20 Ways to Accidentally Ruin the Next 20 Years of Your Life Written by Marc Chernoff

20 Ways to Accidentally Ruin the Next 20 Years of Your Life

Written by Marc Chernoff



It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
And so often, against our better judgment, we accidentally make the wrong choices.
Our pride has us holding on when we need to let go.
Pressure from peers sways us left when we mean to go right.
Negative thoughts provoke frowning on otherwise beautiful days.
And so it goes…
One choice at a time, one moment at a time, we ruin the most promising days of our lives.
If you can relate at all, it’s time to answer your wake-up call.
How many times have you thought “this isn’t working” or “something is not right” or “things have to change”?  Those thoughts are coming from your intuitive inner voice.  It’s your wake-up call calling.
You don’t need a major life crisis to wake you up, either.  And no one needs to tell you what needs to change, because you already know.  Your inner voice has been trying to tell you, but in case it’s been a challenge to find time and space to listen through the chaos, maybe you’ll resonate with one of these situations.

• If your life is on autopilot heading in the wrong direction, this is your wake-up call.
• If you’ve become someone you don’t recognize simply to please others or to chase some version of success that doesn’t resonate with you, this is your wake-up call.
• If you never make your own needs and goals a priority, this is your wake-up call.
• If you are constantly numbing out with food, shopping, booze, TV, or other distractions, this is your wake-up call.
• If you are worn down, beat up, stressed out, and completely exhausted, this is your wake-up call.

Getting your wake-up call is not the hard part, answering the call is.  Choosing to answer the call instead of ignoring it is the hard part.  Right now, it may feel easier to keep going, and going, and going without making a change.  But you know if you don’t find a way out of the endless cycle you’re in, it’s going to ruin you.
No doubt, a big part of your life is a result of the choices you make.  And if you don’t like your life it’s time to start making changes and better choices.
Based on over a decade of one-on-one coaching sessions with hundreds of students from around the world, and hearing dozens of personal stories every year from attendees at our live annual events, here are 20 ways we as human beings gradually ruin decades of our own lives, and some ideas on how to make better choices going forward:

