Tag Archives: Positive
10 Easy Ways to Make a Positive Environmental Impact
How Can I Make Simple Changes That Positively Impact the Environment?
Easy Ways to Go Green
It’s the New Year. Again. Many of us decide to make changes in our lives around this time – that’s no surprise. Often, the resolutions we create for ourselves are dramatic, powerful, even overwhelming. Losing lots of weight, going vegetarian, quitting smoking – we all have our Ace in the hole. Too many years pass, however, when we lose sight of these lofty goals and before the end of the first quarter, we’re already off our game and back to smoking, back to sleeping in, off the daily scheme of going to the gym.
This isn’t a post about how to stay on track with your goals. This isn’t about making smaller steps in between milestones or pinning up a huge calendar to your wall and filling it up with black X’s every time you complete another day on the plus side.
Achieving the Goal of Going Green
I like to think about the goals I want to achieve in as realistic a manner possible. That means – what will actualizing and accomplishing my goals look like on a Tuesday at 1:30 in the afternoon, or a typical Saturday morning at 9:43. That’s more real to me, and consequently more manageable. My goal for this year? To go more green, in as many ways possible. Like many, I am willing to work for it, but I wonder if there aren’t others who would make positive changes if they were easy to accomplish, and didn’t involve too much work.
Big differences are often made with tiny, incremental shifts – one can’t tell just how much of a positive impact is being made by looking at a few of those small steps, but taken in an aggregate form, the impact can be tremendous.
That said, here is a list of ten tiny, realistic steps that I am going to take this year to go more green. If we all do what we can to even uphold a few of these things, the positive impact on our environment would be huge.
Ten Easy Ways to Positively Impact the Environment
1.) Support Farmer’s Markets
Buying local has a dramatic impact on both your health and the environment. While you achieve the goal of supporting local, organic, independent farmers, you also have the opportunity to eat seasonally and raise the bar for yourself in terms of healthy eating habits. By the way – have you ever tasted a plum, or a tomato, or even locally grown, organic salad greens? You’ll never shop at the super market again if you have taste buds.
You’ll be filling your body with produce that is at its freshest, and increasing your consumption of organic produce is incredibly beneficial. The National Resources Defense Council notes that much of the U.S. produce will travel an average of around 1,500 miles before it makes its way into your super market. The negative impact on the planet is huge – think of the pollution alone that is created in that transport.
2.) Toilet Paper
Seriously. Find it online or at your super market, local Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. If your super market doesn’t have it – take a second and speak to customer service about ordering it, and do it every time you shop there. They’ll stock it eventually. We’re talking about toilet paper made with recycled paper. The impact on the environment in terms of the total number of trees saved each year is huge. Your bumm won’t know the difference.
3.) Cold Water Wash
Don’t personalize your laundry – sure, you like to take a warm bath, but do your old sweat socks, boxer shorts and yoga pants know the difference? A really simple thing to change in your daily or weekly routine, and the environmental impact is great. Procter & Gamble notes that if we all started to use cold water in the washing machines, we could save enough energy to light two and a half million homes for a year.
4.) Bad Bottled Water Habits
How’s this for facts: According to National Geographic magazine, Americans buy approximately 7 billion gallons of bottled water a year. This amounts to roughly 22 billion plastic bottles that eventually get thrown away, and often not in the recycling bin. Consider the (yearly) 1.5 million barrels of oil that it takes to produce those plastic bottles – this amount is enough to fuel nearly 100,000 cars for an entire year. Ways to improve? Buy a water filter and drink tap water that has been properly filtered. Order large bottle service from an organization like Arrowhead or Sparkletts, and drink from a glass at home or at work. At the very least, recycle the plastic bottles that you do use – always.
5.) Re-use Gift Wrapping Paper
Unwrap gifts with a little concern, or teach your little ones a new environmental lesson before they make a mess with the ripping into birthday or holiday packaging. The amount of paper that could be saved is astronomical, if each of us were to recycle wrapping paper from just a few gifts each year.
