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Chapter 1

“FOCUS” Defined

Focus is integral to accomplishment. It may actually fall in the same category as ambition, motivation, leadership and other driving forces behind becoming successful, but does not necessarily get the attention that it deserves. Often downplayed, the role of focus cannot be sabotaged in an individual’s ability to be productive.
What all this basically means is that you need to be focused in order to achieve something or become successful in your endeavors. But before we go into that, here is a look at what focus really means.

By definition, focus is a skill that allows people to start a task without procrastination and then keep up their attention and effort until the job is complete. It is an ability to not only pay attention to things that they are engaged in but also avoid distractions that will impede the work they are trying to do.

In fact, focus is so important to getting anything done that you can’t really think without focus. When you hear about things like perception, memory, learning, reasoning, decision making and problem solving, you know that none of these can be done successfully unless you focus.

On the contrary, a wandering mind will make you less effective in your work and your productivity will suffer. The same will also compromise the quality of work giving you less than optimal results. Not to forget that you will also be wasting time every instance your mind drifts off.

Why do people suffer from a lack of focus?

In some cases, a lack of focus may be a matter of interest. Take your everyday to-do list for instance. Not everything on the list might be interesting to work on, but needs to get done anyways for you to move ahead. In these instances you may find yourself stuck, trapped doing something that you couldn’t care less about. Your only obligation may be the feeling that you need to get the job done to move on to other things. Not such a great motivator, but that’s reality; in the real world things need to get done to make way for other things.

It is only natural that your mind starts to drift off in these situations. You may end up finding excuses for not doing that particular thing, say by justifying that you don’t really need to do the job right then, or that it’s not really that important or even something like you’ve got better things to do than the job on hand. But any way you dress them up, they are all just excuses for procrastination.

Which brings us to another aspect of focus; procrastination. Procrastination is perhaps the biggest hurdle in the way of attaining good focus. When you use procrastination to get out of things what you are really saying is that you don’t want to do a particular task, or that you are secretly hoping that it will just go away on its own, or that you will eventually feel motivated to do it.

With so much going on, it is no wonder that focus gets sidelined and never surfaces to the forefront.

And while a lot more can be said on procrastination, we will cross that bridge when we come to it (in a later chapter). For now, it is sufficient to say that procrastination, in fact, is the granddaddy of all excuses and will never let you focus properly on any given task.

How can you counter a lack of focus?

Moving on, while you may be well aware of what is stopping you from focusing (think procrastination), you may not know how to tackle this problem. So here’s some help:

Address WHAT needs to be done

To make focus work for you, you need to have a clear cut goal; call it a grounded purpose towards which all your efforts are directed. When you have this reference point in sight, you can apply all your skillset and decision making to get the job done right. But with this crucial factor missing, you may as well go on a roller coaster ride.

It is these clear cut goals that define what needs to get done.

Clear cut goals also stop you from derailing and prevent you from going places where you never intended to go. Pick out a typical day in your life and think of all the fifty or so things you need to do. With your mind divided and scattered trying to deal with all fifty at the same time, you are likely not going to get much done. On the flip side, you may actually neglect to do some of the more important ones as you keep thinking about everything else instead.

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Introduction

Why do we read books is one of those vast questions that need no answer? As well ask, why ought we to be good? or, why do we believe in a God? The whole universe of wisdom answers. To attempt an answer in a single article would be like turning a spyglass for a moment toward the stars.

We take the great simple things for granted, like the air we breathe. In a country that holds popular education to be the foundation of all its liberties and fortunes, we do not find many people who need to be argued into the belief that the reading of books is good for us; even people who do not read much acknowledge vaguely that they ought to read more.

There are, to be sure, men of rough worldly wisdom, even endowed with spiritual insight, who distrust “book learning” and fall back on the obvious truth that experience of life is the great teacher. Such persons are in a measure justified in their conviction by the number of unwise human beings who have read much but to no purpose.

The book full blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head is a living argument against mere reading?

But we can meet such argument by pointing out that the blockhead who cannot learn from books cannot learn much from life, either. That sometimes useful citizen whom it is fashionable to call a Philistine, and who calls himself a “practical man,” often has under him a beginner fresh from the schools, who is glib and confident in repeating bookish theories, but is not yet skillful in applying them.

If the practical man is thoughtless, he sniffs at theory and points to his clumsy assistant as proof of the uselessness of what is to be got from books. If he is wise, the practical man realizes how much better off he would be, how much farther his hard work and experience might have carried him, if he had had the advantage of bookish training.

Moreover, the hard-headed skeptic, self-made and self-secure, who will not traffic with the literature that touches his life work, is seldom so confined to his own little shop that he will not, for recreation, take holiday tours into the literature of other men's lives and labors.

The man who does not like to read any books is, I am confident, seldom found, and at the risk of slandering a patriot, I will express the doubt whether he is a good citizen. Honest he may be, but certainly not wise. The human race for thousands of years has been writing its experiences, telling how it has met our everlasting problems, how it has struggled with darkness and rejoiced in light.

