What makes people click?

There is a new kind of social site project invading the blogosphere these days: the 2000 bloggers list, initiated by Tino from www.trade-pals.com. The list counts already 1246 bloggers and includes many well-known figures of the virtual world.
Another blogger, Steven Aitchinson, from Change your thoughts, started an interesting experiment, for which he needs input from as many readers as possible.

“For this little experiment I am trying to find out what features would make you click on a photo to find out more information about that persons blog. If you are willing can you look through all the photos on the list and pick a few that stand out.”

Steven will put together some charts at the end of his experiment. It is interesting to find out what makes people click, isn’t it?

Later update: unfortunately, the 2000 bloggers project was ended up by its initiator, due to disturbances in Technorati’s rankings. Too bad, we shall never know the result of Steven’s experiment.

Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde? It depends on perspective

Does it matter the way others perceive you? What comes into their mind when they see you or when they think of you? As social beings, we want or we are forced to interact with the others, so they way they relate to us is important in achieving even our smallest goals. Imagine what if all bartenders would see you as a drunken dangerous junk and would kick you out of their place the moment you stepped inside? You’d never manage to have a drink with your friends in public places. Would this be annoying to you? Probably yes. So the image others may have about you matters a lot.


The inner you

What about your personal image about yourself? How do you see yourself? Is this important? Let me tell you the story of this guy who was a sales representative and he was very upset for not getting a promotion despite his salesman qualities. Once his boss sent him to speak at an important meeting. After hearing this, our sales representative said “But I’m just a poor rep!” And he was wondering why he did not get any promotion in 10 years. That’s exactly why: his image about himself was so lousy that nobody ever thought to promote him as an area manager or something.


How to think better of yourself?

At first, you need to see where you are, in order to be able to define what you like and you should keep and what you dislike and need to change. There are self-evaluation tools such as personality tests which may help you in this inquiry of defining yourself. One of the most interesting self-perception tests is the ANSIR® test, Profiler™.

This test helps subjects identify their dominant innate strengths from three points of view: Thinking, Working and Emoting:

* Thinking: A discernible, predictable pattern of acquiring, balancing and applying knowledge. How each individual processes order, solves problems and rationalizes outcomes.
* Working: The conscious expression and application of knowledge according to acquired and innate attributes.
* Emoting: An unconscious response pattern guided by unique intangibles such as emotions, feelings and nature.

The test is available online, it is free and it provides you with a thorough report on your three sides above mentioned, offering you a point of start in the race of self-improvement.

Digital camera cell phones comparative review

Cell phones become more and more multitasking devices. One of the most common functions, besides the basic “telephone” one, is the digital photo camera function. The first generation of photo camera cell phones worth taking into consideration had only VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) and such cell phones were so fashionable that many young people were longing to have one. Amongst the most known VGA camera cell phones are Nokia 5140, Nokia 6170, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6020, Motorola E398, Motorola E770, Motorola V600. Pictures taken with these phones were good only to be sent via MMS, because of their poor quality. Printing them was out of the question.

Rapidly, these cameras came out of age, as a new generation appeared, the so-called Megapixel cell phones, with 1Mpixel resolution camera. Only now, photos taken with the mobile phone could be printed at proper quality and even more people got motivated when replacing their old phone to buy a camera cell phone. There are very nice models available, such as Motorola V635, Motorola E1000, Motorola RAZR V3xx, Nokia 3230, LG KG800 (LG chocolate), Samsung SGH-E720. I’ve got the Samsung SHG-E720 and I can tell you that pictures looked fine even when printed on paper.

Then, there was the time for 2Mpixels camera cell phones, amongst which, Nokia 6280, Nokia N70 and Sony Ericsson D750. If you think to buy one of these models, take a look at this illustrated comparison between their cameras. It is worth mentioning that Sony Ericsson used the same camera for three models: SE D750, SE K750 and SE W800. Now there is barely any difference between pictures taken with such phones and those taken with point-and-shoot photo cameras.