Get a bag or a box, and start saving bows, ribbons and neatly folded, carefully removed gift wrapping paper. No one will know the difference. Trust me. And if they do, you have the perfect opportunity to bring up a conversation about conservation, without sounding overbearing. They’ll feel great to have helped out without having done anything.
6.) Grocery Bags
When they ask you if you want paper or plastic, just say neither. Spend a dollar at the store and buy a re-usable cotton or hemp bag, and keep them in the trunk of your car for shopping. For a look at the environmental impact of both paper bags and plastic bags [http://www.greeneggsandplanet.com/blog], read these former blog posts. Get creative with your kids and find blank canvas bags online – this will give your kids a chance to be creative, and paint or decorate the grocery bags to personalize them.
7.) Houseplants Can Be Your Friends
It has been noted that many green house plants can assist in the process of removing indoor air pollutants if you cultivate and care for them indoors. Plants like English ivy and others such as golden pothos practically grow themselves. Don’t worry – they’re harder to kill than keep alive. And they’ll be helping keep you alive as they fight environmental toxins in the home.
8.) Eliminate Junk Mail
Hate the junk mail that comes in your mail box just about every day? For most of us, that pile of materials goes directly into the trash. For others, it goes directly into the recycling bin. Neither party ever reads any of it, and yet it still shows up every day. Take a second and visit the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service to register not to receive junk mail any longer. The process may take a few months, but eventually, you won’t get so much trash in the mail.
9.) Buy Bulk
Tea drinker? Couple of trips to the local coffee house every morning? Eat cereal or oatmeal? Next time you buy tea, for instance, think about choosing loose leaf over packaged tea. Reducing the amount of packaging materials that you use can make a big difference to the environment.
Think about packaged tea – there’s the card stock paper box wrapped in plastic, the paper inside, the plastic that is often wrapped around the tea bag, the tea bag, the string, the tiny staple and the tea tag. All of those materials get disposed of, typically not recycled, and much of it can be eliminated by buying bulk loose leaf tea and using your own tea infuser.
10.) Green Your Driving
No – I’m not going to make a blanket statement that we should all run out and buy a brand new Prius – it’s not going to be possible for everyone and it isn’t the only way to green up your vehicle. Further, there’s no reason to make people feel bad about failing so miserably right out of the gate when it comes to efficient vehicles.
If you can afford it, buy a hybrid. But there are plenty of other ways to do something about fuel consumption and vehicle pollution. Carpool if and when you can – you have to get over identifying with your vehicle and your alone time first, but it’s worth the small sacrifice. Bike to work if you can; you’ll be getting exercise and helping the planet at the same time.
Or just plain drive smarter when you get behind the wheel – get timely tuneups and keep your tires inflated to the proper pressure to ensure maximum gas-saving efficiency. If you take long trips on the highway (out of the way of traffic), then switch to cruise control to improve your mileage. Curb your urge to drive like your car is a weapon – take off from stops less aggressively, brake more gently and slow down when you can. The speed limit isn’t so bad. And get out of the drive-thru: either quit the fast food or park the car and walk it.
Final Thoughts on Easy Steps to Going Green
Taking meaningful yet small steps towards going greener this year can lead to real, measurable and positive change for the planet. A few easy questions here and there, changing a habit or two, educating yourself and making smarter choices – a little bit at a time is really all that it takes. Think about the many millions of people living in America, making one collective change all at once – that alone could pay huge dividends for our future.
Matty Byloos writes and manages the Green Blog known as: Easy Ways to Go Green, as well as the Organic Food Blog: Organic Eating Daily
Healthcare in the Obama Information Age – A Positive Way Forward
The way most doctors and health care professionals do their jobs has hardly changed over the past thirty to forty years. Contrast this with the enormous changes in, transport, manufacturing and telecommunications.
