Why some people choke and others panic
There was a moment, in the third and deciding set of the 1993 Wimbledon final, when Jana Novotna seemed invincible. She was leading 4-1 and serving at 40-30, meaning that she was one point from winning the game, and just five points from the most coveted championship in tennis…
God is a God of purpose. When we learn to pray to Him in a non religious way with intentionality it is life transforming. Here is part of an introduction to a book on prayer that I wrote many years ago. There will be a link for a free copy of the book at the end.
The young doctor came out of the treatment room and just shook her head and I knew what it meant. It was November of 1991 and Althea, my wife of 16 years, had suddenly died after a long illness. The emotional pain that I felt at that moment cannot be put into words. Waiting at home were our four children who no longer had a mom to talk to or hug. We were facing what seemed like an impossible situation. How would I be able to raise our children alone? What would I do without my wife? What would our children do without their mother?
The next few days were like a bad dream. I would have gladly traded places with Althea. I knew she was with the Lord in heaven and I envied the fact that she was free from all problems and worries. I asked God why she died and not me. He had to know that our kids really needed their Mom. I had some other questions too. Was there anything else I could have done to change things? Did I pray enough or exercise faith enough for my wife’s healing? What did I do wrong?
I began to cry out to God like a drowning man gasping for air. If we were to survive as a family we needed His help. The circumstances we faced did not allow me the luxury of going through the motions of prayer – I needed to know how to really pray and make contact with the Lord. All the questions of why things happened gradually gave way to more pressing needs. Everyday seemed to bring new challenges. Lives were hanging in the balance and I needed God’s help.
I know you have heard this before but — God is faithful. He helped us. He has proven His faithfulness time and time again since those tragic days. …
I used to read books anxious to get the help I needed based upon what they promised. Now I am learning how to rest in the Lord. Why don’t you allow God to take the pressure off and you will see a truth about Him that could change your life. You can find yourself really walking by faith and not by sight. He really is an awesome God!
My desire is that God will touch you … Just relax – there is no pressure for us to perform. God will stir us into action but first let us come to Him and learn.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30 – The Message)
Of course, the growth I’m talking about is the growth in your life , your career, your relationships, and your wealth. We’re not so different than the beautiful plants you buy at the local nursery that look wonderful but then need to be …
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Don't Let Clutter Stunt Your Growth – The Inspiration Report
Personal life growth is a process of the life growth of others and individual life growth. As an individual, the focus is on personal goals, plans and actions aimed at these objectives:
• Establishing clear identity and discovering potential
• Discovering strengths and talents and developing them
• Establishing goals related to life growth plans and executing them
• Establishing vocation and market desirability
• Improving quality of life and desired lifestyle
• Fulfilling life purpose and personal desires
No man or woman is an island and our personal success in life is directly tied to our involvement in the life growth of other’s. Here on Life Growth Strategies we focus on both aspects – individual life growth or development and also the life growth and development of others.
Famed psychiatrist Viktor Frankl once mused that “If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we overestimate, we promote him to what he really can be.” What our education system, homes, and churches are missing are idealists. …
Read the rest here:
Yvette Carnell: Low Black Male Graduation Rates Indicate a Failure …
Webmaster note: The recent book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell gives some interesting insights into success and how it is achieved.
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Viktor Frankl – Why to believe in others
I’ve just finished reading the wonderful Man’s Search for Meaning, a 1946 book written by psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor E. Frankl , where he discusses his experiences and observations as a Nazi concentration camp inmate
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Viktor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning « Mind Hacks
Multitasking – The Grand Illusion!
By Richard P. Fast
Most people try to multitask, and many of them consider themselves quite adept at it.
Multitasking is the scourge of modern day society. It is the root cause of poor listening, poor communication, and sloppy execution of many day-to-day tasks.
Slowly, assiduously, we have adopted one communication device after another until the devices have become the tail wagging the dog. We have become slaves to the tools.
Watch some harried person, or perhaps yourself, who is actively plugged into the complete communication system; that would mean live email, fax, Twitter, smartphone/cellphone, landline phone, internet, Facebook etc. That person will literally live their daily life in response to the never-ending “siren calls.”
You might be thinking, yeah, so what’s your point?
The point is this, if someone is continually responding to the constant beeps and buzzes then clearly they’re not in control of their life. Put another way, would the person live differently if the devices ceased all communication for the day?
Years ago if a telephone rang every few minutes we would say, “It was ringing off the hook.” Compared to today’s ceaseless assault from all fronts, a singular ringing telephone is hardly noticed.
The purpose of this writing is to create awareness of a serious problem that we’ve allowed to control our lives while we unconsciously ignore its effects. Incredibly most of us are completely unaware of this growing problem – the ceaseless intrusion and interruption to our focus and conscious thoughts. Every time a devices sounds off, we drop our focus and divert our attention to the latest incoming message. In fact, many of us wouldn’t have it any other way. We have come to believe that orchestrating several different communications gadgets, while studying, watching TV, and socializing is a sign of our adeptness, mental prowess and infallibility. In reality it demonstrates inefficiency and an inability to focus.
Numerous studies have shown that the human brain is incapable of multitasking.
Most people who attempt to multitask are under the delusion that they can perform several cognitive duties at the same time, in perfect harmony, and in a fraction of the time than if they focused on one task and then another and finally another.