Amongst the latest entries on the market, there are three outstanding models, Nokia N73, Samsung D900 and Sony Ericsson K800. They all have 3.2 Mpixels cameras. To find out which one is best for you, you can check out this page, which shows a comparison between the three models, the same pictures being taken with all of them and displayed next to each other. It is a relevant review, as the test pictures were taken in various conditions: outdoor, buildings, cars, posters, close-ups, indoor or flash. There are also some useful comments to the pictures, as well as a lot of readers’ comments.

Top 10 things successful people have in common

Every day we meet, read or hear about successful people. From great artists, top sportsmen, inspiring speakers, to colleagues that everybody like, cherish and follow. What do those people have in common? Are there any particular characteristics they all share and which are the basis of their success?If you look into biographies of successful people, you can notice that they have some things in common:

1. Hard work. Successful people work very hard and they are keen on practising or rehearsing things until they come out perfect. Their outcome is only the tip of the iceberg; it is only that 10% that people see. The rest of 90% is preparation and hard work.

2. Focus. When they do something, the rest of the world disappears until they stop. All their attention and all their resources work together for a common goal, to complete the current task they are on. Many times, they forget even to eat or sleep, so much they are absorbed into their action. They just don’t let themselves overwhelmed by “urgent-not important” issues that crowd their agenda. They are keen on prioritizing.

3. Passion. They like what they do or they do what they like. Either way you put it, they enjoy their work, they are so passionate about it, that hard work is a pleasure and a must for them. Do you think that Beethoven could have written any of his works without passion? Or Van Gogh would have been able to paint so astonishing if passion was not there? Of course not!

4. Curiosity. Successful people want to know. They want to learn. The questions they most frequently ask are not “What? When? Who?” but rather “Why? Or How?” The best way to repeat a successful action is to know why was it successful, what was that little trigger that generated attraction and recognition.

5. Empathy. Have you noticed how many people like successful guys out there? It’s because their way of coming into resonance with others, their way of establishing rapport. Highly successful people are empathic and often it happens that despite their solitude, many people like them and feel good around them. That is because of their high level of emotional intelligence, because of their abilities to listen and learn from the world.

6. Responsibility. They are fully responsible of their acts. When something happens, they don’t waste time to search for who’s to blame, they rather move on to finding what needs to be done next. They don’t complain and they don’t look for pity.

7. Self-improvement. Successful people work on themselves, they change with the times, they learn from the past. Look at the famous singer Madonna: how many times did she completely change her style? Too many times. Each time when she felt the need to shift to something new. The result: she was appreciated every time by her fans and she’s still in tops after so many years.

8. Humor. They appreciate humor, they live in this spirit, they do serious things with relaxation and joy, they don’t rush or get hurried just to see things done.

9. Creativity. Successful people think out of the box. They search for new ways of doing things, when they don’t find something very comfortable, they try to adjust it to serve them better. Going with the flock is definitely their way of life.

10. Flexibility. There is a saying that in an organization, the most flexible element always wins. It is true. Think no further than your workplace. Which are the colleagues you value most? Aren’t they the ones who are flexible, who can adjust themselves so much that they can understand your point of view? Yes, success comes with a large dose of flexibility, and this does not mean that such people do not have their own opinions. Not at all! It just means that they know how to listen and how to act to see things and actions going their way. They know how to spot opportunities and change them into more joy, satisfaction and success for themselves.

Now give it a thought and see what are your characteristics. Do you have something in common with highly successful people? If not, maybe it is time for a change, isn’t it?

Etiquette or netiquette? This is the question

2NITE I’m going to address U AAF. I’m AATK and I hope that U are already AAS, not FMTYEWTK. I’m already FOMCL, imagining U reading this FYI and saying IGTP, IHU, but IIMAD, IHA!

Well, my friends (or shall I say MF), if you are frequent chat rooms users, I’m sure you won’t have problems in reading the above message. For the rest of the world, in case you are curious to decipher it, take a look at this abbreviations dictionary, it might enlighten you.

