Tag: Neil Panoisan

WE WILL MAKE IT THROUGH

This site, secret2anamazinglife.com, is generally filled with tools and strategies to live an…well…amazing life. How to succeed and excel in every area of your life. We touch on such important areas as your health, your career and your relationships. Somedays, pursuing lofty ideals do not even cross your mind. It does not escape my attention that there are days when all of us just struggle to make it through. There are days when the struggles of life weigh heavy and it seems the world is on our shoulders. On these days we may not be interested in hearing about self-care, certainly not self-improvement. We are just doing our best to make it through to the next sunrise. On some days it can take all we have to get out of bed. On the toughest of days, we might not even be able to do that.

It is for these very days that what we share with each other here is so important. When your world seems dark, the last thing you want to think about is being the light for others. That can seem impossible when you cannot see the light yourself. It is okay to have these days. There is nothing wrong with calling in sick to work when you feel a sadness you just can’t seem to shake. That is what sick days are for. We can suffer physically, mentally, but we can also suffer emotionally and spiritually. There are days when you may feel sick in your heart and spirit. Take the time you need. Even the strongest of us have days in which it can become too much for us to handle. There is no shame in that.

Days like that remind us of why the kindness we show each other is so important. That can be the kindness of a friend, or a simple, but powerful, smile from a stranger. We may not be having one of those days today but we know what it is like to have one. The smile on someone’s face can be hiding a pain we know nothing of. That is why it is important to stay together and help each other out on this journey we call life. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. The easier you make the journey of your fellow human, the easier yours will be too. Whether you are the one we needs to take a day to recover, or you are running into someone who does, we must stick together. Despite differences, despite disagreements, we must all show each other love and respect. Doing this we will be able to get through this together.

SUCCESS IS STUMBLING

I have been involved in the world of self-improvement for over two decades now. I have seem many people, some with the best of intentions, try in vain to improve their lives. Why, when someone is so enthusiastic about improving their life do they fail to do so? It has to do mainly with their mindset when beginning the journey. Our attitude at the onset of a task has a great deal to do with the outcome. Sometimes more so than the circumstances in which we find ourselves surrounded with. That is why it is so important to get this right. To make preparations for the journey before we begin. You wouldn’t go for a long hike without making sure you brought enough water would you?

What is the proper mindset for self-improvement and what preparations should we be making? I think the quote from Mr. Churchill above gives us a few answers. To begin with, we must understand that improving our life is not a linear journey. There will be peaks and valleys. When some experience a setback, they feel that their journey is not working. The setbacks we experience in life often are some of the best teachers and provide knowledge we cannot gain in any other way. We need to prepare for them. We need to do more than understand from an intellectual standpoint that they are coming. We need to prepare for them emotionally as well. How you do this will depend a great deal on you as an individual.

Some things that work for a great deal of people include, but are not limited to the following. One of the most powerful things you can do is to understand your ‘why’ for improving your life. What happens if you do not improve your life? What happens if you stay the same? This might be a good time to scare yourself a little. Does your family have a history of cancer or heart disease? That might be a good motivation to stay in shape. Then there is the other side of the spectrum. What will happen if you do succeed in your efforts? Will you gain the respect and admiration of your spouse or family? Will you have more energy to play with your children or work on your passion project?

You must also create ways of maintaining your enthusiasm. This can be planning little rewards for yourself when you reached certain points of your self-improvement journey. If you are trying to lose a good amount of weight, make sure to honor yourself along the way or it may feel like you will never get there. It also includes giving yourself a little pain when you mess up. Just make sure to not beat yourself up so bad that you feel like giving up. If you binge on a couple of doughnuts after a month of eating good? Yes, realize you made a mistake, but also realize that maybe you used to do it once a week. Keep your enthusiasm. Keep working towards your goal.

One of the main things you can do to assist in this is to keep your goal in front of you. This can be something as simple as an affirmation on the bathroom mirror or more involved like a vision board. Keep your reason for maintaining your effort in front of you too. It could be a picture of your children, your husband or wife. Whatever the reason that will make you push harder when much of you is telling yourself to give up. Make these preparations, and develop this mindset at the beginning and the journey will be a lot easier.

SUPER SUNDAY… SUPER POWER

Today we play the Super Bowl here in the United States. It is one of the most watched sporting events. Ironically, or tragically, instead of bringing people together, it has seem to create a lot of division. Not only about this team or that, but even now about who plays the musical entertainment during halftime. Rather silly if you ask me. There is something a great deal of these people are missing and you might be too. That is your super power.

