(The following has been written by Robert Almares of Hear Mind Write)

You’re getting home from a long day of work. Good things have happened, bad things have happened, and you just want to relax. So, you grab a snack from the fridge and sit down in front of the television, or pull out a good book to read, or perhaps… write.

Writing might not be the first thing you think of when trying to wind down from an eventful day, but it may be the most beneficial. Why? The act of writing can not only be insightful, but it can also be therapeutic.

We aren’t talking about writing on a deadline, or writing for other people. This is simply writing for your own pleasure.

When you write for yourself, there are no rules and no boundaries. You are in total control of what you write. Whether you are simply writing about your day, or writing about thoughts you have on your mind, you can decide how it gets written.

If you are a person who values your privacy, you can choose to write in a diary. Diaries are a popular choice because of the privacy they allow their authors. Most of what is written in diaries is usually intimate and not meant for others to read. The security a diary offers is much safer than any private conversation. People may choose to write and reflect on their days, or just highlight their deepest thoughts and emotions without having to worry about other’s reactions. The only thing an author has to worry about is another person getting a hold of their diary.

If you are looking for an outlet that is more creative, you could always turn to fiction. When writing in fiction, you are allowed to put your own twist on reality. Perhaps that guy or girl who turned you down in real life gives you a chance in the fictional world. You can even give our boss a piece of your mind and have the outcome be positive, like a raise and a promotion instead of a pink slip. Whatever you want to happen, you can make it so in fiction. Some of the best fictional works are those which are derived from personal experience. Perhaps those moments in life you found traumatizing will turn themselves into award winning novels.

Maybe fiction isn’t your thing. If this is the case, then you may find a mock article more fitting. Articles can be both serious and playful. When an issue comes up that you feel needs to be explored, then you can write an in depth article or a commentary piece about it. Just getting the issue off your shoulders can be a very relaxing experience. When you are finished, you can pass it out to friends, family, or even submit it to a publication if you feel it is good enough. The reactions you receive from others can be very rewarding. You never know when an article you’ve written may help someone else in life.

So, the next time you feel you need to relax, turn off that TV, and put that book away. You might find the most relaxation may come from a pen and paper.

For instance, yesterday, I happened to be running across the street at an absurd rate and I bumped into a man. Instead of being respectful and saying sorry, I kept on running. Now lets analyze what I did wrong: a) I was being close-minded, only paying attention to where I was supposed to be, b) I did not apologize for what I did wrong. These are two common mistakes in people. Two mistakes that I don’t want you to make.

• Be attentive. I believe that there is no way you can respect if you don’t understand. Listen to what others say and act accordingly. Others will appreciate you more than ever before when you listen to what they say.

• Be slow. While you may be thinking that you will not hit a soul, there is a pretty good chance you are wrong. In a car, there is double the amount of risk of killing someone when going 35 miles per hours rather than 30 miles per hour.

• Be kind. Under any circumstance, always be kind because that is the way you yourself would like to be treated, The Golden Rule. Anyone can use a little kindness in their day. Only positive things can come out of being kind.

• Be intelligent (and make intelligent decisions). Intelligence is something that has been valued more and more since the beginning of time. If you want to be respectful, you have to use your brain. Read that one more time. Use your brain.

• Be positive. People like people who are in good moods, always ready for a challenge. If you want to be respectful, be up and about. Nobody likes a person who is whining around the office, crying for attention. Be positive, it will attract people to respect you.

• Be focused. Focus on a friends problem and try to help get it solved. That friend will respect you more than he or she already does. It will also get the word out that your a helping hand, more friends will come to find your services. You’ll be respected.

Below I challenge you to come up with three “be’s of respecting others”. Go for it!

Why Smile?

One reason and one reason only should satisfy your likings: it will make others happy. It should be one of the main reasons we all live, to make others feel better about themselves and better altogether. Why should there be another reason to smile? Honestly, there shouldn’t. It’s fulfilling enough for me to smile and bring someone’s negative atmosphere into a positive mood.

