How to deal with selfish people?

As Professional…
Everyone is selfish to a certain extent. While normal levels of self-love, self-value and self-confidence are important for people to function well, there is a line between these characteristics and being a little too self-absorbed, arrogant or just plain narcissistic.

If you’ve met someone very selfish or perhaps have a friend or partner who’s selfish, here are some concrete ways you can deal with them.

1. Accept that they have no regard for others.

The first piece of advice for dealing with selfish people is to be real with yourself. Accept that the self-centered person might never consider your needs first. As much as this friend or lover means to you, know that they have no regard for others’ feelings or welfare. They can have moments of generosity and charm, but for the most part, they simply lack the skill or willingness to be thoughtful and considerate. This knowledge will give you a clear understanding of where you stand in the relationship.

2. Give yourself the attention you deserve.

Selfish people are emotional pirates. They crave for your attention, but don’t give you any. To avoid being wrung dry of emotions, give yourself the attention you’ve been giving the emotional pirate. For example, if there is any discomfort in your physical appearance, head to the barber or boutique and improve it. This is called meeting your own needs, and it’s a great way to boost your ego and pirate-proof your life. Ignoring your needs to pour attention and energy into a self-absorbed person isn’t virtuous. It only sets you up for being emotionally drained and hurt.

3. Stay true to yourself—don’t stoop to their level.

Selfish people can push your buttons and make you feel like pulling out their hair—don’t do it. Don’t play into their game or engage in behavior that is beneath you. Just be true to yourself. It’s difficult to be kind to a self-centered person who is brutish or unkind to you, but becoming like them doesn’t help things. Alleviate any feeling of anger you may have towards them by focusing on the person you are and resolving to continue being that considerate and loving person that you know you are.

4. Remind them that the world does not revolve around them.

A self-absorbed person may be so caught up in herself that she forgets to consider your thoughts or feelings. She might just need a little reminder that the world does not revolve around her. Speak up and tell her as much without coming across as if you are attacking her. For example, instead of throwing a tantrum and screaming, “You never listen to me; you always make everything about you,” try saying,”I really need to talk to someone about something bothering me. Would you be willing to listen to me?”

5. Starve them of the attention they crave.

This is a powerful strategy to deal with extremely selfish people who refuse to regard others. The trick is to be civil but never offer the attention the self-absorbed person craves. It works by limiting your words to bland, noncommittal comments with them. For example, instead of saying, “You poor thing, he did that to you?” say, “Yeah, that’s life.” It will baffle and throw them off balance for a while. Remember, attention is your treasure. If you don’t give it to them, they will most likely scamper away.

6. Bring up topics that interest you.

Whatever interests you—carpentry, cooking, politics, you name it—bring it up in conversations with a self-absorbed person instead of pouring all your attention onto the topics he brings up. For example, if he says, “You won’t believe what my girlfriend said to me!” reply with something like, “Hey, do you know how much Bill Cosby is worth?” The more random the topic you bring up and the more unrelated to the selfish person’s topic, the better. Keep focusing on your real interests no matter what, and watch him try to escape from you when he realizes you’re not interested in his self-centered stories.

7. Stop doing favors for them.

Selfish people always ask for favors, but they squirm out of helping you when you need their help. That’s just how they operate. While it is important to be tolerant and give a selfish friend or partner a chance to change, it is also important not to enable their selfishness—especially if it ends up hurting you. So, when a selfish person asks you for too many favors don’t give in and let her walk all over you. Assert yourself and make it clear that you don’t appreciate being made to feel as if you are not important or as if you are of a lower status. If you get into a position where you have to defend your stand, make it short and to the point since selfish people are not the best listeners and may not even listen to you anyway.

8. Limit the time you spend together.

Once you realize that someone is too selfish and self-absorbed, it is high time you stayed away from them. Limit your time together as much as possible. If you used to have coffee dates every evening, space the dates farther and farther apart, and stop calling and replying to all their messages. You may be met with a myriad of reactions from disinterest to tantrums and anger, but hold firm. Your time is better off spent alone than with overwhelmingly selfish people.

