We are going to examine how being mindful benefits your emotional health. Mindfulness is the art of tuning into your emotional state of being. It’s becoming aware of yourself, and particularly your emotions. You might think that you are already in-tune with your emotional states, but are you?

Do you recognize when you have experienced an emotion? Or do you realize when you are experiencing a feeling? There is a difference. The first way is past recognition and the second present recognition. Most people are guilty of the former, although they believe they are doing the later.

Being able to decern the difference is what mindfulness of your emotional states is all about. Being emotionally healthy is the ability to recognize your current or present emotional experience. When you intentionally identify what your current emotional state is, you can experience significant improvements in psychological health.

If emotional health is something you want to improve, below are some of the benefits of mindfulness.

Experience Full Emotions

When you practice mindfulness around our emotions, you learn to experience your emotions at their fullest expression.  

Suppose you are sitting around a table during the holidays with your closest friends and family.  There is delicious tasting food packed on every last inch of the table. There is a sweet and pleasant smell in the air. The sound of laughter and conversation is bouncing off the walls. At that moment, you notice a warm glow deep inside your chest. 

What if you were able to identify this warm deep glow inside of you as joy and love in the present moment? Not after the fact—when you reminisced about this memory—but in the present when it occurs.

When you’re mindful about emotions at the moment you are experiencing them; you can also cultivate the feeling and allow it to develop into its fullest expression. You can experience the joy and love to its fullest.

Allowing your emotions to express themselves to their fullest does wonders for your emotional health. It’s much like allowing your body to experience the fullest expression of physical motion, which is good for your physical health. Mindfulness helps you exercise your emotions to their full expression.

Experience a Complexity of Emotions

When you practice mindfulness of your emotions, it also enables you to experience the entire complex array of emotions that you possess.

When you are at the mercy of your emotions—meaning that your feelings occur to you and are entirely outside your control—you will often notice that the same few emotions seem always to be present. You will tend to have a “top tier” set of emotions that seem to dominate the others. They can dominate so much that you soon never see any other emotion surface.

When a few emotions dominate over the rest, it’s not a healthy way to live. Just as going to the gym and only working your calves and biceps creates an imbalance in your musculature, merely expressing a few emotions creates an imbalance in your emotional health.

When you practice mindfulness, you develop the ability to cue into different emotions you possess intentionally. You can experience a wider variety of emotions because you deliberately seek out new emotions and identify them when they occur. Being mindful benefits emotional health and leads to a more balanced and exciting emotional state.

Experience the Right Emotion

Finally, practicing mindfulness helps you experience the right emotion for the situation.  When you are not mindful of your emotional state, a feeling that is not well suited for the occasion might present itself.

A very hurtful and sad experience can happen to you, for example, and anger boils up in you. If you don’t practice mindfulness, you might unconsciously experience this emotion and therefore display a behavior that is not well-suited for the situation. Using anger can lead you to experience more distress, anxiety, and pain.

A person adept at practicing mindfulness, on the other hand, would be able to identify the current emotions they are experiencing and determine whether or not they need to pivot and access a different feeling that would be more effective for the situation. Mindfulness applied in this manner allows you to function in a healthier emotional space. 

Being mindful benefits emotional health, and the reward it brings is a state of wellbeing. It is your choice to be aware of your emotions and experience all that life has to offer or react to your feelings and put yourself in a cage.

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Motivation is the driving force that inspires us to take action to achieve our goals. Everyone has experienced a time in their life when their motivation takes a downward turn. It is important to remember that at the end of the day, your motivation starts and ends with you. You can wake up feeling inspired and crush your day, or you can sit around the house and be lazy. Ultimately, the choice is yours. Here are several useful tips for increasing your motivation starting today. 

Tip #1 – Set Clear Goals

Many times our lack of motivation happens because we haven’t set clear goals for ourselves. If you go any way the wind blows, how can you expect to stay motivated? When you set clear and specific goals, it helps to focus your attention on what matters most and provides you with the motivation you need to continue on when things get tough.

Tip #2 – Find Your Why

You wake up and struggle to get going; it may be because you haven't found your "why" yet. When people fail to achieve their goals in life, it is because they haven't taken the time to discover what it is that makes them come alive. We are more motivated when we feel like there is a purpose to what we are doing and where our efforts contribute to the greater good. Finding your "why” will increase your motivation starting today. To identify your why, you'll want to ask yourself the following questions:

• What makes you come alive inside?
• What excites you. You can not stop thinking or talking about this subject.
• Where do you add the most significant value?
• What are your innate strengths?
• How will you measure your life?

When you find yourself running into roadblocks on your way to achieving your goals, step back, and reassess your “why.”

Tip #3 – Prioritize Your Health

Your level of success in life is determined by how you take care of yourself. If self-care isn’t a top priority in your life, everything else suffers, which can cause you to be more distracted and less motivated. Try creating a morning ritual and make a habit of waking up and engaging in activities that will increase your motivation. If you want to improve your motivation, then you have to make your physical health a priority.

Tip #4 – Picking Your Friends

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Jim Rohn

Take a look at these five people and ask yourself.

• Who do you spend your time with?
• Why do you spend time with them?
• Are they negative or positive people?
• What actions do you have in common?
• Are they action takers or do they gossip?

This is the most essential tip for increasing your motivation starting today. Spend your time with motivated people. It is contagious. When you are around motivated people, you do more without thinking about it. You want to help them accomplish their goals. When you show motivation and passion people will want to help you too.

 Most people have dealt with limiting negative self-talk their entire lives. Negative experiences start during childhood and continue throughout our adult lives. This is a normal part of life that we all experience. Too often though, our thoughts become negative as well. Even more troubling is when we start negatively talking to ourselves. This negative self-talk is one of the most limiting behaviors. Use these tips to help overcome limiting negative self-talk.

