Ever wonder why it seems your dog is in a good mood all the waking hours of the day?  Perhaps adopting a dog’s sleep habits might help you emulate the feeling.

A bad night’s sleep is the worst when it comes to getting things accomplished and feeling good during what should be a great day.  The effects due to lack of sleep on mood, productivity, creativity, and even the quality of our relationships take a bigger toll on our health than most realize.

Anyone who does have trouble sleeping most likely have read all the “regular” things to do in order to get better sleep.  The concept becomes nothing more than a repeated set of rules that get ignored, similar to the simple rules of training a well behaved dog.

Finding a new outlook and different perspective is the answer to changing any sort of habit you’ve developed.  Sleep is no different.  That being the case here are some ideas that may just be on the level of an “ah-ha moment” and getting some quality sleep along the way.

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“The Good Life” courtesy of Architects 51N4E

Today I want to talk about five keys that will help you live a successful life.  These are five keys that I’ve learned over the years from studying successful people.  These lessons separate those who succeed from those who fail.

We’re all capable of greatness; however, we’re all not willing to reach for it.  This article contains some of the keys that will help you reach for greatness.  If you follow these keys, I believe your life will begin to change.

5 Keys to Successful Living:

1. Discover why you were created

Everything created solves a problem, my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells.  Doctors solve medical problems, lawyers solve legal problems, mothers solve emotional problems.  You were created to solve a problem, and your success in life is dependent on your ability to find that problem and solve it.

You see, you will only be rewarded in this life for the problems that you solve for other people, so it’s imperative that you find the problem you solve best, and solve it.

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There will come a point in your life when you feel that everything seems pointless. If you reach this stage, you need to try to look at your life and start considering what things you need to do to keep the fire in you burning. No matter how old you are, it is important to live a life that is full and happy.

If you no longer have the fire in your burning, there is a big chance that you will easily give up when trials and obstacles come your way. In order to make sure that your motivation to live and love stays strong, here are some tips.

1. Assess Your Life

The first step that you need to do is to take a look at your life. More often than not, people who are bored and unhappy do not really know the things that are beautiful and precious in their lives. They fail to stop what they are doing and to find time in assessing their achievements and losses. Once you have already determined what makes you feel down and bored, you can start to do something about it.

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The most important person behind each of your decisions has to be yourself. Your health and attitude are what give you the ability to perceive everything else around you. Often times, we initially make our decisions based on how someone else will react, or how fitting the decisions are to society’s standards, but society would not be visually available if you couldn’t see it, or audible if you couldn’t hear it.

This is a reminder to put yourself first in a big way. Although it may be a big way compared to what you were doing before, it is probably not big enough compared to how relevant your presence is in the world.

Conversation Example

With all the hesitation that you may face when going up to someone in a public setting, conference, or party, most of that hesitation doesn’t take into account that, if it was not for your senses and perception, the person would not be there for you to make conversation with. You’re a puzzle piece in the interaction just as much as they are a puzzle piece in the interaction. When we assume that our presence is not meant as part of an event, we lose the majority of our socializing energy, and get stuck in a mental circular loop of doubt or questioning.

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Before you open another door, follow this three-step process:  Stop. Pause. Enter. It might take an extra 10 seconds, but doing this will help you become more conscious of your objectives and help you connect with your spouse, children, boss, mother-in-law, or whomever.

If you’re like me, you have a thousand things you’re thinking about and commitments you’re juggling. You’re probably bouncing from one thing to another, trying to keep it all together. You might feel overwhelmed, overworked, and mentally exhausted. You also might spend a good deal of your mental energy focused on the future — wondering how you should reply to that email from your nosy colleague, thinking about your grocery list, or even daydreaming about your upcoming vacation.

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“Into The Bloom” courtesy of PopArtMachine

I’m sure you’ve noticed that a lot gets said about productivity – not just here on Pick the Brain, but around the web. We’re always keen to squeeze a little bit more out of our day, fighting against all the interruptions and distractions of modern life.

It’s easy to end up struggling much harder than you need to, though, by trying to be productive in the wrong ways, at the wrong times. Working with your body clock and your natural peaks and troughs of energy lets you maximize your productivity all day long … rather than struggling through several miserable hours by sheer willpower, only to end up too tired and tetchy to carry on working.

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I was a touring comedian for ten years and a very successful one at that; in fact, I hold the entertainment industry record of 106-straight weeks touring on the road. At the same time, I managed to retain my anonymity, which was important to me. In those ten years touring, I met tens of thousands of audience members after shows. The most common opening phrase they used? “I wish I could . . .” followed by their goal or dream that they just didn’t know how to go about achieving. In small towns, it was often just “I wish I could move to a big city where I could have some options.” (Small town people often feel trapped and because of it often become so.)

I found myself uttering the same phrase back in college at nineteen. Mine was, “I wish I knew how to figure out what I should do with my life.” Whether you wish for a new career or better life or more money or to lose weight or to become a rock star, it really all boils down to the same wish: You wish you knew how to make better choices.

It’s choices that determine how much money you make, your career, whether you realize your dreams, who you date, how much weight you lose or gain, and so forth. It’s what I really wished for at nineteen, as well. “I wish I could make better choices.”

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You’ll cut back and forth between lanes on the freeway to save a minute or two from your commute. You’ll analyze and obsess over choosing the shortest and fastest checkout line at your grocery store.  And you probably even reply to emails while on conference calls. You do all of these things and more while telling yourself you need to use your other 8 hours as efficiently as possible. But there’s a HUGE difference between using your time productively and investing your time effectively.

Some activities are clear cut. Watching the same Seinfeld episode for the 15th time or playing online poker provides little growth or substance beyond adding entertainment and levity to the day, but what about all of those activities that trick us into thinking we’re using our time smartly when we’re really just wasting time?

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You own the code. This code is not a secret and it doesn’t have to be broken or translated in order to understand its meaning. All you have to do is to make the choice to enter the code into any aspect of your life to begin receiving what you want.

Whether it’s improving relationships, losing weight, finding success at work, or making more money, the code is applicable to all areas of life and uses the exact same logic. The code isn’t hidden in a secret vault; it can be found in clear sight when we choose to look for it and then use it.

Getting Past Go

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to getting what you want is to just get going. Sometimes after you make the decision that “I will [fill in the blank with your goal]” you begin to hear “I can’t do it because…”

These self-limiting tapes perpetuate the lie that either (a) you are not worthy to have what you want, or (b) negative self-talk will begin to convince you that you are not able to do what you want to do. The lie begins to win and its power is seemingly too great to overcome.

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