Success University 02 (Nov 08 - Jan 09)

[winston]

Achieve Your New Years’ Resolutions -- or Any Goal! by Jody Johnston Pawel

Every New Year, many of us set goals and resolve to meet them — only to become discouraged and quit. Here are suggestions for removing the most common barriers blocking our success — in parenting, our careers, marriage...and Life!

First, set attainable goals. To illustrate, consider "Susan," who wants financial independence.

Affirmations are positive statements we word as if we have already achieved our goal. When Susan says her affirmation, "I am financially independent," she is reminded that she isn’t! That’s the problem with affirmations.

Intentions are statements that state the outcome we want and use words that empower us to take responsibility for its success. An intention focuses on something we can do. So Susan’s intention statement might be, "I am now practicing financial responsibility in all areas of my life."

Goals support an intention. They are actions we take to achieve our outcome. When we write a goal statement, we state our full name, write in the present tense, in positive words, using "ing" verbs whenever possible. Susan’s goal might be, "I, Susan Jones, am now saving 10% of every paycheck I receive."

Write your intention and goal statements, then read them aloud every morning and night.

The key ingredients to goal achievement are the four levels of creative energy Peggy McColl describes in her book, 8 Proven Secrets to SMART Success.

Thoughts. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "You become what you think about all day long." Think about that! When we repeatedly think about something with conviction, we put energy into creating whatever we are thinking about. Unfortunately, on average, 75% of thoughts are negative. When we wish for something and then cancel it out by thinking about all the reasons we can’t get it or all the possible challenges we might encounter, McColl says, "it’s like planting a healthy seed and immediately pouring weed killer on it."

Words. The words we say aloud to ourselves or others add energy to our thoughts.

Actions. When our thoughts, words and actions are all moving in the same direction, we get results.

Being. This last level of creative energy stems from the other three, because we become what we think, say and do. Did you get that? We become what we think, say and do.

The first barrier to goal achievement is that our thoughts, words and actions often don’t line up. If we take a positive action, but doubt we can succeed (a negative thought) or say we can’t do it (negative words), our actions will not be as successful.

To take control of our creative energies, we must first become aware of what we are thinking, saying and doing. Then choose to replace non-productive thoughts, words and actions with supportive ones.

This may sound easy, but it’s amazing how deeply ingrained our beliefs can be! I’m generally a positive person and have known about these energies for years. Yet, despite all my efforts, I simply wasn’t reaching my goals. I thought there must be some deep subconscious blockage inside me. So I did an exercise McColl suggested to discover and remove the blockage:

Take two sheets of paper. For one week, on one sheet, write things you find yourself thinking, saying and doing that are positive and supportive. Keep this sheet. On the other sheet, write things you think, say and do that are holding you back from achieving your goals. Take this sheet and rewrite each negative statement as a positive statement on the first sheet. Then destroy the second sheet in some symbolic way, like tearing, burning or crumpling it.

The second barrier to goal achievement are excuses, which dis-empower us and keep us victimized. As long as we make excuses, we will not achieve our goals. Instead, we need to accept responsibility for solving the challenge we use as our excuse. Successful people aren’t just lucky. Every successful person has overcome obstacles, endured adversity and worked through challenges.

The third barrier to goal achievement is our level of faith. Do we hope to reach our goal, but have great doubt we will? Do we believe we’ll reach it, but have some doubts? Or do we have absolute faith and no question we’ll succeed? The moment we start to doubt, we sabotage our success. So we must visualize our in advance and have absolute faith that we will achieve them. We may not know how, but we must have faith that the answer will come — maybe from left field.

Many people live by the creed, "I’ll believe it when I see it." Our beliefs, however, filter everything we see and how we interpret events. We often twist the truth to fit our beliefs and ignore anything that doesn’t fit our predictions. So naturally, we get a self-fulfilling prophecy! In reality, it’s our beliefs that dictate what we see, so as Dr. Wayne Dyer says, "You’ll SEE it when you BELIEVE it."