1. Distinguish between negative thoughts and critical thinking.
   We need to hone the art of self-critique. Otherwise, we will never believe that we are doing something wrong. However, you need to recognize when that critiquing becomes negative self-talk. When you can distinguish between these, now critical thinking has become a powerful tool.
2.  Accept failure.
   If you like to beat yourself up whenever you fail, you are in for a steep road ahead. You will fail, and you will do it many times in your life. Embrace this as a gift rather than a burden. Try to view failure as more of a lesson learned. Don’t tell yourself you are a failure; tell yourself that you just learned what doesn’t work.
3.  Repeat daily affirmations.
   You should look for affirmations that fit your current life situation. Use these as often as you can. Try repeating these affirmations every day. You should even write them out on a piece of paper and keep them close. The idea here is to program your mind for positive thinking. The more you keep at it, the more natural it will become. Ideally, those negative things you tell yourself will eventually be taken over by your positive affirmations.
4. Limit your time with negative people.
   These people thrive on negativity and enjoy dragging others down with them. If you cannot avoid them altogether, spend as little time with them as possible. You already struggle with negative self-talk, so you don’t need them adding more negativity. If you spend more time with positive people that build you up, your negative self-talk will naturally reduce.
5.  Learn to see the good in people.
   If you are always thinking negatively of others, it makes sense that you will more naturally think negatively about yourself. Being more open-minded towards others will help you be more accepting of your flaws as well.
6.  Negative thinking is a choice.
   Even though you have been bombarded with it since you were a child, thinking negatively is something you choose to do. Conversely, positive thinking is just as much a choice as negative thinking. Choosing positive thinking isn’t an easy, quick fix; it takes a lot of work and practice. …so start now!
7. Strengthen your self-belief.
   Negative thinking often occurs due to a lack of belief in yourself. When you strengthen your confidence, it will help you get through those times that bring you down.

Eliminating limiting negative self-talk will open the door to a bright and exciting future. It will be worth all the effort you put into it. Do not give up. 

Image by John Hain from Pixabay 

Breaking bad habits made simple. We do not go out looking for our bad habits. One day we see the destructiveness of our habits. Some we tell ourselves are harmless, like watching too much tv. Even more serious ones like smoking, drinking, and overeating, we can justify them with social proofing. Over time we see how these behaviors hold us back from accomplishing our dreams. 

Your behaviors, minor or significant these five steps to breaking bad habits will work. You can defeat them and become the person you always wanted to be.

The Five Step Formula

1. Why does the habit exist? The stage has been set when we either become stressed or bored. Discovering the triggers is invaluable in figuring out how to the best way to change your patterns. Take a week and look hard at yourself. Use a pen and paper to write down when you slip into your undesirable habits. What was going on right before you slipped into the habit? What does this tell you about yourself?

2. Get motivated. What are the new behaviors you would like to replace the old ones? What are the benefits of changing? These benefits are important. Write them all down. These benefits need to be heartfelt to keep you motivated and on track. Visualizing yourself as a success is a large part of the motivation. Develop a clear picture of how the new you will look. It will be you in short order. You can do this!

3. Develop an action plan. You have your desired goal written down. Without a plan on how you will achieve the goal, you will fail. Setting goals are great, but you’re going to fail if you don’t also establish how you’re going to get there. Make achievable steps that you can measure. If you want to stop overeating, one action could be to have a list when you go food shopping and only get what is on the list. Then stick to the list.

4. Check your Progress. Do not drive yourself crazy with how you are doing. Set up regular times to review your progress. Remember, you are breaking bad habits. These patterns have been ingrained over a long period.  When you slip, get back on track. Beating yourself up will accomplish nothing.  Adjust your plan if necessary, but do not quit.

5. Do not do it alone. Using an accountability partner is a potent tool. You can easily talk yourself into relaxing your goals. Being accountable to someone else give you the strength to stay the course. If you need professional help, then, by all means, get expert advice. How you get the job done is not the important thing. It is breaking bad habits and installing new ones in their place. While these steps are simple, they are not easy. It will take all the discipline you can muster.

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Positive living is a mindset. Your attitude about life will affect your health, both physically and mentally. A negative mindset will raise blood pressure, stress levels, and makes everything a chore. You find adversities and hardships in life overwhelming.

Enjoying life is harder when you experience life with a negative mindset. It does not matter if you blame everything that goes wrong on yourself or everyone else; the result is the same. You are more prone to failure.

Anyone can introduce a more positive attitude in their lives. The power of positive thinking does work.  The detractors of The Power of Positive Thinking never put actions into their thoughts. They believe in the magic wand approach to life.  Thinking positive will change your mood, self-esteem, and reduce your risk of chronic illness.

Implement the following ten ways to a more positive viewpoint.

1.      Learn From Mistakes

Put down the baseball bat. Beating yourself up over mistakes accomplishes nothing constructive. It locks you into the past. Everyone makes mistakes. Do not waste your time covering them up. Look at went wrong and learn from it.

2.      Find positive friends

Who do you know that has that sunny outlook on life. Get closer to them that outlook on life is contagious.  Being around positive, upbeat people will help maintain a positive view on life.

3.      Be Grateful 

Look for the good in each situation. A significant change with little effort is to reflect on your day before going to sleep and find three things to be grateful for that day. Reflect on a gift you gave that day. Reflect on a gift that was given you that day.  These gifts do not need to be big or extravagant. Holding the door for someone, a smile, or buying someone a cup of coffee is a gift. Gratitude is a positive step towards positive living. 

4.      Find Humor

Watching funny movies or doing things that make you laugh signals the brain to release endorphins that make you feel good, what is better to relieve stress than a good laugh. After a while, you will find you are laughing at yourself all the time.

