“One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast.” ~Robert Brault

It has become common knowledge that successful people are early risers. Although, no one can guarantee that getting up early will necessarily make you successful, there are some sound reasons why successful people choose to wake up before the sunrise.

Benefits of becoming an early riser:

1. Mindful start of the day. The first 15 minutes after you wake up set the mood and the pace for the whole day. If you jump out of bed thinking, “OMG! I’m late!” or immediately start mulling over all the problems that you have to solve today, it probably means that you are not starting your day on the right foot. Waking up early actually gives you time to become conscious of your surroundings, stretch your body, smile to yourself, listen to some great music, and truly feel how blessed you are, because you have been given the opportunity to live another day and make it wonderful.

2. More free time. It is as simple as that – if you wake up 2-3 hours earlier, you get majority of the tasks on your to-do list done by noon. It means that you do not have to stay late after work to finish your projects. You can get home earlier and spend quality time with your family. Or if you do not feel like starting your day with work, you can still use those 2 precious extra hours to meditate, work out, pursue a hobby, cook yourself a delicious breakfast or plan out your day. In any case you expand your free time!

3. Important health benefits. Besides obvious benefits of rising early like having plenty of time to do a quick work out, or eating a healthy balanced breakfast (instead of skipping it), there are other interesting discoveries made in this area. A study conducted of college students conducted by Wilse B. Webb, Ph.D., and Michael H. Bonnet, Ph.D., of the University of Florida demonstrated that “larks (or early risers) reported waking up feeling more rested”, having “fewer worries” and getting more “adequate sleep”. They also awakened feeling physically better than “owls” (late risers).

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It takes half a second to distract the mind from the task at hand and about 20 minutes to get back into a “flow” state.

Here are 10 more simple tips that you can try to sharpen your ability to focus in just 3 days:

11. Empty your mind. Mental chatter is one of the main factors that impede our focus. Worries, strong emotions or tasks that you do not want to forget take up a lot of your working memory and tire your mind. This is why before getting to an important task that requires your full attention, take a piece of paper or open a text file on your computer and write down any task repeated thought, worry, or interesting idea that is running through your mind. This 5-minute “thought dumping” exercise will calm down your mental chatter and noticeably improve your concentration and productivity.

12. Conquer procrastination. Sometimes all the outside distractions and interruptions make it impossible to stay focused on the task at hand. But sometimes we just do not feel like concentrating and deliberately postpone an unpleasant task for later. Whenever you catch yourself procrastinating ask yourself, “Do I want to be done with this task so I will not have to worry about it in the future?” It is easy to tell yourself stories about how much more motivated you will feel tomorrow. But the truth is that delaying something that needs to be done does not make it go away. If anything it tires your mind and provokes a sense of guilt.

13. Make it anti-boring. It is amazing how long it takes to complete a task that you do not want to do in the first place. Motivating yourself into working on something that you consider boring or tiresome for an hour is easy. Motivating yourself to work on a boring task the whole day makes you qualify for the leading role in the new “Mission impossible” sequel.

Whenever, you have to work on something that you already do not enjoy doing, make sure that you introduce some fun into your schedule. Vary different activities. Do not work on the same task for more than two hours. Reward yourself by doing something that you enjoy in between your focus sessions (make yourself a yummy sandwich, order a big Caramel Frappuccino, listen to your favorite song three times in a row, dance in the corridor or plan your friend’s Birthday Party).

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When we watch our favorite Football team play, read a thrilling book, listen to an interesting person talk or do something that we enjoy, we do not have to force ourselves to pay attention to the task. We can effortlessly maintain 100% focus over a long period of time. But there are other times when no matter how hard we try, we just cannot seem to keep it together.

I, for instance, regularly forget my cell phone at home (which really upsets my friends and family members). But I am sure I am not the only one guilty of day-dreaming and mind-wandering.

I am going to take a guess that you too have been in a situation when a person was talking to you while your thoughts were wandering somewhere else. Or when you really needed to learn new material, and yet you were reading the words without really understanding the main idea. Or when you planned on starting a new workout routine, but could not make yourself stay committed to your goal.

All these experiences have one thing in common – lack of focus.

Many people believe that poor concentration is an almost irresolvable problem. I can tell you from my own experience that it isn’t. In fact, there are many great little tips and exercises that you can do to noticeably improve your focus and expand your attention span in just 3 days.