The fourth barrier to goal achievement is a lack of sustained motivation. Rhonda Britten, in her book Change Your Life in 30 Days says, "Motivation is a reflection of how committed we are to our goal. If we are totally committed, it’s easy to be motivated to do what we need to do, even when we don’t feel like it." When we can say, "That’s it, I’m doing this and nothing is going to stop me," we will conquer our fears and challenge ourselves to take the next step.

The following ancient Sanskrit saying sums it all up perfectly:


The Essence of Destiny
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Choose your words, for they become actions.
Understand your actions, for they become habits.
Study your habits, for they will become your character.
Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Every day we are creating our future. What future will you choose to create?

[kennynah]

Thoughts. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "You become what you think about all day long."

[b]The Essence of Destiny
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Choose your words, for they become actions.
Understand your actions, for they become habits.
Study your habits, for they will become your character.
Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.

nice article ...tx w !!!

We think, therefore, we are - - some wise man said

[winston]

Reach For The Stars... But Keep Your Head Out Of The Clouds By Mike Brescia

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Today's Empowering Quote
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"The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success comes only later."
--Confucius

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Today's Empowering Question
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"Am I looking too far ahead to focus on the problem at hand?"

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Today's Fast Session
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OK. Where were we?

Did you notice that?

Most people are thinking way too far ahead (or their head is somewhere else entirely) to focus on what they're supposed to be doing.

If you focus on the thing you should be, you'll do it well and you'll then be able to give the next task your full attention. Big companies have learned rather painfully that it's not possible to focus on too many things well.

When multi-billion dollar corporations buy other companies outside their field of expertise, even if they're billion dollar organizations, they often drive them into the ground. They wanted to conquer the world but found outthat they better stick to what they know.

Remember the big W on the wall? You do have that W on your wall, don't you? Well, put an F next to it.

This stands for FOCUS.

A few years ago, I owned two companies at the same time. One was established but not wildly profitable. The new one needed all my time, since it was just getting started. They weren't related at all. Completely different industries.

Both suffered because they each needed a lot of attention... If I had just focused on my primary goals, I would've been miles ahead. As it was, it cost me over $30,000 and 6 months of wasted effort.

Learning experience...

For you, use other people's experience to teach you those painful lessons - and notice what happens when you take your eye off the ball, too. Pay attention. Learn...

Stephen Covey uses the metaphor of the compass. It always points true north. Your internal compass needs to do the same thing. Operate on principles or those principles will operate on you. They won't change. You must change.

Success will come to you...

...if you're patient and if you put your mind on what is most important right now. I know, you want it now. Why should you have to work so hard?

Get used to it. That's life. We're here, we live and we're gone. You are governed under the same rules as everyone else.

Life is too fleeting to be willy-nilly all over the place.

FOCUS and you will reach your enormous potential.

[winston]

Is harmony one note that everybody is singing? Or is it a whole lot of notes that are in vibrational harmony with each other?

When you give your attention to anything, the Universe responds to it. When two of you are giving your attention to it, and there is no contradiction, it is a powerful vortex. That's why a gathering such as this can achieve a great deal as you come together in greater and greater harmony and take thought beyond that which it has been before.

Excerpted from a workshop in Chicago, IL on Sunday, April 25th, 1999

All Is Well

[millionairemind]

Four Simple Steps to Mastering Change
By Brian Tracy

There is a little poem, "Two men looked through prison bars. One saw the mud; the other saw the stars." The moral: You can improve your ability to deal with change by focusing your attention on the future and by seeing the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

A critical issue in dealing with change is the subject of control. Most of your stress and unhappiness comes as a result of feeling out of control in a particular area of your life. If you think about the times or places where you felt the very best about yourself, you will realize that you had a high degree of control in those places. One of the reasons why you like to get home after a trip is that, after you walk through your front door, you feel completely in control of your environment. You know where everything is. You don't have to answer to anyone. You can relax completely. You are back in control.