5.      Assess what you’d like to change 

Change may be scary at first. We are taught to look for security instead of happiness in life. Most of us bury our heart’s desire to follow the allusion of security. Starting small to test the waters is excellent. A common thing is wanting to change jobs. Changing jobs may not be the place to start. Do you come home to colors that you do not like? Change the color. Observe the effect it has on you. It will be easier to make a more significant change.

6.      Start your day with positive affirmations

Begin your day on a positive note. The news is not going to help you be positive. A daily meditation reading is an excellent way to introduce positive living into the rest of your day. Bring attention to everything that can go wrong today is not the way to positive living.

7.      Stop the flow of negative thoughts

Stopping negative thinking will take a lot of effort and discipline. It is worth the time and effort. When you have a negative thought, you must change the thought immediately. Insert a good feeling, prayer, or action in its place. Emmet Fox wrote a pamphlet “The 7 Day Mental Diet”. Emmet Fox gives detailed instructions on accomplishing this task.

8.      Find something you love to do

Finding what you love to do may be a hard task. We are overload with ideas for things to keep us busy. We are always presented with a new shiny, trendy something to try out. What brings you a sense of fulfillment? Find your heart’s desire.

9.      Live a healthy lifestyle 

Choose positive living by eating right, exercise, and associating with like-minded people. Your lifestyle has a significant influence on your mood and confidence levels. You will see life in a brighter light.

10.      Practice makes perfect

Winston Churchill gave a nine-word speech. He starts with “Never give up.”. He took some time and then repeated: “Never give up.”  He again took some time scanning the audience and said: “Never give up.” If you follow his direction, you will find yourself faced with a crisis and your thought will be what tools do we deal with this.  

We hear the answer is simple. We mistake “simple” as meaning easy. Life is not easy.  It is your choice of how life looks. Positive living is a choice. The steps to positive living are simple but not easy. The old cliche “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it” holds true.  

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The importance of your mindset is there are two approaches to your life. They are going to be total opposites. They do not keep company with each other.

You can approach life with a “fixed mindset,” or the other mindset is called a “growth mindset.” It holds that those with a growth mindset when embarking on a venture are more successful than those using a fixed mindset.

If you have a fixed mindset you assume that you are too old to learn a new skill set. Also, your potential and abilities are God-given and can not be changed and improved. The “growth mindset” are continually looking for ways to enhance their skill set.

If you fall into the fixed group, feelings of powerlessness rule your beliefs about changing your skills and talents. While the “growth” group believe they are the ones who make decisions about changing their attitude and competence level.

This is a very broad view of fixed and growth mindsets. Here are a few other differences. 

What is your attitude towards obstacles and mistakes? 

Faced with an obstacle, are you quick to become discouraged and throw in the towel? You conclude it just was not meant to be. Or God knows what is best and this is not it. The growth mindset has an optimistic outlook on the obstacle. They approach the problem with “it is what it is” and look for solutions and move forward.

The differences so far are the fixed mindset sees no room for learning and growth, while the growth mindset has positive and healthier options. The growth group will educate themselves and put to use the experience of others to overcome the obstacle. Thus living with a sense of accomplishment, the growth mindset will not see obstacles just opportunities for solutions.

Mindset Affects Your Health

Your mindset plays a role in our health. If you are discouraged continuously or depressed, your immune system is suppressed. The fixed mindset is more susceptible to illness and has a longer recovery time than the growth mindset.

The growth mindset is healthier and happier. Happier people are sick less often and for shorter periods.

Change Your Mindset

Psychologists and other professionals agree that the individual has control over how they view life.  It does not matter how long you have had a fixed or negative mindset; you need to decide to change and take some action immediately. Making the decision and waiting for the magic wand will not have any effect on your mindset. You need to take action now!

What does this mean the importance of your mindset? It means you are not doomed with a fixed mindset. Your past results are not permanent and you can always develop a growth mindset.

Let me ask you a question? Are you living with purpose? Or do you ask the winds for direction? There is less resistance going with the wind. But do you feel full-filled living a life with no direction or purpose? You accomplished many good things while following the path of the wind. Yet there is an emptiness in these accomplishments. We are overwhelmed by the media all day long. Think of the press as the wind.

One way to keep the wind at bay is to have a list of things you choose to do each day. Daily planners and daily to-do lists are popular because they keep you living with purpose.  There will always be people and incidents that arise to take you in a new direction. Knowing your life's purpose, coupled with your daily to-do list, will aid you to make the decision to stay on track. 

Your daily list of things to do is necessary and helpful. The danger is we can focus too much on the "what" and lose sight of the "why."  The big picture is the "why." The "what" is the supporting cast. This change of focus will be subtle. Asking yourself, "are you living with purpose" will keep the "why" as the center of your life.

The way to stay focused on the daily tasks that need to be accomplished to live your life's purpose without being overwhelmed is the question.  Every week take some time to reflect on "are you living with purpose."

Have the things you have done this week kept you in the right direction?  What tasks have helped you fulfill the dreams you have for your life? Are any of these tasks just busy work? We all have routines. Are these routines serving us, or are they just keeping us busy? What new things can you try to align you with your "why"?

Going on Retreats is a tool that you want to have in your arsenal. A retreat is removing yourself from your daily life for a day or weekend. You can do this by yourself or with a group of like-minded people. Reflecting on your life's purpose is the only objective of this time. Having a journal, a calendar, and those to-do lists will be helpful in your time of reflection. 

Retreats can be annually, semi-annually, or quarterly.  The more often you take a retreat the quicker you can make changes to stay on track to accomplishing your goal "are you living with purpose".