9. Actively seek better friends.

Recall the pain, agony, hurt and exhaustion of giving intense emotional energy to selfish, inconsiderate people and decide no more. Refuse to allow yourself to get attached to such friends. Instead, seek new friends who pay as much attention to you as you do to them. You can make new friends by going out more and interacting with new people at social events, religious places of worship and volunteer centers. Once you have new, better friendsyou can entertain yourselves with tales of the selfish person who pillaged your energy and plundered your emotions for a while—or not.

10. End the relationship.

If the selfish person you are dealing with does not seem capable of changing, he may be more than just self-centered and selfish—he may be a narcissist. Narcissists are not only selfish and self-absorbed, but also lack feelings of sympathy and purposely use others. They are harder to deal with than the average selfish person. In this case, you can try asking them to get professional help, but if that doesn’t work cut all links with them and end the relationship outright. Life is too short to be bogged down by selfish people and tied down in toxic relationships that suck the energy and happiness out of you.

How to stick to a habit?

Now that we know all that we’re up against, it seems pretty tough, no? Actually, it’s not easy, but it’s definitely doable. Anything worth doing is going to take some work. You just need to set your mind to doing something tough, and be OK with a little discomfort.

That said, I have a set of rules to follow if you want to actually stick to new habits. Now, you can ignore these rules, as most people do, and increase your likelihood of failure. Or you can try the rules, and see if they work for you (each person is different, so you have to figure out your own formula).

Here are the rules:

One Habit at a Time.

This is incredibly important — most people ignore it because they underestimate how much focus it takes to actually stick to a new habit. It’s easy to start a habit, or even 5 of them at once. Sticking to them is another story. Please note that this is one habit period — don’t think you can do one fitness habit, one social habit, one work habit, etc. One habit only. Do not break this rule.

A Tiny Habit.

Do not focus on results as you’re forming the habit. I recently mentioned that I’m doing 3 yoga poses every morning — doing more than an hour is too difficult for me and I tend to quit when I do long classes. Will I get a good workout with only 3 yoga poses? No! I’m not trying to get a good workout, get flexible, become more mindful, or get in shape. Eventually, yes, those results will probably come. But for now, I’m only doing one thing: forming the habit of doing yoga each day. Make the habit as tiny as possible. Whatever you think you should do, cut it in half. Then, if possible, cut it in half again. Maybe once more if your time to do it is longer than 2 minutes.

Once a Day.

You might think you can change your entire diet all at once. Not bloody likely. Only do the habit once a day, and again, just for a minute or two each day. Once the habit is ingrained, you can expand, but wait at least 3 weeks before you even consider that.

Focus on Starting.

The only thing you need to do is start. That’s the part of the habit that matters in the first month or so. Later on, you’ll run a marathon. For now, just put all your effort into lacing up your shoes and getting out the door. If you’re meditating, just get your butt on the cushion. If you’re eating healthy, just get your healthy snack (carrots & hummus?) in front of you, and take the first bite. If you’re writing, just close your browser, open a text document, and type the first sentence. Just start.

Enjoy Doing It.

It’s really important that you get positive feedback for doing the habit, right away. Many people do a habit they hate, which is built-in negative feedback, and then wonder why they can’t stick to it. Do a habit you love, or find a way to enjoy doing the habit. Focus on the positive aspects of it. Also, as my friend Tynan does, praise yourself for doing it. Feel good about doing it. This is immediate reward, and it’s necessary.

Watch Your Thoughts.

If you start to avoid the habit, or do the habit but feel discouraged, or ever feel like quitting … pay attention to these thoughts. Where are they coming from? Are you rationalizing quitting? Are you giving yourself some negative self-talk? Those thoughts aren’t real — they’re just defense mechanisms your brain uses to avoid discomfort. Let them go, and don’t let them have power over you. You can beat them with some positive self-talk.

Don’t Miss Two Straight Days.

This is the key. If you let yourself miss a day, be absolutely sure, incredibly and powerfully sure, that you don’t miss a day again. Miss a day, and let all kinds of alarms go off: you should put yourself on emergency status and do everything possible to not miss the 2nd day. Tynan suggests doubling down, but whatever you do, don’t let yourself slip up again. If you do, you are never going to get good at habits. Don’t do it.

Be accountable.

Tell at least one other person about your habit change, and ask them to keep you accountable. A group of 4-5 people is even better. It increases your likelihood of sticking to the habit by about 50% in my experience.

