text:
I had failed again. My first year in college. It was the third time I had failed a year in my whole education.
I had to get back up again, gather my confidence and work hard once more to succeed. There was no backing down possible.
I refocused and went ahead. I put all my energy towards a single goal. The rest is history…
What about you? Are you an achiever? And what method do you use to achieve your goals?
Like many others, I've achieved many goals in my life. Lots of small ones, like cooking the dinner. And a few big ones, like getting a degree.
We achieve most of our goals without noticing it. But big goals demand a focused effort.
Recently, I've developed a bit of an obsession about achieving goals. I spent countless hours gathering scientific research, reading books and experimenting. This is part of my quest to design a lifestyle that I control.
Here's the result of my research.
Self-made gurus will give you a lot of advice based on empirical data, i.e. their own experience. Sometimes this is good enough. But I wanted to go deeper.
So I made sure to systematically dig out scientific data before coming up with specific advice. I'm an engineer after all. The best part? A method based on scientific data will give you proven results, every time.
Want to learn the 9 proven keys you need to achieve you goals? Keep reading…
Now: this is a long article. If you're not that interested in the scientific research, skip each section and only read the highlights under Practical Steps.
The PARC wheel
The backbone of the method is what I call the PARC Wheel. It has three major sections:
A. Plan
B. Act
C. Revise & Celebrate
Since it's a wheel, in effect, you go back to A after C.
To optimize the method for fast results, we need to review each section in detail. By leveraging research in psychology and neuroscience and best principles in project management, we can maximize its effectiveness.
The 9 key components of the system are:
A. Plan
B. Act
2. Keep Your Eyes On The Ball
3. Stay Fully Charged
4. Master Mind
5. Pile Up Your Results
6. Your Secret Weapon
7. Become A Giant
C. Revise & Celebrate
8. Stay On Track
9. Party Time
Here are the 9 components and the scientific background to back them up.
A. Plan
1. Map Your Way To Your Goals
Let's say you are meeting someone in a town you don't know. You don't have a phone or GPS with you. How are you going to get there?
- Do you wander around, hoping you'll reach you destination by chance?
- Or maybe you ask for directions?
- Or do you print a map beforehand?
You should ask yourself the same questions for goals. Which of the options above will get you quicker to your destination?
If you want to reach your goals fast, you'll need a plan.
Here's why:
A plan details the exact actions you need to take to achieve your goals. By being specific, it also excludes activities that are not congruent with your goals. It de-clutters your life and tells you where you should focus.
Research has shown that writing down a plan increases your chances to achieve your goals by 42%. And this percentage increases to 78% when you send your goals, action commitments and weekly progress reports to a supportive friend.
Also, committing to a specific plan frees up cognitive resources in your brain for other pursuits. Once you've made a plan for a goal, you can devote your thinking power to other goals.
On top of a plan, a mentor, who knows the way, can give you directions to get to your goals even faster.
Practical Steps
To write a plan, follow the three step process that Patrick Montana and Bruce Charnov outlined:
- Choose a destination (goal)
- Test alternative routes
- Decide the specific course of your plan
Planning becomes easier if you can predict the outcome of each activity and have a good knowledge of how to make things happen.
Make sure you have a plan before you move to action, so you know where to focus.
B. Act
2. Keep Your Eyes On The Ball
You have your plan? Good. It's now time to act.
When you start executing on your plan, you need to watch out: it's easy to get scattered. Keep your eyes on the ball. Stay focused.
You might be asking yourself: How do I stay focused? Let's dig into neuroscience and psychology to find the answer.
Don't get distracted
A study on 300 students showed that students were able to focus for 3 minutes on average, before technology would distract them. The usual distractions were smartphones and laptops.
Want to know the best part?
The study showed that the students with the best focus had better results in their studies. Anyone who checked Facebook even once during the 15 minutes study period ended up in the worse student category.
Another study has shown that, in the brain, multitasking is in fact fast switching between different tasks. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), run during the study, showed that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is switching between tasks when multitasking.
The right and left sides of the PFC work together when focused on a single task. But when people attempt to perform two tasks at once, the sides work independently. The study suggests that, when there are two concurrent goals, the brain divides in half.
When asked to do a third task, participants often forgot one of the three tasks. They also made three times as many errors as they had made when attempting only two tasks. The study shows that we might be in great trouble when we try to juggle more than two tasks, since we have only two frontal lobes.
The ease of switching between tasks depends on how engaged the PFC is. Eating and walking aren't taxing on the PFC, while reading and driving are. It's easier to check a message on your phone while eating than while driving.
Clifford Nass ran another study on multitasking. He asked 262 students how often they multitask.
Then, they went through three different tests:
- Notice blue squares flashing on a screen while ignoring red ones
- Remembering when a letter made a repeat appearance on a screen
- Alternating between noticing letters or numbers on the same screen
On all tests, multitaskers performed worse.
Multitasking or fast-switching between tasks is the opposite of focus and falling into this habit actually destroys focus.
It's clear then. If you want to stay focused, stop multitasking and avoid distractions.
But how can you stay focused and avoid distractions?
Here's how you can improve your focus
One way to train your focus is meditation.
A meditation practice is to focus on your breath. While doing so, thoughts will get into your head. The practice is to acknowledge them, then refocus on your breath.
Through repeated meditation practice, you train yourself to acknowledge and then dismiss or postpone thoughts, so you can stay focused on your breath.
When you're working on something and the idea to check Facebook pops in your head, you have to postpone this thought and refocus on the task at hand.
That means the focus you gain through meditation will benefit you in other situations. And studies back this up.
A review of 23 different studies found that people who meditate are better at shutting out distractions and focusing for long periods of time.
In short: to improve your focus, practice meditation.
Another way to be more focused is to use the Pareto principle.
The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes.
But here's the kicker:
You can use the Pareto principle to de-clutter your life. When you start executing on your plan, you'll have several activities planned to get you closer to your goals. At the beginning, they might all seem to have the same importance.
But over time, you'll notice that about 20% of your activities bring you 80% of your results. At this point, you can start eliminating 80% of your activities, the ones that bring you only 20% of your results. It takes some practice, but it will help you cut distracting activities so you can focus on what's important to you.
In their book The One Thing, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan take the Pareto principle a step further, or more exactly a few steps further.
The idea is to apply the Pareto principle incrementally. Your first filter out 80% of your activities according to Pareto. Then, you take your remaining 20% and filter out 80% again. You do it several times, until you end up with just one activity.
So, the essence of the book is: focus your life on one thing you can do, such by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary.
This is what I call focus.
Peak performance
We can't close the discussion on focus without talking about Flow. A state of Flow is a complete absorption in what one does. It occurs when you're working on a high level challenge for which you are skilled.
At the neurophysiological level, flow emerges from a radical alteration in normal brain function. The slower extrinsic system (conscious processing) is swapped out for the far faster subconscious, intrinsic system.
Johns Hopkins examined the brains of improv jazz musicians (through an fMRI) and found that the dorsolateral PFC, an area best known for self-monitoring, was deactivated when they were in flow. Self-monitoring is the voice of doubt, our inner critic and it slows us down. Turning it off liberates you.
Flow is a real neurophysiological state, a state of high performance. Seek a state of flow, it will give you optimal focus.
Practical Steps
Here are the practical steps that will give you focus:
- Avoid multitasking and distractions. Turn your phone and notifications off when you need to focus
- Train your focus through meditation
- Use the Pareto principle to your advantage
- Get in Flow
3. Stay Fully Charged
To achieve your goals and overcome obstacles that get in your way, you need motivation. We all want endless motivation. But how do you achieve that?
Bear with me, I'll get into that in a minute.
First, we need to take a step back and look at the psychological fundamentals of motivation.
Fulfill your needs
In 1954, Abraham Maslow described a list of needs and desires that people try to fulfill and that motivate them. Here is the list from his revised pyramid:
- Transcendence: help others realize their potential
- Self-actualization: realize our own potential, self-fulfillment, peak experiences
- Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
- Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
- Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status
- Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
- Security: protection, safety, stability
- Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort
Fulfilling those needs is what motivates us.
But deep down, where does our motivation to achieve goals come from?
Neuroscience tells us our behavior is motivated by our activities that cause a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. Also, the amount of dopamine released depends on the rewards we predict.
This is how it works:
- Every time the reward from an activity is bigger than you predicted, you get a spike of dopamine
- Conversely, when you expect a reward and get nothing your dopamine level will go down
- And when you get the exact reward you expected, your dopamine level will stay flat
In short, a better than expected outcome from an activity will reinforce a behavior. After engaging in the same activity for a while and getting a reward at the expected level, the spikes of dopamine will stop.
That's why you need to form habits quickly. Or you need to raise the stakes to get higher, better than expected rewards.
You might now be wondering: How do I optimize my rewards to get my dopamine fix and keep me motivated? Fret not, we've got you covered.
Rewards can come both from inside (intrinsic) and outside yourself (extrinsic).
Intrinsic rewards come from the personal gratification of solving a problem. Examples are: engaging in a sport because you find the activity enjoyable, solving a puzzle or playing a game because you find the challenge fun and exciting.
Extrinsic rewards come mostly from social recognition and praise. Examples are: studying because you want a good grade, cleaning your room to avoid being reprimanded by your parents.
Positive reinforcement can improve your intrinsic motivation. So, to motivate yourself to persevere in a new activity, put metrics in place that will give you a positive reinforcement: tick a box, be grateful, focus on your achievements.
External rewards can generate interest and participation in something in which you had no initial interest. They can motivate you to acquire skills or knowledge. Once these early skills have been learned, you may become more intrinsically motivated to pursue the activity.
If your task involves a delivery to someone else, the feedback you get will be an external reward. It will tell you whether you have achieved a standard deserving of reinforcement (think of how you initially motivate children to do their homework).
One word of caution: excessive external rewards can lead to a reduction of your intrinsic motivation. Avoid external rewards when you already find the activity intrinsically rewarding. Seeking a reward in that case might make a fun activity seem more like work.
Instead, use rewards when you are working on activities that you must do but don't like. Invest yourself in those activities if they are recurring so that you can form an intrinsic motivation. And if that doesn't work, delegate.
Incentive and drive
What drives your intrinsic motivation further is your incentive to achieve a goal. That is: your reason. Find the reason that motivates you to reach a goal. This is called the incentive theory.
To find your reason, ask why questions. Why do you want to achieve that goal? Keep asking why questions until you get to one of the needs in Maslow's list. It has to touch you at your core, it has to be a life altering reason.
To illustrate, if you want to lose weight, ask yourself: Why do I want to lose weight? An answer might be: To have a more aesthetic body.
But you need to dig deeper, ask again: Why do I want to have a more aesthetic body? It might be because you want to be more attractive and to be loved (belonging need). And if being more attractive means a wider choice of partners, it can dramatically impact the quality of your future relationship.
That means the trajectory of your life. Bingo! We have found a life altering reason.
So, your reason for losing weight is then: To be more attractive and widen your choice of partners.
Always look for your reason/incentive to give yourself intrinsic motivation.
In the same way that incentive pulls you towards a goal, negative reinforcement pushes towards an action. If you eat when you are hungry, the feeling of hunger will go away. This is called the drive theory.
Increase the pain of inaction and you will be driven towards achieving your goals. One way to do it is to give money to a cause you don't support every time you don't follow through. That means it will be painful to you to stay inactive.
The motivation equation
To close this section on motivation, let's have a look at a great tool: the motivation equation. It was first introduced in a 2006 Academy of Management Review article.
Here's the equation:
Motivation = (expectancy x value)/(1+impulsiveness x delay),
where expectancy is the probability of success and impulsiveness is the sensitivity to delay (delayed gratification).
Want to know the best part?
Using this handy equation, you can extract valuable information about motivation. For example, you can see how an easy to achieve goal (high expectancy) can lead to high motivation. But also how a hard goal, with a huge value (result) can lead to an even higher motivation.
Here's something else the equation tells you. Once you have your goal, to stay motivated, you need to focus on accepting delayed motivation. You need to look at future rewards and not fall into the instant gratification trap.
That said, you also need to have short term milestones on the way to your bigger goals. Achieving these milestones quickly will re-fuel your motivation.
Practical Steps
Remember I said I would tell you how you can get endless motivation? Here it is. Based on science and best practices, to get endless motivation, you need to:
- Find your reason (incentive) for achieving each one of your goals. Your incentive will be your intrinsic motivation
- Work on big goals that can get you big rewards. Rewards from achieving your goals will give you spikes of dopamine
- Always have small short term milestones to re-fuel your motivation. Make the first milestones easy to achieve, i.e. take small steps first
- Make it painful for you not to follow through with your goals
- Enjoy the journey and most importantly build habits so that you don't need external rewards long term
- Put external rewards in place for new activities. This, until you have built your habits
4. Master Mind
We can't talk about motivation without talking about its nemesis: procrastination.
Let's be honest, we all suffer from it. Some of us have a mild case of procrastination, while others struggle to lead a normal life because of it. Unfortunately, it can become an addiction.
As we can't avoid it, the goal is to learn to live with it. Control it, leverage it even, to stay productive and achieve our goals.
Let's go and find out how you can do that.
A coping mechanism
First of all, let's get willpower out of the way.
Willpower uses a lot of neural resources. Simply put, you should avoid using willpower to fend off procrastination, except when absolutely necessary.
In short, don't use willpower to build discipline.
Now, here's how procrastination works:
When you face something daunting or uncomfortable, the pain centers of your brain light up. So you shift your focus to something more enjoyable. This causes you to feel better (happy) temporarily.
In fact, procrastination often manifests as a coping mechanism for dealing with pressure and anxiety surrounding personal trials. It is an emotionally driven avoidance mechanism. It stems from an internal desire to protect ourselves from negative feelings associated with the fear of failure.
Let's dig deeper into the mechanism so we can find solutions to cope with procrastination.
Fight or flight
One part of the brain, the amygdala, is associated with mediating fear, emotion, memory and decision-making as well as psychological disorders like anxiety and phobia.
The amygdala is involved in establishing the "fight or flight" response. This response manifests itself in task avoidance.
When we are overwhelmed by a particularly challenging activity or by the accumulation of many demanding projects, the amygdala induces a fight of flight emotional reaction. This reaction is here to protect us from negative feelings of panic, depression or self-doubt.
When in panic, the amygdala floods your system with the adrenaline hormone.
It gets worse: adrenaline can dull responses of brain regions involved in planning and reasoning.
It can leave you at the mercy of more impulsive brain systems. These systems may convince you that sitting on Facebook for the next few hours is not such a bad idea, even though you have an exam tomorrow.
Instant gratification is addictive
As discussed in the chapter on motivation, your brain has a preference for behaviors that provide instant gratification and avoids pursuing goal-oriented achievement. It's looking for dopamine release. Most behaviors that make us happy increase the levels of dopamine in the brain.
The brain will then stimulate you to repeat behaviors that have caused a release of dopamine in the past.
If you let this avoidance become a habit, long term effects can be nasty. When you put of what you have to do, it can become even more painful to just think about it.
Procrastination can become an important keystone bad habit. A habit that impacts many areas of your life.
In fact, procrastination shares features with addiction. It offers temporary excitement and relief from a sometimes boring reality.
You start telling yourself stories, saying that writing a book requires imagination, your weakness, so of course you are bad at it. You devise irrational excuses that sound superficially reasonable. Like you can't start writing now because you're moving house next month and this will upset your writing routine.
You might even start telling yourself that procrastination is an innate unchangeable characteristic. After all, if it was fixable, wouldn't you have fixed it by now?
Procrastination starts with you putting off that little one thing. Then you do it again and again, gradually growing used to it. That's when it becomes a bad habit.
Practical Steps
To tackle procrastination, you need to take control and make the decisions. And not let your bad habits decide for you. You have to lay down the firm neural foundations you need to feel comfortable with uncomfortable activities.
This is how you do it:
- When you notice yourself procrastinating, write it down. What happened then? What were you doing before? Write down the steps that brought you to procrastinate.
- Based on the steps, look for your procrastination cues. Find what triggered you to procrastinate.
- Then, replace your bad habit by a new, good one. When you see the trigger that usually gets you to procrastinate, use it to prompt you to do your good habit.
- Start your day by eating your frogs. Do your most daunting activities first.
- Focus on less tasks every day. Starting with simple short term tasks will help you avoid procrastination.
- Then, stretch yourself progressively. Avoid tackling overwhelming projects, ease yourself in them.
- Procrastination tells you that you are overwhelmed (too many tasks, too difficult, daunting, long term, unattainable): listen to it and adjust your plan accordingly.
- Tackle procrastination by training your brain to see the completion of a task itself as the dopamine-producing experience rather than the procrastination (delayed gratification). Focus on rewarding yourself for completing tasks rather than punishing yourself for not getting them done.
- Slice your work in small sections so you can get your dopamine release every time you complete a section. Slice everything in chunks of less than 60 minutes. Then, at the end, reward yourself. Something small is fine (like watching a video on youtube).
- Stop, take a breath, relax for a minute, then go back to a task that can seem daunting. Don't let the trigger bring you into procrastination.
- Low conscientiousness is associated with higher procrastination. Train yourself to be more conscientious.
5. Pile Up Your Results
Many will neglect this key ingredient to the "achieve your goals" recipe. If you're not looking closely enough, you might not notice it in the first place. But its effects over time can be explosive.
I'm talking about the compound effect. You might be wondering: What is the compound effect?
Here is the explanation.
In finance, compound interest is how the same interest on an investment adds up over the years.
For example, a 5% yearly interest rate on $1000 equates to $1050 after one year. The next year it becomes $1103, the year after $1157, then $1216 and finally $1276 after 5 years.
In those 5 years, your investment will have gone up 27.6%, instead of 25% (5% a year) if there was no compound interest. After 10 years, it becomes 63% (instead of 50%). After 20 years, 165% (instead of 100%).
In physics, the compound effect also applies. For example, many elements can produce heat: the sun, friction, fire, etc. Each source of heat adds up on top of the others.
This is the principle behind the compound effect: every small step or action adds up.
Now that we understand the principle, let's look at how it can help you achieve your goals.
If you apply the same principle to your life and improve your performance by 1% a day, through the compound effect, you'll improve your performance 170% after 100 days (instead of 100%). And after one year that becomes 3778%! Instead of just 365% without the compound effect, 10x more.
Of course, at some point, it will saturate. But this principle will help you achieve extraordinary results once you understand it and use it to your advantage.
Here's the deal:
Everything you do adds up. Consistent decisions and actions in the same direction will add up to explosive results. Don't think: 1% is small, it's not worth it. Instead, realize how 1% repeated over and over can grow to 200% and more through compounding.
Also, when you achieve small goals over and over, it also adds up. Repeated results will give you proof of your ability. And this proof will increase your confidence.
In turn, increased confidence will motivate you to go out and achieve more goals. Which will increase your confidence and motivation further. In the end, compounding actions build momentum that fuels the system in a positive feedback loop.
Practical Steps
- Take consistent action towards your goals. It compounds to build momentum
- Focus on improving everyday. It adds up to explosive results
- Every action counts. Make it count
6. Your Secret Weapon
Do you know what your secret weapon to success is? We've come across it in the motivation section…
As your motivation will go down over time, it's crucial to call upon your secret weapon before you run out of steam. I'm talking of course about habits.
Building the right habits is key to your success. Let's dig deeper to find how you can build habits.
A 2009 study by Phillippa Lally showed that the average time it takes to form a new habit is 66 day. The study also showed that this time can vary between 18 and 254 days.
In short, it takes time to build a new habit and this time varies among different people. You need to practice habit building to find out how many days it will take you to build one.
In terms of process, we can isolate 3 parts in habit forming:
- Cue
- Behavior
- Reward
A cue is the trigger that causes the habit to come about. It can be associated to anything by your mind.
The behavior is the actual habit you exhibit.
And the reward, a positive feeling, keeps the habit building loop going.
Initially a habit may be triggered by a goal: we call it goal-oriented behavior. Over time the goal becomes unnecessary and the habit becomes automatic. It becomes a habitual behavior.
At the anatomical level, by building habits, you slowly move the processing of the activity from the reflective (located in the prefrontal cortex) to the reflexive (located in the basal ganglia) brain. The reflective brain is slower and requires more energy to work than the reflexive brain. The latter is energy efficient, fast and reacts automatically.
What's the bottom line?
Building habits make you more efficient. They're a must to keep a high level of energy.
Taking it further, you can form keystone habits. Keystone habits can influence the formation of other habits. If you identify as the type of person who takes care of their body and exercises regularly, that might influence you eating behavior as well.
Of course, habits can either benefit (good habits) or hurt the goals you set for yourself (bad habits). Because the processing of a habit is so efficient, getting rid of a bad habit is hard work.
Let's sum up with the practical steps you can follow to build good habits and get rid of the bad ones.
Practical Steps
- Focus on building habits. Stay consistent with your new activity until it becomes habitual behavior. On average, this will take you 66 days.
- Build cues and rewards so that habits get triggered and then stick. When you switch from goal oriented to habitual behavior, you'll free up precious resources.
- To suppress a bad habit, identify your cue (trigger) Then, replace your old habitual behavior following the cue by a new routine. Reward yourself for following through with your new behavior. Break the bad cue-routine-habit loop and replace it by a good one.
7. Become A Giant
If you want to achieve big goals, you'll have to grow and become a different person. This is a must. How do you grow?
You grow by learning and building new habits.
As you learn, your brain changes. Shifts in your behavior, environment, thinking and emotions will cause your brain to create and destroy neural pathways. This is called neuroplasticity.
Neural pathways and synapses form the thought and behavior patterns our brain uses to make decisions, choose actions and make sense of the outside world. The pathways used more often get stronger. Those that are under-used grow weak and are eventually replaced.
To build the right pathways and achieve accelerated growth, you need to:
- Adopt a growth mindset
- Put yourself outside of your comfort zone
Adopting a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed mindset, means believing you can develop your abilities through dedication and hard work. It means focusing on the growth journey. It means taking risks, accepting failures and learning from them.
Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, describes in details the differences between growth and fixed mindset. She also discusses the consequences of adopting one mindset over the other. Make sure you adopt the right mindset if you want to achieve your goals.
When you put yourself outside of your comfort zone, you increase your risk of failure.
This approach can seem counter-intuitive at first. But failing is what will increase your learning speed. When you fail, you analyze what went wrong, then, you make adjustments.
By always building skills that are just outside your immediate reach, you pull yourself to the next level in your learning. You build new neural pathways instead of just re-enforcing your existing ones.
This is key: to build new pathways that will enable higher performance and skills, you have to reach for what you're not able to do right now.
One word of caution though: if you go too much outside of your comfort zone, you'll get too much anxiety out of it. This will be detrimental to your progress. This is why you need to be just outside your comfort zone, but not further.
Another way to change your neural pathways, that will help you in your growth journey, is meditation. fMRI scans have shown that practicing meditation can result in improved levels of activity in brain regions associated with such qualities as: attention, anxiety, depression, fear, anger and the ability of the body to heal.
Practical Steps
- Focus on growth. Adopt a growth mindset and learn by failing and drawing lessons
- Push yourself outside of your comfort zone for accelerated growth
- Practice meditation to be more focused, relaxed and confident
- If you apply the three steps above, the right neuroplasticity will take place
C. Revise & Celebrate
8. Stay On Track
How do you know you're on the right path to achieve your goals? And how do you know when you're going to reach you goal?
The answer to these questions is: By measuring your progress and making adjustments to stay on the right track.
If you're building a product, you need to verify that it's working properly before you sell it. If you're in sales, you measure how much revenue your sales have generated during the year to check you're on track to your target.
This is fundamental. Whenever you're working on something, you need metrics, so you know whether you're on track or not.
This is engineering 101. Here is what it means in practical terms for achieving your goals.
Practical Steps
- Review your progress every week
- Adjust your activities to stay on track & keep momentum
- De-clutter and re-focus where needed
- If you find yourself procrastinating and losing motivation, refer to the motivation section above and adjust your plan accordingly
- Build habits systematically
This is a straight forward approach from many years of project management, that gives proven results.
9. Party Time
When you've finally achieved a goal, it's time to celebrate. But why, and when, do you need to celebrate?
As discussed in the motivation section, to keep your brain motivated, you need dopamine. And dopamine comes from rewards.
A dopamine release gives you motivation to persevere in a habit. That means celebrations are useful when you're starting out with a new task. But over time, as you come to expect rewards from a specific activity, dopamine releases will stop.
What's the bottom line?
You need to celebrate your achievements while you're building new habits. This is key to fuel your motivation.
Later on, though, celebrating won't motivate you any further. That's why you need to focus on building habits quickly, while dopamine release is still active.
Celebrating a big goal later on is still a good idea. Not on the motivation front, but on the happiness front.
When you celebrate a big achievement, you feel pride over your accomplishment. And pride causes the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Serotonin is one of the neurochemicals that make us happy. In short, celebrating the achievement of your goals makes you happy. And being happy is what we are seeking in life.
So, take the time to be happy and proud over your achievements. Take your time to celebrate.
Practical Steps
- Reward yourself for reaching milestones. This will fuel your motivation while you are building habits
- Celebrate your big achievements. Take your time to be happy
What's the bottom line?
Some of you will have jumped straight to the end. I can't blame you for not wanting to know every background detail on achieving goals.
So, you want to know the grand master plan for achieving goals? A plan based on all the research in neuroscience and psychology?
Here it is.
Master Plan Practical Steps (MaPPS)
- Write your plan: choose a destination and plan your route
- Stay focused: avoid multitasking and distraction, train your focus through meditation, use the Pareto principle to your advantage and get in Flow
- Stay motivated: find your incentive for each of your goals, make it painful not to follow through, focus on reaching short-term milestones to re-fuel your motivation and enjoy the journey
- Keep procrastination under control: find your procrastination cues, replace a bad habit by a good one, focus on less tasks every day, slice up your work in small tasks, eat your frogs first, stretch yourself progressively and when you're overwhelmed, take a break
- Leverage the compound effect: take consistent action towards your goals, focus on improving every day and make every action count
- Build habits: stay consistent with your new activities until they become habitual behaviors, build cues and rewards so that habits stick
- Focus on your growth: adopt a growth mindset and learn by failing, push yourself outside of your comfort zone
- Revise: review your progress every week, de-clutter and re-focus, make adjustments to stay on track and keep your momentum, build habits systematically
- Celebrate: reward yourself for reaching milestones, celebrate your big achievements and take time to be happy
Here you have it. The 9 steps Master Plan to achieve your goals. Follow it if you want to build your success.
If you have any question, comment or stories you would like to share, please leave a note in the comment section below.
And if you liked the article and it was helpful to you, please share it with your friends.