How nice they were, the early days of Internet and chatting, what unforgettable experiences and dialogues, such as “LOL”, “and I’m Simonne, nice to meet you” or “HOW ARE YOU DOING?”, “Why do you shout?”, “Sorry, I was not talking at all”.

Over the years, a new set of behaviour rules in the virtual space developed, called the internet etiquette, or netiquette. Even kids have their own netiquette. Each kind of space has its own set of rules: chat language is different from blogs or social networking places. Cannibals had their own etiquette, too: “ladies first!”, they used to say when they ate their prisoners.

Whatever these rules may be, there are a few universal ones which, if followed, can make you appreciated by any community, regardless how many abbreviations or emoticons you are able to remember:

1. Be polite. When you read a post that you don’t like, you can ignore it. You don’t have to rush into leaving comments such as “spam”, “we should kill the bastard” or similar nice things. If it is spam, the author knows it very well, there’s no need for a reminder. If it is not spam, he or she will feel bad or discouraged to post some more articles. Weaker writing abilities or writing for beginners do not transform us into spammers. And by signalling that to the world out there, you don’t prove that you care, you just prove that you are rude and mean. Besides, social networking sites give you the possibility either to vote or to bury a submitted story. You can make use of these buttons without leaving such nice spammy comments.

2. Think before you post. You wrote something you are very proud of, this is fine. But try to give it one more thought before launching it on the net. Does your story offend somebody? Is it interesting? Does it bring something new? Is it a collection of useful things gathered together for the ease of your readers? If you are thrilled by having your posts out there, you can skip the last three questions, but be aware that you’ll never have good quality audience for such poor content.

3. Take care at your spelling. This is very easy to do these days, almost every text processor comes with a spell checker included. Please use it, even though you are sure that you make no mistakes. It is so embarrassing to read articles which may contain some bits of interesting info, but they are full of mistakes. Such articles barely get any credibility and it is a shame, once you made an effort and invested your time in writing them, to get buried because of some stupid simple grammar rules you did not want to spend one minute checking.

Self-awareness fascination and personality sorter tools

Even from old times, people were fascinated about self-knowledge. Astrology, palm readings, tarot readings or other similar procedures are very popular and raise a lot of interest. We like to take personality tests, to compare ourselves with our friends or colleagues and to recognize ourselves as belonging to certain categories. This need for belonging might be the seed of all these personality analysis tools. Let’s take the example of this site here: the most viewed post was the one tackling Myers-Briggs personality types. It was written as a follow up to an older post which seemed to raise interest amongst readers and which was also about personality and relationships. I became interested to make a review of all personality type tests and sorters I could find. If you know some more, you are welcome to leave a comment and they will be added to the list.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI: it is based on the four preferences:

1. Extraversion and Introversion
2. Sensing and Intuition
3. Thinking and Feeling
4. Judging and Perceiving

16 combinations are available, generating 16 personality types. However, it is very little probable that somebody could be 100% extraverted or 100% sensing or any other preference. We are rather in-between, therefore even though two people are both INTP, they can be very different due to the percentages shown for each preference.
Keirsey temperament sorter: four types are defined, with subtypes (each of them corresponding to a MBTI type), totalling 16 types:

1. Artisans
1. Composers
2. Crafters
3. Performers
4. Promoters
2. Idealists
1. Healers
2. Champions
3. Counsellors
4. Teachers
3. Guardians
1. Inspectors
2. Protectors
3. Supervisors
4. Providers
4. Rationals
1. Architects
2. Masterminds
3. Inventors
4. Field marshals

LIFO ® or Life Orientation: The LIFO Survey describes differences in behavior, rather than perception and judgment as does the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). People are willing and able to change what they do, while perception and judgment are much less amenable to change. According to this method, there are four types of behaviour:

1. Supporting
2. Controlling
3. Conserving
4. Adapting

The method is used in personal development trainings such as stress management, leadership, team buildings or communication skills.
Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator or RHETI: 9 types are described:

* Type 1 - Reformer
* Type 2 - Helper
* Type 3 - Motivator
* Type 4 - Romantic
* Type 5 - Thinker
* Type 6 - Skeptic
* Type 7 - Enthusiast
* Type 8 - Leader
* Type 9 - Peacemaker

If you are curious about other personality assessment tools, you can visit businessballs, where you can find also a very interesting history of such tools from ancient Greeks and Egyptians four humours, till nowadays.

