Category — How-to-do Articles

This is a guest post by Dia Thabet from 2 Achieve Your Goals. To guest post on this blog, check guest post page.

Do you have a negative habit that you want to overcome?

Each one of us has a bad habit that we wish to overcome whether it is smoking, drinking alcohol, not exercising, sleeping too much, or any other negative habit. You should always try to improve yourself and overcome negative habits as they can harm your growth as a human being.

To learn how to overcome a bad habit, follow the quick guide below:

1. Raise your awareness

First, you have to recognize and be aware of what negative habit you want to overcome. After all, how can you get rid of a negative habit if you are not aware that you do it constantly?

Recognize what kind of negative habit you have. One of the best ways to recognize and become self aware is by understanding and knowing yourself. When you know yourself more, you will be able to recognize your negative habits.

2. Replace the negative habit

You can not overcome a negative habit, unless your replace it with something else. For example, if you decide to quite smoking without replacing the behavior with something else, then most likely you will go back to smoking in a matter of days, weeks, or months. Instead, every time you feel like you want to smoke, go outside and take a long walk.

3. Start today

To overcome a negative habit, you need to start today. Many people wait for the right mood, tomorrow, next week, or next month to start eliminating the negative habit. The chances are if you stay waiting for the right time, then that day might not come. You have today to live, so take advantage of it.

4. Focus on the benefits

One of the best ways to make sure a good and positive habit stays ingrained in your personality is to focus on the benefits that you will gain in the long run. For example, if your want to start exercising, then it would be beneficial if you focus on how strong, flexible, and healthy you will be.

Focusing on the end result has been proven to help make a positive habit stay with the individual who wants to overcome bad habits and replace them with new positive ones.

5. Visualize

Studies show that the more the individual visualizes himself performing a positive habit, the more likely he will be able to keep it. Athletes, singers, actors, and all of the successful people perform visualization in one way or another. It is a powerful technique that you can use to your advantage, so never underestimate the power of visualization in regards to overcoming a bad habit and gaining a new one.

Are you one of those employees who are not happy with your career growth?

When I say career growth, I mean appreciation, job satisfaction and of course a well deserved promotion.

Before you shift to clueless mode and conclude that nothing can be done and it’s all because of office politics or your bad luck, I request you to listen to me because I want to help you. I would like you to try below 10 simple actions which might (I am sure they will) make a difference to your career growth.

Here I go.

1. Be Result-Oriented – Efforts are noticed, but results are rewarded. If you think that only putting lots of efforts will get you promoted, you are wrong. Efforts will surely move forward in the race but what matters is the right result. Always start with small and then achieve success in parts. Join the working parts and create the working model.
2. Adopt to Single-Tasking – This point greatly influences your time management aspect as well. Finish what you started instead of parallel working.
3. Be Proactive – Don’t wait others to come and tell you what to do. Instead, ask them ad get yourself involved.
4. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes – Try to learn from them. But make sure that you don’t repeat the mistakes. Repeating the mistakes make you appear dumb.
5. Commit to what you promise – Else don’t promise.
6. Increase your influence in the team -  Communicate effectively.
7. Stay away from negative people. Learn more about how to handle negative people.
8. Go to the extra mile – Don’t hesitate to attempt the new work. This is where you grow. But make sure that you take calculated risk.
9. Develop a sense of humor- Skip this point if you already have one
10. Practice above actions for at least 2 months for seeing a change in your career. Of course, by then you would not like to discontinue them since you would have gathered additional praise, rewards and a well deserved promotion

Sounds good? I want to hear from you. Drop me a line about your results.

This is a guest article by M.Farouk Radwan. If you want to guest post on this blog, please check the guest post page for details.

There are lots of great advice about success out there and no one can claim that only one factor is required for success to happen.However, the factors that lead to success vary in importance to the extent that some of them can prevent you from succeeding at all if you didn’t take them into consideration.
One of these very important factors is the ability to get over limiting beliefs, which is the topic I am going to talk about in this post.

How limiting beliefs can prevent you from success?
Contrary to common beliefs the mind doesn’t collect information to form new beliefs as much as it collects certain information to support already existing ones. When a person forms a limiting belief he will automatically become biased towards that belief.
He will always collect information that further support that belief and he will filter information that goes against his belief.
For example if someone believed that he is not interesting then most probably he will remember all the negative comments people said about his personality while if someone complemented him one day he will quickly assume that the person who did it was just being nice.
This is how we filter information and selectively choose what matches our belief system.
Now if you believe that you can’t succeed, that you are a loser or not lucky then the same is going to happen and your beliefs will keep growing as time passes.

How to get rid of limiting beliefs?
Now that you know that you can’t succeed without getting rid of limiting beliefs it’s time to learn how to do it.