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Ways to achieve goals is through the five steps we list below. We need balance to live a happy and healthy life; everything in this world comes down to finding the proper balance. Whether it’s in work life and home life, eating healthy and eating what makes you happy, doing stuff for others without neglecting yourself, etc., everything works better and goes more smoothly when you’ve got a balance. 

Achieving said balance isn’t the easiest thing, but we’ve come up with five ways to introduce more balance into your life and get things going in the right direction.

1) Prioritize

Prioritizing and scheduling can be a great practice to start introducing more of a sense of balance to your life. We all have busy lives and long to-do lists; the only way we’ll ever get everything done and find balance in our lives is by prioritizing what needs to be done when and scheduling our days.

The tricky part to this is deciding just what is important; in some cases, your work may take priority, but in others, family or friends may take priority over your work on your to-do list. Only you can decide what’s important and what should be prioritized in your schedule when.

2) Set Goals

Setting both long-term and short-term goals are ways to achieve goals and can prove to be incredibly helpful in achieving a balance in your life. It helps you keep your sights on what you want and what’s important, avoiding too much straying from your path. The short-term goals help you to track your progress as you work to achieve your long-term goals, and help you stay on track.

3) Be specific in your schedule and review it

If, in order to achieve more balance, your goals were to, say, spend more time watching cooking shows, you’re more likely to complete it by saying “watch The Barefoot Contessa and Iron Chef every Tuesday and Thursday evening at 5,” then if you say “watch cooking shows at least twice a week.” Don’t set yourself up for failure.

Once you’ve completed your schedule and are sure that you’re specific in the goals you want to achieve and the steps necessary to get there, you should review your schedule. This is an incredibly important step allowing you to reflect on your goals and priorities to ensure everything is as you need it.

4) Find an accountability buddy

An accountability buddy is someone that holds you accountable for the goals you’ve made, the priorities you’ve set, and the things you’ve said you’ve wanted to do and accomplish. It’s easier to find balance and stick to your goals and schedule when you have someone to be accountable to that’s is also accountable to you.

Your relationship with your accountability buddy should be interactive and mutual. If you’re not pulling your weight or your carrying more than your load, you could be hurting yourself more than you’re helping.

5) Always keep the process in mind

Life isn’t just about what you achieve and what you get; it’s about the journey, the process. To achieve a proper balance, you need to always keep in mind that it’s more the process than the potential achievement.

For example, you can make your goal to win a Nobel prize in literature, or you can make it be paid to write for your career. The latter is a more achievable goal that focuses on the process and journey more than the achievement or prize at the end.

Everyone needs balance to live a happy and healthy life. Finding the proper balance in your life can be difficult, but it’s not impossible, and it’s well worth the effort. We hope this article will help to point out the ways to achieve goals that are important to you. These five points will guide you on the right path towards a healthy balance in your life.

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If you are ready to increase your personal power, here are some critical habits you need to cultivate. Check each off as you master them in your life, and you will have full control over your life and personal power in no time.

1.Stop complaining

• Complaints serve no purpose and do not solve the problem. Get busy working on a solution instead.

2.Accept responsibility for your emotions

• No one can MAKE you feel anything. You are the only one who allows yourself to feel anything. Stop allowing others to control how you feel as well as react to events, situations, and outcomes.

3.Be forgiving of others.

• Holding on to negative feelings, like complaining, does nothing. Let go of those feelings and move on.

4.Be clear about what you believe in

• If you are not grounded in your values and beliefs, your personal power withers. Your values guide your emotions and actions, so be sure you know what you really believe and want deep down.

5.Take action

• You can only create positive outcomes when you act. And when you do, you will feel more powerful. Seize opportunities to make things happen. Action is crucial to your development.

6. Make sure you have boundaries.

• Boundaries allow you to dictate what happens in your life and how you allow yourself to react emotionally. Establish boundaries that honor your personal power.

 7.Stop playing the victim.

• You choose how to react to all of life's events. You can want to learn from what has happened to you and use it in the future, or you can choose to be victimized. Being a victim gives away your power to others.

 8.Stop thinking unproductively

• Thoughts that focus on the “what ifs” in life are not helpful. Don’t’ spend hours wondering what life would be like if something happened. Go out and make that happen, instead.

 9.Learn to be uncomfortable

• Learning to deal with the hard and uncomfortable things in your life is part of accepting your personal power. When things are difficult, you have much to learn. Embrace the learning experience.

10. Let go of what is not serving you.

• Make a choice in each moment of your life to hold onto those things that give you the power and serve your goals and let go of everything else.

 11.Stop being dependent on others' opinions.

• It does not matter what others think about you or your life. They are not living it; you are. You do not need to be liked by everyone, and no one else’s approval matters.

 12.Be authentically you

• Living life on your terms, as your authentic self, is the only way to live within your personal power. You are unique and different, and you should honor that whenever possible.

 13.Pay attention to pain.

• The things that hurt most in life are those that can teach you the most about increasing your personal power. When you feel pain, you are headed in the wrong direction. Challenge yourself to see your pain more often to keep you focused on your goals.

 14.Stand out

• When you are trying to blend in, you have doubt and fear, not personal power. Do not disguise who you really are. Instead, trust that you are enough, and stand out!

 15.Let your heart guide you.

• Personal power is courage, which comes from your heart. Use your heart to guide you, which will help you be resolute in your convictions and actions.

 16.Love all aspects of yourself

• When you completely accept yourself, for all your flaws and imperfections, you regain your personal power. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with being flawed, as it is part of being human. Embrace it, do not hate it.

 17.Believe in your goals.

• Compromising your goals for others will leave you feeling unhappy and forces you to give your power to others. Remain steadfast in your beliefs and goals if you want to live a great, happy life.