In these times of crazy politics, division and in many places all out war, people have grown weary. It can be a chore every time you come across the news. I find myself missing the days of my youth. Then we were all full of energy and a good amount of blissful ignorance. There is a great difference between being informed and inundated. It can be hard to escape the world when it comes to us in so many different forms. There is of course social media which can be found on our laptops, cell phones and many other places. There are friends, family and coworkers. We hear things on the radio at work and the television in the waiting room at the mechanic. It can leave you exhausted.

There are two scary facts about this situation. First fact is that the news and world events are not going anywhere. It matters little what party is in power or what time of the year it is. Media will continue to put the big scary stuff in front of us because it sells. The media is not about making sure our emotional well-being is taken care of. There are not even really about bringing us information. Much like any other business, the media is about making money. The way you do that is to get people addicted to viewing their platform. The way to do that much of the time is through fear.

The second, and perhaps scarier fact, is that all of this fear and exhaustion takes a toll on us. This may not be a shock to many of us, but it is worth spending a second to think about. The toll is physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It can lead to much more than living in a state of exhaustion. It lowers our ability to fight disease. It will increase the chance of conflict between ourselves and others. After all, who hasn’t reacted poorly just because you were exhausted? It reduces the amount of joy we can experience even in the good times. I don’t know about your life, but in my life there are far too many amazing people to enjoy fully that I do not want to show up already out of gas. It is like working yourself to death for a vacation and when you get there you are so tired you sleep through it.

Many of us feel like we are sleep walking our way through life. The cure is to use our superpower! What is that superpower? Self-care. That might sound soft of cliche to some of you, but reserve your judgement. Let us use our vacation example. Would you rather show up to vacation drained with no energy or would you like to show up ready to experience and fully enjoy all the vacation has to offer? Why should your answer be any different for life? Life becomes more of a job and less of a vacation when we are constantly making our way through it running on empty. That is why self-care is so important. Taking time for it should be a requirement, not a luxury.

Many of us are afraid to turn down a social obligation or use a mental health day at work because we think it will make us look weak. Making yourself a priority allows you to show up bringing your best self. That is a gift you can give your boss and more importantly, your friends and family. Self-care is different for everyone. Someone may need peace and solitude. Some may need to meet a friend for coffee. I personally enjoy a chair on the beach next to my lovely lady. Whatever your definition of self-care is, make sure you not only make it a priority, you schedule it. When people know you have an ongoing date with your self-care, they are more likely to respect it. Take care of yourself and you will be far better prepared to take care of others and the world around you.

SOMETHING TO CONSIDER

We touched on this a few posts ago with a few specific examples. In more general terms, we should just treat each other with far more kindness and compassion. We never know the complete story behind anyone. We certainly would not want anyone to know our complete story either. Keeping that in mind, why would we leap to conclusions about another?

It can be easy to be convinced by media, or even by social media what is the truth about a group of people. Do your best to be reserved in your judgement. I cannot think of any group, be they social, political or anything else, where everyone is the same. I am not sure what I find more appalling, the fact that the powers that be think we would believe everyone in a group is exactly the same, be that good or bad, or the fact that many of us do believe such a thing.

Next time you see or hear someone telling you a story about an entire group of people, ask yourself a simple question. If you could gather any group of people would they be exactly the same? Would they all have the same history and the same story? Of course they would not. Understand that people have all sorts of experiences that we may never know. Be patient, be kind.

GET DEEP

This post should be coming to you from the Luxury Bahia Principe in Runaway Jamaica. Alas, due to the hurricane last year, our hotel was unable to open. Sadly, we were not told of this until recently. We certainly wish them well and look forward to visiting the country in the near future. Now the time we had planned to escape will be dedicated to spending time loving each other at home.

The reason I bring this up today is that is goes along with the quote we are featuring in today’s post. Just as life should be measured by depth and not length, so should the experiences of life. It may not often work out like we had hoped, but it is more about making the most of how it did work out. The Stoics have a saying – Amor Fati. It translate to ‘love fate’. It means to fully embrace the situation that we find ourselves in. This is not to say I am not grumbling a little about my trip being canceled, but instead working to find the pluses in the situation. It gives me some more time to work on my beach body. This I believe I last had in 2013, but we will get there. It allows me to save some money for an adventure while I am there. Perhaps the weather will be more to my liking? Apologies to the love of my life who likes it a little cooler.