1. Be who everyone else wants you to be. – Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?  As kids, we are seldom told that we have a place in life that is uniquely ours alone.  Instead, we are encouraged to believe that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others – that we should find our happiness exactly as they have found theirs.  Rather than being taught to ask ourselves who we are, we are trained to ask others for permission.  We are, in effect, schooled to live other people’s versions of our lives.  Every day is designed and developed as told to us by someone else.  And then one day when we break free to survey our dreams, seeking to fulfill ourselves, we see that most of our dreams have gone unfulfilled because we believed, and those around us believed, that what we wanted for ourselves was somehow beyond our reach.
2. Avoid all discomfort at all costs. – Many of us don’t want to be uncomfortable, so we run from discomfort constantly.  The problem with this is that, by running from discomfort, we are constrained to partake in only the activities and opportunities within our comfort zones.  And since our comfort zones are relativity small, we miss out on most of life’s greatest and healthiest experiences, and we get stuck in a debilitating cycle.  Let’s use diet and exercise as an example…  First, we become unhealthy because eating healthy food and exercising feels uncomfortable, so we opt for comfort food and mindless TV watching instead.  But then, being unhealthy is also uncomfortable, so we seek to distract ourselves from the reality of our unhealthy bodies by eating more unhealthy food and watching more unhealthy entertainment and going to the mall to shop for things we don’t really want or need.  And our discomfort just gets worse.
3. Wait and wait, and wait some more for a miracle. – Inspiration exists, but it must be met by dedicated daily action.  Often the difference between a successful person who is satisfied with life’s outcomes and a person who struggles to make progress is not one’s superior abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take calculated risks, and to take small consistent steps forward.  In other words, unproductive people sit and wait for the magic beans to arrive while the rest of us just get up and get to work.  Remember this.  We so often create a state of suffering while we wait, when we should be stepping forward.  Stop waiting for someone to call your name and tell you it’s time.  It is time!  Stop waiting for someone to show up and give you all the answers.  You have all the answers you need to take the next smallest step!
4. Decide that you can’t do it. – Think about ONE self-limiting belief you have – one area of your life where you believe you absolutely CANNOT do it.  It can be about any part of your life you hope to change – your health, your weight, your career, your relationships – anything at all.  What’s one thing you’ve essentially decided is a fact about your place on Earth?  And then I want you to shift gears and think about ONE time, one fleeting moment, in which the opposite of that ‘fact’ was true for you.  I don’t care how tiny of a victory it was, or even if it was a partial victory.  What’s one moment in time you can look back on and say, “Hey, that was totally unlike ‘me’ – but I did it!”?  Once you identify the cracks in the wall of a self-limiting belief, you can start attacking it.  You can start taking steps forward every day that go against it – positive daily rituals that create tiny victories, more confidence, gradual momentum, bigger victories, even more confidence, and so on.  (Angel and I build positive daily rituals with our students in the “Goals and Growth” module of Getting Back to Happy.)
5. Avoid being wrong at all costs. – If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.  To make mistakes or be wrong is to be human.  To admit those mistakes shows that you have the ability to learn, and are growing stronger and wiser.  Truth be told, being wrong and not getting what you expected is oftentimes a wonderful stroke of good luck, because it forces you to reevaluate things and open new doors to opportunities and information you would have otherwise overlooked.  Some things in life undoubtedly fall apart so better things can fall together in their place.
6. Stop learning new things. – As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.”  Life is a book and those who do not gradually educate themselves read only a few pages.  Truly, life’s richness does not come from always residing within familiar territory.  It’s when you venture out, away from the familiar, that you grow stronger and more capable.  You must hold tightly to your core values while at the same time opening your heart and mind to new ideas, challenges, and experiences.  Your own perspective will grow stronger when you look at things from different perspectives.  Find ways to provide a healthy challenge to your current understanding of life, and you will discover and experience far more of life’s magic throughout your lifetime.
7. Never speak up. – You have every right to speak up and let your thoughts be heard.  People will never know how you feel unless you tell them.  Your boss?  Yeah, he doesn’t know you’re hoping for a promotion because you haven’t told him yet.  That cute guy you haven’t talked to because you’re too shy?  Yeah, you guessed it; he hasn’t given you the time of day because you haven’t given him the time of day either.  In life, you have to communicate.  And oftentimes, you have to open your mouth and speak the first words.  You have to tell people what you’re thinking.  And you will likely be pleasantly surprised when you do, because most people love straightforward people – it makes life ten times easier.