8 ways to clear stress

Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. There are constant ups and downs and often it will feel like everything that could potentially go wrong is exploding in your face. There will be roadblocks, unplanned obstacles, arguments and setbacks that all contribute to one thing — stress, and lots of it.

While you can’t avoid stress altogether, simply letting it build up and consume you can lead to a meltdown. A clear mind is a healthy, productive mind. Here are some ways that you can rid your mind of stress, allowing you to remain focused on crushing any goal you set.

1. Talk to a friend.

Discussing your problems, obstacles and potential solutions with a friend is a great way to reduce stress. Often we, as entrepreneurs, get so intertwined with our work that we actually cause our own stress.

Simply talking things out can clear up a situation and you learn that things aren’t as bad as you are imagining them to be. Also, just knowing that you have someone in your corner that is always going to be there for you gives you that extra confidence to tackle any situation.

2. Read a great book.

Picking up a book allows you to get away — without actually getting away. Take this time to learn about any topic you wish, including whatever it is that’s causing your current stress. You can gain insight, advice and peace of mind by reading.

3. Write down your thoughts in a journal.

Writing is something that many people don’t do enough of — yet it’s such a powerful personal exercise that can help you better understand any dilemma or situation. Put a journal on your desk and throw it in your bag when you leave the office — keep it on you at all times.

When a stressful situation presents itself pull out your journal and write down the problem, what is contributing to the problem and possible ways to defuse the problem. Give it a try — I bet you will surprise yourself with how effortlessly you are able to come up with a solution to any issue.

4. Hit the gym hard.

Hitting the gym is a great way to rid your body of stress — you can literally sweat the stress out. Finding the motivation to get to the gym is often the biggest hurdle to overcome, but once you get accustomed to working out regularly you won’t miss the opportunity to de-stress at the gym.

Leave your phone in your car or locker, throw on your headphones and get your blood flowing and heart rate cranking. Aside from de-stressing, the health benefits of regular exercise should be enough to convince you to make this a regular occurrence.

5. Go for a long run.

Along with the gym, I also love going for a nice long run to clear my head. I like an outdoor run consisting of several destination points along the way — this allows me to focus on reaching each point. The physical exercise combined with the focus eliminates all of the stress.

Just like at the gym, leave your phone at home or at the office. It’s too easy to take a break to check emails or voicemails if you bring your phone — a single email or message can trigger the stress to come back instantly. Throw on a comfortable pair of running shoes and make sure you have a great music playlist ready to rock. Let the run and music consume you.

6. Take some time to meditate.

True meditation, when you are able to remove yourself from everything going on in your world and focus only on breathing, has amazing benefits. It eliminates stress, allows you to think clearly, see the big picture and helps reduce the probability of future events stressing you out.

We are so busy — constantly operating with the pedal to the metal — we often forget to pause for a minute and take a step back to simply breathe.

7. Unplug from technology and go for a walk or hike.

Unplug from technology and venture out into nature — a beach, park or hiking trail provides a great setting to forget the stressful situations for a minute and get lost. Connecting with nature reminds you that we, along with the things that cause us to stress out, are just small pieces of a much bigger picture.

8. Go punch for punch in the boxing ring.

One quick look at local gyms will show you that a lot of people are jumping in the ring for physical fitness. Many gyms that offer boxing actually advertise it as a stress-reducing workout.

I’ve seen men and women of all ages in the ring. Sometimes, you just need to hit something and let out a little steam. If boxing isn’t your thing go to the driving range and hit a bucket of golf balls or take some swings in the batting cage. Driving a golf ball 280 yards or crushing a baseball 400 feet will make you forget that you were ever stressed.

How to be a better person?

A Clear Intention to Live
When you think about it, our whole lives are centred around goals. Getting up for work on a cold, wet Monday morning requires the goal of getting out of bed at a specific time. Not a pleasant goal for many, but it’s a goal nonetheless. Getting home in time for dinner with your family is a goal.

Pretty much everything we want to do and achieve in our lives requires an intent to achieve something. That is what goals are. An intention to do something by a specific time.

How to Begin Developing Future Goals

1. Start with Your Vision
Begin with a vision of what you want to achieve. Whether it is a professional or personal goal, you need to have a clear vision of what it is you want to achieve.

Take some time to really see what the end result will be like. Close your eyes and see it, see yourself achieving your goal.