text:
301 Queen Condos In Downtown Toronto
301 Queen Condos is a new per-construction Condo project located at 301 Queen Street East In Toronto.The Major Intersection are Queen Street East and Berkeley Street. 301 Queen East Condos is a 25-storey condominium, which is currently used as an event space and which will continue to be. The Project Designed by Quadrangle Architects, the project would feature a four-storey podium with 21 tower floors above, with playful strips of horizontal and vertical pastel colours accenting the exterior. The project would include 206 units, consisting of 110 one-bedroom units, 74 two-bedroom units and, 22 three-bedroom units.
301 Queen East Condos Highlight:
- Heart of the Downtown Toronto
- Close to Public Transit
- Step to the park and community Centre
- Close to Uniersity and school
- Step to Shops and entertainmen
- of the local area King-Parliament Secondary Plan.
301 Queen East Condos's podium levels would feature retail and commercial offerings, with 253 square metres of commercial space on the ground level fronting onto Queen Street East, and 813 square metres of commercial space on the second floor. The podium would also contain the building's residential lobby and lobby vestibule, situated in the middle of the Queen Street frontage.
301 Queen East Condos have a six-level below-grade parking garage and 231 bicycle parking spaces
301 Queen East Condos has a Walk Score of 97 out of 100. Transit Score if 100 out of 100. This location is in the Moss Park neighborhood in Toronto. Nearby parks include Moss Park, Sumach-Shuter Parkette and St. James Park.
Mark Li
Sales Representative
Century 21 Leading Edge Realty Inc., Brokerage
#1 Firm in Canada
Direct Line: 416-500-5355
165 Main Street North
Markham, ON L3P 1Y2
Bus: 905-471-2121
Fax: 905-471-0832