8. Resist the past and deny the truth. – There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away.  But I also know that if I somehow could roll it back, all the joy I’ve experienced would be gone as well.  And the reality is, I can’t change the past anyway.  No one can.  The past must be accepted.  When you accept the past, regardless of how painful, you allow yourself to grow and heal.  For example, if someone breaks your heart, it’s not easy to deal with.  But you can heal, as long as you’re willing to accept the circumstances and then gradually let them go.  You may catch yourself thinking, “Why did I ever love him?  I should never have given him my heart!”  But that’s not a helpful thought.  If you didn’t love him, your heartbreak never would have happened.  But you did love him.  That’s reality.  And accepting that reality, and everything that followed, is part of letting it go and growing from it.  You don’t get to choose what is true.  You only get to choose what you do about it.
9. Let one failed relationship convince you to not give anyone else a chance. –  Every wrong relationship leads to the right one.  If you can love the wrong person so much, imagine how much you’ll love the right one.  Every heartbreak presents an opportunity to grow into an improved version of yourself.  Great love shakes us up, excites and terrifies us simultaneously, while making us feel so desperate and out of control that we have no choice but to transform our lives.  When it leaves us, we can choose to become bitter or to become better.  Will you become stronger and wiser with an increased ability to love?  Or will you miss the gift?  One day someone will come into your life and make you see why it didn’t work out with anyone else.  Until then, use every chance you get to grow into the kind of person they couldn’t imagine living without.
10. Don’t forgive yourself. – Is it possible that all the “bad” or “foolish” things you’ve done have been forgiven and forgotten by everyone who matters in your life, except you?  Think about that for a moment.  And if you can’t reconcile things with yourself, or you don’t feel ready to talk it out with someone else, write it down.  Write your heart out!  So often when we’re feeling guilty we’re in a state of denial.  We’ve denied, trivialized or distorted our own experiences and feelings.  Writing is an important path for healing because it gives you the opportunity to sort out your thoughts and define your own reality.  You can say: “This did happen to me.  It was that bad.  It was a terrible mistake.  I’ve grown from it.  I was – and am – worthy of my own love and forgiveness.”
11. Let someone convince you that you don’t deserve another chance. – Some people like passing guilt and blame on to others for no reason at all.  Beware of this phenomenon.  Because it’s strange the way someone who wants to play the blame game and find you guilty can pass judgments, tell fake stories, and actually make you believe in your own guilt, even when you know you’re innocent (or deserve forgiveness).  So whatever you do, don’t condemn yourself just to satisfy other people’s drama.  (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the “Relationships” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
12. Take everything personally. – What people say and do to you is much more about them, than you.  People’s reactions to you are about their perspectives, wounds and experiences.  Whether people think you’re amazing, or believe you’re the worst, again, is more about them.  I’m not suggesting we should be narcissists and ignore all feedback.  I am saying that so much hurt, disappointment and sadness in our lives comes from our taking things personally.  In most cases it’s far more effective and healthy to let go of other people’s good or bad opinion of you, and to operate with your own intuition and wisdom as your guide.
13. Seek support from the wrong sources. – Think for a moment… If you were craving pizza, would you go to a Japanese sushi bar?  No!  Because you know they don’t serve pizza at a Japanese sushi bar.  In fact, they wouldn’t even have the right ingredients to make a pizza even if they were willing to customize a special order for you.  If you really wanted pizza, you would simply go to an Italian restaurant that serves it, right?  Now think about the people you go to when you’re craving support, reassurance, guidance, healthy feedback, or simply a loving, listening ear.  Do you go to people who are consistently able to dish out what you are hungry for?  Or do you go to people who don’t have what you need on their menu, and thus find yourself endlessly discouraged and disappointed?  Bottom line: It’s time to align your hunger with where you dine.
14. Passionately hate people. – Everyone you hate rents permanent space in both your head and heart.  So if you want to eliminate someone from your mind, don’t hate.  Instead, forgive, disconnect yourself and move forward.  And remember that getting even doesn’t help you get ahead.  You will never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with them.  Sometimes we don’t forgive people because they deserve it – we forgive them because they need it, because we need it, and because we can’t move forward without it.  To forgive is to rediscover the inner peace and purpose that at first you thought someone took away when they mistreated you.
