Posts Tagged ‘perspective’
Goal Setting – The Facts Behind The Fiction
To have hopes and dreams for the future is a wonderful idea. If you want to call them ‘goals’ that’s fine also but do learn to get things in perspective. They are NOT achieved in the way you have been led to believe.
The much talked about conscious mind, subconscious mind, the will, belief patterns, etc. are simply descriptions of mental procedures and do not exist in isolation, as many people believe.
They are all part of the same ‘mental cooperative’.
Ah, there lies the rub!
The moment you set a goal you instantly cause an ‘inner conflict’ to take place between various departments of this mental cooperative.
This is unavoidable due to the way we were brought up, our parents, how we were educated, where we grew up, our religious beliefs or lack of them. The list is almost endless.
All these factors make up our core beliefs. These beliefs give rise to our very own particular and personal creative patterns of thought which dictate our own individual realities which, in turn, give life to our very own set of ‘Living Laws’.
‘Living Laws’ means laws that we follow, in other words, adhered to, for the sake of leading a ‘normal’ acceptable life. But it also means that they have a life of their own and can be changed, amended or completely abolished to make way for new ones.
Each one of us has a set of these laws. Some of the laws you live by are similar to other people’s but never 100% – that’s what makes us individuals.
Sure, we are all human beings – but we are NOT the same. We are all different, albeit only slightly, but we all differ.
The inner conflict arises when what I call ‘The Judge’ evaluates, compares and checks out your goal to see if it is valid. That is to say, if it complies with your current set of internal laws.
When your goal is found to be contravening these laws, for whatever reason, and reasons you are very rarely aware of, it is immediately and unceremoniously overruled and thrown out of court with no hope of appeal.
The secret to achieving our goals, therefore, is to cause a new creative pattern of thought and thereby amend our current set of Living Laws.
We must become an active and willing member of the cooperate. We must, in fact, cooperate with the cooperative!
The modern day idea that you can use visualization techniques or repeat endless affirmations in order to change these laws and therefore The Judge’s mind is totally erroneous – it will not make the slightest difference.
This is totally misguided thinking.
Sure, after many years of constant repetition of your affirmations/visualizations you may eventually get some reaction from The Judge even if it takes a lifetime, that’s if they don’t lock you away in a funny farm first!
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Meme machines
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Before we go any further let’s just take a look at these beliefs and where they come from and see why they are so darn difficult to change.
It’s all very well being told to change our beliefs and we will change our lives but just how do we do it?
We know from experience that simple visualization doesn’t work, nor do affirmations or anything else for that matter. So, what’s the answer?
The DNA of beliefs are MEMES (pronounced as in cream). Memes are a relatively new discovery and seldom, if ever, talked about in books or courses about personal success and achievement.
Why? If memes are the very foundation of our personality why are they never mentioned?
The main reason is that few people actually understand how they work or the significance they have in our everyday lives.
The dictionary defines a meme as “a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another”
Memes have been likened to viruses and the comparison is indeed very apt. The Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins defines memes as a set of ideas that can replicate itself like a virus and spread from one brain to another.
For example, it took only 300 years for the meme of Christianity to overrun the Roman Empire and less than 130 years for the meme of communism to “infect” 1.8 billion people across the face of the Earth.
So you can imagine that memes such as: “life’s a constant struggle”, “there ain’t no free meals in this life”, “money doesn’t grow on trees” etc. etc. and all that these silly memes represent (that life is not easy and you have to constantly struggle to make ends meet) have had many generations to set up home in our psyches and become part of our everyday lives. Besides, it’s got to be true ? our parents said so!
Memes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are relatively innocent, such as the ‘hula-hoop meme’, ‘the pet rock meme’ and ‘music memes’ normally associated with a particular race or creed.
But some are extremely dangerous and far from innocent.
I don’t wish to enter into the religio-political arena, so, suffice it to say that the ‘religion memes’ and the ‘political memes’ are particularly virulent and in some cases deadly!