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Budget supermarket ASDA are launching brand new Wonky Vegetable boxes. Each box will contain enough vegetables for a family of four for one week. The best bit? It'll only cost you £3.50 – what a bargain!
What's the catch we hear you ask? Well, the vegetables (as you can probably guess from the name of this shiny new product) are wonky vegetables, which means they're all different shapes, sizes, a few knobbly bits here and there but nothing that a peeler can't fix!
Psst! Find out what our mummy blogger really thought of the Wonky Veg box in her latest Wonky Veg box review!
The box will include a whole variety of seasonal veggies with a great use by date too, including peppers, potatoes, onion, cabbage, leek, courgette and more. It's said that these veggies are the 'leftovers' which could mean by buying them we're reducing supermarket waste while helping supermarkets keep the price of food down – sounds good, ey? The box alone will result in at least 500 tonnes of waste fruit and vegetables being sold in the supermarket by the end of 2016.
There will be a limited stock to start with launching at only 128 ASDA stores as part of a trial period. If the trial is a success, they'll be wheeling these 'ugly' veg boxes across the UK.
Ian Harrison, Asda's technical produce director, says: 'We're excited to launch a unique and exclusive Wonky Vegetable box that is jam-packed with ugly winter veg that not only saves shoppers money but helps farmers get more of their crop onto our shelves.
'However, this range only solves one part of the food waste puzzle. The work we continue to do with our growers to ensure as much of their crop is sold as possible, by flexing specifications, is the golden ticket for farmers.'
Ian concluded: 'The initial reception to Wonky Fruit and Veg has been fantastic and we've been eager to take this one step further for a while'.
We can't wait to get our hands on one and find out what hidden gems are in the box.
Would you buy a wonky veg box or are you not a fan of the 'ugly' vegetables? Have you managed to get your hands on one already? What did you think? Comment below!
What are other supermarkets doing?
Other leading supermarkets are jumping on the wonky vegetable band wagon after the successful launch of ASDA's Wonky Veg boxes.
Tesco: Tesco's are the first to officially announce that they have decided to join ASDA in a bid for decreasing food waste and making the most of unwanted farmed vegetables. The supermarket will be selling 'imperfect' vegetables in their Everyday Value range including imperfect parsnips for as little as 30p for a 500g bag. You can also buy 2kg imperfect potatoes for just 90p – what a bargain!
Aldi: Aims to sell wonky veg through their Everyday Essentials range at a cheaper prize than classic vegetables. The range will include peppers, mushrooms, onion and apples.
Sainsbury's: Will sell wonky veg through three brands; Basics, by Sainsbury's and Taste The Difference, labeling products with 'wonky' so customers are aware of what they are buying.
Co-operative: With smaller convenience stores Co-op lack space for a large range of mis-shaped fruit and veg but will be testing out a few classics including apples and potatoes to see how customers react.
Morrisons: Will sell a permanent range of wonky vegetables at discount price. Instead of boxed veg, they will be offering customers a chance to pick and choose their fruit and veg as they like and/or need.
Lidl, M&S and Waitrose are yet to confirm how they'll be introducing wonky veg and leftover fruit and veg waste into their stores.