The combination of technological change, the demands of business and the rise of consumerism are causing radical changes in the way healthcare is practiced around the world. President Obama, with his promotion of information technology, broadband networks and electronic health records, is poised to accelerate these changes in health practices. They will be the 21st century’s equivalent of the public health initiatives of sanitation and nutrition which revolutionized healthcare in the twentieth century. Integration of online technologies will see doctors and patients working together using shared electronic health records with patients having much more say in their treatments. The development of widely available broadband networks and video mail will eventually bring electronically delivered healthcare into everyone’s home.
Three processes are underlying these dramatic changes across the health industry:
1. Evolution: The evolutionary processes are the new tools, the hardware and software of the computer industries; and changed business processes in healthcare. We need to substantially redesign many of the traditional processes used to practice medicine so that we can take advantage of the new available multimedia technologies. Technology, and in particular, Internet technology, is transforming the medical landscape. As a practicing physician, I no longer write any notes on paper – all my clinical work is electronically recorded. House staff attend rounds armed with a vast array of reference information stored in hand-held personal digital assistants. The iPod is their reception platform for lectures presented as podcasts and vodcasts.
2. Revolution: The revolutionary changes are easier access to information and knowledge on the Internet, leading to fundamental transformations in the area of healthcare delivery. Patients are increasingly expert in their own diseases and have more collaborative relationships with their doctors. The provision of clinical care is changing rapidly as information technologies become increasingly used and accepted, with a move away from episodic care to concentrating on continuity of care, especially for patients with chronic disease who will create the greatest disease burden in the future. Care is gradually moving away from a focus on the service provider to that of the informed individualized patient and from an individual provider approach to treatment to a team approach. Increasingly, less focus is placed on treating the illness and more is placed on wellness promotion and illness prevention. This is the model of “Information Age Healthcare.”
3. Devolution; The devolutionary changes will see organizations becoming more localized and less hierarchical. The world of healthcare will be flatter than it is now. Over the next fifty or so years large hospitals as we know them will reduce in number, leaving fewer centers of expertise staffed by super-specialist doctors and other health professionals. Healthcare will become a more distributed enterprise. We will be able to increasingly concentrate our scarce health resources on wellness promotion, instead of just the treatment of illness. There will be more resources available, for instance, to undertake the mass immunization campaigns that we need around the world.
Our health system has to meet the challenges contained in the crucially important report from the Committee on Quality Healthcare in America published by the Institute of Medicine. This influential report noted that “information technology must play a central role in the redesign of the healthcare system.” It is wonderful to see President Obama driving the current widely acknowledged broken US Health system in this direction and I believe that it is essential that he is strongly supported in this endeavor.
This article is based on excerpts from the recently published book “Your Health in the Information Age – how you and your doctor can use the Internet to work together” by Peter Yellowlees MD. Available at http://www.InformationAgeHealth.com and most online bookstores.
Getting Ahead Through Positive Relationships With Colleagues
The American way says that if you are going to get ahead in this world you’ve got to climb over the beaten and broken bodies of your peers. The essence of this idea is that organizational peers are in fact competitors for the next promotional opportunity that comes along. With help from thinkers like John Maxwell, we are gradually coming to consider the idea that getting ahead in an organization is more about being committed to the success of your peers than beating them down and removing them from the pool of competitors. It is about helping our peers to be successful. Sounds strange doesn’t it. Seems like it takes the logic that we have been given all along about the role of competition in our success and turns it upside down.
Organizational leaders have come to realize that leadership is about getting things done, about making a difference, about achieving results. Today’s companies are complex entities and no single person can be responsible for the entire operation. It takes a team of people to get the job done. The team must work well together, must help each other, must be challenged and enjoy the idea of mutually striving for success. This is where notions like collaboration and cooperation take on more significance than competition and power. Organizational peers need to operate from a perspective of mutual respect and caring. They need to acknowledge each other’s successes and help each other recover from mistakes and failures.
So, let’s assume that you have been totally supportive to your colleagues and peers; you have helped them be successful. How does this lead to you being the next in line for the big promotion? Here are several characteristics you will have which will be noticed by your superiors.
