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Sometimes asking for help is the hardest thing to do. It’s funny how often we take on impossible tasks and stressful daily schedules and not ask for assistance. Asking for help takes vulnerability and opens you up to another person. For some of us, this may come easy. For those of you who struggle, read on for some ways to ask for help. It will ease your anxiety and stress!

Accept That You Need and Deserve Help

The first and possibly hardest step is accepting that you not only need help, but you deserve it. Maybe you used to ask for help all the time, but adverse reactions made you stop. If you’re struggling, though, you need to accept that you need help or things are going to get worse.

Give that younger version of yourself who hardened your heart to others a break. You have come a long way since then. You’ve learned how to do a lot on your own, so it is not unreasonable to ask others to help you now. It is often the case that those around you would rather know you need help than watch you fail.

Know What You Need

Once you accept that you need and deserve help, you need to make sure you know what you need help with. Do you need advice about buying a car? Do you need a coworker’s advice? Make sure you know exactly what you need so you can go to the right person and ask the right thing.

Often, we struggle with requests for help because we don’t know what we need. We convey some ideas that we think might help, but the other person gets confused and offers favors that don’t make your life easier. All of that struggle can be avoided if you know exactly what you need from a person.

Don’t Leave People Guessing About What You Need

According to Alice Boyes of PsychologyToday.com, “When asking for help, make sure the person knows exactly what you want. For example, if you want to be shown what to do, rather than tell you, make sure you ask for that.”

This also works in the office. Your boss and coworkers may sometimes seem like they are waiting around for you to fail so they can be mad at you. The truth is they all want you to succeed because you are on their team. When you do your job better, so does everyone else. And your boss makes more money!

Therefore, in relationships, both personal and professional, make sure to ask for specific things when you know you need them. Be clear, and you more likely you will receive the support you need and deserve.

Give Help

When you readily help others, they will willingly help you. Knowing when to say no is crucial. If you are already feeling overwhelmed, you may not be able to meet someone’s request. This is fine. You have to make sure that you are doing well before you can help others.

When you are doing well, however, it benefits others, the world, and even you to offer up quality assistance to your friends, family, and members of your office and community. When those around you are happy and productive, it helps you and your entire community! So, take some time to help others, and you will never be wanting for assistance.

Asking for help is hard because we think it makes us weak. We’re also afraid we won’t get it. We have to push on past these fears with the firm belief that we need and deserve assistance. We must also walk the walk and help others in return.

The most misunderstood aspect of self-care is this – it doesn’t need to be time-consuming, it doesn’t need to cost you money, it doesn’t mean making drastic life changes. Self-care can be small and still serve you in powerful ways. Even the simplest things can provide you with what you need. With that in mind, check out this list of small, influential acts of self-care.

• Recycle Content

Recycling isn’t just for the environment. You can recycle content, too. If there is a movie, television show or book that you love, watch it again. Sometimes there is comfort in familiarity. You don’t have to sit at the edge of your seat, waiting for the ball to drop – you know every twist and turn, and that feels good. 

• Coffee on the Porch

Take a cup of coffee and sit on the front porch and watch the traffic as it passes by your house. Or read a book. Maybe just rock. Quiet time is a vital part of our lives. Most people deprive themselves of this activity. Go-go-go is okay when you are supposed to be moving, but not when you have quiet time. There was a time when I thought people who sat on the porch were wasting time. Now I know it is an essential part of keeping your sanity and being productive.

• Let it Go

We live in challenging times – the political world is raging on, and we get much of our news from social media. It’s easy to get sucked into arguments with friends and even strangers. Let it go. You won’t change any minds this way, but you will stress yourself out. Don’t look for fragmented news on social media! Most of it is taken out of context and twisted to make the writers point.

• Compost

Why not take an extra minute or two to toss your old veggies in the compost pile? How is this an act of self-care? You’re spending time in nature, even if it for just a few moments. It will help you fight stress, feel connected to the earth, and leave you feeling more grounded. 

• Meal and Movie

It’s your day off, treat yourself to a trip to the movies, grab yourself some popcorn and candy, and relax at the movies. But first, go out to eat at a restaurant by yourself. Dining by yourself will be uncomfortable at first. That is okay. 

• Organize

There is something stress-relieving about organizing. It could be separating your DVD collection into each genre before alphabetizing it. It might be doing the same, but with old records. It’s just taking steps to complete a mindless activity that allows you time to pause and reflect. Unorganized areas are stressful. If you are like me, and this activity is torture, get someone else to organize your space. 

• Unplug

If you feel on edge, then unplug. Forward your calls to voice mail, put your phone to the side and allow yourself time to zone out. That doesn’t mean chilling out in front of a television or watching movies all day. This is a total unplug. There is a time and place for the other options. This is about letting yourself daydream. It’s great for your brain. It’s when creativity sparks, and your mind chills out. Let it. 

• Disrupt It

If you notice yourself having negative thoughts, then vocally disrupt them. Of course, this is something you might skip if there are other people around you. If that’s the case, you can opt to disrupt them internally. Regardless of which way you proceed, it’s an effective way to stop self-doubt in its tracks.

Most of these acts will be uncomfortable at first. Practice them till they become a routine part of your life. You will thank yourself.

Journaling is an activity that has tremendous benefits for your emotional and psychological health. But did you know that your journal can play a key role in your personal growth and development? Not only can writing in your journal help you learn to solve problems better, but it also can help relieve stress, think more clearly, focus on your goals, and connect with your values and beliefs to ensure your happiness and harmony. 

If you are already someone who journals regularly, then you may just want to tweak your journaling focus, as we outline below. If you have not yet developed the habit of daily writing, then the guidelines shared here could be the structure you need to stop staring at the blank page and start writing.

Using Your Journal for Personal Development

Turn your journal from a personal grip session into a tool for growth by focusing daily on three specific things. Each day, make a practice to write about these three topics, no matter what, and you will soon see how your journal is helping you become the person you want to be.