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Paradigms
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Memes then form what are known as PARADIGMS.
A paradigm is “a set of assumptions, concepts, values and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them.”
We must be very clear on the understanding of the power of paradigms and how they affect us in order be able to exercise our right of free choice.
For, whatever paradigms we choose to accept determine the form or our perceptions, which in turn shape our decisions, actions, experiences, social systems, worlds and futures.
If you don’t understand just how much of a grip paradigms have on your life and shaping your experiences then you will be under the impression that you and the world are set in stone and there’s nothing you can ever do to change that.
Ian S.N. Randall
Author of Accelerated Goal Manifestation
http://www.tinyurl.com/6zbsf
Getting Started in ECommerce ? Part Two
In Part One we talked a little bit about what Ecommerce is, getting a domain name and setting up a merchant account. Ecommerce is more than that, much more. To have a really good online presence that gets people to stop and shop you need a strategy for success. Your strategy must include your USP or Unique Selling Position in the marketplace. What makes you stand out from all the other online entrepreneurs looking for the same type of customers as you? Can you stand out from the competition based on quality, price or benefits? Once you know your USP, you can begin the monumental task of telling the world about your site. A really unique selling position will give you an advantage over all the competition ? well that and a lot of planning and investing of your time and money.
FOCUS
Emphasize the benefits and the results the customer will get from purchasing from you and using your product or service. You can discover the benefits by listing all the features and then converting them to benefits. List everything your product or service offers. For each feature list a relative advantage from the customer’s perspective. You can discover the customer’s perspectives when they buy. Simply ask them, ” Why did you place an order today or use our service?” BE very specific when creating your benefit statements. An example of this is, “You will save $100.00 sells better than “you will save money.” “You will loose 20 pounds in 10 days” sounds better than “you will loose weight.” Rank your benefits in order of importance to the customer. If you have enough of them, use bullet points for emphasis.
Emotion sells. People make most buying decisions with their heart and not their head. Paint a picture of the results the customer will get when they purchase from you. ” You will look 20 years younger.” “You will be $100 richer.”
Make sure you include a call to action. Want them to make a buying decision today? Give them a reason to do so. Offer a bribe (discount, bonus, something for nothing).
Your website must load quickly and function easily. If your site loads slowly people will get impatient and go elsewhere. Do all your links work? Have you tested your order page by running sample orders? Have you tested load time using different connection speeds? You can get a fr*ee analysis by visiting Submitplus.com.
Make your website easy to look at and read. I find dark background tend to be more difficult to read than do pale backgrounds. The overall look of your site should be clean and professional. When we were first creating the Women’s ECommerce Association, International we did everything in-house. Not being truly adept at HTML coding we thought we could just use a simple program to create a professional site. It was okay, but the one we now have is so much better. Why? Because we hired a professional. You can create a website with a good template program. We are using ECommerce Templates to create our new look for WUN Publications. It is simple to use and relatively inexpensive.
When it comes to graphics, be conservative. Sites that are laden with graphics and flash tend to take longer to load. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to do so, you will loose many visitors and potential buyers. If you must use graphics, make sure the files sizes used have been reduced as much as your image editing/compression software will allow.
View your site using as many different browsers as possible. In addition to Internet Explorer and Netscape, there is Opera, Mozilla, Lynx and those are just the ones that run on Microsoft Windows. WebMonkey has a chart of those supported by Macintosh, Unix/Linux and others. Also, many people will surf with their browser’s graphics switched off. Make sure you know what your site looks like without the graphics and that it is still easy for visitors to surf.
One last thought Make sure all your important information is above the fold. If you know that visitors are looking for something specific and you make them scroll down to find it, chances are they won’t.