15. Completely neglect yourself in the process of loving others. – You are always your best long-term investment.  Taking care of yourself is not a selfish act, it is a self-honoring one.  You can exhaust yourself looking for someone else who is more deserving of your love and respect than yourself and you will not find that person anywhere.  If you’ve been neglecting yourself lately, take a vow of self-love today and say, “I do” to YOU!  And remember, there is also incredible selflessness in your self-love.  Because you can’t give what you don’t have – enrich your life and you’ll be life-giving to others.
16. Put yourself at the center of the universe 24/7. – The point above on self-love is vital, but it must be balanced with giving back to others too.  This is an important reminder, because we all have the tendency to put ourselves at the center of the universe, and see everything from the viewpoint of how it affects us.  And this can have all kinds of adverse effects if we do it too frequently – from feeling sorry for ourselves when things aren’t going exactly as planned, to doubting ourselves when we aren’t perfect.  So be sure to shift your focus onto others when it makes sense.  When times get tough and you need a breath of fresh air, think about other people you might help.  Finding little ways to help others can snap us out of our self-centered thinking, and then we’re not wallowing in self-pity anymore – we’re starting to think about what others need.  We’re not doubting ourselves, because the question of whether we’re good enough or not is no longer the central question.  The central question now is about what others need.  Thus, thinking about others instead of ourselves can actually help us step forward when times get tough.
17. Attempt to do it ALL. – Another major issue that keeps so many of us stuck in a debilitating cycle of chaos and regret is the fantasy in our minds that we can be everything to everyone, everywhere at once, and a hero on all fronts.  But, of course, that’s not reality.  The reality is we’re not Superman or Wonder Woman – we’re human, and we have limits.  We have to let go of this idea of doing everything and pleasing everyone and being everywhere at once.  You’re either going to do a few things well, or do everything poorly.  That’s the truth.  Overcommitting is the single biggest mistake most people make that makes life stressful and overwhelming.  It’s tempting to fill in every waking moment of the day with to-do list tasks, events, obligations and distractions.  Don’t do this to yourself.  You CANNOT do it all.  You have to let some things GO!
18. Pay no attention to the present. – Too often our minds are set on getting somewhere else.  Another beautiful day comes to an end with hundreds of unnoticed moments behind us – we didn’t notice them because they were insignificant to us.  And over time our entire lives become a massive pile of unnoticed and insignificant moments on our way to more important things.  Then the important things get rushed through too… to get to the next one, and the next, until our time is up and we’re left questioning where it all went.  But it doesn’t have to be this way anymore.  This moment is your life, and you can make the best of it.  The key is to realize that you are not on your way somewhere else.  Right now is not just a stepping-stone to another place – it is the ultimate destination, and you are already here.
19. Be too busy to appreciate the little things. – Life’s dynamic nature continually renews the possibilities before you; you honestly never can be certain when the next gust of wind will arrive and what it will blow in your direction.  Open yourself to these surprises and pay attention.  Many of them will bring goodness you never knew you were missing.  You are never too old, too young, too busy, or too educated to find value and joy in new, unexpected moments.  So stay on the lookout, and keep track of these pleasant surprises.  Be sure not to lose them in the haste of your weekly routines.  For example, there are little, random moments – the silence just before the sun peaks over the horizon, coming up the driveway to the house after a long day, the smell of a home-cooked meal in the kitchen, standing at the back window and looking out at the greenery, hearing a burst of laughter coming from my son’s room, the hush of the neighborhood at midnight – when I feel an unplanned and unexpected wavelike rush of peace and joy.  This is a big part of my faith as a spiritual being: little moments of nearly tear-jerking happiness for a life I feel privileged to live.  Can you relate in any way?  I sincerely hope you can.
20. Expect (and NEED) everything in life to always go as planned. – As mentioned in the point above, life is often unpredictable.  Some of the greatest moments in your life won’t necessarily be the things you do – they’ll be things that happen to you.  That doesn’t mean you can’t take action to affect the outcome of your life.  You have to take action, and you will.  But don’t forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change in an instant, for better or worse.  To an extent, the universe has a plan that’s always in motion.  A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts pouring rain – it’s a scary thought, but it’s part of life’s cycle.  All these little parts of the big machine, constantly working – sometimes forcing you to struggle, and sometimes making sure you end up exactly in the right place at the right time.