text:
Let's always remember that developers are us, not the platform that hosts our scripts.
That's what they want us to believe, WordPress adepts, with a kind of brainwashing that has no equal in recent modern times.
Indoctrination from WordCamp, up to the absurd behavioral conditions, for which, according to our personal behavior, if not welcome, get put to the gogna, and your plugins, or themes, deleted from the repository.
I think that all this should make everyone think: every developer should understand that there is a clear difference, at the expense of forced GLPv2 hacking, to which everyone is subjected.
Plugins, and themes, are those who created them, useful to those who use them, and not all, not even wordpress.org, or who for it.
We begin to realize this, starting by saying aloud: Plugin for WordPress, or Theme for WordPress, and not WordPress Plugin, or WordPress Theme.
Dignity has no price.


text:
Richard Bouckaert won the second annual 504K, managing the Sunday morning run through the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods in 15 minutes, 38 seconds.
Meanwhile, hundreds of locals — most less experienced than Bouckaert, a former long distance runner at Loyola — filled the course, part of an effort to attract newbies to sports and fitness.
About 1,000 runners, joggers and walkers of different sizes and speeds participated in the 3.1-mile race, including about 200 youth entrants, ushered by coaches assigned based on expected pace. It gave the race a feel-good ending as the rookie runners crossed the finish line, proud mentor nearby.
"It's great seeing people get active," said Bouckaert, 30. "I know these kids need an outlet, and it's great that these people take the time to help these groups, more than anything, get kids active."
Lander Denali, executive director of Youth Run NOLA, which hosted the race, said the event had 78 running coaches, each escorting one or two youngsters.
"We know that, personally, we run better when you're with a team and you have somebody encouraging you," Denali said. "A lot of families have started to walk the route with us but couldn't necessarily keep up with their kids, so we're trying to make sure that, if anybody comes out, we have someone that can match their pace and push them, get them through."
Approximately 250 school-aged students are involved with Youth Run NOLA throughout 19 area schools.
Hughes Benjamin (18:25) and Fiona Collins (24:24) won the boys and girls under-18 division.
Finishing behind Bouckaert in the men's division were Sean Allerton (16:14) and Nick Accardo (16:21), followed by Brandon Wingate (17:11), who pushed his daughter, Gianna, 2, in a stroller. Race announcer Chuck George joked that Gianna, not Megan Ghores (18:56), should have been declared the top female finisher.
"Brandon, I think your daughter is going to beat you again," George cracked.
Sunday was the Wingates' longest stroller race.
"She was yelling, 'Faster, faster, Daddy!' " said Wingate, 40, a product of Metairie's Lutheran High. "She was trying to get me to catch the other (two) guys. They were a little bit too fast for us today."
Alicia Woodside (19:57) was second in the women's division, followed by Emily Mase (20:02).
Other winners were top male (Byron Adams in 18:15) and female masters (Wendy Capo, 20:15) and male (Hawkins Lloyd, 22:23) and female grand masters (Kathleen Welch, 23:01).


text:
Contact a Weichert Sales Associate
† Excluded Feature
1637 Garfield, Port Huron Township, MI, 48060 is a Commercial Property for rent at $4,800 with 6,400 sqft and a lot size of 3.31 Acre(s). The property's zip code is 48060 which is in Port Huron Township, MI
Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
The information being provided is for consumers personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.
Data is updated as of 1/23/2018.


text:
Cheating and LyingI Have Cheated - Now What? :
Cheating is natural
Cheating is only natural and you should do it as much as possible. If you are single, you should immediately get in a relationship so you can cheat on your partner! Good times!
This tip was submitted by an anonymous visitor to our website.
Cheating and Lying > I Have Cheated - Now What?
Printer Friendly Version
Pretty Version - for Gift Giving
Forward Tip To a Friend
|Follow @RomanceClass
Cheating and Lying : List of Topics
List of Romance & Relationship Topics


text:
copyright 2013 Maria Liberati/ Art of Living,PrimaMedia,Inc.
A beautiful sunny August day. I woke up this morning with a Focaccia on my mind, specifically a Focaccia Pugliese ( A delicious memory from my trip to Lecce in Puglia) but instead ..got bombarded with so many ingredients and sidetracked so to speak….
The warning is don't ever go food shopping with Italian architects and chefs together..so many recipes and dishes coming at you…especially at a fresh market full of local seafood, produce, spices… At 8:30 AM I was driven and accompanied to the market to get a bag of flour and some olives and came back with ingredients for….patata (potatoes) al forno (roasted) with organic rosemary from the garden..cacio e pepe (Pasta with pecorino cheese and black pepper)..Cozze e Pecorino (Mussels and Pecorino cheese)..pizza..crostata… Local Pecorino cheese made right here in Abruzzo…peppers to sautee in some locally produced white wine..not sure when I am going to make all these things,.but the cozze (mussels) were local and fresh so I had to choose that as my Pranzo (lunch) dish… focaccia Pugliese will have to wait for another day..although I now have all the ingredients for it…and I have returned at 12:30 PM ( 4 hours food shopping at a local market only 10 minutes away)..and the obsession for food..that is good food continues..such a contradiction when the subject of food enters all work stops..and concentration is on the food….
The absolutely necessary ingredients for this dish are an excellent dry white Italian wine (Pecorino, Trebbiano D'Abruzzo) and fresh Mussels, extra virgin cold pressed olive oil and of course the Pecorino Cheese from Abruzzo..
But hurry make it before summer's gone and get some fresh local mussels if possible..
Cozze e Pecorino (Mussels and Pecorino)
2 lbs fresh mussels, washed and cleaned
15 cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
handful freshly chopped parsley
4 cloves fresh garlic
1 pound freshly made spaghetti or tagliolini pasta
1/4 cup pecorino cheese or to taste
Clean the mussels or have them cleaned at your market if possible (much easier). Place olive oil and garlic in a large pan and when garlic becomes golden, place in mussels.Add in 1/2 cup of dry white wine. Saute for 15 minutes. Remove and discard mussels that have not opened up. Wash and cut cherry tomatoes into quarters and place into mussels, add in freshly chopped parsley. Let saute for another 5 minutes. Cook pasta as directed and when finished, add into mussels and saute for 2 minutes, remove any extra liquid. Remove from heat.Grate pecorino cheese on the top and some black pepper. Gently stir. Serve hot..with a glass of dry white wine….
**See you at Seattle Washington's Festa Italiana on Sept 28,29th
For more great recipes get a copy of the Gourmand World Award Winning book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking: Holidays & Special Occasions-2nd edition


text:
So simple yet strangely addictive, this fun 'Who Am I?' game will provide hours of entertainment.
Perfect for parties or just rainy days; it's so easy to play.
Simply pick a card and without looking at it, stick the card to your forehead.
The other players will be able to see the mystery name on your card and by asking the right questions you will gather clues allowing you to guess the name.Read more
Additional information
It's great fun for all the family, so kids and adults can both enjoy playing together.
Kids will love working out the best questions to ask in order to reveal the name and the game provides plenty of laughs, making it a great stocking filler or party bag treat.
These Bite - Size games come in little tins.
Lots of different games and puzzles to choose from - so why not collect the whole series?
Size of tin: 6.5cm x 6.5cm x 2.5cm approx.
Weight: 90g approx.
Customers who bought this also looked at
Kids Scavenger Hunt£12.99