If you want to build a secure financial future for yourself and your family, what will that look like? Will that be cash in the bank or a portfolio of investments?

If you want to take a holiday of a lifetime with your closest friends this summer, where will you go? What will you do? Imagine yourself already achieving your goal. How will you feel?

Feel those emotions in your imagination. Feel the smile on your face, feel the laughter, the joy and the excitement as you board the plane.

2. Ask the Right Questions
The best question to ask is: What do I have to do to…? This is an incredibly powerful question because it opens up your mind to the possibility of achieving your goal. The way this question is phrased means you are only considering ways to achieve, not ways you cannot achieve.

The wrong question to ask is “how can I achieve this goal?” That question often elicits the tempting answer “you can’t”. What you want to be doing is opening your mind up to possibilities and the actions you will have to take to make it happen.

Now the “what do I have to do?” Question often brings up actions you may at first feel are impossible, so you ask the question again.

3. Look at Your Daily Habits
Our daily habits and behaviors are the driving force behind the results we achieve in our lives.

If you smoke twenty cigarettes every day, drink several glasses of wine each evening and go to bed slightly drunk, over time, this will have a profoundly negative effect on your health. If it does not send you to an early grave, you are almost certainly going to experience difficulties with your health at some point in time.

Couple that with eating unhealthily and being excessively overweight, you are going to become a burden on your family and friends later in life.

Because our daily habits and behavious have such a large impact on the results we achieve in our lives, you should take some time to analyze yours.

Identify the ones that give you negative results. Unhealthy eating, excessive drinking, smoking, complaining and gossiping are common ones, but others such as waking up at the last possible moment, going to bed late and spending all night playing computer games are a few others that, over time, will result in negative outcomes in your life.

If you want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro before you turn fifty, then get yourself out in the evening and exercise. Turn it into a habit. Spend thirty minutes every morning reading about and researching Mount Kilimanjaro instead of checking your email, Facebook or Instagram feed. Use your time in more positive ways.

4. Set a Date
If your goals do not have a timeline and an end date, you will find excuses to put off what you need to do to make it happen.

You can, of course, adjust your deadline if you find you were a little too ambitious with your initial enthusiasm. But you do need a deadline.

Setting dates and deadlines gives you the sense of urgency you need to make progress. You do not have to achieve the ‘big goal’ in the first year, but you do need to have an annual goal that is taking you a little closer each day, month and year toward the big, future goal.

5. Visualize and Review Regularly
Whatever your future goals are, you should have some form of vision board to keep you reminded of your final destination.

Whether that is having a secure financial future, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or running a full course marathon, having some form of vision board — either digital in the form of a photo album in your digital photo storage, or a board on Pinterest or a physical board in your room with photographs and clippings of what you want to do — will help keep you motivated when you feel ‘not in the mood’.

It will give you something visual to help you review your progress and adjust deadlines if necessary.

We are all different and we all want different things in our lives. Many of us want to build a successful business, others want to develop a successful career in medicine or law.

Whatever it is you want out of life, it is your life and it is up to you to create it. You have the good fortune to be able to decide, act and achieve and it all starts with an idea and a vision, then a few questions the answers to which will give you a plan and a destination to travel towards.

Don’t waste this chance. You do not want to end your days full of regret and disappointment. You want to end your days knowing you lived an extraordinary life on your terms.

How to be on time?

First of all, though, it’s important to see being on time as part of your whole attitude towards time. You’re never going to be on time, every time — whether for appointments, meeting big deadlines, or even to catch a movie — if you haven’t put into practice a set of good time management techniques.

Secondly, being punctual requires a bit of an attitude adjustment. A lot of the time we let ourselves show up late because the event we’re showing up to isn’t all that important to us. Try this: don’t schedule events that aren’t that important to you. Use that time for things that are important to you.

Plan for trouble. Always add 25% to your time estimate to get anywhere or do any task. If you think it takes 30 minutes to get to work, give yourself 40 (technically, 37 1/2, but let’s not be ridiculous here!). If you need 12 working hours to finish a proposal, give yourself 15. The worst thing that could happen is that you get a nice “Scotty effect” going, where you’re always ahead of schedule and everyone thinks you’re a miracle worker.

