We all have a tendency to become side tracked. We may want to complete an important task, yet many distractions poke and prod us away from our goals. How can we keep our focus on the task as hand?

Distractions may be hard to ignore, especially when it’s a chatty coworker, a ringing phone, a demanding spouse (not all that common I’m sure–grin), or many other things. Thankfully, there are some tried and true strategies we can use to put the distractions on hold and place an intense focus on our task.

Try these techniques to develop an intense focus:

1. Remove distractions. You can’t focus if you’re constantly checking your email, Facebook, or other time-stealers! You’ll get more done if you allow your mind to get in the groove with some peace and quiet.

• Turn off your email, close your web browsers, shut off your phone off or forward it to voicemail, and put on headphones to avoid loud noises. You’ll be glad you did!

2. Remain committed. You know that you have something you should finish, but are you one hundred percent committed to seeing it through to completion? This is where you need to be honest with yourself.

• If you’re not fully committed to your task, you’re more likely to allow distractions to overtake your mind. More often than not, you’ll use distractions to create excuses and exceptions that try to justify your lack of focus.
• If you are committed, it will be easier to ignore distractions and keep your focus. This is something only you can decide.

3. Set a time limit. Even if the task itself doesn’t have a time limit, assign one anyway. If you have a deadline, you’ll be more apt to complete your task in a timely manner.

• Rather than giving in to the surrounding distractions, you’ll be competing against the clock to get things done on time.

4. Take frequent breaks. This may sound contradictory, but it actually makes a world of difference for the workaholic. If we work too long at one time, not only do we become physically tired, but our minds tire as well. This makes us more susceptible to distractions and shatters our concentration.

• Work intently for an hour and then allow yourself a 10-minute break. When you return from the break, you’ll be more focused, your mind will be clearer, and you’ll be more likely to work for another hour without losing focus.
• This strategy allows you to get more work done in a shorter time.

5. Use a list. Lists are wonderful tools that help you accomplish your work quicker and easier. Before beginning, write down everything you need to accomplish and then cross out each task as you complete it.

• The process of crossing things off your list is a great motivator to keep you working without distractions, plus it helps to build the momentum to get everything done.

6. Reward yourself for a job well done. When you’re able to stay focused on an important task, reward yourself! Just keep thinking about the big picture and your reward once you’re finished with the task at hand.

• This will keep you on target and you’ll finish as quickly as you possibly can. Everyone loves a treat for a job well done!

Remember, you’re human, too. Losing your focus is easy in an existence that’s filled with daily distractions and annoyances. However, you’ll find that you can keep an intense focus on something if you practice these techniques. Make them a habit and enjoy your rewards!

These days we all could use some extra income, whether it’s through your business or an additional entrepreneurial venture! This article will give you an understanding of how positive thinking and the Law of Attraction are interrelated, as well as explain how you can use these principals for your financial benefit.

Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is more than just being upbeat all the time. The term “optimistic” comes to mind; however, positive thinking is much more than just being hopeful, also. Positive thinking is the opposite of negative thinking.

Sounds simple right? Well it’s easier said than done!

Why It’s Important to Think Positively

I’m sure you know someone who’s a negative thinker. They’re usually down most of the time, get depressed easily, and have negative things happen to them recurrently.

Have you ever wondered why this happens? It’s because the negative thinker surrounds himself with negative energy, which attracts more negative things. His thoughts are in harmony with negativity, so that’s what he gets – more of the same!

Positive thinkers, on the other hand, think about encouraging things and surround themselves with positive energy. Their thoughts are in harmony with good things, so they attract more positive opportunities.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you gravitate toward the outcome of situations because of your thought processes.

Therefore, when you think positively, you’ll make decisions based on that type of outcome, consciously or unconsciously. The same goes if you think negatively.

How to Use the Law of Attraction to Attract More Money

If you dwell on the negative – such as how bad the economy is or how tragic situations are – your thoughts, and therefore your decisions, take you down a path to negative outcomes.

However, when you think positively, you now have a fresh start to do something you really enjoy and your thoughts and decisions move you toward those goals.

Now is the time to start thinking positively in this financial downfall.

What are some skills you already have that you could use to bring in some extra cash? How can you take advantage of current trends to boost your income?

Here are some suggestions to help get your thoughts moving in the right direction:

1. Are you artistic or do you enjoy making things with your hands? You might enjoy graphic arts. Now is the opportune time to start your own online business selling graphics, covers, designs, and page layouts.

2. Are you social and do you love interacting with people? Social networking is HUGE and growing by leaps and bounds!

• Social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon and De.lic.ious are changing the way businesses of all types market their products and services. Many companies are hiring people to market their business on these and other social networks.

3. Do you like to write? Blogs are fast becoming the way to update a website consistently, driving more and more traffic to it. Companies are looking for writers to fill their sites with content.

• Posting blogs, article writing, and copywriting are just a few of the ways you can earn money online using skills you already have and a pastime you enjoy.