#1. Gratitude 

Every day, take just a few moments to write about those things for which you are most thankful. Don’t say the same things every day and be specific about something that improved your life or your experience during the previous day. Think of actions or deeds, individual moments, or particular feelings you had. Just a few sentences here is enough to help you see the gifts and blessings you have in your life, which serve as the foundation for your path toward self-improvement. 

#2. Goals 

As a part of your morning routine, take a few minutes to write down or review your goals for the day. When you focus on the outcomes you are seeking, you are reminding yourself of what is important to you right now. This process helps solidify your intention, sets the tone for your day, and enables you to see opportunities that might help you reach those goals as the day unfurls. The more you remind yourself of your goals, the more likely those goals are to come true. While you can (and should) focus on what you want to do that day, make it a regular habit to write out your long-term goals, as well. Over time, you begin to clarify and transform your goals as you can insight and perspective. 

#3. Lessons Learned 

Whether you write in your journal in the morning, at night, or both, take a few minutes to write what you learned in the previous 24 hours. We all learn valuable lessons all the time, especially from others in our lives. Focusing on what you learned keeps you in a growth mindset and helps you appreciate all experiences as learning opportunities. While not all lessons are life-changing, all combine to make you the person you are, and even small lessons play a significant role in your personal growth. 

#4. Log

Finally, your growth journal is a great place to log all your daily activities, record your emotions, vent your frustrations and stress, and work through any problems you might be experiencing in your life. The act of writing things down is especially important for processing. Your daily log can become a place to see patterns and themes in your life, to record quotes that inspire you, to jot down essential thoughts you want to hold on to, and to work through those pesky notions that keep rising. 

Journaling can be a tough habit to start, but once you begin, you will soon see the many benefits of this routine. The more you do it, the more benefits you will see. Your journal can include just about anything you want, but focusing on these four things will enhance its ability to aid in your personal growth.

Introduction 

Everyone has habits that cause a lack of productivity is some form or another. Whether you spend too much time on social media, spend too much money on clothes each month, or eat an unhealthy snack every night before bed, habits can become very powerful and hard to break. 

Although people often associate habits with ones that are detrimental to your health, habits can also be what makes one successful. Habits come from consistency, and by changing just a couple of aspects of your life each day, you can break these habits and turn them into beneficial ones. 

By staying consistent with your choices and being committed to breaking these habits, you can create a more productive lifestyle and feel more mentally stable.

Causes of Bad Habits 

Bad habits are often a result of boredom or attempting to forget about the stress going on in life. Bad habits are often easy ways to escape reality and forget about the negative thoughts that go on in your mind. Whether it be shopping to forget about the stress at home or watching the television for an extended period, there are ways to recognize bad habits and shift them for a more productive life. 

Rather than trying never to watch television or never keeping snacks in the house, there are ways to adjust these habits and be practical about change gradually. It can seem impossible for a chain-smoker to eliminate smoking from his life entirely but slowly replacing these bad habits can make the process more bearable and even exciting.

How to Break These Habits

There are many ways to think of bad habits in a more positive light by creating replacements that can be consistent in your life and realistic.

By sticking to a specific goal and being gradual in your efforts, you will be more willing to break bad habits and stay consistent over time.

• Choose a Specific Replacement: If you find yourself watching more television than you would like, but you are unsure of how else to spend your free time, read an enjoyable book. Books have been proven to be much better for your mental health and can keep you engaged and excited. By interestingly stimulating the brain, you will be able to stick to a consistent reading routine that is key to breaking the television habit.

• Work on Breaking the Habit with a Friend: Often, working on changing a habit with a friend can keep you much more consistent and motivated. If you are trying to stop snacking on junk food before bed, ask your husband to do it with you. This will cause you to keep each other accountable, and you will want to feel dependable.

• Get Rid of Any Instigates: Getting rid of things that trigger you to repeat these bad habits will ultimately make you less inclined to break them. If you keep junk food in the house but are trying to cut it out, you are allowing yourself to make excuses for yourself to give in to temptation. By keeping the junk food in the pantry to a minimum, you will be more consistent with your goals.

Why Consistency is Key

If you plan to follow a short-term diet plan or eat less junk food without being specific, bad habits will likely be more powerful than your determination. Making healthy choices in moderation rather than restricting yourself allows you to be more consistent with your lifestyle and get rid of the habits that are holding you back. 

Consistency allows you to stay consistent with breaking these habits and replacing them with new ones.

When you seek to find a life of completeness and harmony, you absolutely must address the spiritual aspect of your life. Without personal spirituality, you lose purpose, drive, and meaning in your life. You cannot become your best version of yourself, nor are you able to fully tap into your gifts without it. In the end, without the spiritual, you lose your desire to give back to the world, to make it a better place. With so much at stake, is it any wonder that finding your spiritual path is so crucial in living a complete life?

Thankfully it’s not hard to find. You begin, with a handful of simple steps: 

Pay Attention to Coincidence

When you find a moment in your life where everything lines up and falls into place, embrace the experience. This is synchronicity, and from it, you gain a fantastic feeling of affirmation. It’s moments like this where you find what you’re born to do. 

Pursue Passion

When you find something interesting to you, grab hold and see where it takes you. It is in a passion where you find purpose as you pursue what you feel you were truly born to do. 

Look for the Bigger Picture

When you step back and see how things are coming together in your life, it can seem a little daunting at first. Finding the reason for how things have unfolded can be a bit intimidating when you consider there are forces bigger than you who have arranged it in just such a way. Here’s where you need to be courageous as you follow the blueprint already laid out for you.

Accept Roadblocks

Sometimes things crop up to stop you in your tracks. When there’s no real reason for why things aren’t working, maybe it’s a gentle nudge from something outside of yourself, letting you know it’s time to move in a different direction. It’s here where you need to learn to let go. 

Look for Heroes

You are attracted to specific individuals for a reason. When you meet someone you wish to emulate, that you look up to, it’s because they’re speaking to something in your life you need. Ask yourself what lessons you’re learning from this encounter and pursue the path that flows from the answer you’re given. 

This is an exciting journey. After all, it’s not every day you figure out who you were born to be. Remember, this is not an overnight process. Your spiritual path is a journey that will take a lifetime. The rewards, though, are fantastic as you move forward on this new path.