Here are the first 10 (10 more are coming in the next post. I did not write them all together for one simple reason – it would be really hard to read and memorize all 20 suggestions at once):

1. Identify your objective. The concept of focus put simply is about not losing the thread of what you are trying to do. Usually if you do not have a clear objective before you start working on a certain task, half of  your time and effort will be simply wasted. Therefore, before beginning anything, ask yourself “What is my objective for doing it?” It does not matter if you are working on a project, making pancakes, talking to a friend or trimming the lawn. Some of your actions should be directed to achieve a concrete goal. When you define clearly what it is that you want to accomplish, you cut your chances of getting distracted by half.

2. Concentrate on one task at a time. When we have ten + tasks on our to-do list, multitasking seems like the only logical solution to get them all done. We multitask, because we believe that it boosts our efficiency and productivity. However, true productivity is not about how many things you can do at once. It is about how many tasks you complete. If you want to get more done a lot faster and with fewer errors, focus your attention on just one task at a time.

3. Choose important over urgent. Not all of the important tasks are urgent. Quite the opposite, all long-term goals that have the biggest positive impact on our life are way ahead in the future. Similar, most tasks that seem highly urgent will not matter in a month. Make sure that you do not let yourself be distracted by apparent priorities and keep your focus on tasks that are truly important for your career, personal life, health and spiritual growth. Everything else can wait!

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Bzzzz… Bzzzz…
The annoying sound of an alarm clock pulls you out of your dream. You open your eyes, make an enormous mental effort and take one hand out of the covers and hit “snooze” to happily drift back to sleep. A few moments later you hear the same familiar sound. Have 15 minutes already passed? You calculate that you can afford another 15 minutes of lolling about and hit snooze again.

By the time you drag yourself out of bed you have just enough time left to take a quick shower, get dressed, gulp down orange juice and grab something “eatable” on your way to the door. You spend the rest of the day feeling somehow annoyed and frustrated, because it seems that all you are doing is trying to catch up with your busy schedule! Does it sound familiar?

If yes, than the morning is probably not your favorite time of the day. Just like it was not for me. Although, I have learned that it does not have to be this way!

Here is how to make your mornings enjoyable and start your day on the right foot:

1. End the previous day right. Never go to bed in a bad mood. Settle any arguments, let go of frustration and make a conscious effort to relax your whole body. Calm down your racing mind. Stop thinking about work or going over all the stuff that needs to be done. Night time is meant for rest so make the most of it.

2. Get enough sleep. Being a night person myself I know how tempting it may be to stay up late chatting with your friends or just watching your favorite movie at home. It is fun, but you need to be smart about it. If you are robbing yourself of two extra hours of sleep, you are doing yourself a great disservice. 7 hours of sleep is an absolute must for most people in order to feel refreshed and energized the next day.

3. Do not close your blinds all the way. Our body has a built-in biological clock that is synchronized with natural light. When we find ourselves in darkness, our brain starts to produce “the hormone of darkness” – melatonin that signals to our body that it is time to sleep. Melatonin production is inhibited by light and this is how our body knows that it is time to get up. If you sleep in complete darkness, you will wake up in the morning feeling light-headed and tired.

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It was just an ordinary sunny day in Miami. Nothing foreboded danger… I woke up, feeling happy that I could finally do yoga on the beach. Five minutes later I was already enthusiastically doing my Sun Salutations.
Even though it was early morning there were already quite a few people on the beach. They were chatting, reading books, walking along the beach, or just sun bathing. The strange thing was that even though it was really hot, no one was swimming. It looked kind of weird.

Probably the water still seemed too ‘cold’ for most people to swim. But not to me! Someone who was born and lived in Latvia knows that water can only be considered cold when you dip your big toe into it and your whole leg gets numb. If you do not feel any freezing sensations, muscle cramps or loss of sensitivity in your lower extremities – the water temperature is acceptable for swimming!
And that is exactly what I did!

Gracefully I dived into the ocean, enjoying the refreshing coolness of the salty water. I was already 60 feet away from the shore, when I felt a strange sensation on my right. As if I had suddenly touched another person’s cold arm. My heart jumped a beat but I saw nothing.
I tried to relax thinking that it was probably a leaf, but I still turned to swim back. 5 seconds later I touched something with my hand again, only this time it was on the other side.

I finally saw it! A huge jellyfish with two rose circles around its tentacles. I felt deep paralyzing fear… I shrank back, but almost bumped onto another jelly fish. They were everywhere!

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“There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear”. ~George S. Patton

Fear has darkened more hopes, shattered more goals, stifled more ambitions, poised more dreams, prevented more accomplishments than any other emotion in the world.

Although, the same fear has sharpened our senses in the face of danger, made us stronger when we needed to protect ourselves or our beloved ones, prevented us from taking bad decisions and unjustified risks, and in some cases it has saved our life.