We must work to make the best of every situation we find ourselves in. We never know when the length of our life will end, so we should make it as deep as we can. Enjoy every coffee with friends, every romantic night with your spouse, and every warm ray of sun. In addition, find ways to enjoy situations you face daily. Your daily commute? Find ways to add depth to that. There are some great suggestions in my book Living the Dream. You could listen to a life-changing audio book. Look to find things you love as you drive along. Muse things you have to be grateful for. Do not like your job? You and 87% of others are in the same boat. Find ways in which to add smiles to your coworkers and customers. Look for ways in which your job matters. Be grateful for the opportunity to work. Many would give anything to have a job.

Adding depth to life is not so much about changing circumstances as it is about changing mindset. Adding gratitude and being present can add a great amount of depth to your life. Keep in mind the Stoic phrase Amor Fati. Learn to embrace the life you are living while striving to make it better. We never know when the length of our life will come to an end so we owe it to ourselves to make it as deep as possible.

LEARN TO FAIL PROPERLY

How many times do you have to try something before learning it? Two times? Three times? Thomas Edison failed more than 1000 times before inventing the electric light bulb. Can you imagine sticking with something that long? I am not sure that I would. The point of all of this is that the amount of times that you do not succeed at something in life will always outnumber the times that you do succeed. In other words, you will fail a lot more than you succeed. Knowing this, you would think that failure would be a well-studied subject. On the contrary. Most people do not like to think about failure, much less study it.

If failure is something we are going to experience often in our life, should we not spend some time learning how to do it properly? Many of you might be asking how can you ‘fail properly’? Don’t you just fail or succeed? The average person does, yes. If we are looking to create an amazing life, it involves learning to put everything that occurs in our life to work for us. This includes failure. How can we do that? The first step is changing our mindset around failure. We must see it for what it is – a learning experience. Your muscles do not grow in the gym without encountering resistance. The same is true for you as a person. You only grow when you encounter resistance. In fact, the bigger the resistance, the bigger you must grow to overcome it. Just as the heavier weight in the gym requires more muscle growth. The photo above may seem cliche, but it is 100% true. Failure is a ‘first attempt at learning’. You do not learn much if you succeed at things the first time. It also would lead to a boring life eventually.

The second step to making failure work for us is learning to mine it. Yes, it is time to imagine ourselves as miners and see what we can get out of failure. The obvious may be the lessons and knowledge. If you have ever tried to put out a grease fire with water, you will soon learn, in spectacular fashion, that is the exact opposite thing you should do. It is a failure in the moment, but you will never put water on a grease fire again. You gained that knowledge. How about trusting someone with a secret only to discover they told everyone they know? Failed in that judge of character, but learned they cannot be trusted with confidential information. In addition, if there is something you want to get out, perhaps this was the person to tell. In each case you walked away with more knowledge than you went in with.

Another thing we gain from failure is resilience. If we always succeeded, how tough would we be when faced with a challenge? Not very. Failure teaches us perseverance, patience, and mental and emotional fortitude. These are lessons that you cannot learn with success. Therefore, failure is actually something we can be grateful for. It gives us a kind of strength that success never could. You owe it to yourself to learn how to fail properly. We are all going to do it in life. We should learn to do it in a way that will give us an amazing life!

STOP AND THINK

Here is a post that should not have to be written, but must be read. There are so many out there jumping to conclusions and often doing so without compassion or understanding. Think of the picture above. We may see a man who appears to be emotional, sad or moved to tears. Many would think he was ‘not manly’ or worse make fun of him. They would not ask why he is in such an emotional state or even ponder to consider what may make him so vulnerable in public.

Parents, you may think it is no big deal that your child is a bully. Not only can that lead to some deplorable adults, but think of the photo above. The child being attacked and bullied at school could be the very one being abused at home. When will this become too much for the child to take? None of us know. What would be tragic is if actions taken by another child would push them over the edge and lead to that child taking their own lives. Not only would that result in the loss of one life, but the guilt the other child would be forced to live with would be a second tragedy. Teach your children to live and treat others with kindness and compassion.

Here is another one that can break your heart. Many of the elderly are ignored or looked down upon for one reason or another. They should be treasured. It is them who have paved the way for all of us. Think of the example sighted above. People may look at an old man who has scars on him, or other physical, or even mental, ailments. How many of us stop and think that he could have received them fighting for our country? He could have been burned trying to save a family from a fire. We never know the story behind the people we see. None of us would like to be judged without understanding or compassion. We should afford the same rights to others.