1. You’re a team player. As someone who relates well to others and can accomplish a task.
2. You’re someone who puts the success of the group ahead of personal gain.
3. You’re able to avoid the negative behaviors which damage relationships with colleagues.
4. You’re able to navigate the tricky waters of friendship and professionalism with peers.
5. You know how important it is to learn from others, and at the same time you’re willing to contribute your knowledge.
That’s a pretty good resume if you ask me!
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The Importance of Positive Thinking and Overcoming Fears
Whenever you are worried or anxious it’s very easy for your mind to focus on the future outcome and make predictions that are all coming from core fears in yourself. This is a normal reaction that everyone experiences on a day to day basis, and many people worry about things that are yet to happen or even happen to them.
This could include simple thoughts such as a fear of flying as the plane might crash or catching a cold from someone else. Most people predict that whatever they decide to do will result in the worst case scenario possible, in fact you may have come to a decision already that the outcome is set. These worries all stem from a negative attitude that is directly related to your fears and assumptions.
When you have already predicted the outcome for yourself, you have already paralysed yourself from taking action. It then becomes even harder to carry out whatever it is you need to do as your subconscious mind has already told your conscious self what the outcome is, you then find yourself more stressed than before! What you need to do is is replace these negative thoughts and worries with positive thoughts, and we do this by recalculating these risks from a positive side. Once you have done this and analysed your predictions and how you had come to them, then you can start the rehabilitation process of ridding your fears and keeping a positive attitude.
Reflection on your life is useful, as there is bound to be more than 1 occasion when you have overcome something despite having fears or worries. By reflecting on our own personal accounts in the past you will realise that your assumptions of something having a negative outcomes is purely irrational unless it is has been stated as an undeniable fact. Embrace your fear and follow through with whatever decisions you decide to make, the outcome is not always predetermined as some may think, having a positive attitude and focusing on the possible positive outcomes makes much more sense that worrying about the negative.
Benecio has been writing articles for nearly 2 years. Come visit his latest website over at http://www.shockcollarsfordogs.org/ where he provides information on the latest shock collars for dogs as well as various other training tools for your pet.
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Why Positive Affirmations Need a Nurturing Environment to Be Successful
For your practice of saying positive affirmations to have the best chance of being successful you need to practice them in a nurturing environment.
Take the example of germinating seeds. While some seeds are directly planted outdoors, in other cases seeds are germinated in special environments such as a greenhouse where the ambient conditions can be controlled. This gives the germinating seeds the best possible start in life.
In many cases, when you start the practice of saying positive affirmations your mind is in a negative state. It’s like a garden that’s completely overrun with weeds. In such a garden the weeds seem to grow effortlessly and often look much sturdier and healthier than the plants you’re attempting to grow.
Similarly, under such conditions, your mind is more receptive to the negativity that surrounds you. It is in harmony with negativity. Negativity is its base-line state. This is what your mind will readily revert to before your neural re-conditioning. And so you need to create for yourself the equivalent of a greenhouse for your positive affirmations.
Consider another example. This time imagine a patient who has been given a liver transplant yet still continues to drink alcohol. You know that the chances of their body rejecting the new liver are going to be very high. Likewise, for your mind to accept your new positive affirmations you need to immerse yourself in a positive, nurturing, supportive environment to give your new affirmations the best possible chance of taking hold.
You know how individuals working an environment where there are high levels of potentially life-threatening radioactive radiation have to wear a dosimeter to show when they have reached their radiation threshold. Well, it’s a pity there isn’t such a dosimeter for negativity so that you know when you’ve reached your critical level of negativity. You see you have to take into account that it’s not only what people say it’s people’s thoughts as well. Thoughts have energy. So just being around a negative person can place you in a very vulnerable state.
Having said this some people are very attuned to their environment and can readily sense whether it has a positive or negative energy signature even if there isn’t anyone there. And, even if you’re a bit of a sceptic I bet you’ve had the experience, at some point, where you’ve been somewhere and the atmosphere felt distinctly uncomfortable although you could quite say why.