Excerpted from The PMS Principles – Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business © 2005 – Heidi Richards
Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is the owner of Eden Florist & Gift Baskets and the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International http://www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-kī) ? an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” BASIC Membership is Free. She can be reached at http://www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org. You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
Learning Interior Design
Learning interior design can be a simple or complicated task depending on a wide variety of factors including exposure, ability, creativity, and willingness to learn. This article is dedicated to explaining the basic elements that interior design is based upon so that you will have the ability to go out and research these elements on your own in order to advance you ability and perspective of the interior design world.
Lets begin with a few suggestions of where to properly conduct your research. A good beginning point for all of those interior design newbies would be television shows dedicated to the subject, books, magazines, other interior design professionals, ect.
Another resource that you have an unlimited exposure to that doesn’t cost you anything but time and focus are your eyes. Your eyes are wonderful tools for learning interior design and successful application of it. They are such terrific tools because eyes are the ears of the interior design symphony. They possess the ability to look upon any element of design and transmit information to your brain concerning the colors indicated in the design, textures, layout, and whether or not the overall effect is pleasing.
If you can master the ability of viewing a particular setting or scenario and delving from it the key elements of its visual success, you are enormous steps forward in your journey of learning interior design.
Find an example of a design setting that is pleasant or pleasing to you. This can be located in a book, magazine, or even in real-life. Close your eyes. Now open them. What do you look at first? The first item that your eyes focused upon is considered to be your focal point.
In television discussions or magazine articles it is sometimes wrongfully alluded to that there is one appointed (by the designer, of course!) focal point. This is simply untrue. For every person that views the room, that person offers a unique perspective.
One person might gaze intently at the fireplace due to the warmth and secure nature of that design element. Another might focus upon the sofa. Yet another person might elevate towards the remote control (ha!).
The point is, is that the focal point of a room is the area of the room that demands your attention upon arrival in it and generally you base your placement of activities that take place in that room on the location the that focal point. This is the reason why so much strategic planning is normally based on the focal points of a room when designing the creative outlay of the room. This is why your fundamental understanding of the focal points of a room is dramatically instrumental in learning interior design.
It is true that certain architectural elements of a room demand more attention then others. I think that this is one of the reasons that many people misunderstand the concept of focal points. Throughout your journey of learning interior design, you will come to understand the importance of balancing the understanding of architecture focal points, and living ones.
Certain people are naturally going to elevate towards different activities and objects in a room. This is why a basic understanding of both the human element and the architectural one are a keystone to successful interior design.
Once you have a basic to medium understanding of focal points and placement of items in and around those places, the other key feature of learning interior design is visual representation of objects.
Color, texture, and shape are the fundamentals in this category. When you view an object, the way that the light is reflected off of it onto your eyes is commonly known as color. Texture is the way that the object ‘feels’ to you visually. Shape is the basic makeup of the object reflected visually. The correct combination of these characteristics results in a visually harmonious atmosphere.
Let’s imagine a few terms you hear when associated with design. ‘Gaudy’ always pops into mind. A space with bold color representation, an overkill interjection of texture, and the overuse of modern or untraditional shape forms are all factors that would encompass that title.
‘Simple’ would generally refer to the use of light, neutral color schemes in combination with small interjections of light texture and straight lined shapes. Simple, in my opinion is the basic ingredient to a successful recipe of design. Begin simply and build to your comfort level of complexity. This will not be an area that will flow naturally with you when you begin learning interior design. It will more then likely become an understanding that you will develop over time and exposure to different aspects of design.
To wind things up, the road to learning interior design is filled with information and visual perspectives that will open both your eyes and your mind to an entirely different world. Observation is the key to better understanding this world. Open your eyes and begin the adventure!
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Rosemary Leake is an Independent Consultant with Southern Living at Home. Inspired by Southern Living magazine, our exclusive home décor line brings warmth and style to every room of your home! Visit Rosemary’s Interior Design website for more articles and resources – http://www.newsletterjournal.com. Also get your FREE Mini-Report “A Complete Guide To Interior Design.”
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