Before we dive into whether we can or cannot multitask the first step is to define multitasking. There are two actual definitions: 1. From a computer perspective it’s the concurrent operation by one central processing unit of two or more processes. 2. From a human perspective it’s the carrying out of two or more tasks at the same time by one person.
When it comes to successful multitasking, your subconscious mind is a master. It can simultaneously orchestrate millions of calculations per second as it oversees your heart rate, body temperature, digestion and everything else to keep you alive, while it effortless steers your car down the highway when you suddenly decide to daydream and pawn the task to your subconscious.
Your conscious mind however, is not capable of multiple, simultaneous calculations. It is capable of doing one thing at a time. Period. One thing at a time. If you’re about to protest by giving examples of your ability to watch TV while writing a report then you have landed on the very point of this writing… that’s multitasking and your ability to do so is an illusion.
By definition, when you think you are multitasking what you are really doing is rapidly shifting your focus from watching TV to writing your report, but you are not doing both things at the same time. In fact, most of your mental power is burned up in high-speed travel while you switch focus from one task to another.
Multitasking is the modern day version of the person who is incapable of concentration and focus. This is the person who is at work but is thinking of his family and what he wants to do when he gets home. Then when he gets home he’s thinking of all the things he needs to do at work. Result; he’s never really anywhere or truly present for anyone.
The above example is an ultra slow version of the inefficiency of switching attention.
You might be thinking; “That’s different, when I multitask I’m getting both tasks accomplished with perfect aplomb so who cares if I’m actually shifting my attention back and forth?” That’s just it. We fool ourselves into thinking that we’re doing more than one thing at a time, but in reality we just end up doing one thing after another poorly.
People who multi-task are 50% more likely to make mistakes and 34% less productive. It gives the illusion of doing several things at once but we’re doing a lot of things poorly. The human brain cannot multi-task and there’s down time when switching from one task to another.
A Stanford Study on multitasking reports;
People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found.
High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments. But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multitaskers are paying a big mental price.
“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Everything distracts them.”
The conscious mind can only do one thing at a time; it cannot do two things simultaneously.
Do you remember when someone told you to try and pat the top of your head while at the same time you were to rub you stomach? It was impossible to do until you focused your attention on one task (rubbing your stomach) and then delegated that assignment to your subconscious while your conscious mind focused on patting your head. Then if you were asked to try and reverse the process, pat your stomach and rub your head you had to once again focus on a task, assign it to your subconscious mind, and then your conscious mind could perform the remaining task.
How often do you drive down the highway deep in thought or conversation and suddenly realize that you’ve driven a long way past your exit? In situations like that who was driving? Your subconscious mind of course. You delegated the duty. That was a form of multitasking but notice what actually happened; your conscious mind may have started the journey but at some point it decided to focus on something else so it handed the task of driving over to your subconscious mind so that it could focus on daydreaming or conversing with someone in the car. Notice that your conscious mind was capable of handling just one task at a time.
Still not convinced? Try this little exercise. Pick up a pen or pencil and hold it tightly in your outstretched hand. Now ‘will’ yourself to drop it. The pencil fell no problem right? How did the pencil happen to drop? Your conscious mind told your hand to release its hold and the pencil fell.
Now I want you to hold the pencil in your outstretched hand again and while squeezing the pencil tightly I want you to say to yourself, “I can drop the pencil; I can drop the pencil…” repeat this over and over. You will clearly see that if you focus on what you are saying you will be incapable of releasing the pencil. The only way you will be able to do so is stop your internal dialogue and change the focus of your conscious mind from rambling speech to instructing your hand muscles to open. You see? As simple as this task is, you cannot consciously do two things at once. You cannot think “I can drop the pencil” and at the same time say to your conscious mind “Now, I will drop the pencil.”
The myth that we can multitask is an illusion. Falling prey to the illusion can have catastrophic effects on every aspect of your life. It can and will affect your ability to communicate, perform tasks that require concentrated effort and to simply enjoy a moment of solitude without intrusion.
Not too long ago one would have been branded as the unfortunate result of poor breeding if during a conversation one answered the phone or diverted one’s attention from the speaker without a legitimate emergency and a heart-felt apology. Today, such inconsiderate behavior is practically common. In the middle of a conversation people will wordlessly pick-up their phone and begin reading and responding to an incoming message as if the other person never existed.
Even though such behavior is becoming increasingly common, the basic needs of mankind to be appreciated, listened to and understood haven’t changed. The person who understands and practices the simple basics of social etiquette will always be welcome.
Whether we’re talking to another person, thinking, or performing a task, if something is important it deserves our undivided attention. If it isn’t important, then we might want to ask ourselves, why we’re even bothering.
Richard Fast, the author and creator of more than 30 toys, games, puzzles and books, has devoted the past twenty years into the research and development of his 29 DAYS template. He, like the rest of us, had always been told that if you want to change your life just change your thoughts. But how can we change the way we think?
Richard discovered that we can change our fundamental thoughts into desirable new habits by following the same cognitive procedures that we used to create our existing habits. Richard’s 29 DAYS template for change uses proven, scientific techniques, technology and online coaching, to guide you through a step-by-step process toward changing your thoughts and acquiring desirable new habits… permanently. Richard Fast is the author of 29 Days… to becoming a great listener and communicator.
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Many of his disciples have continued since then very promising for a successful career in management, executive coaching , thanks to their intuitive skills. To add to his initiative at work and busy family life , volunteering in local …
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