Psychologists call this the difference between an "internal locus of control" and an "external locus of control." Your locus of control is where you feel the control is located for a particular part of your life. People with an external locus of control feel they are controlled by outside forces, their bills, their relationships, their childhood experiences, or their external environment. When a person has an external locus of control, he or she feels a high degree of stress. And with an external locus of control, a person is very tense and uneasy about change of any kind. Change represents a threat that may leave the individual worse off than before.

On the other hand, people with an internal locus of control possess a high level of self-determination. They feel that they are very much in charge of their life. They plan their work and work their plan. They accept a high level of responsibility, and they believe that everything happens for a reason and that they are the primary creative force in their life.

Since the only thing over which you have complete control is the content of your conscious mind, you begin to deal with change by taking full, complete control over the things you think. As Aldous Huxley said, "Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you." Since change is inevitable and continuous, it is how you think about what is happening to you that is most important in determining how change affects you — and whether you use it to your advantage or let it work to your disadvantage.

In his book Celebrations of Life, Rene Dubos wrote that we fear change more today than ever before, and for less reason. The reason we fear change is because we are afraid that we will be worse off as a result. No one fears change that implies improvement. For example, if you learned that you were going to have to change your lifestyle because you had just won the lottery, this is not the kind of change that you would avoid or anticipate with dread. It is change that implies unpleasant surprises that you fear and become anxious about, because it causes you to feel that you have lost a certain amount of control in that part of your life.

Your aim is to become a "change master," to embrace change, to welcome change, to ride the tides of change, and to move toward the improvements you desire.

Boat builders know that the deeper the keel of a sailing vessel, the more stable it will be in storms, squalls, and gusts of wind. The same holds true for you. The deeper your keel — or stabilizing factors in your life — the less likely it is that you will be blown over or off course when unexpected change occurs.

You can deepen your keel and increase your stability by setting big goals for yourself and making clear, written plans for their accomplishment. Goals enable you to control the direction of change. With goals, change becomes planned and deliberate, instead of random and haphazard. Goals assure that the changes that take place in your life are primarily self-determined and self-directed. With clear, specific goals, the changes that take place will tend to be positive and move you toward something that you want to achieve rather than blow you off course.

It is inevitable that you will experience a continuous series of large and small disappointments and setbacks in your life. That is the nature of the game. They are unavoidable. Some things work out, and some things don't. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. In spite of your best efforts, unexpected and unpredictable events will derail your best-laid plans. This endless process of change and setbacks begins when you first enter the workforce, and it continues for the rest of your career. Problems and changes in your work are like the rain — they just happen. But if you set clear goals for your work, as well as for your family life and for your personal development, then no matter what happens, you can concentrate your thinking on your goals and take a long-term view of your current circumstances. You can, in effect, rise above the challenges of the moment and keep your eyes on the guiding stars of your life and your most cherished dreams.

With clear goals, you will become multidimensional rather than one-dimensional. A setback or disappointment in any one part of your work will be quickly offset by the fact that you are busy in other areas, and you simply won't allow yourself to invest too much emotional energy in one particular thing that doesn't work out to plan.

Now I'd like to share with you a four-step method of dealing with change:

The first step is simply to accept the change as a reality. Acceptance is the opposite of rejection or resistance. Acceptance keeps your mind calm and positive. As William James said, "The starting point in dealing with any difficulty is to be willing to have it so." The minute you accept that a change has occurred and that you can't cry over spilled milk, you become more capable of dealing with the change and turning it to your advantage.

One of the best ways to deal with the worry that is often generated by unexpected change is to sit down and answer, on paper, the question: "What exactly am I worrying about?"

In medicine, it is said that accurate diagnosis is half the cure. When you sit down and define a worrisome situation clearly on paper, it suddenly becomes less stressful to you, and it will often resolve itself. In any case, when it is clearly defined, you have diagnosed it, and you now can do something about it.