Because I’m feeling so much good energy, I’ll give you another reason to smile. It will make yourself happy. When you force yourself to do something good, most times you’ll end up being in a great mood yourself. This is because the uplifting sense of being can create new beginnings for your mood.

Uplift Using a Smile

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I like to challenge you, the reader. All I ask as my goal for you is to make one person better by smiling. It doesn’t have to be someone you know, it can be a stranger for all I care, just give someone in this world a smile. It will make them feel greater than you could ever imagine. I didn’t believe until someone gave a smile to me.

How To Smile?

Some people have trouble smiling themselves. If your not smiling yourself, how are you supposed to start the domino effect? If your one of those people who find it very hard to smile on a daily basis or your just plain depressed, here are five tips to smile yourself:

1. Think if you were in a worse situation. It’s always possible to be in a worse position than where you’re at right now. You could be without a computer, living on the streets. If you are living on the streets, you could be dead. There is always a worse problem you could be facing.
2. Take a deep breath. In this article, I taught some that taking a deep breath is necessary to release stress when times are incredibly tough. Here we learn that when you take a deep breath, it can actually make you forget about those bad moments in your day.
3. Take a moment to ponder your redeeming qualities. You have redeeming qualities, trust me. Everyone has them. Are you a good athlete? Do your friends call you smart?
4. Watch something funny. Whether it be a video that your friend made when he was a clown in a circus or a song that has hilarious lyrics, it really doesn’t matter. You’ll find that even the smallest jokes can make you smile and that is what’s so good about media.
5. Go to sleep. Sometimes a good rest does some good for short term negative moods. You go to sleep thinking that you’ll never get out of your current status, but low and behold your up in a positive mood. Yes, it’s actually works.

A smile will help someone. It will bring someone up to new places. It will turn that frown upside down, but most importantly it will make you feel good for helping out a fellow citizen of the world.

“What has your mother done for you in your lifetime that you appreciate?”

Sometimes our moms are a little bit difficult, but other times they are heart warming and sincere. I hope you feel the same way about your mother and good luck in answering my question.

A few days ago I found that extravagant sun shining down on me while taking a bike ride. It was late in the afternoon and I was alone. Before I start to tackle the large hill, I am reminded of the beautiful circle by its jaw dropping horizon. The colors that fled the sky, purple, blue, red, orange, and even a slight shad of pink, were larger than life. After that one afternoon I have reminded myself every day to go look out at the sun for at least five minutes. Not only has my relaxation skyrocketed, but I’ve found some other key factors to note.

◦ Get a family member or friend to join you. Anything is easier with another person. It’s someone to motivate you, to increase your relaxation, to make you feel better when times are down. Trust me from experience, you want to take another person along on the ride to success. A saying that fits perfectly in this situation is “the more the merrier”.

◦ Feel happy to be alive. This is a time to reflect on what you have accomplished and to be thankful for being alive. No matter how down you are, if you take things into proportion, being alive is arguably the most important scheme in life. Do whatever you need to to realize that being alive is important that you should reflect on it daily.

◦ Recite prayers under the sun. This relates much the previous point. When you pray, hoping for new good things to happen you replenish your soul with good thoughts. It’s a good idea to forget about yesterday and hope for good events to occur tomorrow. You’ll succeed in life if you follow that incredibly simple tip. If you had a bad day, forget about it.

◦ Make watching sun a daily routine. Many great things can be accomplished when you make a good habit a daily routine. It gets the juices flowing, it puts your mind to work and honestly, you feel much better after following a positive habit. Watching the sun will feel great once it gets started.

◦ Increase overall relaxation. Let watching the sun be a stepping stone toward making your life better. Here at Leisure Views, my goal is to increase your overall relaxation. It is possible to do that while watching the sun. Use the previous four tips to make your life better altogether. Hope you do well on the path to increasing your relaxation!