The first 30-90 days of practicing your new affirmations are critical. You may need to audit your friends, for example and ensure that you are not spending time around people who are negative and not supportive of you.
In fact, you want to do the polar opposite. Find yourself a new group of friends and or associates who are positive, who think on a higher plane than you and who have accomplished the things that you want to achieve.
And if you don’t personally know such people then you can certainly gain access to such individuals even if it’s just reading their biographies, their books, listening to their audios and watching their videos. And that means that you don’t necessarily have to rely on the ‘support’ of individuals who are still alive. There are many individuals who are now dead but whose spirit you can still tap into. And “spirit” here is not used in a religious context but simply refers to the essence of someone. By studying the world’s great achievers and people who inspire and motivate you can begin to understand how they thought about things and expand your own thinking.
If you completely immerse yourself in a positive environment you’ll make it an uncomfortable environment for your negative thoughts and your practice of saying daily positive affirmations will have the best chance of success.
For a FREE Gift that will help make the practice of saying daily positive affirmations easier and more fun as well as help you boost the power and effectiveness of your affirmations, enhance your ability to attract wealth, improve your relationships and improve your health and well being visit Positive Affirmations Booster.
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The Psychology of Trading – Positive Personality Traits – Part 2
Dear Reader
Trading and investing in the stock market not only means you need to have a thorough understanding of Fundamental Analysis, Technical Analysis, Trading Strategy, Portfolio Management and Risk Management. You also need to be able to understand yourself, or more importantly understand how you react to certain situations.
Here we have a list of personality traits that are akin to people we all know, and in fact we all have a little of all of them in us. Here we detail the positive personality traits.
Captain Contrarian
“A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” Warren Buffet.
When the news is as bad as it could possible get, when brokers are losing their shirts, their jobs and their Porsches, when apparently sane people are moving to the country to live off the land because of economic meltdown, THAT IS THE TIME TO BUY, and BUY BIG. That is where the biggest profits are.
Sir Right Royal Run for the Hills
All successful traders incorporate the gentry into their trading style.
Be ready to change your opinion, quickly When the trade goes bad, get out! Pride = Pain in the stock market.
Corporal Commitment
Not a role usually associated with young males, however when you commit to a trade commit.
The most successful investors, when they have made a decision commit with everything they have. George Soros broke the Bank of England through his commitment to his belief. If he had gone into the commitment half heartedly, he would have lost everything.
Even if you commit everything be prepared to back out quickly, the size of your commitment, should not hinder your ability to change course in rough seas.
Sir Houdini
Always have an escape plan, know the criteria by which you will get out. Be it a bad earnings report, a loss of 5%, or a potential global financial crisis.
The Saint
My mother is a living example of this as she has the Patience of a Saint. Unfortunately I did not inherit this trait naturally, and have had to learn this the hard way. Profits, like a fine Italian Bardolino wine, take time to develop, but when they have developed taste so much better.
Private Timeout
You do not always need to be in stocks, give yourself a rest stay in cash until the coast is clear.
The Runner
Do not cut your profits short. Never say “when I make 15% I will sell”. I made this mistake with Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (SWHC). I bought this stock end of March 2009, for $ 3.25, when it broke through a 4 month resistance line. I sold on 10th March 2009, for $ 4.25 (30% gain in 10 days. A healthly gain.´ the stock went on to a heady proce of $ 6.61 over 100% gain. Ouch. Most important is of course make a profit. But if you can learn to control your emotions, and let it run, it big wins are there.
Brigadier Big Win
It is OK to loose, chances are you will lose 50% of the time, ensure you lose small and win bigger. We will learn more about stop loss strategies in future articles. I hope this section helps you to learn more about positive mental attributes required to help improve both the numbers of winning trades and the size of the wins.
Summary.