The second step is to ask yourself, "What is the worst possible thing that can happen as a result of this change?" Much worry and stress comes from the refusal to face what might happen as a result of a difficult problem. When you clearly define the worst possible outcome and write it down next to the definition of the problem, chances are you will find that, whatever it is, you can handle it. Often, your worries will begin to evaporate after you have determined the worst that might happen as a result.

Now decide to accept the worst possible outcome should it occur. Mentally resolve that, even if the worst possible consequence ensues from this situation, it will not be the end of the world for you. You will accept it and carry on. The very act of accepting the worst possible outcome helps to eliminate the stress and anxiety associated with the situation.

The third step in dealing with change is adjusting your behaviors and actions to the new situation. Ask yourself, "What are all the things I can do to make sure that the worst does not occur?" Sometimes we call this "damage control." In the business schools, this is an important part of decision making, and it is called the "mini-max regret solution." What can you do to minimize the maximum damage that can occur from an unexpected change or setback? As you begin thinking of all the things you can do, you are adjusting your mind to the new information and preparing to take steps to deal with the change effectively. Write these things down next to the result of step two.

The final part of this four-step method for dealing with change is to improve on the existing situation. Often, a change signals that your plans are incomplete or that you might be heading in the wrong direction. Serious changes, which create real problems, are often signals that you are on the wrong track. There is an old saying, "Crisis is change trying to take place." You will often find that the change is a healthy and positive step toward achieving your goals.

W. Clement Stone, the billionaire and founder of Combined Insurance Company, was famous for his attitude of being an "inverse paranoid." He was convinced that everything that happened to him was part of a conspiracy to help him to be more successful. Whenever something unexpected occurred, he immediately said, "That's good!" and then looked into the situation to find out exactly what was good about it.

If you look into any change, you will always find something good and beneficial for you. Look for the valuable lessons contained within every setback. What is the hidden advantage that you can turn to your benefit? Is this change a signal that, if properly responded to, will save you from a much bigger change or problem in the future? Since your mind can hold only one thought at a time, if you force yourself to look for the positive aspect of any change, you'll keep your mind clear, and you'll keep your attitude optimistic and confident.

Viktor Frankl said that the last great freedom of man is the freedom to choose his attitude under any given set of circumstances. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

A mark of a successful person is what has been called "tolerance for ambiguity." This simply means that you have the capacity to deal effectively with a rapidly changing situation. The more successful you become — the greater your income and responsibilities, the higher your status and position — the faster the rate of change that will be around you. At every stage, it will be your ability to function with calmness, clarity, and quiet assurance that will mark you as the kind of person who is going places in life.

In the final analysis, your ability to perform effectively in a world of ongoing change is the true measure of how well developed a person you are. As you continue to do this, you will experience a wonderful feeling of self-control and self-determination that your whole life will be bright and positive — and so will your results.

[winston]

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Column By Chris Widener
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Put Some Fire in Your Desire

One of the keys to success is staying motivated because it is being motivated that keeps us going out the door every day to change the world and reach our destiny! It is our desire for a better life, for change in ourselves and others, and for personal growth and fulfillment that moves our mountains! Desire!

Desire sure is a word with much more richness to it than the word "want" though they are essentially the same. "Want," though, sounds like you could take it or leave it. "Desire" says, "I have to have it!" Desire, is "want" with a fire under it!

Unfortunately, we tend to ebb and flow from want to desire, even with the same goal! One day we may be passionate about building our business or growing our relationships and then, the next day, we find ourselves simply in the "want" camp again.

The key to keeping on is to re-light the fire under want so it roars into a raging fire of desire! Then, and only then, will we see the passion needed to be tenacious pursuers of our dreams! Keeping the fire lit is what will see you through the mountains and valleys of life and the journey you are on to your success!

So what do we do? We light the fire! Here are a few thoughts to help you build the fire of your desire!

The wood:Keep a clear mental picture of the goal. This is imperative. The picture of the goal is like the wood in a fire. It is the raw material. Know what your goal is and what it looks like.

The fuel: Keep a list, if simply just a mental one, of all of the benefits of pursuing and reaching your goal. Make them as "sense" oriented as possible. "See" the benefits. "Hear" them. "Touch" them. This is like the fuel that we add to a fire to get it going. Now all we need is a match.