Your habits, or the things you repeatedly do without conscious thought, play a crucial role in your personality and wellness. As you navigate through life’s challenges, your habits affect your self-esteem by either building your confidence or tearing you down.  Good habits require practice, but they will help build your self-esteem, confidence, and wellbeing.

Positive habits help you grow as a person.  You need good habits to succeed in life.  Developing good habits like these can boost your self-esteem and help you achieve success. 

Mindfulness 

Mindfulness means being present in the here and now, not worrying about the past or future.  Because the human brain is designed to remember past experiences and to dream and plan for the future, mindfulness takes practice. Mindfulness is a habit that helps you focus on the present situation without complicating your response or decision with negative issues from the past or fear of the future. 

To develop the habit of mindfulness, ask yourself these questions: 

• How does this situation affect me at this moment?
• How does this situation make me feel?
• What can I do right now to change this situation?

Staying in the moment affects your self-esteem by helping you reflect on what you feel.  Mindfulness also enables you to focus on what you can control.  In any situation, you have control over yourself and your reactions. 

Many people practice meditation to help develop the habit of mindfulness.  Meditation requires setting aside time to develop this habit consciously.  The more you practice, the easier it will be, and the stronger your habit of mindfulness will become. 

Setting Goals 

Your self-esteem is tied to your ability to create and achieve goals.  Goals help give your life structure and meaning.  When you accomplish a goal, you increase your self-confidence and self-esteem. 

To improve your self-esteem, your goals must be measurable.  Otherwise, not being able to reach your goals will negatively affect your self-esteem.

Achieving your goals requires having a plan and breaking your goal into manageable steps. Each time you complete a step, your self-esteem increases.

You can build the habit of setting goals by writing your goals down.  By writing your goals, you help commit yourself to achieve them.  Start by writing your goals for the day.  If you’re a busy person, the goal of spending 15 minutes by yourself to meditate or relax is realistic and achievable. 

 Increase your goals as you develop your habit. You may want to increase the time you spend on self-care or add a new goal, like spending more time with your family.  As reaching your daily goals becomes a habit, you build your self-esteem. 

Positive Surroundings

Scientists have determined that your surroundings affect your self-esteem.  If you spend your time with negative people or always hear negative messages about yourself, your self-confidence will suffer.  Over time, negative input can cause you to have a negative personality and outlook on life.

Get into the habit of spending time with positive people.  Surround yourself with motivational objects like posters or pictures of your goals.  Read books or listen to podcasts about how to achieve more in life.  Displaying mementos of your previous successes can also help increase your self-esteem.                                                                                                                              

Many people find that having an orderly work or living area is more positive for them than working or living in a mess. Developing the habit of keeping your area clean and neat not only provides positive surroundings for you, but it also builds your self-esteem, knowing you have control over your environment. 

Gratitude

Gratitude is a habit that affects your self-esteem by building a positive mindset.  Researchers have found that gratitude builds self-esteem by helping a person feel connected to others and by limiting negative self-talk.  When a person is grateful, they feel worthy of what they’ve received and are willing to show kindness to others, taking positive actions to increase their self-esteem.

Gratitude can replace negative self-esteem.  Many people spend their lives apologizing for every slight they imagine they cause.  Apologies are necessary, but people often default to an apology instead of thanking someone.  Imagine you dropped something on the floor, and a stranger picked it up for you.  Do you apologize for dropping it and disturbing them, or do you thank them for helping you?

Your reaction is based on your self-esteem and whether or not you feel like you bothered them. The habit of gratitude helps improve your self-esteem so you can accept help from others.

The habits of mindfulness, setting goals, being in positive surroundings, and gratitude strongly affects your self-esteem.  Good habits build your self-esteem every time you complete a positive step toward your goals. 

Scientists and doctors describe emotional health as how well you control your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. People with good emotional health are aware of their emotions, both positive and negative, and know how to deal effectively with them.  Your habits can help or hurt your emotional health by creating a positive or negative mindset and affecting your actions. 

Habits develop over time to the point where you aren’t aware you do them.

 They become automatic and part of your personality. These habits can harm emotional health: 

• Negative Self-Talk
• Negative Surroundings
• Perfectionism 

Negative Self-Talk 

Self-talk is your beliefs about yourself and your abilities.  It’s the quiet voice inside of you telling you that you can or can’t accomplish something.  Negative self-talk can become an internal repetition of reasons you think you can’t succeed. 

Negative self-talk comes from previous failures and from listening to the poor opinions other people have about you.  Everyone fails sometimes, but when you accept those failures as the best you can do and don’t work toward improving yourself, doubts about your abilities become negative self-talk.  Thoughts and emotions like, “I can’t do that,” and “I’m not good enough for that” are messages of negative self-talk. 

Unfortunately, some people try to make themselves feel better by speaking badly about others.  Constructive criticism helps you improve, but negative comments from others listened to long enough will be incorporated into your self-talk.  Do not tell yourself you are polite by listening to them. If you respect yourself, you will remove yourself from the conversation—some people you will need to love from afar. Your future depends on your decision! 

Negative self-talk harms your emotional health in multiple ways.  It lowers your self-esteem and makes you less likely to try something new that you might succeed in achieving.  These missed opportunities reinforce your negative beliefs and add to your negative self-talk.  Letting negative self-talk stop you from reaching your goals isn’t a healthy, effective way to deal with your emotions or thoughts. 

Negative Surroundings

A positive mindset is based on optimism.  To grow as a person and achieve more in life, you need to have a positive mindset when faced with life’s challenges.  Your surroundings support your mindset.  If your surroundings are negative, you won’t get the reinforcement you need to become and stay positive. 

Schools, businesses, and organizations adopt mascots, mission statements, and mottos to create positive surroundings.  It would be best if you had positive surroundings in your daily life too.  Negative influences can develop into a habit that harms your emotional health.

