Identity theft is now more prevalent than ever. A person can use your personal information, bank details or credit card details without your permission for personal gain. This is a fraudulent use of your information and normally will cause you, the victim, varying degrees of loss and inconvenience and therefore identity theft avoidance methods are more important than ever.

Consider for a moment the trail of information you leave behind you when you pay the pizza delivery guy with a check – you may be asked to write your name and address on the back and that piece of paper, with your personal and bank details on it, goes through various hands before it makes it’s way back to your own bank. Any unscrupulous person in that chain could have access to your finances and potentially clear your account. Being aware of these issues is the first step towards identity theft avoidance.

The most important thing you should do in order to avoid identity theft is to be aware in every situation where you have to divulge your personal information or where others could potentially use it.

Here are three identity theft avoidance tips to help you:

1. Always aim to keep information – personal information, bank details, social security numbers, pin numbers etc – out of the sight of others. Preferably do not write anything down where it can be stolen by others and especially do not keep financial information together in your purse or pocketbook. A good tip is do not write your personal information on the back of a check, instead write down your phone number and then if verification is needed or there is a problem the bank can contact you.

2. Phone calls asking for personal and financial information are another potential trap and as such you should not give out information to anyone that calls you. Instead either ask for their number and call back (after first verifying their credentials independently) or call your bank or whoever the caller represents and verify the information they need.

3. Online identity theft is an ever increasing problem and therefore you need to exercise due diligence when buying goods online. What do you know about the company? Have you bought items from them before? Check whether the yellow padlock shows in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Do they used a recognised payment processor e.g. Paypal, WorldPay etc?

You should never divulge your financial information until you are happy that the website is genuine and that your information is secure. You can always contact the Better Business Bureau to see if they are genuine.

Cloning websites is very popular as a way of relieving you of your cash and personal details, so never click links within suspicious emails. Many companies will tell you explicitly that they will never contact you in this way. If you are at all unsure then reassure yourself by contacting them yourself.

As you can see identity theft avoidance is achievable if you are careful with how you secure and use your personal and financial information. Be careful out there!

Being forgetful about little things isn’t a good sign of leading a healthy mind or good memory. These things are important in terms of allowing your mind to create its own association with the things in the past that you have been used to and the just the thought of you being on this state creates an even bigger conflict with upcoming tasks.

But let us not forget the people with commendable memory. They may have nothing in particular to worry about especially when it comes to memorization tasks, but these people still and will experience a slip of thought time and again. It may be just little things, like saying you have misplaced your keys because you have forgotten where you last put it in the first place. For you it may just be a simple “misplacement” of important objects, but if you try to think about it at a different level, it is actually a memory problem. The bad news is that, it could even become worse than how it is today.

Again, these things may be simple. Other than forgetting where you have placed your car keys this morning, things like important events and deadlines can slip off of your mind as well and this could become a bad habit. Good news is, you can take control of these things. You can stop yourself from developing absentmindedness because when it takes over you, your natural instinct of organizing things properly also slips away.

When you try to think about it, there is actually a great significance as to how a person organize his thoughts and in turn, the things that matters around him. Improving your memory can be done in so many ways but destroying it can also happen in a snap and there are still more factors that contribute to memory failure.

This time, it’s simple. Try your best to be organized. If remembering where you placed your car keys is a problem, use a container you can easily spot and place it where it can easily be seen. If remembering names is too much, ask more information about the person, his whereabouts, achievements and acquaintances. The things that he say are going to imprint memory anchors to your brain which holds on to his name. There are many ideas how you can simply prevent forgetfulness but it is up to you apply it.

Kindness is a generosity of spirit. It comes to life when we give of ourselves and our time to be of help to others, without expecting anything in return. When you show kindness to somebody you bring out the best in yourself, and a side-effect of brightening up somebody else’s day is to feel happier in the moment yourself.

Pay attention to the impact your behaviour has on others, and notice your own feelings in association to their reactions. And think about how you feel yourself when somebody else shows you kindness. What you give comes back to you in even greater quantity. When you are kind, you not only get an immediate payback in terms of a feel-good factor, you will also receive kindness from others, and in completely unexpected and unrelated ways.

It is so easy to find ways to be kind to others: say something supportive when you instinctively feel someone needs to hear it; offer help without being asked for it; smile encouragingly; swallow your criticisms; listen without judgement; let mistakes slide instead of assigning blame; make small sacrifices for the benefit of somebody in greater need.

A great rule of thumb I apply to my life is to do unto others as I’d have them do unto me, and, do unto myself as I’d do unto others. The latter part is just as important as the first. It is no good to be consistently kind to others and forget to be so to yourself. You will run out of steam, and feel less able to show kindness to others if you don’t replenish your own mind, body and spirit on a regular basis.

Being kind to yourself means getting your needs met, being gentle with yourself instead of critical when you feel you’re not performing at your best, forgiving yourself when the need arises instead of beating yourself up. When you get into the habit of treating yourself with kindness, it becomes much easier to extend that consideration and behaviour to others.