What fools we should be to try to live our lives without the guidance and inspiration of the generations that have gone before, without the joy, encouragement, and sympathy that the best imaginations of our generation are distilling into words. For literature is simply life selected and condensed into books. In a few hours we can follow all that is recorded of the life of Jesus—the best that He did in years of teaching and suffering all ours for a day of reading, and the more deeply ours for a lifetime of reading and meditation!

If the expression of life in words is strong and beautiful and true it outlives empires, like the oldest books of the Old Testament. If it is weak or trivial or untrue, it is forgotten like most of the “stories” in yesterday's newspaper, like most of the novels of last year. The expression of truth, the transmission of knowledge and emotions between man and man from generation to generation, these are the purposes of literature. Not to read books is like being shut up in a dungeon while life rushes by outside.

I happen to be writing in Christmas week, and I have read for the tenth time “A Christmas Carol,” by Dickens, that amazing allegory in which the hard, bitter facts of life are involved in a beautiful myth, that wizard's caldron in which humor bubbles and from which rise phantom figures of religion and poetry. Can anyone doubt that if this story were read by every man, woman, and child in the world, Christmas would be a happier time and the feelings of the race elevated and strengthened?

The story has power enough to defeat armies, to make revolutions in the faith of men, and turn the cold markets of the world into festival scenes of charity. If you know any mean person you may be sure that he has not read “A Christmas Carol,” or that he read it long ago and has forgotten it. I know there are persons who pretend that the sentimentality of Dickens destroys their interest in him.

I once took a course with an over-refined, imperfectly educated professor of literature, who advised me that in time I should outgrow my liking for Dickens. It was only his way of recommending to me a kind of fiction that I had not learned to like. In time I did learn to like it, but I did not outgrow Dickens. A person who can read “A Christmas Carol" aloud to the end and keep his voice steady is, I suspect, not a safe person to trust with one's purse or one's honor.

Foreword

Nowadays, just about everybody wants to keep fit and healthy to walk around with an attractive body. All the same, most of the individuals do not get sufficient time to join training courses and visit a gymnasium. To make up for this issue, they may look for workout equipment that may assist them in losing a considerable amount of weight and getting in shape at home. Get all the info you need here.

TRX Training Extreme

How to use suspension training to train and tone your body

Chapter 1:

TRX Basics

The TRX suspension trainer is a piece of workout equipment which took an easy idea which may be utilized for complex and ambitious exercises and workouts. The suspension trainer itself is 2 six or seven foot super heavy nylon strips with handles and straps at the end.

The Basics

Every side is adjustable length and the handles are soft foam which allows for a great grip which is obviously crucial if it’s supporting your body weight. In all truth, you ought to be more worried of the support you have your TRX attached to breaking up than the TRX itself.

The TRX lets you perform body weight workouts for your whole body anyplace. It's small and compact to where you are able to pack it with you anyplace and get anyplace from beginner workouts with a few exercises, to elevated Navy SEAL style combat training workouts which is why the TRX is popular with fighter gymnasiums.

The TRX suspension training system was formulated by a SEAL who was tired of not having any workout equipment or space to execute exercises for his entire body while on tours of duty. You do not have to have a deficit of space or be half way across the Earth to utilize the TRX.

While there are a few exercises which the newbie, elderly, exceedingly overweight or weak exerciser can solely do with the TRX, most of the best suspension trainer only exercises are only good if the user has higher-ranking core and overall functional strength.

If you are not significantly heavy and have been working out, most workouts on the TRX have a little learning curve and with practice you will be able to use the TRX for whole workouts or change of pace for a part of your physical exercise.

Chapter 2:

Suspension Training

The field of suspension training is a sort of resistance training/strength training that includes bodyweight workouts in which an assortment of multi-planar, compound exercise motions may be performed. These are done with the ambition of developing strength, balance, flexibleness, and joint stability at the same time.

A Bit More In Depth

Strength training is the utilization of resistance to bring on muscular contraction which builds up the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of striated muscles.
If decently performed, strength training will supply significant functional advantages and improvement in total health and well-being, including increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament durability and toughness, bettered joint function, decreased potential for injury, expanded bone density, expanded metabolism, bettered cardiac function, and elevated HDL (good) cholesterol.

Training generally utilizes the technique of progressively increasing the force output of the muscle by incremental weight increases and utilizes an assortment of exercises and types of equipment to target particular muscle groups.

Strength training is chiefly an anaerobic activity, although a few proponents have adapted it to supply the benefits of aerobic exercise through circuit training.
Sports where strength training is central are bodybuilding, weight lifting, powerlifting, and strongman, Highland games, shot put, discus throw, and javelin throw.

A lot of other sports utilize strength training as part of their training regimen, notably football, wrestling, rugby football, track and field, rowing, lacrosse, basketball, hockey. Strength training for additional sports and physical activities is becoming progressively popular.