 18.Remain in control of your emotions

• Allowing others to evoke reactions from you and to push your buttons is giving them power over you. Name your triggers and learn to control your responses to these.

 19.Always remember, you can shift the tide.

• When things are not going like you want or need, you have the ability to change directions, make new choices, and turn it all around.

 20.Celebrate your power

• Being grateful for your life and your ability to feel empowered will help you honor and support your work toward increasing your personal power.

 21.See the distinction

• There’s a difference between giving your power away and empowering others, the latter helps increase your personal power.

22. Use your personal power to challenge, influence, encourage command respect and hold people accountable. This will only increase your strength.

23.You don't need to intimidate others to display your personal power, embrace yourself, to increase your own power.

24.Don't concern yourself with what others think.

• There’s a difference between empathy and giving your power to everyone else.

25.Don't wait for someone else to solve your problems, you have the power to do it yourself, and when you exercise that power, it provides you with a boost.

26.Don't be afraid to admit your shortcomings.

• This allows you to improve and improvement begets personal power.

27.Learn to temper your emotions

• You can be in touch with your emotions, but to increase your personal power you cannot wear them on your sleeve.
  

28.Learn to manage stress, be positive, and relax

• Stress and negativity are quick ways to sap your personal power.

29.Think before you speak (or act)

30.Exercise your self-worth, establish your boundaries and be assertive in your bid to maintain them.

31.Leave your ego at home, find logical solutions, and avoid getting into heated arguments.

32.Create a schedule that is realistic, knocking out your to-do list is a sure way to boost your personal power.

 33.What’s in your heart?

• Courage, which is a form of your personal power, can be seen in your actions and those actions stem from what’s in your heart.

34.Accept yourself as you are

• You can be accountable for your actions and still embrace yourself for who you are.

35.Recognize that you are capable of affecting change, whether it’s for yourself, others or the world around you.

 36.Take action

• You feel more powerful when you act in ways to create your own positive outcome.

 37.In an ideal world, we would be pain-free.

• There is a lesson in pain, but don’t allow yourself to be obsessed with it. It’s a cue that you’re heading in the wrong direction.

 38.Sometimes you have to learn how to deal with discomfort.

• You can’t push it all aside, you have to walk through it – that means letting go of negative emotions when it’s time.

39.You are powerful enough to shape events, you can use your compassion and kindness to be instrumental in redirecting negative actions.

40.Celebrate all the wins in your life, even the smallest ones.

• With every victory, your personal power will increase.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Thinking big is all about believing in you. It's all about internalizing the things you really want are attainable. It's all about making your dreams come true. The one problem that stops people from thinking big is a lack of belief in themselves and in their goals and dreams. They can't get to where they want to go because they don't believe that someone like them could actually get there. Thinking big requires a clear picture of your dreams and in the life that you truly want. If you're going to think big, then believe. Raise your level of belief so that you can start the process of genuinely thinking big in your own life.

First, take a look around you. There are people, right now, in your life that are examples of thinking big. These people are proof that with a roadmap you can get from Point A to Point B. They are also proof that thinking big and achieving big is something within your grasp. Those people got to where they wanted to go. If they did it, so can you. There is a path, and all you have to do is find that path and follow it.

Some people have a problem with believing in themselves because they feel they have nothing to contribute. They haven't come up with any new, game-changing ideas. Because of this, they think that there is no point in thinking big. They have nothing to bring to the table, so why bother. Thinking big is for those other guys that do have creative ideas. The thing is thinking big is not about coming up with revolutionary ideas. Instead, it's about taking an existing idea and making it just a little bit better. Anyone can do this. There is room for improvement everywhere you look.

Here's a simple exercise that anyone can do to build a strong system of self-belief.  Begin every day by deciding that you're going to think bigger about a routine task. This involves asking yourself how you can improve the way the job is performed now. How can you achieve a better result? Can you change how it is currently done? When you take this approach to a single task, bringing all your focus and attention to it, you will find that you actually are achieving better results. This, in turn, reinforces your belief in yourself and in the process of "if you want to think big then believe."

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What is success really all about? Is it about things? Is it about material possessions? Is it about the way other people see you when you're successful? Is it about adulation and fame? Think about your answers to these questions. Think big like a child. You see, there are correct answers to all of these questions, and none of those answers are yes.  Material possessions are a side effect of success. So is money. So are praise, recognition, and authority. All these things are signifiers of success, but none of them are success itself. So then, what is success really all about?

To answer this question correctly, you have to let go of your adult self and all of your adult preconceptions and prejudices. You have to think back to when you were a child. You have to remember what it was like to be a child. You have to readopt a child’s worldview. You have to repossess a child’s motivations. In short, you have to, once again, begin thinking like a child.

How does a child define success? Think big like a child. A child defines a victory by the goal. A child succeeds when he or she gets what they want. They are not deterred by the word no. They are not stopped by their own inner voice. They do not care what others think of their goal or their behavior in trying to achieve that goal. You could say that a child is nearly 100% goal oriented.

A child also sees the universe as limitless and the possibilities within that universe as infinite. This means that a child does not feel constrained by any self-imposed restraints. The child also doesn't feel constrained by outside forces. If the child can conceive of something, then the child feels that they can achieve that something. This lack of constraint and restraint further feeds the child's laser focus on their goal.

A child is innocent as well. This innocence is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a shield protecting the child from worry and fear when it comes to goals. The child doesn't worry about failure and the outcomes of failure. The child has not been taught about eventualities. There are no eventualities.  They only see the goal.

Think big like a child and adopt a child's point of view when it comes to your ventures. A child's point of view is a useful way of examining your behaviors to see where imagined constraints and fears are keeping you from fully engaging in big thinking.