Whatever method you choose to use, knowing yourself as well as knowing the others, leads to better communication and understanding, thus allowing everybody to live a better and more harmonious life.

Myers Briggs personality types and relationship assessment

As I noticed many searches regarding Myers-Briggs personality types and best match between ENTJ, INTP, ISFJ, ENFJ etc, I decided to write a follow-up to my previous post related to this topic, indicating more resources where you can take these tests.
For those of you who do not know what Myers-Briggs personality types are, I recommend a visit to teamtechnology, where you can find out everything you need to know about this.
For those who want to find out which is their type, you can check out this page, with lots of personality tests, some of them serious, some others fun; or you can go to humanmetrics to take the MBTI test. Tip: take more than one test and compare the results – the more similar the results, the more accurate they are.
If you want to know how your personality type matches the one of your lover, there are some places where you can see that, amongst which humanmetrics. The free test gives you only the percentage of your match, indicating that if it is over 62%, then your couple is viable. The detailed test costs $5 and it gives you also the areas where you match less, with indications for relationship improvement. What you have to know more is that motivation also matters when determining the match between two persons. Motivation can be determined by enneagram tests, one of which is available at enneagraminstitute. There is a free short version available, but they advise to take the full version of the test which costs $10.
If you know your personality type, maybe you want to check out some appropriate prayers for your type at Redemption Junkie by Heidi Turner.
Do you want to know some more? Check out Myers Briggs related best books. You can also visit the ATT Myers Briggs book store, where you can shop for your favourites.

Deliver great presentations in 5 steps

Delivering good presentations can be easy if you follow several rules. However, if your product or service is not of good quality, no presentation in the world can sell it. Maybe people would buy it once but they would never repeat purchase.
The other way around, if your product is great but you have a lousy presentation, nobody will want to try it (unless you give it for free, but this is rather charity than business).
Presentation skills can be learned. There’s nothing more than 5 steps to follow:

1. Write it good.
* There is a rule for writing PowerPoint presentations, called the 10/20/30 rule, detailed by Guy Kawasaki in his blog. This is an excellent rule to make your point without becoming boring for your audience.
* Don’t exaggerate with visual effects, as people can get lost in those transitions, letters wandering around, fading, scrolling or whatever else.
* Don’t use sound effects, unless you make sure they work properly and that your audience likes that kind of stuff. I remember attending a presentation once, where the presenter had a applause effect on a slide. Unfortunately, she did not present from her own computer, something was scrambled at the transfer and instead of applause, we all heard loud and clear the “muuuuuuu” of a cow.
* Don’t use the same presentation for everybody: each client or each audience has its particularities, so you may want to adjust some slides to fit into your audience’s profile.
2. Prepare yourself.
* Imagine an iceberg: all you can see is 1/10 of it, the rest of 9/10 being under water. The presentation delivery itself is like the tip of the iceberg: 1/10 of the total work. The rest of 9/10 is preparation. Rehearse the presentation until you know it by heart, think of all things to be said for each slide (as slides should not contain a lot of information, transforming you into a slow, boring reader).
* If possible, rehearse in the room where it is going to take place, make sure that all technical equipment is functioning and get yourself used to the place.
* Exercise your gestures. If you emphasize the important points with your hands, the audience will better remember them. You can use a mirror or you can record yourself and then analyse the recording, until you make sure that you transmit exactly the desired message.
* Arrive early. You don’t want to run on the stage in the last moment, with your clothes in disorder and running short on breath because of your hurry.
3. Deliver your presentation with confidence.
* Speak loud. This shows confidence in what you say. Yet, try not to shout at people (this is why rehearsal on the spot is important; it allows you to adjust your volume).
* Keep in touch with your audience, make sure you have eye contact with all of them. This makes each on them feel that you are directly addressing to him.
* Watch them. Body language is an invaluable tool for taking the pulse of your presentation. If you see boredom signs, try to revive the attention. If you see signs of interest on a particular slide, you may want to step in more details, as people want to hear them.
4. Follow up with your audience
* Allow people to ask questions.
* Be prepared with answers to a list of possible questions.
* Ask your audience for approval from time to time. You can use rhetoric questions, isn’t it? This is psychological: saying yes, or making approval signs with the head make people more open and willing to listen to your proposal.
5. Use feedback to fine-tune your presentation
* Listen thoroughly to the feedback people give you.
* If something went wrong, learn your lesson and use it to make things better next time.
* If something went unexpectedly good, look into how you did it, so you can repeat your performance.
* Last but not least, you can take models. Read some good literature on presentation skills. Learn from people who did it well and who deciphered the “how to do it” algorithm. Always think that if another human being did it, you can do it as well. All it takes is to figure out how to get it done.