I hope this section helps you to learn more about positive mental attributes required to help improve both the numbers of winning trades and the size of the wins.
This Article was published by the Liberated Stock Trader – Barry D. Moore.
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12 Positive Thinking Exercises You Can Do Everyday
If you want to stay positive in your life, here are positive thinking exercises you can do everyday to get started. When you eventually make these a habit, you will feel it make changes in the way you see things and will help you live a happier life.
1. Take a walk early in the morning or go to the office early so you can spend some time for a walk. Enjoy nature while walking and appreciate little pleasures you see on your way – shades of the trees and the morning breeze – take time to feel them.
2. Be thankful. Appreciate the good things in your life and do not forget to say thank you to every little favor given to you. Being grateful radiates a positive energy to the people who receive it and leaves a feeling of lightness in you. One of the simplest positive thinking exercises you can do – say thank you.
3. Make a list of the things you like doing or you want to do and savor the feeling of being excited. Make a list of what you want to do that day, or make a list of your dreams. If you are dreaming to take that hot balloon ride or you want to take a grand vacation at a tropical beach, or simply indulging on your favorite ice cream after lunch – it will give you a great feeling of excitement and help you think about the many positive things in life.
4. Use positive words. Stop saying ‘I can’t,’ or ‘problems,’ or ‘troubles’ – be creative with how you say things. Positive thinking exercises can start from the words you say everyday.
5. Use positive affirmations. Tell yourself you deserve to be happy. If you want love flowing in your life, tell yourself that you rejoice in the love you see and feel everyday. If you want to build your self-confidence, tell yourself that you are special, unique and creative. You can make use of subliminal affirmations through videos and you can also attend workshops about positive affirmations so you can make it into a habit.
6. Listen to an inspiring song or read an inspiring quote everyday. You can start up with positive thinking by putting an inspiring quote in your desk everyday or having an inspiring playlist d that you can listen and feel everyday while you are driving.
7. Do something good for your fellow. It will make you feel better. Giving is truly one of the positive thinking exercises that can help you attract more positive things in life.
8. Have a good laugh. Find funny cartoons or watch a funny video clip. Aside from being the best medicine, laughter can help you start a good day.
9. Get along with people who have positive outlook in life. Have positive influences around you. They will not only influence your quest to be positive in life but it will also help lighten your day.
10. Think about your dream and visualize it. Our dreams give joy and excitement to us and even just thinking about them gives us a positive energy. Picture it. Feel the reality of your dreams and you will feel motivated to work towards it.
11. Meditate. Have a quiet time everyday to let your thoughts drift into relaxation. Aside from relieving you from the stress of the day, it will also help you develop awareness of your self and your thoughts.
12. Choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice. If you choose to be one, you will be. Indeed there are trials in this world that you need to overcome, but if you let these things rule your life, you will be dealing with them everyday, as life is a constant battle of problem solving.
Start with these simple positive thinking exercises every day and you will truly feel and find out that being happy is indeed a choice you can make.
Carolyn Anderson uses subliminal videos to help her stay positive in everything she does everyday. For subliminal videos that will help you in developing positive thinking, she recommends this Subliminal Video Series. Also check out Design Your Destiny, where you can find useful inputs from a self-made millionaire on how to succeed in life.
A Proven Method to Get From Stuck to Positive Change to Transformation
Although many people want a greater level of success either for themselves or for their organization, change can be difficult. I can speak from experience on this. Some people don’t know how to change. Others are caught in the trap of needing to be right. There is a powerful human need to be right. If we need to change, that means we are wrong about something. And that can be hard to get by.
Key Point! Hard and difficult doesn’t mean impossible.
Here are some easy to implement ideas which will not only help you change but can lead to transforming yourself and/or your organization.
1) Change your actions. Start solving problems by doing things better. This can happen by learning new skills and capabilities. What do you or your people need to learn which would help you overcome your current challenges?