The match: Keep yourself active! This is the match: Action! Even when you don't feel like it, get yourself to act and soon you will see the fire burning because you have again ignited the dream! The more desire you have the more the fire burns.

Eventually the fire will begin to die out. Here is where you throw the wood on again, pour on some fuel, and if need be, strike another match.

I would encourage you to not let the fire go out though, because it is easier to continually throw wood and fuel on an already burning fire than it is to start one up again!

[winston]

The Tyranny of "Why?" by Gregory Anne Cox

Judging. Defensive. Tyrannical. These are the shadow characteristics of Why as a means of getting information. Who knew Why had a shadow side? Generally people ask why when they are upset about something and they are looking for someone to blame. Sometimes they just want to be recognized as right, thereby making another wrong. Tyrannical.

Yes there are those times when we simply wonder why something is so, but it seems that the dark side of Why is more prevalent.

Exhibit A " Why did you do it this way?" The subtle message here is, "my way would have been better."

Exhibit B "Why did you say that?" The not so subtle message here is "I'm not looking for answers I simply don't like what you said."

But often we need to know, don't we? When and why? When a significant other comes home later than expected someone might be met at the door with "Why were you late?" To my ear that immediately puts said other on the defensive. Change a few words, "Did you hit traffic on the way home?" or "Did the boss grab you on your way out the door this evening?" and the whole dynamic is different. There is now an opening for conversation rather than a corner with a person stuck in it.

Much of how we interact is based on what we learned growing up. If the blame game--"who spilled the jelly beans and why?" was a common approach in your formative years then it's no wonder that "why did you leave your plate on the counter?" rolls off the tongue so easily. Do you really care why the person left the plate there?

Often the person on the other end of the interrogation, and it can just as easily be us, didn't really "do" anything to negatively affect you. Those with Y chromosomes for instance, are almost incapable of getting dishes from the counter top to the dishwasher, clothing into the hamper vs. left on top of it, or the condiment back into the refer vs. leaving it out on the counter. Why? Who cares, it's just the way it is.

Fact finding is fine and helpful to our need to understand the world around us. "Can you please put the dishes in the dishwasher?" sounds a lot more useful than "Why do you always leave your dishes in the sink?" The latter will probably get you the result you want too.

Sometimes things just are, what it is, crap happens. When a person we know, love or work with is involved however the mommy in us rises to the surface. We want answers!

Why? We know it's possible to get different behavior by asking a different question than the one that puts us on the defensive. Is it possible to give it a try?

What if we were to just accept that most people are not out to make our lives miserable. They are very busy doing what works for them and sometimes--quell horror--just don't think about us and our needs. Damn them.

Next time you are tempted to demand answers beginning with the word Why, pause, breathe, and see if you can't find other words to get you what you need to know. Most of the time what we need to know is that we are smart, right, not being taken advantage of, respected, etc. and has nothing to do with the other. If we can approach the people and situations that arise day to day with that in mind we might not only get the results we are looking for but we'd discover that what we need to know says more about who we are being than what's been done.

[kennynah]

The Tyranny of "Why?" by Gregory Anne Cox

Judging. Defensive. Tyrannical. These are the shadow characteristics of Why as a means of getting information. Who knew Why had a shadow side? Generally people ask why when they are upset about something and they are looking for someone to blame. Sometimes they just want to be recognized as right, thereby making another wrong. Tyrannical.

Yes there are those times when we simply wonder why something is so, but it seems that the dark side of Why is more prevalent.

.....

a refreshing angle looking at the "dark side" of why.... otherwise, we must have faith in the prophecy that the true why is the force that will bring balance to the universe..... so, ask why with pure intentions....

this author above....kan si lan eng ah

[winston]

They Can't Beat Me! by Mike Brescia

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Today's Empowering Quote
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"I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective. I don't want a football player who doesn't take defeat to heart, who laughs it off with the thought, "Oh, well, there's another Saturday." The trouble in American life today, in business as well as in sports, is that too many people are afraid of competition. The result is that in some circles people have come to sneer at success if it costs hard work and training and sacrifice."
-Knute Rockne

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Today's Empowering Question
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"Whom can I have a (friendly) competition with to use as my motivator?"