Happy BlogDay 2006

Today is Blog Day and bloggers are encouraged to recommend “5 new blogs, preferably blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude…” I liked very much the idea and I want to celebrate Blogday by recommending you the following five blogs:

1. Marvin Dangerfield, a 42 years old radio DJ shares with us interesting things about Japan, his friends and family, love and peace and music. His blog brings freshness to internet world.

2. Angi from Devon, England, is a painter who chose to use her blog, named Art for Life for exposing the art she creates. 3. The Wandering Novelist, a 22 years old writer from London uses his blog as a training tool for the novel he promises to write. We wish him luck and may his novel be in bookshops very soon! 4. Church should be an enjoyable experience, so Church of the King offers energetic and upbeat services. They want every person who visits Church of the King to leave encouraged. It is a time to visit with friends and gain a practical teaching from God’s Word, with Pastor Steve’s messages.

5. Lorenzo Geraci, a mortal human, doing some creative living while temporarily on earth, teaches us an equation in which creativity + strategy = creativery.

Wishing all these new blogs a long happy life full of traffic, links and trackbacks, I invite you to take a look at all of them and give me your feedback here.

Recognizing Sexual Harassment In The Workplace

Sexual harassment is a sexual advance, whether pysical or verbal. These all become harassment when rejection or submission to such advances affect the employment of an individual, or if it affects the performance at work of a person. This means even jokes can count as harassment. There are many instances where sexual harassment occurs. The following are some of the examples of it, however keep in mind that they are not limited only to the following:

1. Man or woman sexual harasser

Keep in mind that the victim doesn’t have to be a woman - it could bee a man. Harassment includes both physical or verbal conduct or advances. This conduct is just as common for both sexes, only men report it less to the police.

2. It’s all about control

Keep in mind that the one who is doing the harassing may be the supervisor of the victim, it could be the victims boss, the agent of the employer, a fellow worker, or someone who is not an employee. What sexual harassment is, it is a need for control. And anyone who has a need for this and gets it via being sexually aggressive could be constituted as a harasser.

3. The victim could be you

Also, a victim of sexual harassment need not be the particular person who is harassed. A sexual harassment victim could just be anyone who is affected by any conduct that is offensive. What is important is that the actions and overall conduct of the harasser is completely unwelcome.

It is also extremely important and helpful for any victim of sexual harassment to inform directly the perceived harasser if their conduct is offensive or completely unwelcome, and so therefore must be stopped. As much as possible, the victim should make use of any mechanisms available in the system, such as a grievance complaint perhaps.