Do you want to move from change to transformation? It’s when you take the next step towards transformation that you can create long lasting, significant, life and business altering change. Read on…
2) Examine your habits and thoughts. Examine your thinking and beliefs because these lead to habits of the way you think. And your thoughts lead to your behavior. Step outside of your current perspective, as hard as that might be, and ask yourself “What assumptions, thoughts, or behavior patterns have resulted in the same problems coming up time and again?”
When you become aware of attitudes that were previously below your level of awareness, and possibly self defeating, you can then take the step to “re-frame” your views or to look at them with greater understanding. Doing this can lead to: 1) developing more productive habits that will drive your behaviors and results and 2) being more self aware of how you interact with the world around you.
It is by continuously questioning your thoughts and habits and the behaviors they lead to, that can create a shift in your point of view about yourself. That’s transformation. And in that specific area of life, you will never be the same again.
Start your journey towards transformation today! Be more self aware, and be open to new possibilities. You will start to be more of the person that you have the potential to be once you discover what is holding you back.
If you find that it is challenging to take an objective look at yourself, from experience I can say that finding a mentor or coach can be invaluable in helping with this process.
I help executives, business owners, professionals, and salespeople become more successful. Do you want improved results? I help people think differently so that they can behave differently. Since it’s our actions that lead to our results, better thinking is the key to the success you want. There are 3 things that I work with: attitude development, skills and knowledge, and goal setting for achievement.
The Waiting is the Hardest Part – Staying Positive in Between Interviews
It may appear to you, if you have been searching for a job for quite some time, that the wait between first interviews and a possible call back takes forever. In an economy where jobs aren’t as plentiful as in the past, one may experience frustration when several resumes are sent out with little to no response. On the other hand, you could also have interviews scheduled throughout the week, only to see each end with, “We’ll call you.”
It could take weeks for that call to come, if at all. What do you do in the meantime?
Where there exists a market with few available positions, ultimately you’ll find more candidates than openings. As a job hunter, you have the unenviable task of presenting yourself as the top choice, and you work hard to impress human resources managers and hiring staff. You dress well, come prepared to the interview with resume in hand and answer all the questions. You show a genuine interest and passion for the position, but now you must wait to see if they are interested in you. It’s enough to discourage one from searching for work altogether.
Above all else, maintain a positive attitude as you wait. If you project a lengthy dry spell between interviews it may do good to relax and take the time to draw away from the anxiety. Think of a hobby or activity you enjoy – yoga, reading, cycling, etc. – and use some of your free time to absorb yourself in that. Who knows, you may decide to take a yoga class and meet a contact who leads you to another job interview. Referrals for work come from all sorts of places.
Considering volunteer work in the interim as well, even if only for a short time. Libraries, churches, and local social networks are usually in need of short-term help to assist with events and small tasks. Giving even a few hours a week can raise your spirits and boost your resume – larger companies with community involvement will be impressed to see you’ve done volunteer work.
Use this time, too, to sharpen your skills. If you are looking for Internet-related work, research new trends in your desired field. Experiment with new programs or sign up for one-day or weekend seminars to keep your mind sharp. If you are called back for a second interview, it will help to bring new information to the table so the employer knows you are ready to improve as an employee.
By staying busy and positive during lulls between interviews, you can strengthen your confidence, and connections and skills. Never let dead ends on job leads discourage you from finding the position you want.
Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Virginia Beach Jobs and Virginia web design.
How to Turn Negative Problems Into Positive Opportunities
Have you ever had a problem or negative situation arise that if there was some way of turning it into an opportunity that you would do it in a heartbeat? We all have at one point. Maybe it was a financial setback. Maybe it was a heart break from a relationship. It could be that you fear for what happens when you die. It could be an emotional or a very stressful situation. Maybe you are up against the wall with a physical infirmity or sickness or disease of some kind. It could even be that you just have never fulfilled your potential in life.
Whatever it is I am telling you that you can turn it around for the positive and I will show you how. I will be using the example of Jesus and the very first miracle that is recorded which he did. The miracle is turning water into wine and it can be found in the bible in John 2:1-11.
