Always Have A Plan-B

Develop your contingency plans and always have a plan-B ready. To have options give you freedom and add to your flexibility. It also provides strength in negotiations to have strong alternatives to a successfully negotiated agreement. I particularly like the concept of scenario planning where you develop different courses of action based on certain external trigger points.

Creative Problem Solving

You are much more creative than you think! There are three great triggers to increased creativity in problem solving. Pressing problems, immediate needs and pointed questions. Ask yourself more and better questions about the situation. Next time you are faced with a big challenge try to come up with at least twenty suggestions on how you can solve that particular issue.

Actions And Feelings

Successful people know that results come from actions and not from feeling up to it. They take initiative even when they don't feel like it. Results will come and soon enough feedback from the actions will generate positive feelings. You don't feel your way into action, you act your way into feeling. Just do it anyway!

Focus On The Key Issue

The ability to focus with clarity on key issues is really important. First prioritize your goals and then focus your attention on value generating, business enhancing tasks and do only one thing at a time. Successful people have a single-mindedness of purpose around them. They don't just let things happen to them, they decide what they want to happen and focus on making that a reality.

Keep Your Body And Brain Active

Stay active, exercise and eat right. An active, stimulated brain gives good protection from degenerative disease. Scientific studies show that 30 minutes of exercise, two to three times a week reduces the risk of attracting these types of diseases later in life by as much as 50%. Eating right is also an important factor. Choose unsaturated fats from olive oil and fish and you reduce the risk even further. The onslaught of degenerative disease seems to be at least somewhat lifestyle dependant.

Learning By Doing

When someone is being instructed or taught, it is better to involve of as many senses as possible in the learning process. There is a saying that goes: "Tell me and I will remember it for an hour, show me and I will remember it for a day, let me do it and I will never forget it." The idea being that the more involved you are the better you will learn. The more senses involved the better the recollection and the best way is learning by doing.

The Physiology Of Emotions

Depressed people often walk with their head hanging down. Body language tends to reflect our inward emotional state. You will find that it is difficult to continue to focus and dwell on a negative thought when your head is raised to a straight or slightly upward position. As you look up the emotional grip of the negative thought is somehow loosened. Many studies have been carried out on this phenomenon and science has yet to explain why this is. We can safely conclude that your posture impacts your emotions.