Afterthoughts… On Making Better Choices

If you’ve been struggling with any of the above points…

Don’t be afraid to get back up.  Don’t be afraid to love again.   Find the strength to laugh again.  Find the courage to feel different, yet beautiful.  Find it in your heart to make others smile too.  Remember that you don’t need many people in your life, just a few great ones, so don’t lower yourself to have more “friends.”  Be strong when things get tough.  Remember that the universe is always doing what’s right.  Recognize when you’re wrong and learn from it.  Don’t hold on too tightly.  Always look back and see how much you’ve grown, and be proud of your progress.  Don’t change for anyone, unless you want to.  Give more.  Give the things you love so others can love them too.  Write stories.  Take photos.  Remember the little moments and the way your loved ones look at you.
Inspire yourself to make better choices going forward!

Change your habits!
The truth is, it’s just as easy to create positive habits as it is to create negative ones.  It’s just a matter of how you spend your time.  You can spend it doing things that bring you closer to your goals, or you can spend it seeking immediate comfort.  For example, some people complain, “It’s too hard to exercise every day!”  But exercise and movement are joyful, natural conditions that make us feel incredible.  It’s not hard – it’s just that people get in the habit of not exercising.  If this sounds like you, break the habit.  Realize that you are where you are because of the choices you’ve made in the past, and your future depends on the choices you make today.  You can choose to sit, or you can choose to run.  You can choose to watch another sitcom, or you can choose to read another chapter in a great book.  You can choose to act on an opportunity, or you can choose to sleep in.  There’s nothing hard or complicated about it, other than the way you’re thinking about it.
Think better, live better!  🙂




http://www.marcandangel.com/2017/02/12/20-ways-to-accidentally-ruin-the-next-20-years-of-your-life/

Take Control of Your Habits and Discover How Powerful You Really Are - Jack Canfield

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

The reality is that you – and the life you lead today – are the result of your habits. Changing habits can seem difficult to accomplish at first, but success is a result of your habits.
If you think about it, you’re living out your habits every day. From how early you get out of bed, to your morning routine, how you dress, walk, exercise, interact with others and even what you habitually think about and how you respond to the world.
These habits got you to where you are today...
The fact is that habits are necessary. They free up your mind so you can concentrate on how to survive day to day. For instance, you don't have to think about how to drive your car – which allows you instead to be on the lookout for danger while you're driving.
Unfortunately, habits can also keep you locked in self-destructive patterns, which limit your success. Becoming successful is a result of changing habits. You’ll need to eliminate bad habits and develop new ones that are in alignment with the life you want to live.
The life you want to live won’t just materialize one day... your habits determine your outcomes!

What is Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals?

What are the habits that you live with every day that are keeping you from achieving your goals?
What habits are keeping you from achieving your goals?
I encourage you to be really honest with yourself here...

• Are you always running late?
• Do you forget to return phone calls within 24 hours?
• Do you stay up late and never get enough sleep?
• Do you often break promises to your friends and family?
• Do you resist planning out your day?
• Do you spend money you don’t have?
• Do you avoid putting important tasks and events in your calendar?
• Do you drink alcohol more than once a week – and do you have more than two drinks per day?

Imagine the Result of You Changing Habits

• What would your life be like if you ate healthy meals, exercised and got enough sleep?
• What if you saved your money, stopped using credit cards, and paid cash for everything?
• What if you stopped procrastinating, overcame your fears, and began networking with people in your field?
• What if you created a detailed annual plan for success – then chunked it down into monthly, weekly, and daily plans to ensure you stayed on track to achieving your goals?

Would your life be different if you changed your habits? I bet it would!

The 2 Steps to Changing Habits

My suggested action step for you is to write down some productive habits you could visualize, then adopt in your life. Step two is to 'act as if' you were living these new habits right now!
To help you get moving toward creating more successful habits right away, I'd like to recommend that you develop four new success habits each year, one for each quarter.
Once you determine the new habit you're ready to adopt, next you'll want to create a method that will support your new habit.
Here are some ideas to get you started:

• You could write it down on a card that you keep with you and read several times a day.
• You could make it a part of your daily visualization.
• You could also enlist the help of an accountability partner who has habits they also want to change, or work with a personal coach who can keep you on track.

Make a 100% Commitment to You New Habit

 

It's important to make a 100% commitment to your new habit, so be specific about the steps that you're willing to take in order to drop an old habit and adopt a new one. Don't be vague about how you will change your habits. Spell it out for yourself so you can put yourself in situations that will motivate you to act upon your new habit.
Just developing four good habits a year will dramatically shift your life to be more in line with achieving your vision. And the more focused you are, the easier your other, not-so-good habits will be to replace. Your perspective will shift and you’ll see more clearly how your old habits just aren't serving you anymore.
Make the decision. Make the commitment. Then watch your new, positive life unfold!
I want to leave you with a bit of homework to complete after you’re done reading. Write down the four habits that you want to develop over the next year. Make a 100% commitment to each of your new habits and watch great things happen.