Imagine your house or apartment has bare walls and is full of clutter and unfinished projects.  Now imagine your living space full of cherished mementos, pictures of fun activities, and motivational and inspirational posters.  Living in the first space doesn’t support your emotional health because it doesn’t contain anything positive for you to reflect on and only reminds you of your failures to complete your goals.  If living in this type of space has become a habit, you are harming your emotional health.

The people you spend time with and the books, movies, and music you use for entertainment may also be part of a habit of negative surroundings.  Do your friends spend all their time gossiping instead of planning for the future?  Do you look for entertainment from media about growing and being a better person?  Changing your habits of where and how you spend your time affects your emotional health.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a habit that can affect your emotional health through stress and unintended consequences.  Of course, everyone wants things to work out the best way possible, but expecting or demanding perfectionism in every situation isn’t realistic or healthy.  Perfectionism becomes a habit when you can’t accept sincere efforts or partial rewards from yourself or others.

Striving to do better is a worthwhile goal.  However, expecting yourself to be perfect the first time you try something only hurts your emotional health.  When your efforts help you achieve a goal, the fact that you aren’t perfect at something along the way doesn’t matter.  Too many people add stress and worry to their lives by trying to be perfect.

Expecting perfection from others may have unintended consequences.  Although you may encourage someone to do well, expecting them to be perfect can ruin your relationship with them.  Other people often view perfectionists as unsympathetic, rude, or mean.  You can support your emotional health with help from others.  If you let your perfectionism push people away, you lose the support you need.  

Psychologists have shown that your habits affect your emotional health and mindset.  Negative self-talk, negative surroundings, and perfectionism are habits that allow you to avoid and change to improve your emotional health and succeed in life. 

I wrote a book to help you change your self-talk. Use the link below to get your copy.

Do you want to develop good habits or change your bad habits into productive ones? Understanding the psychology of habit formation is essential to forming new habits or changing your old habits.  Knowing how a habit forms will help you create positive, useful habits and get rid of habits that could hurt you.

Habits Begin with Goals

Researchers at the University of Southern California found that habits come from a motivation to act.  The desired goal influences why a habit is formed.  The motivation can be positive, such as developing healthy eating habits or good study habits in college. 

Motivation can also come from avoidance, creating habits that help you have by keeping you away from troubling people or situations. Low self-esteem can lead to bad habits.  If you don’t feel that you deserve good things, you may develop bad habits that reinforce your beliefs by bringing you negative results.

Goals are centered on what end state a person wants to accomplish.  When an action brings a person closer to their goal, they will repeat and improve on it until it becomes a habit.  The goal could be general, like staying safe or being a better driver, or it could be more specific, like studying to get a degree or losing ten pounds.  The goal of bad habits is usually to escape some unpleasant reality or focus attention on something other than the underlying issue. 

Habits Develop in Three Stages 

Habits contain three stages in a repetitive loop.  Each time a person cycles through the loop, the habit becomes more formed and ingrained as a part of their behavior. 

The three stages are:

• Cue or Trigger Stage
• Behavior Stage
• Reward Stage 

Cue or Trigger Stage

The cue or trigger stage is the circumstance that causes a person to have a goal.  When something new happens, your mind processes the situation as either threatening or non-threatening.  You quickly form a goal to deal with the new situation by fighting, avoiding, or accepting the input. 

Each time you are presented with the same or similar situation, your mind referencesyour previous decision and causes you to act to fight, avoid, or accept it.  Without the cue or trigger, your brain won’t process the situation the same.  Habits are formed first by repeatedly being exposed to the same cue or trigger. 

Behavior Stage

Scientists at the University College London studied the behavior a person does when faced with a cue or trigger.  They found that the more a person performed the same action or response, the more efficient they became at carrying out the behavior.  Over time, the behavior becomes routine and required less thought to perform. 

It takes an average of 66 repetitions for a behavior to become a habit.  Some people develop habits more quickly, while other people need more time.  The emotions attached to the cue and behavior play a role in how fast something becomes a habit.  The stronger the emotions, the more the cue and behavior are reinforced.  

Reward Stage 

The reward for performing an action after a cue or trigger also forms the habit loop.  If an action helps a person to reach their intended goal, the reward signals their brain that the action is useful each time they encounter that cue or trigger.  They will repeat the action over and over to reach the reward. 

As an example, imagine yourself driving a car.  One of the rules of driving is to use a turn signal.  But knowing the rules isn’t enough to form a habit. 

However, if each time you drive and use the turn signals properly, you are able to safely change lanes or make a turn, the reward of safe driving reinforces your action and helps you meet your safety goal. You begin to use the turn signal automatically or habitually, unlike a new driver who must think about using the turn signal when they first start driving. 

Conversely, if you don’t use turn signals and still arrive safely, not using them becomes a bad habit. Your mind won’t make the connection between the action of using the turn signal and driving safely if there is no reward associated with the action.  

Habits Can Be Changed

Once something becomes a habit, you no longer consciously think about taking that action.  Changing a habit requires changing all three parts of the habit loop.  Smoking is a dangerous and unhealthy habit.  To stop smoking, a person must have a different goal than to have a cigarette.

When they are presented with a cue or trigger, like having a drink or after meals, they need to change their action. People trying to stop smoking often chew gum instead when they are cued or triggered to have a cigarette.  The reward of feeling better reinforces the new action until it becomes a new habit and the old habit is replaced. 

Are you tired of telling yourself to do things the same old way? Sick of the comfort zone? It’s time to push past the world of limitations into the no-limits mindset. People who embrace no-limits live life to the fullest by pushing themselves to be the best they can be. 

How does this work? Let’s look at various things you must understand if you’re going to have a no-limits mindset:

1. People without limits rewrite the script. All those so-called rules in life are meaningless. It’s time to look past what you’ve already established a hundred times over and start thinking about changing the rules instead of toeing the line one more time. It’s people who refuse to accept the status-quo who genuinely understand what it means to have no limits

2. People without limits realize where the limits came from in the first place. The only thing limiting us are our thoughts. We’ve already decided we can’t do something, and as a result, we can’t. By taking away limitations, we find ourselves in the world of possibilities instead of impossibilities.

