay, uncomfortable, for hours…

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7 Reasons a Blog Is a Phenomenal Personal Development Tool

By Srinivas Rao / 27 Comments

In the 8 months since I started my blog I’ve gotten to know dozens of bloggers. While each one has his or her own unique interests and opinions, I think it’s fair to say we all agree on one thing: a blog is a phenomenal personal development tool. Here are some reasons why:

Goal Setting: Setting goals is a fundamental component of any personal development program. While there are a few different variations, it really comes down to one basic idea: write down your goals. A blog provides a great platform for writing down your goals and provides a place where you can review them on a regular basis.

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The Seven Deadly Sins – The Secret to Language Learning

By Steve Kaufmann / 43 Comments

This is my confiteor, my confession, my mea culpa. I speak 10 languages and I have achieved this result by sinning. What’s more, I have not committed just any old sin. I have indulged in the seven deadly sins.

1. Extravagance

I love showing off my languages. I am learning Russian. If I hear Russian speakers, I will immediately accost them and inflict my grammatically incorrect Russian on them. I even do the same with Korean, which I speak even less well. Don’t even mention the languages that I speak well. If I detect the slightest accent, I attack. I am a shameless show-off. Yet I am totally unconcerned about the accuracy of my language. I do not care if I am full of mistakes. If they do not understand me it is their fault. I just want to show off. Look at me! I can communicate in your language! Shameless!

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How To Improve Your Life Starting Today

By Mr. Self Development / 39 Comments

I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t want to significantly improve their life. The good news is: Every moment is an opportunity to become better than we’ve been in the past. This is a brief article on how to improve your life starting today. I challenge you to take action on each of these items; they will change your life if you do.

1. Become an Eclectic Reader

An eclectic reader is a reader who reads information from a variety of sources. Reading daily from a variety of authors with different backgrounds and beliefs is an excellent way to expand your mind and change your life. It’s not necessary that you agree with “everything” the authors say; you can learn something from anyone. Reading from a multiplicity of sources gives you the ability to take-on new concepts, thoughts, and principles that stretch your mind to greater dimensions and new perspectives, allowing you to receive ideas which have “never” been conceived before.

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5 Ways To Learn On The Go

By Peter Clemens / 15 Comments

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” ~ Sarah Caldwell

If you’re reading this article, I’m sure you readily accept the importance of continual learning. However, because modern life can be so busy you may find it challenging to find time to devote solely to learning, whether it be sitting down to read a book or attending an evening class. In this article I will give you 5 ways even the busiest of people -those who are always on the go – can find time to learn.

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