Going forward, let us all make a conscious effort to understand others. Let us treat them with the love and compassion we so strongly crave in our own lives. We impact the lives of all of those we come in contact with to one degree or another. Let us do our best to make sure it is in a positive way.

A GREAT DAY FOR THIS!

There are a lot of crazy and negative things going on in the world today. It can be a lot just to make it through the day. One can begin to wonder what we can do to rally against all of this negativity. The answer is a little counter intuitive. It can be found in the picture above. Have a great day. You may find yourself thinking, “How can I have a great day when the day around me is far from great?” That is exactly when we need to have great days the most. It can be hard to not let outside circumstances dictate our inner condition. Not only is it possible, but it is really how we were meant to live. We cannot let the negativity win. How can we accomplish that? It involves a change of mindset.

A personal example for me is as follows. I am currently dealing with a fractured, and who knows what else, foot. It is preventing me from working out as I would like to do. Not to mention it hurts fairly bad. It is well below freezing where I live and has been for weeks. I am a fan of the sun and beach. The vacation I had planned next Wednesday to get away was recently canceled due to the hotel being hit by a hurricane. As you can see, I have plenty of reasons I could feel down. Do you know what else is equally true? I was able to go to the gym this morning and workout in different ways. I went out to lunch with Margie and my mother. We had one of our favorite servers, Estela. Then I went to write these blogs and look what they wrote on my cup! Both of these lists of items are true and factual. Focusing on one would have me frustrated and depressed. Focusing on the other will have me feeling grateful and happy. That is why it is a great day to have a great day.

The news can have you believe the sky is falling. In many ways there are lots of crazy things happening. This is not about denying any of that. What it is about is reminding ourselves how many good things are still out there. If we choose, we can make a great day out of anything. Why not make today a great day?

NOT AN EXPENSE, AN INVESTMENT.

With seemingly everything becoming more expensive these days, everyone is looking for ways to save a little here and there. Sadly, one of the areas people cut off first is investing in their lives. One great way to improve your life is to change this mindset. View everything as weather it is an expense or an investment. A gym membership can be a great investment. If you go consistently, it will save you on sick time, medicine and stress. It will also add energy and the ability to do more. If, however, you are not going to use it, than it will be nothing more than an expense.

While making these discernments, be careful not to justify expenses as investments. What I mean is that if you are going to buy a new cell phone, even though your current one is working just fine, you could say that it will allow you to work more efficiently from more locations. While that could be true, if you are only could to use it to watch random reels on social media, be honest with yourself. In that case it is an expense. If you buy a great book on how to make better use of your time, but only use it as a paper weight, than it goes from investment to an expense.

As we are all looking to spend wiser and save more, make sure you are doing so wisely. Make sure to continue to invest in yourself. Remember the better you take care of yourself, the more you will be able to do for your friends and family. The best investment you can make is the one you make in yourself.

WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE

With New Year’s resolutions starting to fall off, this post comes at just the right time. No matter how lofty our goals, we will not look like anything like them if our habits and effort do not match them. Think of the person who has the goal of getting in shape every New Year. If they do not match that with consistent effort and hard work, they will pretty much look the same as last year. If your goal is to be in a better place financially, but you have a habit of buying every new phone as soon as it hits the market, you will look more like the person chasing instant gratification than someone concerned about their fiscal well-being.

That is why in my upcoming fourth book we focus on setting up rituals to form a daily structure. This will go a lot further to success than even setting goals. I recommend you do both, but setting up a daily habit you engage in will be key. Even starting with something small will gain you momentum. Once it becomes a mindless part of your daily routine, you will be well on your way to success. At first, understand new habits will be difficult. The brain does not like to change its way of operating. Stick with it as Earl Nightingale used to say. Once your mind adapts to this new habit, you will be on your way to success.

There are ways to help put this on autopilot. Let us say your goal is to start the day with a better attitude and outlook. Placing inspirational quotes on the bathroom mirror, or empowering affirmations to repeat to yourself, would be a good idea. I have a daily inspirational calendar by my coffee maker. I love starting the day with both. It takes me a while to remember to read each page. Especially at 4am when I wake up. Once in the habit though, it is something I now look forward to! How about you? Can you think of some simple habit you can do daily to gain momentum and set yourself up for success?