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Today's Fast Session
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So many people wilt under competition. So I don't want to propose that you use as an important source of motivation a mental activity that makes you perform worse in whatever area you'd like to improve.

What you find difficult today, though, with even a little "private" competition, you'll find to be easy.

What we're discussing is a way to give yourself a passion that can give you such drive to reach your objective, that it will not only get you there, but you'll actually love the process.

An example in my life is having been a very mediocre student in high school, and then flunking out of college.
At that point, I kind of got the idea that I better start doing something well or I just might end up dead broke or just dead sooner than I'd like. So I enrolled in a local community college and began using my neighbor, who was an 'A' student his whole life, as my competitor. It was friendly, of course. And at that time, I was badly overmatched. I mean, he was a seasoned studier. He knew how to learn. I didn't.

Every day, I kept him in my sights. He usually beat me on tests and quizzes, but I won some occasionally...

...enough to keep me motivated.

In fact he drove me to achieve things that I had never done before. Enough to turn me into an 'A' student in a single semester. Not bad for someone who only ever got A's in Art and Gym.

That's the key. You can't pick someone, even in secret, that there's no way you'd ever measure up to. You at least have to be able to win occasionally. And someone you beat constantly won't stretch you.

You have to be able to imagine victory or else you won't try, long term. You'll get demoralized too easily.

Pick someone in a magazine, someone you used to know, who you work with. It doesn't matter. Pick someone that motivates you that you can reach.

If you want to lose weight, find someone who's a little slimmer than you. Make that an intermediary goal. Then, go for someone who's just a little further beyond when you arrive at your first guidepost.

Sure, aim for total success...

But don't swing for the fence every day. Little victories add up. Allow yourself to feel incredible satisfaction
when you achieve your little benchmarks.

Every time I got a quiz or test within a few points, and especially if I beat my friendly rival, I literally glowed... like a star!

Those moments so revved me up that it completely redirected my life.

Now don't get me wrong. I was due for many more challenges in life... most of which I would not win for a
long time.

But it was this process and those victories that gave me a taste of success that took a sustained effort to achieve.

I can't stress enough that the little victories along the way are every bit as important as the end goal. They keep you going when you have a setback.

If you want to quit smoking and you've quit for a week, don't let one slip up ruin all you've built. Every hour
you go without a cigarette, where you didn't bite someone's head off, give yourself permission to feel an incredible sense of accomplishment... because it is. Call someone up on the phone. Go out to dinner. Celebrate in whatever appropriate way you can. Put a mark on the wall. Give yourself credit. Smile. You did it.

You must do this...

...because setbacks will come. And if you built up a series of successes AND RECOGNIZED THEM, you'll treat the setback as just a slight delay, a little detour. Without your private victory parties, setbacks can be made to look like a sheer rock cliff.

During the second year of my becoming a real student, I achieved something that found a permanent home in my victory log. On the Statistics final exam, I got the only perfect 100 ever recorded in that school.

Yes, I had beaten my rival...

...and it felt great!

[winston]

Four Approaches to Stress Management by Rajen Jani

What is stress?
Every person has experienced stress in some form or other and many writers have defined stress in different ways. Some definitions have gained recognition while others are still been passionately debated, avidly argued and aggressively defended. Stress, if not managed effectively, can cause serious health problems, even death. Self-medication in such situations is never advisable. Only qualified health professionals should treat stress-related illnesses.

What happens to the body in stressful conditions?
Walter Cannon (1932) conducted researches on stress and came up with his theory of “fight-or-flight” response. He found out that when an organism comes in a situation that it cannot comprehend, at that time either the organism fights or runs away. This is so because the organism in the perception of threat, releases such hormones that enable it to survive either by fighting or by fleeing.