3. People without limits don’t let anyone tell them who they are. When you feel like you're limited, how many times is it because of something that someone else said or did? Maybe you had a parent who told you that you ‘just weren’t athletic’ and as a result, you never went out for sports of any kind. This kind of limitation is insidious because you often don’t realize the origin until you start prodding into its origins. When you establish that it’s from someone else and not you, you can start to reprogram that voice.

4. People without limits don't give up. Setbacks are normal. what you do with setbacks is what matters. Learn from those with no limits. Accept the failure, mourn it, then dissect it to see what you can learn from it. Congratulate yourself for having tried, and then dig in and try again, this time applying the lessons you’ve learned. There’s no room for quitters in this mindset.

5. People without limits know how to face their fears. You’re never going to get anywhere if you let fear stop you cold. Understanding where your fear comes from, and then doing the work to overcome that fear is what’s going to free you up to move forward and accomplish what you need to.

Living a life of no-limits doesn't mean that you never feel limited in any way. It means you know what to do when you feel that pushback when you’re striving for a goal. Tell yourself you’re bigger and better than any of the things that hold you back, and you’ll be amazed at the new mindset you have developed!

I am continuing to follow my reborn dream of creating The John Moran Band Album.  This track is written, performed, and produced by John Moran(And God).   Any and all views greatly appreciated brothers.  I am hitting the studio with a full band in August.  The musicians are all 21 year old high level music school students.  I am psyched!! 

“You have to play the ball before it plays you!” 

Anyone who has played a ball sport as a child or had a child play a ball sport has likely heard coaches shouting this. It’s a common term in both basketball and baseball. In baseball, as you get started in the outfield, you wait for that ground hit to reach you before you take action. If you have ever watched a game of baseball, then you know how easy it is for that ball to hit a bump in the grass and go flying in another direction. Fielding balls look easy, but it isn’t a passive activity. It’s vital that the player proactively fields the ball, and a proactive player will play the ball, while a reactive player will wait for the ball to shape the play. 

You can translate this ethos into your daily life. It sums up proactivity perfectly. 

To be proactive, you have to hold yourself accountable for the situations where you find yourself. Beyond that, you have to be proactive about trying to make it better. Proactive people don’t allow their circumstances to dictate their decisions. They let their values do the talking. They act, a reactive person is acted upon. All this to say that proactive people are adept at playing the ball before it can play them. 

You always have a choice. You’ve probably heard that before. You’re in an impossible position, and it seems like there is no way out, but there’s always a choice. When a proactive person is faced with a situation where the circumstances of the event limit the options available, they still find a way to exercise their agency. 

A great example of a proactive person is Raoul Wallenberg. This Swedish man, who died aged just 34 because of his choices, is viewed as a hero of the World War II era. Instead of standing by and watching, he issued many Hungarian Jewish citizens with Swedish passports to protect them from being sent to concentration camps. Technically, he broke the law. The people he issued these passports to weren’t Swedish, nor did they have any claim to Sweden. However, he used his confidence and his position to bluff the Nazi guards. By doing this, by making the choices he did in difficult circumstances, he is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives. While others stood by and watched, bound by fear, the law, and a host of other circumstances, Raoul Wallenberg took action. He is the personification of proactivity. 

The Habits of a Proactive Person

• Understanding their circle of influence. When faced with a particular situation, they ask themselves whether they hold any influence. If they do, then there is an action to take.
• Meditation. It’s a game-changer, and it typifies how you can play the ball. Meditation will leave you feeling more positive, calmer, and allow you to be more present in typical situations. It’s that presence that will enable you to be a more proactive person.
• Take action. Yes, this one should be obvious, but proactive people will always take action, even if it’s just a small one. It’s the most powerful thing that you can do in a situation, and taking action is a proactive posture. As you start to take action, you will see your circle of influence widens, and as it does, you will find yourself slipping into a proactive mindset much more quickly. There’s always a choice, there’s always a way to move the dial forward, and that’s what proactive people understand.

“Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances.”  Napoleon Bonaparte

To move from a place of merely surviving in life to a place of thriving, resilience is a necessary trait. At a basic level, resilience is our ability to bounce back from tragedies and difficulties we encounter in life. 

At a more sophisticated level, the resilience mindset embraces the idea that true resilience is our ability to navigate life, adapt to change, learn through adversity, and understand our feelings and emotional responses to situations. For this to be achieved, there must be a high level of personal awareness and insight, which leads to a deep understanding of self. 

Resilience is an asset when it comes to managing adversity because it helps us to overcome it. Rather than crumbling under the pressure and weight of every challenge we encounter, we become able to assess the problem, learn and grow from it as we go through it, and then move forward with the lessons we've been taught (O'Keeffe, 2019). It is resilience that empowers us to continue moving forward, learning, and growing and building on the things we are learning in life. 

Keys to Developing a Resilient Mindset 

To develop a resilient mindset, here are several qualities and practices to implement—the following outlines several of those qualities and practices and their relation to the development of resilience. 

• Optimism: A strong trait of those with a resilient mindset is an intentional optimistic outlook when approaching challenging situations. The way a person views a situation shapes the approach they take when dealing with the situation.

A more positive outlook tends to yield a more positive outcome because individuals see opportunities as opposed to obstacles, and thus enthusiastically address issues versus hesitantly avoiding them. Leading psychologist Martin Seligman explains that optimism is linked to resilience in that it helps people's views on permanence, pervasiveness, and the personalization of hardships.

Optimism leads people to see adverse events as temporary rather than permanent, to prevent setbacks from impacting unrelated areas of their lives, and not to blame themselves when unfortunate events occur. Thus, people can better pivot ad recover from challenges they experience. 

• Focus on What You Can Control: Learning to focus on what is within your control and releasing those things that are not is an integral part of developing resilience. It is only those things within our control that we can influence, thus exerting physical or mental and emotional energy on things outside of our control is mismanagement of time and energy. Individuals who spend their time and energy on what they can control become more resilient because they put their efforts towards those things that will have the most significant impact and produce the most results. This allows them to be productive and respond better to situations that arise.