text:
first edition Hard Cover
1853 · New York
by Silliman, Prof. Benjamin
New York: George P. Putnam & Co, 1853. First Edition. Hard Cover. Octavo. In two volumes, fronitspieces, engraved titles and regular titles, 418pp., 468pp., illustrated; bound in dark blue-gray cloth, spines gilt; contemporary owner's bookplates; a beautiful pair, with just a trace of marginal foxing, mostly in the final leaves. Slight fading at spines. A very good to fine set. The author traveled to Europe first 1805, writing in a journal along the way, then traveled again upon the wishes of his children to. (Inventory #: 4494)


text:
About Burt Weissbourd
Burt began his career producing movies, working closely with screenwriters, then writing his own screenplays.
A newcomer to Hollywood, he approached writers whose movies he loved — movies such as "Klute," "Two for the Road," and "Ordinary People" — and worked with those writers and others, including working with Ross Macdonald, a legend in crime fiction, on his only screenplay.
This was the "New Hollywood" (1967 – 1980), and he found writers whose work grabbed viewers viscerally, not with explosions but with multi-dimensional characters who would draw you into a deeply moving story.
Savvy actors wanted to play finely drawn characters in compelling stories, and before long, Burt was developing screenplays, working directly with Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Sally Field, and Jill Clayburg, among others.
As a producer developing a screenplay, you look for stories with strong, complex characters and a "rich stew" — that is to say, a situation with conflict, emotional intensity, and the potential to evolve in unexpected ways. This is exactly what he tries to create for the books he writes.
"All of my books are set in real places. The first, Inside Passage, is set in Seattle and up the Inside Passage in British Columbia. The second, In Velvet, is set in and around Yellowstone Park. Teaser, the sequel to Inside Passage, is also set in and around Seattle. Setting always matters."
He has spent much of his adult life in three places that require unique skill sets and strong instincts to navigate gracefully: Hollywood, Wall Street (he has run an investment business for the past 20 years), and what he calls "wild country," places in nature that are off the beaten path. He spends 30 to 50 days per year fly fishing in Montana.
Burt grew up in Chicago and graduated from Yale University with honors in psychology. He volunteered at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and taught English to college students in Thailand. He has lived in Los Angeles, Bainbridge Island, WA, and Seattle.
Burt produced movies including "Ghost Story," starring Fred Astaire, and "Raggedy Man," starring Sissy Spacek. He is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
He currently lives in New York City with his wife, Dorothy, and has three adult children and a grandson.
"Your writing reminds me a bit of the great Raymond Chandler mysteries, in that there is a tight, clear, hard-hitting prose, coupled with great vulnerability in the characters. Plus, your attention to detail when it comes to settings is precise like Chandler, and helps set a tone." – John McCaffrey in KGB Bar Lit Magazine
Learn more about the author
Dab of Darkness
Also featured on:
Roxy's Reviews
Burt Weissbourd writes about:
See what readers say …


text:
I take this along with Magnesium Malate. Together, they work wonders. I used to have chronic fatigue. I feel so much better now. With the extra energy that I have, I am more productive, and I am able to exercise again. It helped lose some of the extra weight I have gained lately. I highly recommend it.
I used to have a chronic fatigue. The doctor recommended this, along with the liver detoxifier & Regenerator. Together, they work wonders and I feel like I am able to function like a normal human being again. I purchased a three-bottle supply, and I take 3/day right now. I will probably decrease the daily amount in time, but right now I need all the energy that I get from it. I highly recommend it.
Posted by iHerb Customer on Nov 20, 2008 | Verified Purchase
Initially, I lost weight. I don't know what it does to my body, but I did lose 10 pounds in two months, with very little exercise. If it was supposed to control my apetite, it did, because I eat much less and much healthier than before. Lately, I haven't lost any more weight, but I have not gained any either. I need to mention that I use it in combination with green tea. I believe that if I added some regular exercise to it, I would have lost much more.
The only reason I give it 4 stars is that I found the Liver Detoxifier & Regenerator which gives me a little bit of extra stuff. However, for as long as I used this product, I felt that it did do the job. Thank you!
1-4 of 4 total


text:
Rep. Baker Subcommittee to Question Treasury Official on GSE Policy
July 10, 2002
The House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Richard H. Baker (LA), will hold a hearing to review regulation of housing government sponsored enterprises ? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
The hearing, scheduled for 2 p.m., will feature testimony from Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Peter R. Fisher.
Under Secretary Fisher is expected to testify on a number of wide-ranging issues including restructuring GSE regulation and improving disclosure and market discipline.
Source: House Financial Services Committee
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or email@example.com.


text: Oil Change International Dirty Energy Money: Please check out the link: Dirty Energy Money is an interactive tool that tracks the flow of contributions to US Congress. Find out which companies are pumping their dirty money into politics and which politicians are receiving it. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) got $252,360 from coal and oil. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) got $450,872 from oil and coal. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ01) got $17,300.


text:
Discussion in 'FedEx Discussions' started by fedupped, Jun 8, 2013.
What about unused sick days pay out?
Either this weeks or next weeks pay, I forget which one.
That's the last I heard anyway.
Practice? We talkin about practice man. Not the game. We talkin about practice.
What is a best practice payout?
A distant memory!
Are you talking about the frontline payout? We did receive one earlier this year. It has been given twice a year for the past several years, based on the company results ending November 30, and May 31.
Ancient history.
it was an incentive program for excellant performance. Kind of like bonuses and stock options offered to management only on a much smaller scale. Theirs is still in effect, our is long gone.
which is just one more reason why the "best practice" for Expressers now is to perform not one ounce more than WAD
WAD every day, because it's good for you.
Email to verify rosters for FPP (Frontline Performance Payout) went out today. Not saying there will or won't be one.....just that the verification process is on going. It's always step one.
Nice to see you back. How is life in management these days?
The company doesn't know who works for it or at which location? Must be very reassuring to the TSA.
Separate names with a comma.


text:
Historically, Christians were very eager to Christianise the Pagans by converting Pagan customs and places of worship into something more, well, Christianised. So why not return the favour, at least with regards to songs?
Here are some examples, starting with How Great Thou Art:
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook, and feel he gentle breeze
See what I mean?


text:
(863) 956-9590
Four Dill's Maintenance & Contracting, Inc.
12 years in business12450 Kirby Smith Rd
Orlando, FL 32832-6115
Additional Phone Numbers
- (863) 528-6616
Find a Location
BBB File Opened: 02/05/2006
Business Started: 02/01/2005
Business Started Locally: 02/01/2005
Business Incorporated: 03/28/2005 in FL
Type of EntityCorporation
Contact Information
- Principal: Mr. Joseph E. Dill, President
- Customer Service: Ms. Sherry E. Dill, Secretary
Business Category
- Property Maintenance
- Painting Contractors
- Pool Maintenance
- Construction Services
- Handyman
- Home Repair
- Pressure Washing
- Tile and Marble
Products & ServicesThis company offers property maintenance and contracting services including Tiling, Carpeting, Painting, Pressure Washing, Pool and Spa Maintenance, general and preventative maintenance for residential and commercial customer.
Licensing, Bonding or RegistrationThis business is in an industry that may require professional licensing, bonding or registration. BBB encourages you to check with the appropriate agency to be certain any requirements are currently being met.
BBB Reason for Ratings
Licensing information is provided in the BBB Business Profiles to inform the public about industries that may require professional licensing, bonding, or registration. Better Business Bureau encourages you to check with the appropriate agency to be certain any requirements are currently being met.
Advertising Review
BBB promotes truth in advertising by contacting advertisers whose claims conflict with the BBB Code of Advertising. These claims come to our attention from our internal review of advertising, consumer complaints and competitor challenges. BBB asks advertisers to substantiate their claims, change ads to make offers more clear to consumers, and remove misleading or deceptive statements.
Government Actions
BBB reports on known significant government actions involving the business's marketplace conduct.
Out of Business
BBB reports on a company that is out of business for one year from the date the company closes its doors or ceases to do business.
Misuse of Better Business Bureau Name/Logo
BBB reports on unauthorized use of the Better Business Bureau's name and/or logo for as long as the business continues to use it in any advertising, or for one year after the business ceases any repeated unauthorized uses.
BBB reports on a business's bankruptcy as long as the business remains in bankruptcy.
Mail Returned
BBB reports when mail sent to the business was returned by the Postal Service.


text:
En este podcast hablamos sobre nuestra ciudad favorita. Te contamos curiosidades, cosas que hacer, lugares de interés, anécdotas y experiencias propias en una de las ciudades más atractivas del mundo. Como dijo Joaquin Sabina en su famosa canción: "Allá donde se cruzan los caminos, donde el mar no se puede concebir, donde regresa siempre el fugitivo, pongamos que hablo de Madrid"
Diálogos en inglés 9 – Nuestra Ciudad Preferida
by Isabel | Sep 11, 2012 | 5 comments
5 Comments
Paula on 05/08/2017 at 4:41 pm
Argentina! Algun dia vengan a comer asado aqui! Y a visitar lugares bellos
javier on 27/09/2015 at 10:41 pm
Philip, you must know the Linares tapas before you say "Madrid s tapas are the best in the world", lol. Linares (Jaen)
Mary on 28/09/2013 at 9:03 am
Aw thank you very much Isabel. It is very kind of you. I am so sorry for my late reply, I have been a little bit busy. I am trying to improve my english, I am thinking about preparing the Cambridge exam. I have made a level interview with an irish teacher and he told me I am in C1 level!!! I cannot believe it! it is much more I thought I could get… and of course It will be a pleasure to take you around my city! it would be great to meet you both! Well, I hope to see you in a next video soon. Take care and un abrazo gordo (en español) 😛
Isabel on 13/09/2013 at 6:59 am
Hello Mary!
Thank you so much! I have been to Cordoba! It's wonderful! I really liked the Mezquita, the Arabic baths and the food of course!
I will take Phillip at some point, maybe you can take us around! By the way, your English is good!
A big hug from Cambridge 🙂
Mary on 12/09/2013 at 9:02 am
Hi, I just have heard this marvellous podcast and well my suggestion for you is to visit my city if you still haven't visited it yet. Its name is Córdoba and it is in the South of Spain. Of course Isabel will know where it is hehe. Córdoba is a very beautiful city with a lot of monuments and a huge culture. The food is yummy and you can have a lot of fun too 😉