In humans, these hormones enable the heart to pump faster, thereby delivering more blood to the body and more oxygen to the body parts. The heart rate and blood pressure increases as it flows much faster delivering sugar and oxygen to important muscles. The sweat glands produce more sweat in an effort to cool down these muscles thereby increasing their efficiency. The blood is diverted from the skin to the core of the body in an effort to minimize blood loss if wounded.

The hormones enable the mind to concentrate only on the object of threat so that the individual can exclusively deal with it. All these biochemical actions and reactions take place in direct proportion to the perceived threat, some shock, something unexpected, or something that frustrates. If the threat is small, the response is small, and likewise, if the threat is large the response is large. These biochemical hormones enable the individual to survive stressful conditions.

The darker side of this critical mobilization of the body is that the body becomes more highly-strung, more excitable, more jumpy, more irritable, and more anxious. This state reduces the ability to interact successfully making it difficult to execute precise and controlled skills. In addition, when the mind focuses exclusively on the subject of threat, then it fails to draw from the other sources present and thus no fine judgment is possible.

Hans Selye (1956), one of the founding fathers of stress research, stated, that stress may be good or bad depending on how the person takes it. Exhilarating, successful, and creative work done under stress is beneficial, whereas stress caused by infection, humiliation, or failure is detrimental. He was of the opinion that certain biochemical effects take place irrespective of stress being helpful or harmful.

Modern research is of the view that stress has mainly negative effects, and starts a chain reaction of biochemical actions, which has harmful long-term effects. In a positive environment, such biochemical actions and reactions is not witnessed; hence, it conclusively proves that stress is something ‘bad’ for human health.

Richard S. Lazarus, stated the most widely accepted definition of stress, as a condition or feeling that is experienced by a person when the demands put on the person exceed the social and personal resources that the person is able to garner.

Management of Stress
Stress can be and should be managed to enable survival. Modern working life creates tremendous personal and occupational pressures, which need immediate management and successful resolution. Stress management techniques are many and all of them try to control this fight-flight response. Stress has to be managed with a rational, calm, controlled and socially sensitive approach.

To avoid burnout and debilitated health in the end, stress may be managed by the following techniques:

* Action-oriented approach - In this kind of approach, the problem creating the stress is identified and confronted directly. Appropriate changes are made to alter the situation or the environment and thereby reduce or eliminate stress by resolution of the problem creating the stress.

* Emotion-oriented approach - In this kind of approach, the individual does not have the power to change the environment or the situation. The individual modifies personal emotions to interpret the situation differently and thereby attempts to reduce to eliminate stress.

* Acceptance-oriented approach - In this kind of approach, the individual has no direct or indirect control over the factors causing the stress, along with no emotional control to alter the interpretation of the situation. Total acceptance of the stress is undergone and the focus is only on to somehow let the time pass and survive the stress. This shows results in short term or long term health damages.

* Adaptation-oriented approach - In this kind of approach, the individual adapts to the situation, and instead of trying to fight it, tries to go along with the flow, thereby becoming one of the factors causing stress. This is done with a view that if the individual also becomes one of the factors causing stress then stress shall be diverted to some other individual and thereby the individual shall be free from stress. This approach is widely practiced in office politics, where the officers transfer their stress to their subordinates who again pass it on to their juniors.

The negative side of this approach is that if the last individual who finally receives the stress is unable to face it or fails in the resolution of the stress, then additional stress is created, which goes on increasing, and if uncontrolled, may result in a severe mental derangement of the individual, leading even to suicide or death.

Conclusion
There are many other approaches identified by researchers, and any approach that suits the individual should be applied. However, if stress is unbearable and seems to be beyond control, then a qualified health professional should be immediately consulted. Even minor changes in diet or exercise should be informed to the health professional, so that with adequate professional help, stress can be controlled and if possible, eliminated. Alternative therapies like meditation, yoga, deep breathing, etc., are also very popular in the management of stress.