4. Boost your income at your current job. When you think positive things about your job, you tend to perform better. And when you excel at your work, your boss is more likely to recognize you as a valuable, or even indispensable, team member!

Positive thinking will help lead you in the right direction toward a positive outcome. If you’re naturally a negative thinker, turning those thoughts into positive ones may be a little more difficult, but it can be done.
When you start to have negative thoughts, try to catch them before you’re already on the path to destruction in your head. Then, turn them around and focus on positive outcomes.

Over time and with practice, positive thinking can become natural to you. Even better, you’ll be attracting positive outcomes as well. Through positive thinking, the Law of Attraction can bring you many things to be happy about, including financial freedom!

With this prevalent image of an absolute minuscule population, we often forget to return our gaze to what I call “street-level”, where the average woman in America weighs 164 lbs. and is a size 14. At the peak of her career, and the sexiest, Marilyn Monroe measured in at 140 pounds, and she was NOT a tall lady!

A positive self-image is one of the top things most women struggle with. So, how can you learn to love your body the way it is?

First of all, you need to focus on what you do like about your body. Here are some questions to get you thinking about the things you DO like about yourself:

• What areas do you get complimented on the most? What do others notice about you first when you walk into a room?
• Are you shapely with a larger busts and hips? Do you have a womanly figure?
• Do you have nice legs? Are they thin and long? Are they muscular and strong?
• Do people comment on how pretty you are or often say that you have beautiful eyes?
• Do you like to show off your feet with pretty sandals or open toed shoes?
• Is your hair shiny and beautiful? Do you like to touch it or play with it?

Instead of being overly critical and negative, be grateful for the body and health you do have. So give yourself permission to see and accept the good!

Boosting Your Self-Image with the Perfect Clothing

Learning to love your body is important because having a good self-image empowers you in many ways.  When you love the way you look, you feel more confident and confidence gives you the ability to do anything you set your mind to.

Dressing for your body type also plays a big part in how you look and see yourself, so it’s important to know what color, style, shape and material of clothing looks best on you. If your closet is full of worn out t-shirts and old faded blue jeans, it’s time for a wardrobe makeover.

Take a good, honest friend or family member shopping with you to help you choose clothes that fit well and colors that look best on you. Updating your wardrobe doesn’t have to be expensive either. Begin by shopping resale stores. Oftentimes you can find brand name, never worn clothes at prices greatly below retail. However, don’t settle for less than the best for your body type. If you can’t find the perfect items for your body, then don’t buy the clothes just because they’re cheap.

Build your wardrobe from the bottom up, starting with the basic necessities:

• Black dress pants for work or an evening out
• One dressy blouse for work or an evening out
• One power suit for job interviews or business
• A black skirt
• Camisoles in a variety of colors for layering
• A well fitting pair of blue jeans for casual days
• 2 to 3 casual tops (by casual I’m not talking t-shirts either)
• 2 pair of shoes: 1 for dress and 1 for casual

When you’ve got the basic necessities, then you can build your wardrobe up from there by adding dressy blouses or tops in different colors and styles, more skirts in various styles and colors and so on.

Once you start loving your body by recognizing what you do like about it and dressing to fit your body type, you’ll gain a whole new confidence like you’ve never felt before and other people will take notice too. You may notice others reacting somewhat differently toward you as they respond to your new confidence. Heck, you might even get a raise!

So start learning to love your body now. You’re beautiful!

Today’s little tidbit is designed to help your mental health, and shape how you think about your business and entrepreneurial venture towards a more positive angle.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the proverbial glass: It’s the same glass, and when you look at it, is it half full or half empty?

Okay, so it’s a cliche and I too have heard it for years. So often, in fact, that I’ve stopped listening to it.

But recently I’ve had cause to revisit that phrase. And because I’ve had to re-hear it, so too do you my entrepreneurial dear!

My grandmother, who shall simply be referred to as “Nana” for the purposes of this article, recently suffered a STROKE. The term, stroke, immediately conjures up images of life-long debilitation, and I think of people who have lost significant functionality of speech or bodily mastery of half of their body.

Nana went to the hospital and spent three days in the hallways of emergency while the hospital tried to find a room for her. On the first day, she couldn’t speak. She had lost her ability. Prone to drama and unable to verbally impart her suffering to the world, this caused her HUGE distress. But by the second day, she could speak again (though when over-tired her language skills would slip, she would panic and the stress would further erode her language skills, and then she would FREAK). By the second day, she was wondering through the emergency halls and checking out everyone else’s distress. By the third day, she was talking up a storm. And walking. And chewing gum .

In other words, Nana had fully recovered from a stroke after only three days. The hospital eventually found her a real bed, kept her for two more days for observation, and then sent her back home, where she lives independently.

This was three months ago now.

Were her glass half full, she’d look at her experience and count her blessing. Not many 85 year old women get off so easily after a stoke! Many are wheelchair bound for the remainder of their lives, some are locked into their own bodies having lost the capacity to communicate through words, some have compound speech and muscular issues.