When a good situation goes bad what do you do?
Here we have a couple who is getting married. Mary, the mother of Jesus is there and Jesus and his disciples were invited. So, we find that they wanted wine. Okay, so far so good. But then the mother of Jesus comes to him and says that they have no wine. Here we have a good and festive occasion that has just gone bad.
Jesus’ mother comes to him and says they are out of wine. Jesus says, “Woman, my hour is not yet come.” Did you ever have a situation or many situations that arose that were not life threatening, but fell into a category that if possible you could do without them? Yea, they won’t do anything except hurt your feelings or embarrass the daylights out of you, but you will live through them. They are the kind of situations that if you are already having a bad day it could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back so to speak.
So Jesus’ mother ignores him and tells the servants to do whatever he tells them to do. First you need to realize that even in those trivial and meaningless situations that are annoying, but livable, God still loves you and wants all things to work together for your good. You have to understand that. So you go to God for help and instead of complaining about your life or murmuring about the circumstances you are in just do what Jesus says to do. And what does he say to do? Let’s find out.
Here in our story we find six stone water pots that are used for purifying. Jesus told the servants to fill the water pots and these fellows filled them to the brim. Jesus told them to use what was right in front of them. Did you ever look so hard for an answer to your situation that you missed what was staring you right in the face? We all have. You need to slow down and allow yourself not to be in a rush. You need to get yourself in a neutral frame of mind and just get quiet and think things through in a more simple way. When you spend time in the Word of God on a regular basis I can assure you that when pesky circumstances arise and you quiet yourself down and pause for a moment that the Word of God will return to you and you will have an answer rise up from within you and you will know what to do.
So then Jesus says to draw some water out and give it to the head person at the feast. And the servants obeyed. When you obey Jesus by obeying the Word of God you will not fail. Usually obeying the Word of God will be contrary to what you think should be done. But you must ask yourself if you want to do things your way or do you want things done right and successfully? That would entail consistently doing things God’s way. If you want a life then lose yours in Christ. Let Christ reign in your life and I promise you that you will be delivered from every affliction that life throws at you.
Now the ruler tastes the water that had been made wine and he now calls over the groom to come and see him. Did you notice that the water did not become wine until the head person at this wedding was ready to drink it? Did you ever wonder why God doesn’t do a miracle based on your time frame? The ruler of the feast compliments the groom by saying that the good wine is usually served first and when people have drunk freely then the worst wine is served. Sounds like they water down the drinks as people get more and more drunk.
But in this case what happened? The water that was made into wine was the best that had been served. So let’s summarize what happened.
A situation arose making a positive occasion into a negative one.
Immediately a person went to Jesus for help instead of looking to the world or to personal knowledge or to any number of things that might have solved the situation.
When Jesus speaks you should listen and obey. This the same as reading your bible and obeying what is in there as well as getting quiet and allowing God to speak to you through that inward witness you have on the inside of you.
What Jesus tells you to do might be contrary to what you want to do or even abnormal in regard to even the laws of nature. This means that a higher law that you are not aware of might be available to use and work if you act on it. For example in Galatians 5:22 and 23 we read, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Did you see that? There is no law against such things. That means if the fruit of the Spirit is developed in you as a born again Christian then when needed there is something that even lifts you above the laws of nature. Hence we have the gift of the Spirit of the working of miracles available to us when we need it.
And here is something that I want you to notice. You can do things in a natural sense or the way the world teaches and get by or you can do things God’s way and really do much better. If you do things the world’s way you won’t please God and you take your chances with the end being that you are the loser. Turn your life over to Christ Jesus and find out just how good life can be even when life throws every affliction and piece of garbage at you.
Gregory Whitaker is an ordained minister and Evangelist since 1996. He continues to share the principles of faith along with the the gospel of Christ so that others can live abundant and healthy Christian lives. For more information and encouragement go to: http://www.workingmiraclesbyfaith.blogspot.com
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