People always seem to have something to say. They have opinions about others, and you may be part of those opinions. This can be quite distracting. Remember that criticizing someone takes no effort. This means that these people have really put no effort into what they are saying. Therefore, use these tips to try and make their efforts less effective.

1. Surround yourself with positive people.
   Spending time with negative people will break your spirits over time. Try to avoid these people as much as possible. When you instead spend time with positive people, that will rub off on you. These positive people are less likely to have negative opinions about you.
   
2. Prove naysayers wrong.
   People often have opinions about you because they don’t believe in your abilities. Put that to rest by showing them how wrong they are about the situation.
   
3. Don’t be your own worst enemy. If you beat down your abilities, so will everyone else. Have confidence in yourself, and that confidence will show through. Even when people have opinions, your confidence will help you ignore them.
   
4. Consider why others are making opinions about you.
   Sometimes, what others say about you may be true. Perhaps you did something that wasn’t right, and you don’t admit to it being a problem. Try to reflect on what they said.
   
5. Treat what others say about you as it being none of your business.
   When you have this attitude that it is none of your business, you can go on with your life and not worry about what others believe.
   
6. You cannot please everyone and shouldn’t try. Some people like to complain about everything. There is simply no pleasing these people. Why bother trying? Even when you do try, they won't respond. They will continue to complain or have their opinions. Don't waste your time on them. You can spend that time with people who believe in you.
   
7. Know that making mistakes will help you learn.
   You may be afraid of making mistakes in front of others. When you do, people may have an opinion about those mistakes. As long as you learn something from your mistakes, that will serve you well in your life. When you realize this, you will be less afraid to make mistakes.
   
8. People won’t always do what they advise you to do.
   You have heard a few people say, “if I were you I would…” The trouble is when you see those people faced with the same situation, they don’t even come close to doing what they suggested. Therefore, when you hear that phrase, ignore it and trust your own judgment.
   
9. Don’t be opinionated about others.
   If you are always criticizing others, you will gain a bad reputation for doing so. This will cause others to do the same to you. What goes around comes around, as they say. Don’t get caught up in this negative behavior. Some people will still form opinions about you, but it won’t be because you are opinionated yourself.

Here are three action steps you can take:

1. Write down three mistakes that you have made in the past five years. When you list them, try to remember the lesson you learned from those mistakes. When you show that you are not afraid to make mistakes, others will admire this and be drawn to you.                                                          
2. Think of two people you had opinions about in the past. Upon learning more information about them, were you wrong? Try to use this information the next time you are compelled to make opinions about others.                                                                                                                                       
3. List any opinions others have made about you. Which of those opinions were correct? It's challenging to be honest with ourselves. However, if those opinions are well-founded, they can help you improve yourself.

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The Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi is just embracing imperfection in ourselves and our surroundings, which includes everyone we meet. Everyone we meet will be a tall order, so let us put that aside and look at the flaws in our surroundings and seeing the quirks in ourselves.  This will show us the beauty in life revealed through imperfections.

Many everyday items we use are the result of failed attempts to develop a particular product. Instead of throwing the failed attempt out. They found another use for the failed product. Sticky notes are one example. They were trying to develop a much stronger adhesive for a different purpose altogether.  They looked at what they had and brainstormed till coming up with the idea to repurpose the glue they developed into sticky notes. Nothing went to waste. If they were not willing to see the usefulness of the failure they had, we would not have sticky notes. Something that everyone has used. Corn Flakes came out of trying to control sexual urges. The list goes on.

Try not to Take Yourself so Seriously

Once you start embracing imperfection in objects around you, you will begin to relax into your environment.  You already practice this philosophy without knowing it. All you need to do is acknowledge it and to draw your attention to the objects with imperfections in your life. When I want a cup of coffee, I head for the cabinet. I am already thinking about the mug from the Tolland Innand the chips on the bottom rim. These chips came from my using the mug and my wife washing and putting the mug away. I did not throw the cup out because I chipped it. No, instead, embracing imperfection in the mug,  it can never be replaced. If that mug were to fall and break into pieces, another Tolland House mug could never replace the good feelings from the cup with the chips.

My personality and life are full of chips. I have embraced them as who I am. I can laugh at them. I just chuckle and say what a bone head thing to do. Then I picture God rolling on the floor laughing holding his guts calling Peter "get over here, look at what Lefty is doing now. You have to see this. He has outdone himself this time."

When you get this perspective in your own life, you will start to encourage others to laugh at their mistakes.  You will show them embracing imperfection is actually a quality instead of a character flaw. The more people you help to embrace imperfection, the more you will be surrounded by people practicing Wabi-Sabi. They will help you stay focused on the beauty of imperfections in life.

I have imperfections that I embrace but am actively trying to change. I do not like the effect they have in my life and the people I come in contact with during my daily activities. There are no defects in my life that have transformed themselves into quality or have entirely left my life until I have embraced them as a part of me. Denying them has only empowered them.

Do something out of your comfort zone.

Try learning a new skill or doing something daring. Do this with other people who have done this before. Entering into unknown situations will likely lead to mistakes, which is what you want. Exposing yourself when you know you are going to make mistakes is a very empowering event. It will also build comradery of like-minded people laughing with you at the mistakes you make. When the laughing is done, you will get feedback on how to correct the error to achieve the goal you have set.

Now you will experience what is meant by "hanging out with successful people, and it will rub off on you." 

If you were perfect, you’d be similar to a drone.

You would be the same as everyone else. Where is the fun in that? When you embrace your imperfections, you will realize they make up who you are. It’s best to forget about being perfect.

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Yes, You can be anything you want to be.  Remember when as a child you dreamt about becoming an astronaut, president, sports hero and the list goes on. At first, the adults were supportive and told you-you could become anything you wanted to be as long as you put your mind to it.  But you found out that their actions did not back those statements up. For they started to indoctrinate you into conformity and play it safe to get a good job, get married, and buy a house. 