✓ Improved your work ethic. Once you follow that time period you had to accomplish Task A, you can now say you improved your work ethic. You completed a goal and therefore you shall be rewarded with the thought of yourself improving, or improving your work ethic. Follow those deadlines to be rewarded with improvement.

✓ Feel better about yourself. This relates to the first point. When you improve your work ethic you feel better about yourself. Following a deadline is a long process of trying to not save the workload till the last night, but spreading out the amount of work throughout the time period. To be honest, I rarely do spread the work out, but when I do, I feel rewarded to a very high degree.

✓ Create motivation. Motivation is a key when doing any sort of work. You have to feel connected to that work somehow or you will never get it done. Once you finish your completed goal you say to yourself that you can beat the deadline again and again and again.

✓ Get to spend more time doing the things you love. I like to exercise. When I finish this post, I’ll go out and shoot the basketball around. If you like to write then when your done with your work, log on to your laptop and start to write. This helps with the post above as motivation is key to success.

✓ Make “beating the deadline” a habit. You do it once, you did it again. You do it again, you do it again and again. Every time you do something many times, it becomes a habit. When something good happens many times it becomes a good habit. Those are the type you want.

✓ Increase the “client/grader/boss” opinion of you. Everybody has someone ahead of them on the “pyramid of power”. The pyramid of power for school goes as follows: A student has a teacher, a teacher has a principal, a principal has a superintendent, etc. To put it simply, whenever you impress somebody, you gain their respect. By completing a deadline in time your doing just that.

✓ Able to relax. I often find myself extremely stressed late in the night when the deadline is supposed to be due. With spreading the the time and work out efficiently, I found myself already completed the task. The last time I got a quality sleep was the night of finishing a deadline much beforehand.

Deadlines are important in the every day life. They can make or break a career, they can make you miserable or joyful and they can dominate your every day life. But there are end results to a grueling deadline. Those results make my life.

NBA superstars take a deep breathe on the court before a free throw. Not to look cool, not be stylish, but to be relaxed before they take the shot. Well instead of taking a deep breathe before the shot, take a deep breathe after. Your not in a mood to start trouble before you get insulted or attacked.

In my personal situation, I am pretty bad with the deep breathe. I’m usually red as a tomato when constructive criticism can interfere with my daily routine, but the internet is my biggest helper with this situation. On the ‘net, you have extra time to answer a question, criticism or insult. Instead of responding rudely, take a deep breathe, walk around your house if you need. Then respond to the negative comment.

If you can’t handle responding, don’t. But if by any chance you do respond, make the negative into a positive. Although it’s not necessary, I suggest thanking the person for their help. However harsh the comment may be, if a deep breathe is not involved the “task” probably will still be in turmoil.

When someone states deep breathe, what do you think of? It matters. You have to find a place where you are comfortable in. Whether it be laying on the beach or sitting in the park. If a place on the Earth is calm minding to you, use that place when you take your breathe.

Deep breathing is the key to this all. Without inhaling and exhaling you are absolutely no where. It’s more than that really though. It’s about controlling yourself and making sure you don’t get too angry over one comment. (That’s where you take the breathe.) You can do it, the world is backing you to control your deep breathe.

The work week is a long five day grueling process for the every day worker. Most days seem to carry on forever. Your wondering when Friday afternoon will arise. Going through work this way will most likely result in a job that is no more. You’ll get fired because of your procrastination skills (or lack thereof) and insufficient work habits. Here are three ways you can put yourself in a better position at work:

1. Clear Out Your Inbox. Workers now a day rely heavily on the computer. Your emails are most likely cluttered. You need to organize this. I’ve used Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Live, Gmail and AOL. By far, the most efficient of all has been Gmail. I can “filter” different emails based on importance level, color coding, and “starring”. It’s very easy to archive an email and it happens to my most useful tool. The features a Gmail account provides are innumerable; create your Gmail account today.