text:
Product or Service
Profile:Manufacturer - Producer|Ref:PSL50087YH | Country: China | Currency: usd | Export: No
We are one of the well known woodcarving factory in yunnan,China .mainly engaged in all kinds of handicraft articles , like wood elephants wood lions , tiger ,flower vase with chinese traditional craft .They are so lifelike .
Especially wood elephant , in China , which named " mascot " and "wealth bring in " .
If you are interested in any of it , pls feel free to contact me . I will give you a lowest price and most beatiful lucky one.
Contact the company


text:
A new update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is out now for PC and PlayStation 4. Xbox One will get it soon.
The new update, update 1.3, brings improvements and fixes to The Elder Scrolss V: Skyrim Special Edition. It was available for PC in beta form on Steam since December and now finally, PC and PlayStation 4 owners can have it at full. For Xbox One owners, Bethesda says "coming soon".
Here are the details about update 1.3:
- General stability and performance improvements
- Fixed an issue where Slow Time effects weren't behaving properly
- Better support for 144hz displays (PC)
- Fixed issue with being unable to log into Bethesda.net


text:
June Chit Chat Thread
It's June. Can you believe it?! Chat away. :)
My 5 year old has his first loose tooth. So cute. It's at the really wiggly point where he is scared to eat much and checks after each bite to make sure he hasn't swallowed it. He graduates from pre-k tomorrow. Crazy!
I am either sick or having terrible seasonal allergies this week. So sneezy and itchy and my head hurts.
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
I have bad allergies right now too! :( Taking flonase nose spray has helped a bit, but I'm still pretty miserable!
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Not missing the allergy season. It's 'winter' here but it's 70s most days. Love the weather. It cools down to 50s at night though.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a sneezy, sniffly nose too. I can't stand allergies. They are such a downer.
I'm going to the two girls' (that I watch) school in an hour because the younger one has a butterfly release today and she wanted me to come. :) it's only an hour. Then I have to jet back home, feed Emmy, hopefully she will take a little nap and then we need to go to the post office for a passport appointment. From there, back to the school to pick up the girls. Phew. It will be a busy day!
Then tomorrow I am picking the girls up early since it's their last day of school and it's a half day. So that will be a long day for Emmy and I too. Hopefully the weather will be nice and I can take the girls to the pool.
Yetty, can't believe it's 70 in the winter!! Lol
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
I've never had allergies in the past and even I have been suffering the last month! MB started summer camp yesterday at the same place Meghan goes to daycare on MWF, so its nice to finally have them together. My parents are watching them T/TH. Having a baby shower for my bff on Sunday, so busy getting ready for that!
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
My allergies are finally better... I was miserable!
Kids are in school (after being homeschooled).
Elijah is a fun, extremely cuddly baby (which is so cute). He isn't crawling, yet, but he's about there. He knows how to get around without crawling, so he's in no hurry.
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Pickle's top tooth came in!!! It's so cute. The kids last day of school was May 23rd. They are a little crabby because all the bad weather has left them stuck inside more often than not.
I can't believe my oldest is going to be a Freshman!!!! *cry*
Yay for teeth!! We are still completely toothless!
Emmy doesn't crawl either but gets around just fine! I can't turn my back for longer than a minute if she's on the floor! Lucky you that Elijah is cuddle. Emmy wants to go, go, go when she's awake! When she's sleepy, that's when she's all about cuddling. ;)
Ashley, a baby shower sounds fun!! And I bet the girls enjoy being in the same daycare. How sweet. :)
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Nina, are you still breastfeeding? Enjoy the toothless stage while you can! Elijah bit me, yesterday! He had done it one other time, but it's been awhile, so I was surprised. :P
Yes, I am! :)
I'm sorry you got bit. :( did he draw blood? How do you chose to discourage/discipline that, or do you just ignore?
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
I read that! I guess you're supposed to really pay close attention and detach them as soon as they are done actively nursing... Which sucks for us since I still let Emmy fall asleep nursing. :(
Hopefully he won't bite you again!!
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
I'm really scared to get bit..thankfully Jonah is all gums still!! Kids have two weeks left of school. Seems like everyone else is already on summer break though. My daughter will be a senior...where did the time go?? I know most of you know but for those who don't know...my hubby came home from deployment last Friday!! It's been great and Jonah is sooooooo attached to his daddy!!
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Luyando has had 2 teeth for a while now and, surprisingly, doesn't bite my nipple. I was surprised because she used to gum me before she had teeth. However, this morning she thought it was fun to just grab and pull at my nipple. So not funny.
Nina, do you get to watch the girls over the summer? Was wondering how that would work out for you.
Erin, so glad your dh is home and Jonah is a dad's boy. Enjoy the time together.
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Erin, so glad your dh is home. How nice! :)
Thanks for asking Yetty. :) yes I will be watching them in the summer. They are going to the YMCA for camps so I will pick them up in the afternoons, about the same time that we have been (3:00 instead of 2:30), so not much will change. :)
I'm so thrilled; our road will be shut down all summer!! :) we live on a pretty busy country road and on the bottom of our hill, there's a bridge, which they will be widening. It's exciting because people use our road as a cut-through and most don't heed the 45 mph speed limit so they fly down the road. It will be nice going to check the mail (we have to cross the road) and not having to worry about getting run over. Lol. There's only 2 houses past ours before the bridge, so there should hardly be any traffic!
Re: June Chit Chat Thread
Nina, have you babysat older kids before? Are you happy with your job? What do they think of Emmy?
I actually have baby sat older kids before although not quite as old as the 10 year old, and not on a regular basis.
I do like it (and them!) a lot, although there are challenges as well. But I think every age group comes with it's own challenges! ;) these two are at a tough age; they want to be independent yet still need a lot of help!
At the same time, they are a lot of fun to be around and they can be very thoughtful ad helpful, especially when it comes to Emmy! They love each other!! The girls like to put on music and dance for Emmy, which she in turn loves. She typically will start squealing and kicking her legs (usually she's in the ergo while I'm with the girls). It's really cute. :)
|All times are GMT -7. The time now is 08:00 AM.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2018, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0
Copyright © 2003-2012 JustMommies.com, All Rights Reserved.


text:
On life… There's a simple child's song that always rings through my head like a broken record, but I think it sums up what life's all about: "It's about love, love, love. It's about love, love, love." I like to say that I'm "Just tryin' to put LOVE into the universe!" I'm trying to live in a way that reaches beyond myself, and offer this gift to whoever I can so it will spread, and in doing so, I believe I will get some back in return. I also believe that I only get one life to make a difference and to enjoy, so I strive to live out one of my favorite quotes; "BE where you are", though it's definitely a challenge sometimes.
On parenting… My parenting philosophy is basically to love and protect (wait, isn't that the police force? No, theirs is serve and protect, but I do a heck-of-a-lot of that, too!…I guess sometimes I do feel like a law enforcement agent around here: "SLOW down before someone gets hurt!"…"You are in time out because you hit Mommy. That is unacceptable behavior."…"You lost that privilege because you did not follow the rules." But I digress…)
Beyond loving and protecting, feeding and watering so that (God willing) they reach adulthood in one piece, I believe parenthood can be a higher calling. I believe all children are born with their own inner light, and I sensed it the moment newborn Michael James was placed in my arms. Here was this being, this little person with innate characteristics, with natural gifts yet to be discovered. In the lullaby I wrote for him, I sing "More beautiful than moonlight shining on that April night, You were born into our arms, into our lives bringing your light." And what an amazing honor to watch this light, this presence and personality emerge, shaped by my own responses and interactions. My greater purpose as a parent is to help my children to discover their inner lights, to give them enough love and security in our little world to let those little lights shine for the bigger world as they grow! I want them to give more than they take, to love not hate, to create not destroy, and this will be my legacy of love, my mark on the world…my children.


text:
I'm one of those crazies that love change. It's true. I thrive on it. I get bored easily, so I'm always open to something different. My husband can come home on any given day and I've moved the entire living room around. Just cuz.
Hey, at least I keep things interesting, yes?!
Sometimes, though, my desire for change + my never ending boredom turns into busyness and overwhelm. Below are some examples – maybe you can relate.
I often will google tips on parenting, or I'll ask my mom friends what they do about certain things; attitude, chores, school work, etc. Or maybe one of my friends will casually mention how they do something – not even really giving advice, these things just come up in conversation – and I feel like I have to automatically implement their way of doing that. Even if what I'm already doing is working fine for our family.
When I was working my Arbonne business the first go around I must've changed the way I was doing my presentations at least 5 times – between the verbiage or the products or the closing method. I would change it even after it was working for me.
Looking back on this now, since I'm prayerfully in the process of relaunching my business*, I see that the first method of doing events worked the best. It was simple and I didn't know any other way at that point. It's the method I kept going back to every time the other ways weren't working.
6 1/2 years ago I thought I needed a new car. I had this Grand Am that was only 2 years away from being paid off. It was a good car – drove well in snow, safe, handled corners like a boss and had sweet performance rims. I really liked that car. The only thing really wrong with it is that the calipers went fast in the front (I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with how I drove it 😉 ) I had to put about $600/year into this car in addition to the monthly payments and insurance.
Super annoying. So I got a new (to me) car. My car payment went from $189/month to $298/month, because I had to roll over the remaining amount from GA loan, but gosh darn it, I had a new car!
That extra $1oo+ a month was very financially overwhelming. It stretched my money and took away a lot of financial freedoms at that point in my life.
I have a nasty habit of not giving things enough time to see if they're actually working. I'll try a new marketing technique for a month and if it's not working after 30 days my initial reaction is to drop it and move onto the next thing. That overwhelming feeling starts creeping in. If I'm not careful, it just takes over.
My wonderful hubby has convinced me to give these things 6 months and if they don't work, then try something else. But the goal is to get some real data and I cannot collect valid data in only a month.
I really started to notice my desire for change when I started bullet journaling. I happened upon Kara at BohoBerry.com and I loved everything she was doing, so I implemented those techniques into my own bujo. Except, I soon discovered that some of the things that worked well for her, didn't work for me and I ended up going back to my original methods.
What a weight off!
Here's what I've learned:
Change isn't always good or necessary. Don't force it. Go with the flow and if you need to shift something around – small or large – go ahead and shift, then give yourself some time to adjust. If it's not working, try something new again, give that time, and so on…
However, there are two things about change that'll always be true:
1. It's constant.
2. It's inevitable.
Don't let it scare you or overwhelm you.
Lastly, sweet friend, you'll never ever go wrong when you pray about change. Ask for God's guidance and ask Him to give you patience + wisdom. He will guide you and get you through – even if that means staying right where you are.