Steve Jobs's Top 10 Rules For Success

How To Teach Your Mind That Everything Is Available To You | Marisa Peer

9 Reasons Why You Should Spend More Time Alone With Yourself

 

 “We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” ~ Hunter S. Thompson

When was the last time you took a break from everything and everyone just so you could spend some time alone with yourself? When was the last time you gave yourself as much love, appreciation and affection as you give to those around you?

Most people give a lot to those around them, but very little to themselves. And because of that, they get imbalanced. They neglect their health, they forget about their dreams, needs and desires, they forget about who they truly are underneath it all, and gradually, without them even realizing it, they become a stranger to themselves.

This isn’t how we should treat our own selves. When you deeply love and care about someone, you spend time alone with that person. And the same you should do with yourself. You deserve as much acknowledgment, love and appreciation as everyone else. And before expecting to get all of these things from anyone else, you should first learn how to offer them to yourself.

“We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.” ~ Tamim Ansary

9 Reasons Why You Should Spend More Time Alone With Yourself:

1. You get to know yourself.

“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.” ~ Meister Eckhart

You are the most important person in your own life, the hero of your life story, and by taking the time to be alone with yourself, to be yourself and to know yourself, you will reach deep into your own heart and Soul, and you will get to experience the beauty, the greatness and the wonder of you. And what can be more beautiful than that?

2. You learn how to be alone without feeling lonely. 

Orson Welles was right when he said that “We are born alone and we die alone. We come into this world all alone, and even though along the way we will find companionship in our friends, family, and the many people we will meet along the way, there will still be moments when we will be all alone. And even though this can be a scary thought, if we take the time to be alone with ourselves – to love, accept, embrace and make peace with who we are, eventually we will learn how to be alone with ourselves without feeling lonely. And we will no longer have to live in fear… 

3. You learn how to love and accept yourself.

Believe it or not, the more time you spend alone with yourself, and the more you learn to embrace, accept and make peace with your so called flaws, mistakes and imperfections, the more love you will have in your heart not only for those around you, but also for yourself.

“Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~ Leo F. Buscaglia

4. You learn how to live in alignment with your life purpose.

Rumi said it so beautifully, “Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
Your heart and soul know the path you are meant to walk upon, the life you came here to live and the work you are supposed to do in this world. And if you take a few steps back from your daily routine, away from the people around you, and away from all the noise that surrounds you, you will be able to connect to that side of you that knows why you’re here on this planet, what the purpose of your life is and what the reason of your existence is.

5. You learn how to become who you are and not who the world thinks you should be.

“There is a voice inside of you that whispers all day long, “I feel this is right for me, I know that this is wrong.” No teacher, preacher, parent, friend or wise man can decide what’s right for you–just listen to the voice that speaks inside.” ~ Shel Silverstein
From a very young age we are taught to conform; we are taught to be more like others and less like ourselves. And the beautiful thing about spending time alone with yourself is that you will free yourself from all these mind traps, beliefs and limitations about you having to be like everybody else. And you will find within you the strength and courage to embrace and become who you truly are and not who the world thinks you should be. No longer having to pretend, and no longer having to hide yourself from yourself.

6. You discover that you are bigger than all your problems.

It’s wonderful to have friends and family to help you when you are faced with challenges and difficulties. But there will be times in your life when none of them will be able to help you.

There will be times when you will need to “fight your battles” all on your own. And by spending time alone with yourself, by strengthening your sense of self and by allowing the courage, the wisdom and the power that lies deep with you to be unleashed, you will eventually realize that you bigger than all your problems and that you have within you everything you need to deal with whatever challenges life sends your way. And you will no longer feel afraid.