2. Refine Your Task List (and if you don’t have a task list, create one). It is important every once and a while to make sure you are on track with your weekly and monthly goals. When you create/refine your task list, your making a commitment to these goals. When you write them down, you are more obligated to complete “Goal A” or “Goal B”. In my personal experience, the task list I make helps me stay focus on the weeks goals.

3. Do Not Procrastinate. Procrastination does many things for workers. None of them being positive. Wasting time is something many young people get fired for, whether it was talking to a coworker or surfing the web. These decisions will lead to asking for money on the streets. I’m not too sure about you, but that isn’t the type of lifestyle I am for. If your procrastinating this very second, get back to work.

These three tips alone can help you advance as a worker every day. I highly suggest you try them out. Not only do they make me feel great every day, they enhance the quality of the paycheck you receive.

Most people have a zone and don’t realize it. When you have a zone you put up another factor of your life and reduce stress. A zone is like a best friend. You can just be yourself and have a good time when your at this place and/or that time. It’s natural. If your having trouble finding a zone for yourself or you don’t know what a zone “looks like”, “feels like”, “smells like”, “tastes like”, or “sounds like”: read on.

Let me start off by saying I found my zone two weeks ago. Not only have I felt less stressed every second in those two weeks than any other pair of weeks in this year, but also I am rejuvenated to new levels. My zone is in the mornings, when everyone has yet to rise, typing on my laptop. That is my time. It’s my zone. My writing capability goes to new heights when I am put in the setting of looking at the birds chirping to their peers.

Things that you love to do provoke relaxation. Hobbies are things you love to do. If your LeBron James, your zone will most likely be the basketball court. If your George W. Bush, your zone will probably be the White House. It is different for different people. If you can’t find your zone through your hobbies, maybe the negatives of not finding and having a zone will get to you. (Insider note: Expect a post about “hobbies” in the near future.)

Stress is common way to decide whether or not you have a place to go to. If you are under a lot of heat in life altogether, you probably don’t have a zone. That’s nothing against people with stress in their lives, it’s just not my preference life style. What is my preference life style though is living with as minimal stress as possible. And when you have a zone, a place to go to, a special time for yourself, you put your best foot forward.

A time to think about your zone is in bed at night. Before you go to sleep you usually have not much on your mind, so it seems to be the perfect time. Think about where you like to spend the colossal amount of time. Think about your hobbies, your passions in life. From there you will probably get a zone that you love and enjoy.

(Above is a picture of my personal zone. Hope it looks relaxing for you!)

Compliments
As you can see throughout the first three posts, I like to challenge my readers to go out of their way to do something that will help them. In the next twenty-four hours I challenge you to go out of your way to make somebody happy. It can be your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, boyfriend, girlfriend, sister, brother, grandpa, grandma. All I suggest is to look someone in the eye and give them a complement.

Physical Actions
Of course, complements aren’t the only way to make a positive impact on another person. Try to import a physical commitment to your schedule. It can be as simple as helping your mom clean her house or as complex as driving a stranger to her broken down car. As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” If you are a firm believer of the statement, this type of “Random Act of Kindness” will probably be for you.

Money Donation
Please don’t make this out that I’m trying to scam you of your money because I’m not. Now that that is out of the way, I think I should give a more in depth reason on why money donations make an enormous impact on a person. Do Not: give to the person him or herself. Give to his or her charity. When you give to a friends charity you are not only making your friend feel good, your helping the charity.

Help A Child
The future of society is on seven and eight year olds’ back. We know they’ll learn and develop (hopefully!) but why not try to speed the process up? Why not go to a local library and volunteer to read a book? Not only do the kids look up to you because you are old, but also because as a member of the world, you are a role model for kids everywhere. Parents: This final “Act of Kindness” is suited for you.

Take the initiative. Realize that someone out there is feeling downtrodden and gloomy and needs to be picked up by a complement. Realize that your roommate might need help with the dishes; help him out. Realize that your brother might be looking for someone to sponsor him in his upcoming race; help him out. Realize that a child in your local area might need a role model. All of these different types of people can be helped with a random act of kindness.