4. Intimidation and hostility

These are the feelings or overall vibe of a workplace when there exists an environment where sexual harassment is present. Fortunately, the Supreme Court of the United States have made employers liable for any sexual harassment that occurs within their own local workplaces. This applies even if the employer was himself not aware of any harassment that occurs. This is simply because it is one of the employers responsibility to create a work atmosphere that is free from sexual harassment, intimidation or hostility.

Prevention is worth more than a pound of cure

Prevention is always worth it more than a cure or tons of cases filed because there was no effective system in place to deal with sexual harassment in the first place. Employers must always communicate to their staff that any and all forms of harassment sexual or otherwise is not tolerable. A complaint and effective grievance system would work best, with actions appropriately taken once a complaint is filed by an employee.

5. Make an anti-sexual harassment policy

It would serve everyones good if a program in the workplace exists that outlines in detail the policy that the company stands for that is against sexual harassment and make every employee sign it. It is to be kept in each ones personnel file.

Employees should also be notified of their particular rights and to report immediately any incidents of sexual harassment. Of course, the atmosphere where employees air and file their complaints must be open and free from fear.

6. Train everyone concerned

Appropriately educating everyone in the workplace, from supervisors to managers to all of the employees concerned about their role in the company and their behavior while inside the workplace is important in establishing boundaries on how to act.

The issue is quite real and serious even today, and should not be brushed off as not important. It affects every aspect of the work environment and if not addressed appropriately it could bring down the law on the work place and could even financially affect the whole organization. It is important therefore to put in place pro-active measures to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding later on. If you can set a positive example the entire system will continue to run smoothly. If not, sexual harassment could crop up again and again.

About the Author:

For more great sexual harassment related articles and resources check out http://weknowsettlements.info
Read more articles by: Edward Bryce

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Steve Pavlina and his Million Dollar Experiment

Browsing the web, a couple of weeks ago I run into an unusual experiment proposal: Million Dollar Experiment. The goal of this experiment is to attempt to use the power of intention to manifest $1 million for each person who chooses to participate. The participation is free and you can choose whether you want to go anonymous or you want to make your name public in that list. If you choose to go public, then it’s your choice to declare or not the amount of money which entered your pocket as a result of intention manifestation.
I tried it anonymously and I can tell you that I managed to manifest the encouraging amount of $10, but at least I saw it worked and I’d give it a more serious try next time, for sure.

The person who started this experiment and who is currently hosting it on his site is Steve Pavlina. It was the first time I heard about him and as I became curious to know more, I started to read some other articles on his site. Suddenly, I realized that I was reading for two hours already and I still found some more interesting facts and stories in his site. As I was just about to launch my first web projects, I found there some bits of information which I implemented and which proved to work well.
Personally, I found some of the posts there rather peculiar, especially those related to sleep, diet and fitness habits, but nobody is forcing you to follow that path, Steve is just relating his experiments and their implications in his everyday life.

If you have 15 minutes to spare, I suggest that you pay a visit to this website – it must be something for you in there as well.

Personal Development – Can spending time on socializing websites help it?

At first, let’s give it a definition. I would define personal development as the work of a lifetime dedicated to improve ourselves from a reference status to a desired one, comprising all facets of life: family, social, career, personal. People are created for evolution. Evolution can translate into a healthier life, a more attractive body, better intellectual abilities, better emotional control, more sex-appeal, more money, bigger house, a better car, a better job, smarter children and so on.
What about getting more votes for your posts in social bookmarking websites? Is this evolution? Can this be an objective for personal development?
Of course it can! Yes, personal development is not about forcing yourself to learn things or to please others, but it is also about having fun and enjoying the path towards your objectives. This is the key word here: objectives. In other words, it is necessary to know where you are now, where do you want to be and how can you get there. Once these established, you have to stay focused and do what you planned for reaching them. How do you know when you got there? Well, from time to time, you have to measure the progress, compare it with your objective, fine-tune your activities (or dramatically change the way of action) and move on again. If your objective is, let’s say, to have a post listed on the first page of a website, reaching it gives you reassurance, makes you more confident in your powers, and this will reflect in other areas of your life as well. The others will notice you more, now that you have something to be proud of. This will give you reasons to continue and to expand the habit of setting objectives to other fields such as work, school, sports or art. The feedback effect works like an avalanche, becoming bigger and bigger: the more confident you are, the more you attract wealth and happiness, then the wealthier and happier you are, the more confident you become.
It is just a matter of self-discipline to keep yourself on this ascendant path of attaining higher and higher objectives, to get from being posted on the first page of a website to a multi-millionaire businessman.