Fear has many faces. Sometimes it disguises as caution. Sometimes as doubt and worry. Sometimes as an unpleasant gut feeling. Sometimes as anxiety or panic. And sometimes fear is so strong that it paralyzes us and takes our breath away.

What is the difference between the fear that you should pay attention to and the one that becomes an obstacle towards your personal growth and success?

How to tell if your fear is imaginary?

Basically any irrational thought that starts with “what if…” indicates that your fear is not real. I once heard someone say that 90 percent of the things we fear never happen. A further 9 percent we often make happen ourselves. For example, a person who has a deep fear of losing his job may become so anxious about making a mistake that he will not be able to perform well and will continuously seek co-workers approval. His productivity will decrease which will eventually lead to a lay-off.

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It is now official! Behavior researchers and psychologists have proved something most of us have intuited long ago – people do not like to take risks even at the cost of letting valuable opportunities pass by.

What is so unattractive about taking risks?

Nothing really. Apart from the possibility of losing something valuable, be it money, better opportunity, or our self-esteem.

We like things and opportunities that come with the word “guarantee” attached to them. That way we feel safe and satisfied with our decisions.

Risk, on the other hand, means that there is a certain percentage of failure involved. Of course, there is also a certain percentage of success. But since we are a lot more motivated by what we can lose than by what we can gain, we do not like to chance it.

However, there is also a downside to avoiding risks in life:

1. Tons of missed opportunities (because any great new opportunities always involve taking risks)

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We all crave being loved, cared for, appreciated and understood. 99% of what we do, think, say, fear, and desire can be, one way or another, linked back to our need for affiliation and approval. And this is not surprising, because without close satisfying relationships our life becomes lonely, boring and meaningless. Relationships, on the other hand, make it exciting, meaningful and fulfilling. But also frustrating. Especially when people refuse to act according to our wishes or expectations.

When it happens, we have two options:

1) Try to change other people and convince them to do the “right thing” ( usually we have an explanation ready of what the right thing is)

2) Change the way we relate to others and learn why we sometimes face difficulties when it comes to creating and sustaining relationships with others.

Here are the 10 Most Important Relationships Laws:

1. THE LAW OF SIMILARITY. Like attracts like. We do not attract people that we want to attract into our life. We attract people who are similar to us, because we resonate with them. There are no accidental encounters. Just after effects of our past thoughts, expectations and actions.

2. THE LAW OF BRICK WALL. Precautions that we take to avoid getting hurt include not letting any emotions get too close to our heart, but this also turns you into a prisoner keeping you safely tucked behind the walls.  “Playing it safe” is a sure way to avoid a broken heart, but it is also a sure way of leaving happiness outside your life.

3. THE LAW OF INACTION. Nothing will change in your life until you take a step to make it happen. Any satisfying long-lasting relationship requires patience and sustained effort.

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I often wonder, what would have become of me if my parents had sent me to a music school when I was little or had taken me to tennis classes. I might have been giving concerts all over the world or been competing against Maria Sharapova. You may say that this is just daydreaming and will get me nowhere. May be…

But have you never wondered what your life would be like if you had stayed together with your High school Sweetheart? Or if you had not turned down a job offer because you were afraid you might not be able to handle all the new responsibilities that came with it? Or if you had just a little bit more courage to act on your dream, instead of letting an opportunity go by?

Do you ever get the feeling that there should be more to life? Or that you still have not uncovered your full potential?  Well, it is not too late!

Here are 3 steps that you can take to become your Absolute Best Self:

1. Find your passion.

We are not usually born knowing exactly what would we like to do.  Like tiny puzzle pieces we put together our interests, hobbies, bits of knowledge, different talents and skills to get the whole picture and discover our true passion. After this the next ultimate challenge is to figure out how to make money by doing what you love to do.

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Last week I went to see the new Harry Potter movie with my ‘little’ 20-year old brother. Have you seen it? It was pretty good. If you are a fan of J.K.Rowling’s books, you will love it.

I especially liked one scene where Ron thinks that Harry Potter has given him a potion of “liquid luck” and wins the game of Quidditch. What he really drank was a glass of water, but because he was convinced that he was invincible thanks to magic elixir of luck, his game improved and he turned from an ok to an incredible Keeper in just a few seconds. Scientists call it the “placebo effect”, demonstrating that our abilities go far beyond our own expectations.

Which got me thinking, where can I get about hundred thousand bottles of fake elixir of luck? I could transform peoples’ lives instantly, remove my own blocks and limits, make tons of money, win the lottery a couple of times and try bungee jumping (being sure that I will not die of a heart attack or a broken neck).

And that is when it hit me!

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