7. You discover the value and power of silence.

When the mind is quiet, when there are no thoughts and no words to be said, that’s when you can hear your own heart talking to you. That’s when you can hear your own soul and our own intuition communicating to you. Silence is a wonderful teacher, whispering things in your ear and helping you understand things that you won’t be able to discover from anywhere else.
And by taking the time to be alone with yourself, to breathe in and breathe out without the need to force yourself into saying another word or thinking another thought, you will understand what Ausonius meant when he said: “He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.”

8. You learn how to honor and respect yourself.

Most people are so used to begging for approval and validation from outside of them, so busy looking for love in all the wrong places, that they can no longer connect with that side of them that knows that they already are enough.

That’s why they stay in relationships that make them unhappy, in environments that are toxic, jobs that they hate and so on, thinking that they aren’t worthy of more. And the beautiful thing about spending more time alone with yourself is that it will teach you to honor and “Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.” ~ Robert Tew.

Boosting your self-image and self-esteem so that you will no longer allow anything or anyone to make you feel like you are not enough – good enough, smart enough, worthy enough, beautiful enough, etc..

9. You learn how to let go.

One of the hardest things in life is to let go of the people, memories, things, experiences and places we love the most. We hold on to everything and everyone so tightly, fearing that without that to which we cling, we will be nothing. Failing to realize that our attachment interferes with the love we have for that which we cling to, taking away from the purity and the beauty that love has to offer.
But as you spend more time alone in your own company, opening your heart and connecting with your inner wisdom at a deeper level, you will be able to distinguish between true love and attachment. And as time goes by, you will understand that true “Love liberates.
It doesn’t just hold—that’s ego. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, ‘I love you. I love you if you’re in China. I love you if you’re across town. I love you if you’re in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now, so I love you. Go.’” ~ Dr. Maya Angelou

& Receive Your Daily Dose of Happiness!

 

 

 

 

 

5, November 2016 by Luminita D. Saviuc

It is a Challenge to Succeed
by Jim Rohn

It is a challenge to succeed. If it were not, I’m sure more people would be successful, but for every person who is enjoying the fruit from the tree of success, many more are examining the roots.

They are trying to figure it all out. They are mystified and perplexed by what seems to be some strange, complex and elusive secret that must be found if ever success is to be enjoyed. While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way.

Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily engaged in designing and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. While the much larger group sits in awe at how life can be so unfair, complicated and unjust.

“I am a nice person,” the man says to himself. “How come this other guy is happy and prosperous, and I’m always struggling?” He asks himself, “I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn’t fair.

I’m even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way,” he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television. But you see you’ve got to be more than a good person and a good worker. You’ve got to become a good planner, and a good dreamer.

You’ve got to see the future finished in advance. You’ve got to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments. You’ve got to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You’ve got to be prepared and willing to attack the challenges if you want the success because challenges are part of success.

Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn’t really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality.

I can promise you that the challenges you’ll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience.

It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.

I've often said that to have more, we must first become more, and to become more, we must begin the process of working harder on ourselves than we do on anything else. But in addition to gathering new knowledge, new skills and new experiences; it is also important to discover new emotions.

It is how we feel about what we know that makes the biggest difference in how our lives turn out. How we feel about the chances we have and the choices we have determines the intensity of our effort. Whether we try or don’t try. Join or don’t join. Believe or don’t believe.

I’d like for you to discover some strong feelings about your life and about what you want to do with that life. You probably have much of the knowledge and a lot of the experience and perhaps most of the skills that it takes to become successful.

What you may be lacking in are the strong feelings about what you want and what you want to do. You may be one of those who have become so involved in the process of earning a living that you’ve forgotten about the choices and the chances you have for designing your own life.

Let these strong feelings help you take a second look at your life and where you’re headed. After all, you’ve only got one life, at least on this planet. So why not make it an adventure in achievement? Why not discover what all you can do and what all you can have? Why not discover how many others you can help and in the process how that can help you?

Why not now take the Challenge to Succeed!
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn







http://www.getmotivation.com/jimrohn/jrchallenge2suceed.html