I know that self-discipline is not as simple as that, but this is another story. You are welcome to come back for more stories on this issue.

How to get to happiness

One of the things we never seem to have enough in life is happiness. Nobody could give a specific definition of happiness, but everybody strives to get as much of it as possible. I got in my mailbox the other day a message which really changed my day and which I would like to share with you. The author, Colin G Smith, from http://www.NLPToolBox.com, is a great motivator and his messages are higly inspirational (at least, they got me inspired and changed my mood not only once). Enjoy the article and come back for more.

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“7 Surprising Keys to Happiness”
Copyright: Colin G Smith
http://www.NLPToolBox.com
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Have you ever had one of those days where you just wish you were in a better mood? Perhaps you tried to shift your state of mind to something better but struggled to achieve it.
Sometimes we get stuck in our own ’stinking thinking’ and forget how easy it is to feel happier, so here are seven simple ways to lift your mood that many people have found useful and some of them may surprise you!

1. Go for a walk.
Most folk know that going for a short daily walk is one of the best forms of exercise. If you can, go into a natural environment with flowers, trees and birds. What will you notice first? The different shades of greenery, the fresh smell of country air, the bird sounds, or the sunlight shining through the tree foliage.

2. Listen to some quality music.
Music creates magical effects. It can shift the listeners state within moments. Why not dig out that album you haven’t listened to in ages or why not tune in your radio to something you’ve never listened to before.

3. Think of others less fortunate.
The fact that you are reading this article suggests that you are probably much better off than many, many people on this planet! What if you were to imagine being in space looking down on the amazing beautiful earth, noticing all the oceans and lands with the clouds above… And then thinking about the fact that there are many human beings that are starving, homeless and in lots of pain… Allow your compassion for them to grow.

4. Read something radical!
How many different types of magazines can you get these days?! Have you ever waltzed into a big newsagents and just browsed through the magazine racks? It’s incredible. Why not buy a magazine you wouldn’t normally buy. You never know you may discover something wonderful!

5. Laughing at laughter.
Have you ever had the experience when you just laugh for no good reason? Isn’t it great! Laughter is one of the best ways to lift your spirits. Can’t think of anything funny?
Try grinning at yourself insanely in the mirror and notice how difficult it becomes to control your giggle muscles!

6. Simple breathing meditation.
A great exercise that you can do anywhere is a simple breathing meditation. No need to dress in orange robes.
Simply find yourself in a comfortable sitting position with your back straight. Now close your eyes and become aware of the flow of air into and out of your nostrils. That’s it! Do this for 10/15 minutes and you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised how you feel afterward.

7. Doodling just for fun!
Remember when you were young and you used to doodle with crayons for hours. Kids love drawing silly little pictures, why not adults? So get some pens, pencils, crayons or whatever you have and just draw - doodle away until your state of mind shifts.

You might agree that these are all pretty simple and that’s what’s so good about them. Making changes, mundane or profoundly life-changing, are easily and quickly achieved by putting into action simple ideas, methods, tools and techniques.

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Author Bio:
Colin G Smith is a licensed Master Practitioner of Neuro- Linguistic Programming (NLP) and author of ‘The NLP ToolBox’, a personal development book that enables the reader to master any area of their life with amazing speed.
Complete information on Colin G Smith’s books are available at his website, including a FREE personal development eBook.