• Self-Awareness: Self-awareness is critical to the development of a resilient mindset. Self-awareness helps us to assess areas of ourselves and our lives where we need to improve and areas of our lives that are producing favorable results. 

Self-awareness offers us critical insights about ourselves that we can use to change, adapt, grow, or alter ourselves, our environment, or other elements. This ultimately contributes to resilience by helping us keep patterns and habits that help us adapt and respond to challenges while becoming aware of and purging patterns and practices that work against our goals and pursuits. 

If we can cultivate a resilient mindset, our ability to cope with challenges in our lives will be strengthened. Rather than being overcome by negative situations and circumstances, we will become empowered to overcome those situations and circumstances. By implementing the practices mentioned and others like it, we'll be one step closer to better navigating the difficulties we encounter.

Did you know there are everyday products you are highly familiar with, that came about by mistake? These are products that came about in trying to invent something completely different.

The Slinky

While working on a tension spring, Richard James accidentally let one slip off the table. When it hit the ground, it kept ongoing. This gave him the idea to make it into a product. The product was developed in the 1940s but is still available today. James’ wife sold the product in 1998.

Post-It Notes

3M was looking for a strong adhesive and set the research and development department to come up with it. They instead made a very weak adhesive, and one of the developers saw that it would stick to a surface but wouldn’t stay stuck. This gave them the idea to attach it to paper for notes. Hence, the Post-It note was born.

Velcro

In the 1940s, a man and his dog were in the woods hunting. Burrs stuck to his pants and the fur of his dog. This motivated him to studied how these burrs worked under a microscope. He then developed it into a product we all know as Velcro. It is still a viable product to this day.

Silly Putty

The United States government needed rubber during World War II, and it was in short supply. General Electric engineers tried to come up with a rubber substitute and instead came up with goo, which they felt they did not need. An inspiring business person paid them for the rights to the invention and named it Silly Putty. Plastic egg packaging was used since the release of the product was near Easter time.

Viagra

This product was meant to help people with heart conditions. Instead, they observed in clinical studies that men who took the pill became aroused. As you can well imagine, this product didn’t take much to market and became a success practically overnight.

Play-Doh

Play-Doh got its start as a cleaning product for wallpaper. When it didn’t do as well for that purpose, the inventors knew a teacher who complained about the clay her students were using in class. It was not pliable. The inventors suggested she try the Play-Doh, and the kids went crazy for it. An entire industry has been built around this product since then.

If you have been beating yourself up over making mistakes, it’s time to cut yourself a break. Who knows, you may even discover the next multimillion-dollar product in the process.

My book "Prove Your Inner Critic Wrong" will help you stop beating yourself up. Use the link below to purchase your copy now.

Self-discipline is inarguably one of the best skills you can have if you expect to be successful in life. There are many ways to build self-discipline, of course. And since not everybody shares the same goals, it manifests differently depending on who you ask or observe. But if you look across the board, you will find a pattern. Here are six traits that most highly self-disciplined people have in common.

                                    Six Traits Of Self-Disciplined People                   

1- Greater Self-Confidence

Do people who have more self-confidence also exhibit more self-discipline? Or is it that those who are more disciplined achieve more of their goals, and thus have more reasons to be confident?

Either way, the first trait many self-disciplined people have in common is greater self-confidence as compared to those with less self-control.

If you want to improve your self-discipline, it’s helpful first to consider your self-perception and self-worth. 

2- Structure & Routine

Secondly, you may have read that successful people rise earlier in the morning than their less-successful counterparts. But many don’t fit this description.

What disciplined people have in common isn’t specific times of day they rise or exact means of scheduling their time. It’s that they value and follow a routine of any variety.

Creating consistent habits in the form of steady routines can help you put much of your life on auto-pilot. Taking the guesswork out of many daily decisions is an effortless way to improve your self-discipline. 

3- Clearly Defined Goals

Third, everybody has goals. But the highly self-disciplined individual will have goals that are crystal clear.

How many people say “I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I’m forty”? That’s a goal, for sure. Someone with a high level of self-discipline would say, for example, “I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I turn forty, and I’m going to do this by…”. They would have a much clearer goal, a plan to execute it, and already be working toward reaching it.

If you want to uplevel your self-discipline, work on clarifying your goals. Select meaningful goals that are specific, timely, and have clearly defined steps that you can work on each day. 

4- Prioritize Self-Care

Next, a common trait of disciplined individuals is that they prioritize self-care. They understand that maintaining optimal health is crucial to remaining productive and sticking to their plans even when they don’t feel like it.

They are more likely to exercise regularly, eat healthfully, and get enough rest.

These people understand the importance of balance between work and play and make sure to incorporate enough of both into their lives. To most successful people work, and play is the same thing. You may look at a successful person and tag them with the title workaholic because you have been taught they can not stop working. You were not taught this from someone who enjoyed how they made their living.

How is your self-care routine? Most people could use a little work in one or more areas. Take some time to consider your physical, mental, social, financial, and spiritual wellness.

Commit to improving just a little in one or more areas, and see if your self-discipline increases as a result.

5- See Challenge As Opportunity

Self-disciplined people also are more likely to lean into challenges and adversity. A benchmark of self-discipline is to be relentless in the pursuit of your goals.

The thing is, there are always challenges in life. Things don’t always go to plan. Obstacles get in the way, and what separates self-disciplined people from those who aren’t, is that they believe every problem has a solution.

Additionally, they recognize that the more problems they solve, the more experience they have. They understand adversity only helps them grow, and they use that knowledge as fuel to keep moving forward despite the difficulty.

If you struggle with sticking to commitments you’ve made to yourself, consider why? Is it because you hit a challenge and backed away? Consider how you may change your response the next time something similar comes into play, and how you can grow from perseverance. 

6- Strong Boundaries

Finally, people with self-discipline and self-control have healthy boundaries. They know their worth, the value of their time, and have a clear roadmap for life.

Whereas many people struggle with saying “no” at times, preferring to “go with the flow,” those with self-discipline know the importance of weighing their options. They make decisions to further their goals once the decision is made they do not second guess themselves and change their minds.