text:
The Future of Candy Bars and Cacao and the USDA at Chapman Field
This genetic and cultural transformation of our beloved source of chocolate is not for the entertainment of a demanding public, rather a struggle for survival against the ravages of the natural world.
Small and insignificant to the eye, a trio of diseases threatens the health and production of the cacao plant worldwide, sending ripples through corporate giants, grocery store shelves and our own kitchens and dining rooms.
This is the story of the cacao's struggle (and triumph?) to survive, with the help of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), commonly known as Chapman Field, right here in South Florida.
Native to the Amazon Basin, cacao (Theobroma cacao) for thousands of years has enjoyed a successful marriage with mankind. The seeds have been used as currency and dried and ground for use in ceremony. Cacao has permeated the everyday life, art and culture of the people of the Americas, and has benefited in terms of improvement in production, adaptation and usefulness.
Vegetable Gold
In modern times, European and American corporations directed the creation of the current business of cacao and chocolate. This vegetable gold of the Amazon came to the aristocracy as exotic and exclusive products far beyond the reach of the common man. It has been only in recent decades that chocolate has become a staple of our lives. Could that now be in danger?
As the cacao plant was conquering Europe and North America, export industries were created, first in the Americas and later in Africa and Asia. With the creation of these industries came monocultures and inbreeding, followed by the appearance of devastating diseases. Today these diseases threaten the once-vibrant export and domestic industries with ruin, causing cacao growers, exporters, importers and consumers to lose sleep. There must be a coordinated and holistic approach to cacao, its genetics and production. This is where Chapman Field comes in.
The Subtropical Horticultural Research Unit of the USDA, Chapman Field has been instrumental in the effort to rescue the cacao. For decades, the station on Old Cutler Road has maintained collections of this cold-sensitive tropical plant. The idea has always been to grow the cacao outside of the regions where debilitating diseases occur, so that disease-free material could be introduced to new cacao regions without fear of spreading disease further. In the last couple of decades, as genetic techniques have evolved and improved in their scope, work began at the USDA to use genetics to direct the breeding of cacao to develop new, disease-tolerant or even disease-resistant cacao varieties. This work was spearheaded by the USDA's Dr. Ray Schnell, who, with a large supporting cast of USDA, domestic and foreign collaborators, embarked on their long and arduous path for the improvement of cacao.
Science at Work
Behind the chain-link fence, USDA scientists and horticulturists labored in the field, greenhouse and laboratory to identify parts of the cacao genome that held the potential for disease resistance. They crossed and selected, shared material across the world and screened for resistance. Their work was financially and scientifically assisted by Mars – the corporation behind M&Ms, Snickers and Milky Way – that provided yearly funding for the work. For Mars, this work would be vital to the long-term health and viability of the world cacao industry. Dr. Schnell would later go to work for Mars in close association with the USDA, leaving behind a legacy of pioneering work.
New varieties and disease management techniques are beginning to find their way as USDA and Mars scientists toil away in search of a bright cacao future. Perhaps within a few years we may have our own cacao industry here in Florida. At the least, we hope for disease-resistant varieties that can rebuild and transform our current export and local industries and safeguard the world chocolate supplies.
The next time you drive by Chapman Field or enjoy a fine bar of chocolate, ponder the centuries of work that have gone into its making. Agriculture is always a struggle and it never ends. The climate will change, diseases ravage, breeding lines narrow and humans crave something new. Behind that fence along Old Cutler is a battleground on which the survival of one of mankind's most iconic crops depends.


text:
What's Covered
Directing the model, Breaking the ice, Rules on set, What to bring to every shoot, Articulating what you need from the model, Communicating poses & more
Photographers, I will share with you all the tools and tricks I have learned over my 35+ years as a Fashion Photographer, working with literally thousands of models. You will learn the the inner workings of the modeling industry, how to avoid pitfalls, and master the skill of working with models. Let's face it, working with models can be expensive. Armed with this knowledge, you get the most out of your investment, get better photos, and sound like an expert when communicating posing techniques. This master class will take your Fashion Photography to the next level.
To many young people, the modeling industry promises a fast-paced lifestyle with travel to exotic countries and mingling with the "cool crowd." Yet behind the glitz and glamour, modeling is a serious business. There is a darker side to the industry aspiring models should be aware of before jumping in. I've brought on international model Ali Stepka to help me break down all the key points to the modeling universe. Ali, who is currently signed with Wilhemina Models in Los Angeles, has over a decade of experience modeling in all the major markets around the world. Whether you are interested in becoming a model or learning how to work with them as a photographer (e.g. how to get the right pose, getting models to emote) this master class has it all!
This online class is available for immediate download. The class comes with a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee.


text:
Things to Do in CotacachiRead about the top 2 things to do in Cotacachi, Ecuador. Get ideas for Cotacachi sightseeing and tourist attractions in Cotacachi.
Botas Sandoval
#1 of 2 things to do in Cotacachi
Shawn recommended me to check this place if I was looking for boots and so did I…
Buying Leather in Ecuador
#2 of 2 things to do in Cotacachi
Before going to Cotacachi, I didn't know about this. Then Shawn told me, that Co…


text:
CodePlexProject Hosting for Open Source Software
Firstly thanks for the continued work etc. I've been using autopoco since last year, one thing though that would be useful and thats better error messages.
for example today I have an error "Property set method not found", basically all i can do is try and look at the classes i'm working with and observe which one might not have a setter
it would be so much easier if it was "Property: Name on Class: User does not have a set method"
Are you sure you want to delete this post? You will not be able to recover it later.
Are you sure you want to delete this thread? You will not be able to recover it later.


text:
When you feel finished your proposal outline it is a good idea to do an interim proposal review to see if the outline is ready to go. Do this BEFORE you start writing any business proposals.
Is Your Outline Detailed Enough?
When you have your proposal outline to the stage shown in the module on expanding your outline , you need to consider whether you are ready to write the main body of your proposal, or whether any of the lowest-level points in your outline need to be broken down further.
For the simple case study we're working with here there is no requirement to go to a lower level of detail, as the points noted in the outline can be readily described with just four or five simple sentences.
When doing this initial proposal review and considering whether or not you should develop your outline further, consider whether each point in the outline represents a single idea which can be described in a few sentences. If so, then you have enough detail. If not – if any of your points require explanation of multiple ideas – then consider breaking those points down into finer sub-points.
Continue this exercise until your outline is at a stage where each point is a single, easily described idea.
Does Your Outline Flow Smoothly?
When you have developed your outline to this level of detail, then consider the order in which each of your points is being presented.
When you think down through the outline, can you perceive a logical development of the message that you wish to convey?
Will the order in which you are presenting the points and sub-points draw the reader through your section, towards your desired conclusion?
If the flow of ideas is not smooth and logical then consider the following:
- Is it because you need some further ideas or points built into your outline? If so, then build in these new points and sub-points.
- Is it because the order in which you are presenting the points and sub-points is not optimal? If you suspect this, then try changing the order in which they are presented. Make sure that you feel comfortable that the points and sub-points are presented in an order that will promote easy understanding of the section's message.
- Could it be because you have too much detail – are you seeking to make too many points? If you sus-pect this, then remodel your outline, leaving out any points that you think are superfluous or confusing.
When you are confident that your outline represents a flow of ideas that will be easily accessible to the reader, then you are ready to proceed to Stage 2 of writing your proposal.
Stage 2. Write Your Proposal
Remember Figure 1 below? You first saw this three-stage process in the first module on proposal outlining.
Well, now that you've finished your intiial proposal review, you are ready to start writing the core content of your proposal – so go right away to the module that takes you step-by-step through the process of building the flesh of your proposal around the bones of your outline.
Return to the home page of the FREE Business Proposal Course


text:
APPSC Recruitment 2016 – 1055 Panchayat Secretary Posts: APPSC (Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission) has advertised a recruitment notification to recruit 1055 Panchayat Secretary on direct base. Candidates have to submit their Online Application Form with relevant documents via the Official Website on or before the 30th of January, 2017. The Department is Offering a good amount of salary. So, I am inviting all the candidates to apply for the posts. Other information, I am going to describe below…
APPSC Recruitment 2016
Organisation Name: Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission
Official Website: "www.psc.ap.gov.in"
Educational Qualification: Graduation Standard
Age Limit: Within 18 to 42 Years
Post Name: Panchayat Secretary (Grade – IV)
Overall Vacancies: 1055
Salary: Rs. 16400/- to 49870/- Per Month
Last Date: 30th of January, 2017.
APPSC Recruitment 2016
Educational Qualification: Candidates have to complete their Graduation Standard to apply for the posts. To know more about qualification in detailed, read the notification.
Age Limit: Applicants age must be within 18 to 40 Years as on the 1st July, 2016 to apply for the posts. Reserved Candidates will get age relaxation as per Indian Government Rules. To know more about age limit in detailed, follow the notification.
Selection Procedure: Candidates will be selected on the basis of Written Examination Test, Screening Test, Mock Test and Personal Interview Test.
Salary: Selected Candidates will be able to receive Rs. 16400/- to 49870/- Per Month. To know more about salary in detailed, read the notification.
Applying Procedure: Candidates have to submit their Application Form with all the necessary documents through the Official Website "www.psc.ap.gov.in" on or before the 30th of January, 2017.
Significant Date to be remembered:
Last Date of Submission: 30th of January, 2017.
Significant Links:
Tap Here to Download the Official Notification
Click Here to Apply Online
Note: I want to inform all the eligible candidates to read the official organization notification very carefully before the final submission of application form and if they want to know more about APPSC Recruitment 2016 – 1055 Panchayat Secretary Posts like educational qualification, age limit, examination fees, pay scale, selection procedure, organization official website, examination process, follow my article and definitely organization official notification.