When they told you-you could be anything you want to be, they had it right. Those dreams are possible.  With all the technological advances it is easier today.

How to be Whatever You Want to be

 Following your dream is easy. When you are not doing your job or busy with something that your present life needs you to do, what do you think and talk about? Is it being on the water boating? Then start to read about boats, marinas, sailing, and kayaking... Seek out people that have boats. Seek out people that make a living with boats. Congratulations

You will not be paid at this stage of your journey. You are not a professional yet. Getting paid is what makes you a professional, not how good you are. There are plenty of people that have more knowledge and skill than me. Yet they are not doing it. There is a Chinese proverb that says "Those who say it can not be done, should get out of the way of those that are doing it." I use that all the time when someone tells me with case studies in hand, why what I am doing cannot be done.

At this point, it is good to have someone or a group of people who have successfully taken the less-traveled path to support you. The masses will try to pull you back into their world under the pretense that they are saving you from throwing everything you have a way and ending up with nothing. When the going gets rough, they will start to make sense. Without support from someone who has been through these times, your chances diminish.

You will keep your job and start in your spare time. Gradually getting things rolling until you have to make a decision to stay at the size you are. Or go all in and quit your present job. Through all this time a mentor who has gone before you is invaluable.

On The Job Training

There are plenty of people who went to college and studied to become a professional in a particular area of study. Many do not work in this area of study. They choose something different for various reasons after graduating from college. With a degree or not the 10,000-hour rule applies. You invest 10,000 into your goal, and you will be an expert in your chosen field.

Making it Big

Long before you become an expert, you will be successful at your chosen goal. You will be making enough money to support your family. You will be the envy of all the people you left behind that are "leading lives of quiet desperation." For they have sold out their dreams to play it safe. If they could admit to themselves that they sold out. They would tell you they are happy for you and wished they did what you did. But most will attribute your success to luck, or you cheated. You are now in the position to tell those leading lives of quiet desperation, they “can be anything you want to be”, too!  

My book "Preparing For The 7 Day Mental Diet" will help you show you how you can be anything you want to be. There is a link below to purchase the book.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The most important single step to huge success is Shoot for the stars. We had all dreamed big when we were kids. Most of us dreamed of being the President of the United States, sports star, astronaut, actor, model, writer, or a rock star... Being a writer was one for me.

These goals are pretty universal for most of us. Whatever your goal as a child was it did not take long for it to be labeled as foolish or impractical. If this did not happen to you, feel lucky. The adults in our life started to indoctrinate us into the world of practicality. All though well-meaning, practicality is not the path to fulfilling your dreams.

Very few of us were shown how to shoot for the stars. Our school systems are designed to get us to fall in line and be practical. There is no other way the schools can operate. You just need to know that this is the case so you can find the tools you need to find and follow your real dreams.

The most important single step to massive success is to find the talents God gave you and choose a big dream to use these talents. After you have found this dream make a decision to own it as your own.

What Does it Mean to Shoot for the Stars?

 Quite simply it means pulling out all the stops and doing everything you possibly can to get to where you need/want to be in life. Need and want's become one. If they are divided, then you will fail. When you find what your God-given talents are and you discover this dream inside you, it becomes a need. It is your destiny and purpose in life. This means putting 100% effort in and doing everything you possibly can to accomplish your aims.

I will use myself as an example. I always read a lot. When you read a lot, you dream of writing a book. I quit school. I was taught that this meant most doors would be shut to me when I quit school. My Dad taught me to work with what I had and never stop till you get it done. This took years before I figured out how to follow that training. In 2012 I stood in front of a group of men and told them if they were back in 2013 I would hand them a copy of a book I wrote.

At the time I did not know how to write, publish, design the cover, or pick and research a topic. I  shot for the stars. With only a dream and the commitment to write a book in 2013, I handed that group of gentlemen the book that I had written and published.

Accomplishing that dream empowered me to shut down the voices of practicality that warn me against failure and suggest the safe path in life.  The accomplished goal reminds me of what Henry Thoreau said: "most people lead lives of quiet desperation."  Since then I have written three other books. My last book "Discover Yourself Through Gratitude - A Journal" was the motivation to follow a dream of starting an online community where people can come and talk about developing Gratitude in their lives. That is how The Good Life Mall became a reality.

An indispensable tool in following my dreams is the people I choose to associate with. I need people

who dream big in my life. If you can not find other successful dreamers, use the people at The Good Life Mall till you do. Remember, the most important single step to immense success is to find your dream and go for it.

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Many childhood fairy tales end with the phrase, “…and they lived happily ever after.” Unfortunately, as we mature, we realize that happiness isn’t simply finding your “Prince Charming,” or discovering a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

But, many of us are still waiting for that knock on the door or that special “gift” or achievement that will bring us true happiness for the rest of our lives. We don’t realize that happiness is a journey – a pursuit that takes us down a long road of learning and weeding out those things in our lives that cause unhappiness or that we have to work at to overcome.

How do you know when you’re happy? It’s a surge of well-being that puts a smile on your face and a skip in your steps. You may know it when you feel it, but it only lasts a little while – like the first time you see your baby smile or celebrating that big promotion.

To find real and lasting happiness in your life, you need first to explore what you believe about happiness. What if you have it in one area of your life and not another?

Happiness is a pursuit that you have to work at -- and to do that you need to know what it is and what it means to have it in your own life.  

What is Happiness?

The dictionary defines happiness with many words such as contentment, joy, glee, good spirits and well-being. It’s a state of mind rather than a tangible object that you can hold in your hand and use when you need it most.