Nana is up and running, fit as a weasel. You’d never look at this woman and see any signs of a stroke.

But Nana, dear negative-bound Nana, is committed to reliving only misery. She remembers only her suffering. The inconsistant care (in emerg, the nurses rotate frequently), the roughness of one nurse, the panic of not being able to speak, the fear of that feeling returning, and on it goes.

The result is this: when she gets locked into her past experiential misery (and, yes, it’s true, it all DID happen) she spirals into the future possibility of the return of that pain.

The glass half empty is where you focus on the upper part of the glass, the content that has gone and will never re-appear in it’s original form. And you cling to holding on what is left. The scarcity mentality sets in. I can never consume this because LOOK WHAT HAPPENS it all disppears and my life depends on me hanging on to what is left. Wo! is me. In Nana’s case, life now begins and ends with her miserable hospital experience. Any little headache turns into weeping sobs. Any mention of hospital turns into a repetition of what was.

Many of you may know someone who has suffered a stroke, and may be amazed at Nana’s incedible outcome. She’s gotten away with suffering stroke, and being able to walk away in three days and lived to talk about it.

So the glass half full is where you focus on the wealth of what is left. You can still look at the upper part and savour the flavour of what was. And then you look at the remain part, and anticipate what joy it will bring you. The spiral here is a positive one. And as ANYONE who has ever drank a glass of anything knows (pay attention here!), that glass can always be refilled again.

• Abundance instead of scarcity.
• Joy instead of sorrow.
• Anticipation instead of fear.

And the only thing that is different, the ONLY thing, is how you think about it.

What you carry with you in the present is what your future will bring.

To your abundant world,

Britt Santowski

The original mentality was that computers would allow us to get the same amount of work done in half the time. That idea went out the window when we realized we could now get twice the work (or more) done in the same time.

Now our world has become so fast paced that it’s hard to keep up. If you don’t stop the pandemonium, you can begin to feel as if your life is descending into a chaotic jumble. Luckily, there are ways to deal with these overwhelming feelings and put some order back into your life.

Here are a few tips on how to re-learn how to relax, already:

1. Take a break. You deserve one, and no, I’m not just quoting some goofy clown. Give yourself a chance to take in everything going on around you. Even if your break is a nice hot bath instead of a shower, it can help.

• Find a little time here and there to get some peace and quiet while you reflect on the events of the day.

2. Meditate. Ooommm. Meditation can be very helpful in bringing you peace. Contrary to my opening grunt on this point, meditation doesn’t mean sitting uncomfortably and chanting like the monks in the movies. Instead, it’s a very comfortable and soothing way to calm your mind and bring you the serenity you desire.

• With a little practice, anyone can meditate. Just find a quiet, dark room and close your eyes. Begin at first by just focusing on your breath.
• Picture yourself at a black board. And on the black board are written all the thoughts that are in your head. Calmly, see yourself picking up an eraser. A BIG eraser. And begin erasing.
• This imagery will help you settle into your meditation. Once you’ve cast away your burdens, you can imagine how peaceful your life can be.

3. Find the positive. No matter how chaotic things get, you can always try to find something good and positive in your situation.

• Actively look for the silver lining. It could be something as simple as a favorite song, a picture, or the smile of another person that gives you some inner peace. Look for these things and you will find them. Relax, hun, it’s there. And you will find it.

4. Slow down. While we have to multitask almost constantly these days, doing so tends to wear us down even faster. Multi-tasking adds to the chaos around us. And while we women are great at multitasking, sometimes we neeed to let go. Of everything!

• Take one thing at a time and allow yourself to focus on that task alone. While you may be able to handle three or more things at once, the quality won’t be nearly as good as if you focused on them one at a time.

5. Don’t let anyone drag you down. Know that the very fact that you EXIST makes you a miracle, a piece of magic. Be wary when considering the (especially the negative) opinions of others.

• Don’t ignore everyone, but don’t let yourself get bogged down with other people’s baggage and their issues, either.
• Remove your personal chaos causers, even if one of the causes is other people.

6. Take out the drama. Eliminate the drama in your life, especially other people’s drama. It’s not your concern, so stay out of it and don’t get caught up in it.

• Focus on solving your concerns positively rather than enjoying pity parties. This will reduce the drama and turn your focus to something positive.

Everyone has some chaos in her life. It isn’t always a bad thing. Stress can be productive as well. In fact, without stress and responsibilities, some people would never get out of bed!

Life will always have stress and problems, but how you react to them can dictate the level of chaos in your life.

The first step is realizing that you need to make some time for yourself. If you don’t, nothing you do will really make that much of a difference. You can’t be there for everyone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself.

Use these tips every day to bring order to your life, and soon you’ll find peace instead of chaos. Comfortable relaxing, and getting on with life.

To your perpetual success my friend!

Britt Santowski