text:
Embedded Vessels Pad (Veins, Femoral Arteries or Carotid Arteries)
The LifeLike Embedded Vessels Pad feels, sutures, and behaves like real live tissue. With the VI Box, trainees can now train on ultrasound, dissection, and vessel exposure. Also train any vascular surgical skill, such as end-to-end or end-to-side anastomosis with a saphenous vein, femoral endarterectomy, carotid endarterectomy and repair, as well as femoral cannulation while using the pump to check for the quality of the repair.
Ready to Use Anywhere: Hospital, Home or Training Facility. Ideal for the Repetitive Training, Maintenance and Evaluation of Basic Open Surgical Skills.
Product Includes:
The LifeLike Embedded Vessels Pad features one 6" x 5" pad with 7 embedded Veins (6mm ID and 7mm OD) or Femoral Arteries (5mm ID and 7mm OD), or 2 Carotid Arteries with Plaque (10mm ID and 13mm OD Common Carotid, 6mm ID and 8mm OD Internal Carotid and 4mm ID and 6mm OD External Carotid).
Latest Testimonial
"The new VI Box will change the quality of education significantly. It makes exercises on animal tissues a thing of the past. The patient safety will be increased to the maximum, because the skills will be trained and sharpened on the model before applied on patients."
Jürg Schmidli, MD FEBVS
Senior Physician for vascular surgery and Deputy Clinic Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Bern University Hospital, Switzerland
Use The LifeLike Embedded Vessels for:
Open Vascular Anastomosis Training
- Clamp the Femoral Artery, add an incision to the Femoral Artery and suture the Large Vein to the Femoral Artery secured to the pump
- Clamp the Femoral Artery, add an incision and suture the Femoral Artery to another Artery – end-to-end anastomosis.
- Dissect the Femoral Artery from the LifeLike Embedded Femoral Arteries Pad, clamp the Femoral Artery and conduct an end-to-end anastomosis
- Release the clamp and check the quality of the anastomosis with the pulsatile pump
- Repair the surrounding tissue and skin layer for a complete training experience.
Open Carotid Endarterectomy
- Dissect the Carotid Artery, clamp, remove the plaque, and repair and suture the patch to the Carotid Artery
- Clamp the Carotid Artery, add an incision and remove plaque and repair.
- Release the clamp and check the quality of the repair with the pulsatile pump
- Repair the surrounding tissue and skin layer for a complete training experience.
Femoral Cannulation
- Secure the Embedded Femoral Arteries Pad or the Femoral Arteries, clamp and insert cannula, and suture and secure cannula
- Repair the surrounding tissue and skin layer for a complete training experience.
Product Specifications:
|Vessel ID
|6 mm
|Vessel OD
|7 mm
|Dermis Thickness
|2.2 mm
|Femoral Arteries
|Vessel ID
|5 mm
|Vessel OD
|7 mm
|Dermis Thickness
|2.2 mm
|Common Carotid
|10 mm ID, 13 mm OD
|Internal Carotid
|6 mm ID, 8 mm OD
|External Carotid
|4 mm ID, 6 mm OD
|Dermis Thickness
|2.2 mm


text:
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will be back in Michigan on Monday.
The October 10th trip to Detroit will be her first stop in the state in two months.
News of the visit comes the same day a new poll shows her with a double digit lead in the battle for Michigan's 16 electoral votes.
She last appeared at a plant in Warren, Michigan on August 11th.
Clinton's stop is one day before the voter registration deadline. A press release from the campaign says she's coming to Michigan to encourage people to make sure they're registered for the November 8th election.
There are no other details about the stop except to say it will be in Detroit.
The city has typically been a Democratic stronghold over the years.
Donald Trump has been to the state five times since officially winning the Republican nomination. His most recent visit was a trip to Grand Rapids, Novi, and Detroit on September 30th.
Stay tuned to 6 News for additional details. We'll pass them along as soon as we get them.


text:
Do you know how to teach the child to appreciate colors?01 November
The human eye can differentiate between hundreds thousands of colors. According to some physiologists, painters can observe up to 10 million color variances. A newborn baby can distinguish light and dark shades of subjects. The first color that is available for the perception of the baby is yellow, then that are red and orange, and then after - blue and green. And already to 6monthsthe baby can recognize more complex colors, such as purple and pink. Knowing the peculiarities of colors perception will help parents in choosing the first rattles.
From the physiological point of view, the process of perception and color differentiation for the child in the next 6 months is not a problem. Problems may be with the child's ability to separate this subject factor exactly from the other factors and tocall colorcorrectly. At first, the baby sees everything as a whole: the ball of red color is the "red ball", and the brick of red color is the "red brick".At the beginning it's hard for the child to define how two objects aresimilar and differ. To teach the child to perform this easily, you should pay attention to form thecolor standards, as well as improving the color perception of the child.
Wherever the child and whatever he does, you should pronounce constantly the color of various objects, point out their differences and similarities. You may begin such lessons at the first months of child's life. However, the most effective age to teach the child to distinguish colors is the age when the child is 2-3 years.
Parents can use educational games to sort objects by color, which will also help on the development of logical thinking, to improve the analysisability and classification of objects on the defined set of attributes. The example of such game can be the "Postman"game, when the child is given a stack of letters in different colors and offered to carry them in the houses of the corresponding lettercolor. Thehousescanbepillowsorchairs.
Also good game can be the"Find incorrect"game.You can build tracks in different colorsof colored blocks. In each of the tracks, you can add one or two wrong colors and offer the child to correct this mistake. Thenyou can use the animals' figures of different colors and move the animals according to the color of the track. You can make this more active for the child. Using the"Twister" gameyou can offer the child run on the tracks of the circles of a certain color.
Suchactivitiesas sculpture from plasticine and paintingcan very useful for developing of the distinction between colors. It's better to start teaching colors with yellow, red and blue. First you can offer your child to paint the coloring bookwith specific colors. You should pronounce the names of colors with the smallest children during thisexercise.
Difficult task is food for brain. Parents can mix up the color of the object, and then offer your childto correct it if he finds the mistake. For example, you can paint the carrot in blue, andmake the sun in green. The childsurely will want to correct the mistake.
You can use a small focusto introduce the child to more complex colors. You need to mix pure colors into the transparent jars including white and black paints. You can add a bit of colored water, for example, mix the red paint with the yellow paint, and the water will change color to orangeto the child's surprise. You can give your child the opportunity to experiment with the colors by himself; don't forget to give the names to colors.
Already at 4-5 years the child can talk about the division of colors into warm and cold colors. The best thing is to use bright, contrasting colors. So this way you can paint the desert using yellow and green shades, and on another sheet of paint show "cold" country in blue colors.
The child will always be surrounded by a variety of colors where he needs to be oriented. For some persons it becomes a profession. Simple games with colors will help to develop the ability to appreciate colors. The Little Beetle Company offers "Mix 2 Color", the excellent application for iPad, where the child learns not onlyto distinguish colors, but also mix them to get different variances.


text:
sashafatcat via FlickrSituation 1: Jeff and Maria are co-workers at a company that lets employees set their own hours. Jeff usually saunters into the office about 10 a.m., while Maria is there promptly at 9 a.m. She often has to take care of Jeff's customers due to his lateness. He rationalizes that all is OK because he stays until 6 p.m. to "make up his time." However, his clients usually stop calling at 5 p.m. Maria is angry with Jeff and becomes irritable and frustrated with him. She takes it out on him in daily interactions and sometimes even in staff meetings. Clearly, their conflict is an issue.
Situation 2: Allen and Leo are both managers. In almost every staff meeting, they bicker. They try to cut each other off, they criticize each other's comments, and they waste time that could be devoted to essential business matters.
In both of these situations, conflict results in a waste of time, energy and productivity. Are business situations like these rare? Or is this kind of conflict exclusive to large companies?
Hardly. Conflict is all around us, and it occurs in every office to varying degrees and with almost every employee.
So what is conflict?
If you ask the average person, the responses could range from a negative situation to an extreme dislike for another person. At the same time, others could define it as anger, distrust, antagonism or simply something they dislike. These are all negative views, and I find them too narrow.
I suggest that conflict does not need to be characterized as just negative. In fact, it can be neutral or even positive. Conflict can simply be defined as tension.
Tension can be good, bad or neutral. Just because two people disagree doesn't mean their disagreement is negative or poisonous; it can simply be a difference of opinion. However, left unaddressed and allowed to fester or grow, that neutral tension can become negative and possibly harmful. Then everyone, including the organization, suffers.
Whatever definition is used, we can agree that most people don't like conflict. Indeed, they go out of their way to avoid it. In many cases, people view conflict in terms of arguments, anger, hurt feelings or being yelled at. And no one likes those situations. As a result, when conflict arises, most people will steer clear of it or pretend it doesn't exist. Nonetheless, it is real, and it may become problematic.
So how should you deal with conflict in your workplace?