Conscious breathing is all about being more aware of your body sensations. Since we all have to breathe continually we are able to practice conscious breathing during every waking moment of our lives until it becomes the norm.

Learning how to breathe consciously
Learning how to breathe consciously is not hard; in essence it is nothing more than being aware of the breath entering your body through your nose and the sensations of it leaving your body through your mouth. One important point to note when making the transition to conscious breathing is that you shouldn’t make any changes to your breathing.

When first starting out don’t think about slowing the breathing down or speeding it up, the whole idea is to be aware of your breathing, this is all at this time. Staying relaxed and learning how to focus on your breathing is the most important thing at this stage, once you have learned to be comfortable and are consciously breathing as a normal reaction you can then delve deeper into conscious breathing and its effects.

This is the basis behind breathing this natural way and occurs differently in all people. For example you might feel more natural and relaxed if you focus on the sensations you feel in your nostrils as you breathe air in through them. Others might concentrate more on the feelings and sensations of the rise and fall of the rib cage and abdomen. Focus on the one that feels right or comfortable for you.

Build your focus
For those who have trouble focusing on anything for any length of time then the sensations felt around the nostrils and upper lip might be better. These sensations are only small and subtle and so require greater focus, which can help to keep the mind on the task at hand. For those who can focus relatively easy then choosing to watch and feel the movements in the abdomen might be more satisfying.

Having an overall awareness of breathing gives us a backdrop to our everyday life and allows us to practice conscious breathing no matter where we are or what we are doing. Of course your focus can shift depending on what you are doing as the whole process should feel natural at all times.

Conscious breathing is a powerful tool that we all carry with us in our day-to-day life and can be used continually in all situations. It is a natural way to center yourself and find peace and harmony in yourself while also bringing about health benefits.

Relationships need work from both parties and you have to know what the others needs are, however, before you can do this it is important to realize what you yourself are looking for both in life and in the relationship. Therefore, it is important to take a long deep look at yourself and to establish what it is you are wanting in your relationship and where you want it to go in the future. Only when you have worked out what it is you want can you possible hope to work with your partner and develop a successful relationship.

Sitting down with your partner and finding what it they are looking for out of a relationship is the next step. Prioritize both of your hopes and dreams for the future in such things your careers, holidays and children and hopefully the two of you won’t be that far apart.

Providing you both have the same goals and achievements in mind success will be easy to gain, however if you both have totally different hopes and dreams for the future then your relationship is going to take a little more work. If for example one of you wants to have children a couple of years down the road and settle down while the other totally hates the idea of children and settling down and is looking to have fun vacationing, then deeper relationship problems will arise.

If this is the case then the future clearly needs dealing with together and for the two of you to hopefully come to some kind of arrangement regarding it. Most relationships can be very successful even if the both of you have totally different ideas about the future in the beginning, providing one partner doesn’t push the other into something which the clearly are not going to be happy with. A good and happy long lasting relationship is all about a little give and take, if one is taking more than the other than success has very little chance. However by compromising success can be gotten and the relationship can bloom deeper.
The ideal relationship would be where both partners are very safe and secure in the person that they are and are already successful in their personal life.

However in the majority of relationships one partner is often more at ease with themselves and has more personal success with the other, only very rarely are you blessed to matched so perfectly. If this is the case then it is essential that you don’t give in to the other and just go along with what they want just for the sake of it, while the relationship can seem to go ok in the beginning a relationship such as this will not very often last the course and withstand the pressures that one partner will feel and so will eventually lead to break up.

Traits which are common to the unassertive person
Almost everyone that has a problem with un-assertiveness suffers from a huge amount of empathy, which means they will take into account and worry more about other people’s thoughts and feelings more than they do their own. While a certain amount of empathy is a good trait, too much causes many problems for some people when it comes to saying the simple word “no”. People suffering from an over abundance of empathy will find it extremely difficult to say “no” to others and usually those requesting favors know this and many times the person is taken advantage of. Just remember the next time a colleague or friends asks you to swap a shift or you are asked to do a favor of any kind that your time is just as valuable as those asking you for the favor. If it is no big deal then fair enough but if you had other plans to spend that time then learn how to say “No”.