How do you feel about your boundaries? How could you improve?

Final Thoughts

People sometimes assume that self-discipline means living a hard life, waking up long before the sunrise even if you’re a night owl), making extreme sacrifices, and living a dull life of all work, no play. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Self-discipline manifests differently in the lives of different people, yet if you look closely enough, you’ll find common traits that present all across the board.

So many things can batter at your confidence. Is it any wonder sometimes you’re feeling less capable, or even something of a failure? The main thing is not to allow yourself to stay in this frame of mind for any longer than necessary. Here are some quick ways to reclaim confidence after losing it: 

Watch Your Language

First of all, you’re not a ‘failure,’ and using any variation on that word isn’t going to help. By paying attention to your self-talk, you’ll find you can shift your focus very quickly. Reword negatives over to positive phrasing and be careful not to allow any putdowns in how you think of yourself.

Figure Out the Roadblocks

How are you undermining your confidence? It might be you have some habits or behaviors which are doing you a lot more harm than good. For example, you might be hanging out with a ‘friend’ who continually puts you down. While it might seem hard to do this kind of self-examination at first, it’s crucial to protecting your confidence and ability to move forward. Once you have these things listed, ask yourself what you can do to change these behaviors.

Find Your Tribe

Nothing builds up confidence, like being surrounded by people who believe in you. Find friends, mentors, and people who share your interests and are more interested in building you up than tearing you down. Make concrete plans to spend more time with these individuals. 

Understand Yourself

Sometimes we can’t help but feel shattered, especially when some outside force (such as the loss of someone dear) has left us emotionally vulnerable. Research what you’re going through. Understanding where you are and that your reactions are normal, will go a long way to preserving your confidence as you work through the crisis.

Practice Self-Care

It’s hard to feel confident when you’re not feeling well. Eat right, Exercise, Get enough sleep. You’ll be amazed at what attention to the basics does to improve your outlook and your feelings regarding yourself. 

Live in the Moment

Confidence is easily shattered by the failures of the past and can make you feel weak and frail when faced with an uncertain future. For this reason, take some time to focus on the now. Meditation or mindfulness are great ways to relax and put yourself in the moment. You’ll find yourself feeling a lot calmer and less stressed, a place where confidence thrives.

Being more confident happens when you pay attention to what’s hurting your confidence now. Be mindful of yourself and intentional in your actions. Confidence will grow best when you pay attention to these details. 

I wrote a book on changing that self-defeating voice inside you "Prove Your Inner Critic Wrong". It is available at Amazon. Use the link below.

Body language is what gets you noticed or left by the wayside. A person who shows they are competent and confident will stand out in every interaction, while the one who is meek and self-effacing is likely never to be noticed at all.

How then do you use body language to get yourself noticed in all the right ways? 

Remember, You’re Superman

If you think of pictures you’ve seen of the comic book hero, Superman, you’ll likely picture someone standing firmly on two feet, hands-on-hips, shoulders back, and head up, every inch the hero. There is nothing in his posture to imply he’s not confident and perfectly capable of whatever is thrown his way. Studies prove that standing in the Superhero pose for a few minutes before a meeting or discussion; you aren’t feeling confident about will change your whole demeanor during the interaction. 

Where’s That Smile?

Things not going well? Try smiling. No fake grin allowed, though. Instead, find a happy thought and pull out a genuine smile. It will immediately shift your brain chemistry and put you on a more even keel. Better than that, it’ll likely pull up a smile from your audience as well. 

Play all the Angles

When confrontation brews, it’s time to defuse the situation. Rather than step back, shift sideways. Oddly enough, a 45-degree angle has the strange effect of calming people down, mostly because standing facing someone can feel aggressive, and turning away gives the wrong message.

Go for the Quick Charisma Points

Talk with your hands—a lot. Using expansive gestures while talking makes you more approachable and engaging and wins more support than someone stiff and awkward. 

Break Down their Resistance

Talking to someone who is so closed off, they’ve got their arms crossed tight against their chest? Break their pose. Offer them something, a business card, or a bottle of water. Make them shift their position to take it, and they’ll change their attitude toward one more favorable to you. 

Where’s All that Energy?

Are you lagging a little? It’s time to dial things up a notch. Focus on a time when you felt high energy and ready to take on the world. Now channel your energy and bring it to the conversation. Watch the magic happen. 

Don’t Look Away Mostly

In the course of the conversation, it’s nearly impossible to maintain eye contact while thinking. With this in mind, maintain your eye contact until the point where you need to consider your words. It’s okay to drop your eyes to consider the matter, so long as you regain eye contact before you begin your answer. 

By paying attention to your body language, life will begin to change for the better. Body language is the cornerstone of success waiting for you in your work and personal life. You really can be everything you’ve always dreamed you could be.

You may think that developing discipline is about limitations. This thought has probably been reinforced by previous attempts at changing your bad habits. It is very empowering to create self-discipline. Think back to when you managed to make a change in behavior that was successful, how did you feel? When you overcome obstacles in your path and accomplish something with consistent work, you feel like you can do anything. 

 When you are not self-disciplined, you often do not accomplish your goals and feel like you are not worthwhile. You tend to put yourself down more and, in general, have a more negative outlook on life.  You may set yourself up for health issues, in particular those related to obesity, or have trouble in your relationships with friends and family. 

Successful people do not get there just because of luck. They make goals, plan how to achieve them, and then use discipline to form habits that help them accomplish those goals and plans.  They do make mistakes. They do have obstacles. They may even modify the goals or go in a different direction based on working on those original plans. But, they do not quit.

If you want to succeed, you need to develop habits through self-discipline. You may want to get rid of bad habits like watching tv, social media, and overeating. You may want to form good habits such as exercising, reducing clutter, reading more books, watching less television, or saving money. You can accomplish these habit changes if you focus on one or two at a time, and consistently act on those goals over time. One is best, though if you are trying to lose weight, you may find it better to combine dietary changes with exercise.