Bodyweight exercises are strength training exercises that don't call for free weights; the practitioner's own weight supplies the resistance for the movement. Movements like the push-up, the pull-up, and the sit-up are a few of the most common bodyweight exercises.

As a whole, increasing the amount of repetitions will focus on bettering endurance, while strength gains are made with increasing the intensity of the exercise with decreasing leverage and working at the ends of range of motion.

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Introduction

Every single one of us has the drive to succeed. However, sometimes that drive is not always accompanied by the knowledge that we need in order to do so. Fortunately, there are many ways that you can gain the skills that are necessary in becoming a success. In fact, it can be broken down into simple step-by-step instructions so that you, and anybody else, can achieve their dreams.

It can be so discouraging at times to know what you want to do with your life or your time but be unable to understand where to start. It is one of the most difficult things in life when you have a goal but you do not actually have the tools that you need to see it through.

Nobody deserves to be discouraged that way, and we can all overcome this obstacle with time and persistence. It takes patience to achieve something great, but if you are unable to begin, then you will never end up where you want to be.

In this book, you are going to be handed all of the tools that you will need in order to become a success. A lot of people believe that the only way to accomplish it goal is to plan for every step of the way, and in a way that can be true.

However, some of us are more motivated when our plans are loose and freeing and we are able to modify them to suit our schedules and our lives. No matter what kind of person you happen to be, you can succeed and you can achieve your dreams.

In this book, you are going to find out a lot more about yourself then you have probably ever considered before, because one of the most important things that you must do in order to achieve success is to know yourself inside and out. People who do not know themselves are unable to predict their own flaws and shortcomings and plan for them. When you can’t plan for the ups and downs both, then success is often very elusive.

That doesn’t mean that it is impossible to succeed. As long as you’re open and honest with yourself about your goals and your shortcomings, then you have all the tools that you need in order to begin working away at your most important plans. Make sure that you are serious about beginning before you read this book, because when you take that first step, there is no going back. Once you get started, there is no excuse that you can make in order to let yourself feel comfortable in slacking at your goals. There is a popular saying, “where there is a will, there is a way,” and that has never been more true when it comes to planning for your success. No matter how difficult it might appear, you are going to find that once the process of succeeding is broken down into a step-by-step format, there is nothing that you can’t do. As long as you are willing to take on all of the work that needs to go into succeeding at your particular goal, then you are going to be a success.

And sure, sometimes, not every goal is going to be met. There are going to be ideas that, every once in a while, might need to go on the back burner or be given up entirely. That does not make you a failure. In fact, if you are willing to learn from these experiences and continue to move forward, all that they serve to do is to add to your success.

If you want to be a well-rounded, confident, successful person and you are hoping to achieve those dreams as soon as possible, follow this step-by-step guide to learn exactly what needs to be done in order to plan for your success and reap the harvest of your hard work as soon as possible. Let’s start now! Step 1: Know Where You Are Going by Visualizing Your Goal One of the hardest things about succeeding can sometimes be knowing where you want to end up. Sure, we all have a generalized idea of success as having a lot of money and working at doing something that we are passionate about.

However, that isn’t enough. What you need before you can succeed is a detailed outline of exactly what it is that you want to succeed at. Without that, all of your planning will be for moot.

A lot of people prefer not to think about where they want to end up, because maybe sometimes during childhood we have been discouraged from thinking big. We are often times discouraged and told that we are daydreaming and that we should not get ahead of ourselves. Our motivation is squashed at an early age when people tell us that we are not being realistic enough and that we should make sure that we are doing something that is both reasonable and stable. That means, that we are often discouraged from taking the risks that we need to take before we will ever succeed at anything in this life.

That can be very dangerous, especially to a driven and motivated person. We all have something that we want to accomplish in this life, and if we are not allowed to think in depth about that then we may never actually take the steps that we need to take in order to get there. It can be so toxic to listen to the people around us who are telling us that we should not be thinking about things that we want to think about. When we are unable to develop our vision, then we soon forget that we have a vision at all and we get stuck in the humdrum routine of everyday life. Nobody wants to be stuck there and this is how you get out of that rut and start succeeding. To begin with, thinking depth about exactly what you want to do and why you want to do it. Using visualization techniques can be extremely helpful when it comes to achieving your goals. First of all, you should visualize where he wants to end up presuming that your goal is successful. What is your ultimate outcome? Without knowing that, there is a lot of white noise in the way that prevents you from going after your dreams and believing that your goals are actually realistic enough that you could accomplish them provided that you are able to devote enough time and energy and resources to that project.

Once you have a very clear idea of what you want to do, you should also start to visualize the steps that you might need to take in order to get there. This doesn’t mean a detailed outline quite yet, as this will come in later steps, but you should have a mental idea of what you are going to have to encounter when it comes to making your dreams a reality. Planning for success of course does involve real plans, and this visualization process is going to help you understand what you are going to be dealing with when it comes to getting those plans off the ground.