The trick to learning how to say NO
Learning to be more assertive is not something you can do easily overnight, there isn’t any magic wand which you can wave and you wake up the next morning with a different attitude. You will have to practise saying “no” and many times in the beginning, although you appear confident and think you can do it before the confrontation, you will find yourself drifting back to your old ways and hear yourself say “yes”. Here are a couple of helpful points to get you started on the road to assertiveness.

Practice at home
Start off by practicing your assertiveness when home alone, you can do this in the mirror, by doing this you will simply get used to using the word “no” until it begins to roll off your tongue much more easily. Once you are a little more familiar with the word then practise with close friends and relations, whatever you are asked to do the politely but firmly decline. If it is something you wish to take part in then you can always change your mind later but for now, you are simply practising using the word with people you feel comfortable around, which will make it so much easier.

Make sure you understand their request
If you are asked for a favour then resist the temptation to say, “Yes” immediately without first fully understanding what is being asked of you. Get as much information as you possible can and then consider it before making a decision, never feel pressured into giving an answer there and then, if need be say that you need time to think about it before giving your answer.

Here are five important benefits of self improvement books:

1. DREAMS. How many of us have forgotten how to dream? If we do dust off and resurrect our dreams, we often find it hard to sustain a focused march towards them. We are pulled in so many directions and all sorts of people want a piece of us. Self improvement books can help us to recover our lost dreams or even find them in the first place. Sometimes, we need to dream new, bigger dreams and these books can provide the inspiration and the motivation for us to do this.

2. ROAD MAP. An effective self improvement book will provide a road map or help us to draw one up that can take us from where we are now to where we want to be.

3. EMPOWERMENT. Self improvement books provide the knowledge and motivation that can empower us to take action confidently. Knowledge is definitely power when it comes to overcoming self-defeating behaviors or achieving new levels of success. We cannot open a locked door without the right key; success is a locked door to many people and the knowledge given in many self improvement books is the key that unlocks that door.

4. PROVEN TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES. Sometimes it can seem that if you’ve read one self improvement book, you’ve read them all. This isn’t true, of course, but it seems that way because there are universal principles that work if applied consistently and they don’t change. All the best books will reveal the strategies and techniques that work and explain how to apply them.
5. INSPIRATION AND MOTIVATION. A major benefit of self improvement books is that they do more than inform, they inspire and motivate us to take the action necessary to succeed. They will tell parables with a message, true stories about courageous people who have transformed their lives, often against great odds. They will also try to scare you into action by asking you to consider what your life will be like in five years, then ten years, if you do not make any changes to what you are doing and how you are living. Just the thought of things still being the same in a decade is enough for many people to sincerely decide to change.

Commitment
You should take positive action and decide exactly what it is you wish to achieve in life and set your goal, once you have set your mind on what you want you should go into it with utter conviction and commitment. When you are planning and setting out your goal you have to have firm conviction that you will achieve your goal whatever it takes, you should visualize your goal from beginning to end and see yourself achieving whatever it is you set out do.

Take whatever steps are needed
Once you have decided to go for it and have made the commitment then the next step is to start taking action towards reaching your goal, taking the first step is actually the hardest part because it means going out there and actually doing something. Thinking about what it is you have to do is the easy part as is saying you are committed to doing, but doing means facing the unknown and putting your plan into action and this stage is very often where most people fail, because fear stops us from moving forward.

Sticking with it
When you have made the commitment and taken the plunge into making your dream or goal a reality you have to have perseverance and be willing to change your approach until you finally reach your desired goal. Depending on what it is that you set out to do this could take some time but it essential that you stay as committed to seeing the project through as when you first started out, it can help to keep a journal of your project from start to finish, this way you are able to see how far you have come and keep your mind focused on the outcome you wish to achieve. Life has many unexpected quirks and can throw anything at us so it is important that you continue pushing yourself through any unexpected hard times continually onwards towards your goal. Once again fear is the main problem and the biggest reason why most people fail to achieve and give up what they set out to do, if you give in to fear it will only continue to put bigger blocks in your way until eventually it overcomes you and you give in. The sky really is your limit if you attempt set out to accomplish with perseverance and determination to overcome anything that is thrown into your path.