1. First you need to identity these limiting beliefs: Sometimes it becomes a challenge to identity the limiting belief since it’s always disguised as a real one. Talk to successful people, read their books or their success stories then compare your current beliefs to their beliefs. The different between the two belief systems will usually be the limiting beliefs.
2. Challenge these limiting beliefs: You can’t challenge a belief by lying in bed and hoping that things change to the better but you have to do something. If you think that you can’t succeed then do your best to challenge this belief by trying to succeed.
3. Be persistent: of course a belief that was carried in your belief system for years might not easily be removed. For example if you believe that you are a failure then you might not be able to succeed overnight or from the first attempt and thus you have to be persistent and to keep trying until you prove that belief wrong.

Without any doubt, a job interview is most important meeting/discussion in one’s professional life and succeeding in an interview depends on lot of factors, not necessarily only upon the skill set of the person attending the interview. The aim of this article is to unearth the untold secrets for succeeding in any interview and provide a comprehensive guide on how to answer interview questions. Just hang on.

I gathered and organized these tips from my experiences as an interview candidate and as an interviewer

I am sure after reading these interview tips, you will find yourself in a better position as far as succeeding in the job interview.

No, I am not discussing about reaching in time or dress code, instead I share practical and in-depth how to answer interview questions tips which are relevant to you most as an interview candidate.

To begin with, most candidates often prepare only in technical aspects (or the subject that they are working currently), but neglect the other very important areas which actually determines their success at an interview. Surprised? What are those areas then? Let me tell you right away. Follow these 10 tips and let me know about your outcome in the next interview.

Note that, what most interviewers check in the interview is whether the candidate has a positive attitude, willingness to take initiatives and honest in his actions. It’s surprising that most people focus on their technical skills and neglect the very important ‘Life Skills’.Here are the 10 points.

Prepare well about your subject as well about surrounding area. Brush up your knowledge about previous experience as well

You are called for the interview for a particular skill, however, interviewer might (and he will) ask questions regarding other areas as well which indirectly related to your main skill including the details or projects about your previous or earlier companies. It is expected that you understand the big picture not just your role. End to end knowledge is what differentiate you from the rest of the crowd.
So put your heart and brain and learn about the big picture. Brush up your knowledge about previous experiences as well.

Don’t be an answering machine, instead answer naturally

Be a natural communicator filled with expressions, passion for subject and support your answers with related gestures. Don’t give answers like an answering machine which pops out answer for every interview question. It may sound too mechanical.Be yourself. Let the interview know who you are. Don’t pretend to be someone else and convince the interviewer. Be yourself and speak as if you are speaking to a friend who has few questions about your work and professional life. Setting this in mind, calms you down and makes you feel relaxed and you would be surely in better position to face the questions and give the right answers.

Speak Less Say More

You need not speak more while answering but speak less and say more. Answer to the point and give more opportunity to the interviewer to speak. Upon his further inquiry, you can always elaborate or extend your to-the-point answer.

Never Answer in a Hurry

An interview is scheduled exclusively for you,so why give answers in hurry? Let the interviewer ask his questions completely. Take your time to understand what the interviewer wants from you. The more you listen to his questions; you will understand what to answer. Right answers fetch more marks than long answers.

Speak about your achievements, not assignments

Always emphasize on your achievements, not on assignments. Tell the interviewer about the significant goals you achieved, difference you made to the team, awards you won and the appreciations you received.

Keep eye contact

It’s very important to keep eye contact with the interviewer. It shows your confidence and involvement in the whole process.

Explain in simple way – Don’t complicate things

Remember my friend; it is easy to be simple. Explain in simple way regarding the work that you are doing. Always start with larger picture by giving overall idea of the work you are involved with and then go on explaining as per interviewer’s inquiries. Don’t say everything at one shot in which case interviewer will be left with lots of confusions rather than questions.

Dress code doesn’t matter, but your body language does

Let’s break some old rules. Time has evolved, so is dress code. Now-a-days dress code switched to casual mode I don’t suggest you to wear Tie or blazers unless it is stated in the interview letter   However there is no harm at all if you wear a formal dress.

But, your body language matters. A positive and confident body language converts the interview into a successful meeting.

Convert interview into a discussion

Try to keep the interview process similar to a discussion where two people discuss rather than one person interrogates the other.

Don’t jump to any conclusion about interview result during the interview, just participate

Jumping to interview result conclusion during the interview can be fatal. It will pull you off from the focus and you may not be able to answer remaining questions properly. Hence, just concentrate on now and do you part.

I hope you liked the article and the interview tips, please share this with your friends and colleagues using the below social sharing options.

I also want your feedback on this article. Just leave a comment with your feedback. You may even add few valuable points from your side.

You may also want to checkout few related articles

10 Tips for Achieving Great Success in Your Job

25 Tips to Make You a Super-Performer at Your Job

Creating HTML signature in GMail is now possible and that too with such ease.
Thanks to WiseStamp.
WiseStamp allows you to create custom signature for Gmail with icons of your favorite social networking sites and you can embed any image you wish to display in your signature.

[Read more →]

As you read this, there are hundreds of websites are getting created by people all over the world. I decided to write this article so that new people get a head start in their attempt to create their own website. I am keeping this article fairly simple. Of course, creating your own website is simple too . You need not learn the HTML to create your website. You will start understanding it eventually in the process of creating the website.

[Read more →]