Set up the night before. If you are, like me, someone who has a hard time getting going in the morning, make sure you set up the night before. Lay out your clothes, put your keys, wallet, etc. in tomorrow’s pants pockets or your purse, load up your bag with whatever material you’ll need in the morning, put your lunch together, and so on. In the morning, wake up, get dressed, grab your stuff, and go.

Learn to better estimate how much time things take. Use a time tracker app to learn how long typical tasks take you to complete. Record these times, and refer to your record when estimating the time needed for similar tasks.

Schedule events 10 minutes early. Put your 1:00 appointment into your schedule at 12:50, for example. But always have 10 minutes of work with you to fill the slack time, in case you surprise yourself by showing up “on time” 10 minutes early!

Fill your gas tank when it reaches 1/4 tank. Don’t let an empty gas tank make you late for anything. Fill up whenever you reach 1/4 and you’ll never have to make an emergency stop at a gas station during your commute.

Use a countdown timer. Grab a cheap digital timer, and use it to create a sense of urgency, and to help you keep on track at each step you need to complete to make it wherever you’re supposed to be on time. Break your preparation down into 10 minutes parts, set the timer, and GO!

Personality development lessons .

Let us go through some tips for enhancing one’s personality:

  • Smile a lot- Nothing works better than a big smile when it comes to interacting with people around. Do not forget to flash your trillion dollar smile quite often. Believe me, it works! As they say “a smile is a curve that sets everything straight”. A smiling face wins even the toughest soul. Wear your smile while interacting with others. Smile not only helps in enhancing an individual’s personality but also winning other’s heart.
  • Think positive- It is really essential to think positive. Remember there is light at the end of every dark tunnel. Do not always think negative as it not only acts as a demotivating factor but also makes an individual dull and frustrated. Don’t get upset over minor things. Be a little flexible and always look at the broader perspectives of life.
  • Dress Sensibly- Dressing sensibly and smartly go a long way in honing one’s personality. One needs to dress according to the occasion. How would a female look if she wears a sari to a discotheque? Obviously ridiculous! No matter how expensive your sari is, you can’t wear it to a night club or a pub where everyone is dressed in smart casuals. Price has nothing to do with smart dressing. An individual who is well dressed is respected and liked by all. No one would take you seriously if you do not wear suitable clothes fitting with occasions. Do take care of the fit of the dress as well. An individual should wear clothes as per his/her body type, height, physique and so on. Someone who is bulky would not look very impressive in body hugging clothes. It is not necessary that something which looks good on your friend would also look good on you. Wear the right make up. You do not have to apply loud make up to look good and attractive. Even minimal make up, if applied sensibly can really make you stand apart from the rest.
  • Be soft-spoken- Do not always find faults in others. Fighting and quarrelling lead to no solution. Be polite with others. Be very careful of what you speak. Avoid being rude and short tempered.
  • Leave your ego behind- An individual needs to hide his ego everywhere he goes. Be it office or workplace you need to leave your ego behind if you wish to win appreciation from others. An individual who is good from within is loved by all.
  • Avoid Backbiting- Backstabbing and criticizing people are negative traits which work against an individual’s personality. Learn to appreciate others. If someone has done some extraordinary task, do not forget to give a pat on his/her back. Believe me; the other person will speak high of you even when you are not around. Do not spread unnecessary rumours about someone. An individual should not try to interfere too much in someone’s personal life. Dishonesty, cheating, lies tarnish your image and people start avoiding you in the long run. If your friend is seeing someone, you have absolutely no rights to make his/her affair national news.
  • Help others- Do not always think of harming others. Share whatever you know. Remember no one can steal your knowledge. Always help others.
  • Confidence- Confidence is the key to a positive personality. Exude confidence and positive aura wherever you go.
  • A Patient listener- Be a patient listener. Never interrupt when others are speaking. Try to imbibe good qualities of others.

The elephant rope ( a motivation story)

As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

Shake off your problems(a inspirational story)

A man’s favorite donkey falls into a deep precipice. He can’t pull it out no matter how hard he tries. He therefore decides to bury it alive.

Soil is poured onto the donkey from above. The donkey feels the load, shakes it off, and steps on it. More soil is poured.

It shakes it off and steps up. The more the load was poured, the higher it rose. By noon, the donkey was grazing in green pastures.

After much shaking off (of problems) And stepping up (learning from them), One will graze in GREEN PASTURES.