But, happiness is difficult to come by unless you know what will help you experience it. You may think that good luck in the form of a promotion, a windfall of cash or a loving relationship would bring happiness to your life.

You may be surprised once you reach those goals, that happiness is still eluding you. You may even think there’s something wrong with you because you can’t seem to grasp that ultimate goal of true happiness, no matter what good comes into your life.

The problem may be that you’re limiting yourself to happiness only in certain areas of your life. Maybe you’ve achieved business or relationship success, but still, feel a void that keeps you from being happy about it. You know you’re unhappy, but you don’t understand why.

Broadening your scope of happiness to other areas of your life can help you to understand what real pleasure is and to pursue it in a systematic way that’s sure to enhance your lifestyle and finally bring joy into those areas that were lacking.  

How to Pursue Happiness

You may not realize that happiness is a life-long pursuit and not an “event” of something particular. Everyone has a right to pursue happiness. It’s so important that it’s even included in the Constitution of the United States as an “inalienable” right.

To pursue the happiness you’re entitled to, you need to know how to do it correctly. There are some direct routes to that sense of well-being and some ways that will never get you there.

The route to happiness begins with assessing the most critical areas of your life and discerning if you’re happy in that area. Are you emotionally satisfied – does your spiritual life need some more work to be happier?

Your relationships, job, and physical well-being are all part of the circle of happiness. If one link is broken, you aren’t as wholly fulfilled as you could be.

Think about various areas of your life and whether you’ve achieved the happiness level you long for. For example:

Physical Fitness – You may be happy with your weight, but how about your physical stamina? If you need to add another dimension to your fitness routine (or begin one), it will not only help you have more self-esteem to follow through and succeed – it will make you happy. Your physical well-being is a vital link in the happiness circle.

Spirituality – You don’t have to belong to a church or to a particular religion to gain happiness from spirituality. Connecting with nature and helping others are just two examples of how you can find and enjoy spirituality in your own life. Developing and living a belief system is vital to your overall happiness.

Love Yourself – You won’t be very loveable to others if you can’t love yourself. Love yourself enough to take care of yourself, to make time for only you and to build your self-esteem by surrounding yourself with positive people rather than negative ones. When you love who you are, a certain level of happiness is reached that others can’t provide.

Take Care of Yourself – Get plenty of sleep, eat a healthy diet and get enough exercise to feel better and have more energy for things you want to do. A big part of happiness is good health, so take steps to improve that link in the circle if needed.

You can probably think of other areas in your life that need work to make you enjoy and be happy with them. Research happiness as you would a place you’re moving to or a career path you think you want to take. Leave no stone unturned in your quest for happiness.  

Looking for Happiness in All the Wrong Places

Every day, we’re bombarded with advertisements about “things” that can make us happy – a new car, bypass surgery to lose weight, a different hairstyle or a new dating partner. Billions of dollars are spent each year on things that are touted as “sure things” to make us happy and content.

You may feel great when you first drive that new car, lose weight or sport that new hairstyle, but eventually the glitter wears off, and you’re left with the same unhappiness you felt before you bought the “things.”

Contrary to popular belief, that multi-million dollar home, expensive jewelry, exotic cars, and world travel doesn’t bring automatic happiness to your life. There’s no doubt that money can make your life easier, but it can’t make you happy unless everything else falls into place.

The world is full of mega-rich people and families who live their everyday lives in the throes of depression and unhappiness. There are many reasons why money isn’t making these people happy.

Lousy health could be one reason, and fighting and angry discourse about the money they have could be another. Inner happiness isn’t determined by how many things you can buy or how many degrees you’ve obtained – it’s an emotion that’s both elusive and attainable – if you know how to pursue it.

Pursuing happiness is the right of all of us, but it may not be easy for some. It helps to visualize happiness as a circle which is linked together by several happiness goals and methods of achieving those goals.

When there is happiness in each link of the circle, true happiness is achieved, but a break or crack in a relationship can cause the sphere to weaken, and your joy won’t be complete.

Rather than spinning your wheels in trying to bring happiness to your life on outside pursuits, it’s far more effective to pursue happiness from the inside. Studies of history and recent research prove that materialistic comforts haven’t led to complete satisfaction.

Part of the problem is not knowing what will make us happy – and part of it is not knowing how to pursue it. Whatever we seem to do and acquire, happiness remains out of reach.

Just as true happiness is often confused with acquiring things, the pursuit of happiness can be confused with having a “perfect” life – which isn’t attainable. We can reach a level of contentment that makes us complete without always having things go our way.

Problems and obstacles are needed in our lives so we can learn along the way. It may be challenging to feel grateful for a problem, but viewing it in that light can bring a type of happiness into our lives.  

Giving Happiness a Chance

After you take a careful look at your present life and what makes you happy – and what doesn’t, you’ll be better able to formulate a plan for happiness. Rather than waiting for it to arrive at your doorstep, you’ll have a clear path of how to pursue it.

Rather than spending your hard-earned money on things that will make you happy for a few minutes or a day, spend it on gathering knowledge and experiences that will improve your outlook on life and make you a better person.

One way to make yourself happy is to become debt-free. Pay off those high-interest accounts and begin to save money for pursuing what you love in life. Maybe you could take more trips or invest in the education of a child.

Those types of things you can do for yourself will serve to bring more lasting happiness than material things and boost your self-esteem and life-experiences. Donating your time to a worthy cause rather than writing a check is also a great way to get in touch with who you really are and what makes you happy.

If you don’t have peace of mind, begin now to discover what happiness means to you and how you can pursue it successfully. It’s a journey that will bring you much satisfaction and finally complete the circle with links that genuinely make you happy.

Image by Andi Graf from Pixabay     Image by rawpixel from Pixabay