The many ways you can benefit by having a life coach

• Help you to gain more control over your life
• Develop better strategies for managing your time
• Reduce stress and increase your productivity by simplifying your life
• Helping you to realize and maximize your potential
• Help improve your relationships with others
• Help you to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines more easily
• Help with important decisions you have to make in life
• Show you techniques to enable you to deal better in stressful situations
• Help you to balance your work and social life
• Help you to develop plans of action and life goals

A life coach can help in both professional and personal life and are there to help you obtain better results and gain a better quality of life in all aspects. Life coaches have been trained to adapt to listening, observing and then developing individual strategies to help people get out of the rut they find themselves in.

Do I need a life coach?
In order to determine if you benefit from having a life coach the first question you should ask yourself is “what do I wish to accomplish with a life coach?” if you can answer this question then a life coach would be able to work successfully alongside you to help you develop a strategy to obtain your goals. Life coaching is all about developing a partnership between the two of you and it is essential that you are able to be open to advice and constructive criticism; if you are not, then a life coach may not be the best option for you. Listed below are some questions that could help you determine if you could benefit from a life coach, if you can answer yes to any of them then you could possibly benefit from having a life coach.

• Do you feel there is a lack of support in your life?
• Do you have problems with low self-esteem issues?
• Do you feel everyone has a plan or goal in life but you?
• Do you feel you are going through a tough time and need a helping hand?
• Do you feel bogged down with deadline and don’t know which way to turn?
• Do daily tasks make you feel overwhelmed?
• Do you feel as though the entire world is against you?
• Do you feel everyone knows the secret to being successful but you?
• Do you feel you could get more out of life or better yourself?

There are three main parts to your life’s purpose and by thinking about each of these parts you can determine if changes need to be made and what changes need to be made if any, life’s three main purposes are what motivates you, your principles and targets. If you can bring all these together then you truly know your life’s purpose.

Sit down and think long and deep about your life and what it is you want out of it, write down the activities that you do I your daily life and which you get the most enjoyment from. These of course should be linked to what you are hoping to achieve or get out of life. They should be all the things which motivate you in life and which help to get you towards where you want to be in life. When you have made your list, study it and reorganize it from the most important to the least.

When it comes to principles think about the ideals that you have what it is you believe in strongly. Sit down and think about this, write down as many as you can think of. When you have your list take another look at it and pick out one single principle, this principle will become your guiding principle.

Your life’s purpose obviously involves you reaching targets, what you want out of life and what you are aiming towards. These can be in your career or in your life; all areas of your life have purpose in whatever you do regardless of if they be work or your personal life. Your targets should have been clearly outlined in goals that you set out for yourself. These are what you are reaching towards in the future. Your goals should be divided into short-term goals, mid term and long-term goals. They should be reachable in a specified amount of time and you should also set yourself some targets which you will have to really push yourself to reach, this will give you the will to succeed and to push yourself that little bit further.
Once you have got all these together then your purpose in life shouldn’t be too hard to see, you will have gained the first steps needed to become enlightened. You should take everything you gain for this and use it to your advantage, it is extremely practical and valuable knowledge in your quest through life and what it is you want to get out of life.

Prioritizing is the key; otherwise there are too many paths to wander down in a forest full of waiting tasks. It’s a good idea to have an end goal in sight; otherwise specific tasks lose their sense of identity. Ask yourself, where would you like to be in five year’s time or ten or fifteen? Also, the benefits of time management will be lost if the set targets are not in sympathy with work colleagues or family members. Are you all singing from the same hymn sheet?

Once a clear goal is formalized, there are targets to decide and placed in order of chronology and importance. It’s the most satisfying feeling in the world to tick off those boxes. Daily, weekly and monthly tasks should be set out in detail. Not everything always goes to plan of course and a bit of flexibility needs to be built in. The benefits of time management will only work if the targets are realistic. Neither underestimate nor overestimate what can be achieved.

Everyone likes to be in control but you will never leave the office on time if you don’t delegate. It will soon become apparent, who can be trusted and who can’t. Another important aspect of the benefits of time management is self discipline. Procrastination won’t get the job done. This is especially significant if you are working from home, an increasing activity these days. It may be a sunny day and the golf course is calling but that monthly report won’t write itself. When the weekly targets have been met, that’s the time to reward yourself with a little rest and recreation. After all, all work and no play makes Jack or Jill a dull boy or girl.