LEONOR HERRERA

One bit of advice that most coaches will give you regarding living a more balanced life is that you need to say no more often. But sometimes, they aren’t that clear on how you decide if something is a no or a yes. One way to do better than saying no is to learn how to say yes, the right way. Once you learn how to say yes, the right way, it’ll become a habit, and saying no will never be difficult again.

• Tell Them You’ll Answer by a Certain Time – When anyone asks you to do something unless it’s an enthusiastic “hell yeah,” don’t say yes or no immediately. Tell the person you’ll get back to them by a certain deadline to give them an answer. This gives you time to ensure you really want to do it or not.

• Check Your Schedule – Think about what it will take to do what you are being asked to do. Will you even have enough time? Even if you want to do it and don’t have the time, it might be best to say no.

• Will It Be Worth It? – When you think of the results of doing what
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Developing daily habits that drive success sounds complicated, but the truth is, when you break down your actions based on what you want to achieve and then distribute that action realistically into your daily to-do list, success will start to feel almost automatic.

Turn Daily Planning into a Habit

Every morning first thing, it’s important to take a look at the to-do list that has been created based on the goals you’ve set at other times. Putting the actions, you need to do in order of importance and based on today's reality is important to help avoid any roadblocks to achieving the goals you’ve set.

This type of planning should only take about five minutes and consist of simply opening your scheduling method, whether it’s paper or digital, and double-checking the schedule for any bottlenecks or issues. You can then rearrange things on the fly to ensure ease of success.

All To-Do Lists Need to Be Goal-Based

If something made it to your to-do list, it needs to be bas...

When you start making the good things you do into habits, suddenly everything you want to change seems easy. Want to lose weight? Just eat 100 fewer calories a day, move an hour a day, and while the change won’t be noticeable or hard to stick to, the results over a long time, such as a year, will be dramatic.

• Start Your Day with Uplifting Music – Even if you think you like listening to negative music to get your anger out, the truth is that it does affect your mind and inform your thoughts. There is a time and place for everything, so first thing in the morning, feed your mind with positive music. It can help to pick one pick me up song that works no matter what to listen to.

• Reframe Roadblocks as Challenges – How you think of things and word things makes a difference in how you react. If you can use positive language to reframe the things that get in your way or threaten to get in your way, you’ll naturally teach yourself how to overcome them.

• Use Positive Words ...

Growing up watching stories about heroes saving others, or people finding their “other half,” or worse, watching your own family member waste away after the love of their life dies as if the life they have of their own is without value.

The truth is, love is great, and you should experience all the love you want to, in all its forms, but how other people feel about you should not define your happiness. You define your happiness, and it’s what you do or don’t do and ultimately how you feel about yourself that makes you happy or not happy.

Once you start practicing the daily mindset of owning your own happiness, the world will open up to you in ways that you may not have considered. To accomplish owning your own happiness, practice each of these attitudes each day.

Accept Yourself

Getting to know you also means that at some point, you have to accept who you are, flaws and all. That doesn’t mean you use the flaws as an excuse. No – instead, you discover ways to overcome th...

If you’ve ever been told that you have the same 24 hours as the next person, pay close attention to this post and take this daily mindset habit idea to heart. A mindset of the rich that differs from their non-rich counterparts is that the rich tend to place a high value on their time.

Time Not Money is Finite

We love acting like money, and certain natural resources are so limited, but the truth is, it’s time and not money that is finite. And due to money, you can actually buy other people’s time, thus placing a higher value on your time than theirs.

For example, if you know that your time is worth $100 an hour because that’s how much your boss pays you or how much you bill your clients, why would you wait in a 30-minute line to return a $10 item? Likewise, why would you spend an hour grocery shopping when you can pay someone enabling you to earn more money?

Calculate The Worth of Your Time

Part of the problem is that most people have never calculated the worth of th...

Whenever you set up your schedule, there may be things you put on your schedule that you don’t want to do, or try to avoid doing, which can lead to procrastination and other problems. If you want to stop allowing this to happen, there are some strategies you can put in place that help you develop the habit of doing.

Schedule Everything

How you arrange your calendar makes all the difference. Most people only put work and appointments in their calendars. Put everything you want to do in your calendar, from lunch with your spouse to ladies' night out with friends to a picnic with your daughter. If you're going to get it done, it has to be in the schedule, or it won’t happen.

Schedule Properly

When you do create your schedule, it’s not going to help to list the things you want to do without knowing how long you’ll take, where you’ll do it, how you’ll do it, and more. This requires research. Scheduling properly includes considering the real amount of time you will take and w...

One problem with the modern world is that it’s almost expected that people are supposed to multitask. The problem is no one can actually do it. It’s actually impossible for over 99 percent of humans to multitask. If you don’t believe me, you’ll need to look up the studies because it’s not something that is disagreed upon among social scientists.

Humans Cannot Do Two Things at Once

In reality, instead of true multitasking, you’re just splitting your attention between tasks – and not always evenly either. Trying to multitask is a productivity killer and also a mood killer. There are rare humans with superhuman ability who can multitask, just like there are rare humans who can perform superhuman athletic feats; some people are born with brains that are different from the norm.

More than likely, you are not one of those people. More than likely, you also cannot actually multitask. Trying to multitask is not just killing your productivity it’s probably even making you feel bad a...

When it comes to daily habits that breed success, being organized can’t be understated. Getting your environment organized and keeping it that way will pay off in big ways.

Some people experience issues with being organized isn’t due to having some organizational block, but it’s more about not really understanding that there are better ways to get organized for success than just putting things away and being uncluttered.  

Here are some ways to think about organization so that your entire environment is set up to make success easy for you, whether at home or work.

• Use Your Planner – Whether you use electronic or paper versions, you can’t beat incorporating the habit of using a planner into your daily life to help you be more successful. When you have it all in one place, you can easily look at your days, weeks, months, and years and make the best use of that time. Don’t rely on memory. Write everything down you want to do and block out the time to do it.

• Set Goals...

Picture yourself in a perfect world, in your perfect office, running your perfect business. What’s your role? Do you have team members or are you still doing everything by yourself? How much money are you making? Do you have products? Do your clients rave about you?

Yes, our perfect worlds are goals certainly worth aiming for but if you’re still a solopreneur who’s doing every job by herself, it’s time to sit and learn the importance of these three words. Understanding and implementing these three little words will alleviate your stress and help grow your business. Truly!

1. Automate

Plenty of admin tasks can be automated nowadays, which frees up time for you to focus on money-making ideas. Set up automatic monthly payments for recurring business expenses. Set up labels and filters for your email inbox. Collect customer data with forms on your website. Create automated email responses when people send in customer service inquiries. Use an autoresponder to send monthly newsletters ...

Many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, and having the freedom to only take on clients and projects they love.

What they don’t realize, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed.

Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people trade dollars for hours

Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others. Self-employed people rely only on their own skills.

Discouraged yet? Don’t be. Every business owner started out self-employed. Just don’t stay there. These tips will help you build a sustainable business instead of just another job.

Don’t Try to Do It All Yourself

Building a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others. While it might seem cost-effective to simply do everything yourself—especially in the start-up phase when you likely have more time than money—it’s a path to burnout and stress.

Instead, separate your tasks into those that you love and ar...