The biggest obstacle to discipline is not lack of willpower, but a desire for instant gratification. Especially in modern society, everything seems focused on having things done quickly. People eat instant oatmeal or cold cereal instead of having a cooked breakfast. You grab a burger at a fast-food restaurant instead of bringing a healthy lunch to work. Television commercials tell you that you can have this or that right now if you pay by credit card. The problem with that, of course, is the interest you later have to pay on those purchases.

You can improve things where you are not in debt, are healthy and fit, and have stable relationships, but it will require giving up instant gratification and adopting self-discipline. It will not be easy, but you will find it quite empowering to achieve your goals for a better life.

Building your dream company is no easy task. It takes time, effort, and a whole lot of hard work. However, there are seven basic strategies you need to know and understand that can make the difference between “killing it” and “killing your business.” 

1. Love What You Do

If you do not love the company, you are building, and what you are doing daily, then you will eventually end up hating your business. That equates to not reading this article at all. 

2. Build Your Dream Team

Surround yourself and your business with people that will support you and your business. This includes your family, friends, and employees. Don’t just hire an employee to hire someone, make sure the person you are taking on loves your company, loves the job, and can get things done. 

3. Know Your Market

Know who you are creating a product or service for and make sure you are creating a product or service that they will want. You may love your homemade chocolate chip, banana, caramel cookies. That does not mean that the rest of the world will love them or even love them enough to buy some. Know who your target market is and make sure your product is worthy. 

4. Believe in Your Product

Believe. Believe. Believe. If you do not believe in your product or service, then no one else will—end of story.

5. Understand Scale & Growth

In layman’s terms, this means to not get too big for your britches. Companies of all sizes start and end daily. Make sure no matter the amount of financial backing you have, that you are keeping your growth and scale in check. 

6. Care About Your Customers

Your customers are your bread and butter. You need to care about how they receive your product, if they are happy with it, and are they going to return or pass your name along. Without customers, you will not have a business, and word of mouth is the best form of advertisement you can have.

7. Identify Your Advantage

Why should customers pick your business over others? You need to know why you are better, and that needs to be your number one selling point. No matter the product or service, you need to have an advantage over all the others. 

Rocking it as an entrepreneur is no easy feat. Companies are created daily. Companies also close daily big and little companies. Make sure that you have someone to run things past. This person needs to be objective and have experience running a business.

One way you can develop more discipline is to use challenges. This makes it more like a game and less like a chore. Also, there can be an element of competition with others and having others help hold you accountable, which improves your odds of success.

Challenges are very beneficial, and you can find them in many places. Or you can make up your own and share it with a group of people. You also can make your own challenge or use one from someone else to challenge yourself. However, you end up doing it is up to you.  

When looking to see if a challenge will be useful to you, there are some factors to look for, so you can best benefit. Is the challenge realistic? You want to stretch yourself, but not to the point where you have no chance of success. For example, you could challenge yourself to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, but that is not very realistic. You also want the challenge not to be too easy. You need to see if you have the time to devote to it. Be sure to include time for learning new things, For example, if you challenge yourself to build a new blogging website in 30 days, remember that if you have never done one before, you will have to learn some things and that will be extra time above just writing the blog posts. 

If the challenge is a large one over a more extended period, are there clear-cut milestones along the way to help you have a sense of accomplishment? If your challenge, for example, is losing 60 pounds in a year, you need to set up smaller weight goals along the way so you can keep up the momentum.  Milestones also help you see if you need to tweak the challenge, either lower or higher. If you lose 10 pounds in about two months, you are right on schedule. If you have only lost 5 pounds in that same time, though, you may need to lower the amount you plan on losing in a year. Now, to still reach your goal, you will need to either add some foods and or limit the intake of other foods.

When you do a group challenge, you have some added benefits. There is a sense of camaraderie when working together on a goal that you do not get just competing with yourself. Other people can give you ideas, too. For example, if you are in a group losing weight, people can share healthy recipes and support. Just remember that the primary person you compete with is not the others, but yourself and you can enjoy doing a group challenge.

If you are looking to lose weight. I lost over 50 pounds in a year. My experience is in the book "Something Has To Change". Click on the link below to get a copy of my book.

Graduating from college, no matter the level of degree and entering the professional workforce, is a rude awakening. Your schedule is becoming more eight to five and less class schedule. You have bills to pay, dress clothes to wear daily, and new work culture to learn and navigate. There are basic guidelines that you will have to learn to succeed, but below, you will find six tips that will help make you indispensable to your new supervisor and workplace. 

1. Anticipate and Take Initiative

Anticipating needs and taking the initiative applies to your work and the needs of the office. Think through what your results need to be and consider extra steps you can take now to make later stages of the project more manageable. Also, take the initiative around the office. If you just made 200 copies of a document, refill the paper drawer in the printer. No one likes the inconsiderate guy, and little things like that get noticed! You will not have to tell people you did these extras. 

2. Evaluate Yourself

Assess your work as you go. Do you think you could have done better on a project or listened better during a meeting? If so, do your due diligence to be better next time. Self-examination without a billy club will allow you to grow personally, and it will also show your coworkers that you can better yourself.

3. Don’t Stop Learning

Just because you no longer spend your days in the classroom doesn’t mean you have nothing left to learn. Every person you encounter at work has something to teach you. Some of those may be best practices; some of those lessons may be in worst practices. It would help if you also took every professional development opportunity that comes your way. Successful people read.

4. Communicate

There are many ways to communicate at work. First, ask questions, even if you are worried, you should know the answer. Admitting you do not understand something is better than messing something up. It would help if you also talked to your coworkers. Ask how their day is going or compliment a well-done presentation.

5. Show Yourself

Anyone can talk a big game, but keeping your head down and crushing goals and projects is a great way to show that you can complete a project. Show your worth and value to the job.

6. Be Nice, Don’t Be a Doormat

It isn’t that hard. Be helpful to your new coworkers. Offer to help with a project or a jammed printer. However, do not let coworkers walk all over you. It will take work to find the balance between being an enjoyable coworker, and not being the office punching bag.

Learning to find your way in a new office is difficult for everyone. Doing so when you are first starting is even more difficult. Working hard, playing nice, and pitching in will always go a long way.