Whether it is political nonsense, office gossip or the news in general, we are regularly exposed to negative influences. Think about what you tend to share when you begin a conversation with someone. This could be inperson, on the phone, social media, or even via text. How much of the conversation is positive verses negative?
I think we should make it as much of a point to share as much positive as we are able. If we look around, sometimes we have to look hard, there is always something good to find.
The benefits of this are two fold. First, we will make the person we are taking to feel positive by hearing the good news. We will also feel good sharing it. Second, by making sure we always have something good to share, our subconscious mind will be on the lookout for good things in life that we can share. This will go a long way to changing our perspective.
How will waking around with good news in your heart just bursting to share affect your day? My challenge to you is this – for the next 7 days share as much good news as you can. This can be sharing many good things with one person, or sharing one good thing with multiple people. You can start right here by sharing something good with our community!
This weekend, so yourself a favor. Believe in the good. In this world, where negativity can be ever present, that can be a difficult task. However, there is good all around us. True, it doesn’t often get the press the negative does. Yes, we may have to dig deeper, but if we do, love becomes so much more rewarding.
It all begins with belief. If you believe in the beauty in yourself, others and the world around you, it will manifest in your life when you least expect it. So, this weekend do yourself a favor and believe in the good and beauty that is all around us.
Doing our best to find the good in every moment radically transforms our lives for the better. I personally know this because I have been working at it for over 2 decades. Some days and times are easier than others. The more I have practiced this, the better my life has gotten.
Heading into the weekend, I challenge you to do the same. Find all the good you can, in as many situations as you can. Just try it throughout your day. Notice how your mood shifts. The more you practice this, the more you will have an elevated mood. Put simply, you will be happy.
Just a quick reminder on your Sunday, that you should make a point to be kind to the person in the mirror? How often do we give ourselves a compliment? When we do, does it feel awkward? If so, that is a sign that we need to do it more often!
Realizing that there are awesome things about us, and mentioning them to ourselves, does not make us arrogant. We seem to mention and discuss what is wrong with us and not working in our lives quite often. How does that make us feel?Try saying something good about yourself. Even though none of us are perfect, we all have some amazing things inside of us. Let’s appreciate a few today. 😃
One of the areas people complain the most about is social media. Why is it so negative? Why are all the posts they see political or making fun of people. My first question is who chooses what you see on your social media? That would be ‘you’. If you have a person who routinely posts such content, perhaps you can live without their input online. If this person happens to be a friend or family member and deleting themwould only serve to start even more issues, you still have two choices. The first would be to ‘hide’ or limit the posts you see from them. Most social media platforms have this option.
The second option is even better and is what we will discuss here. Flood your feed with positive items. Follow people who provide positive content. There are endless motivational and inspirational pages as well. You can also change the discussion to something more positive. Look at the picture above. It is one of those things I happened upon on one of my social media platforms. Why not get people talking about what they like about each other? Do you know where people talk good about someone? At their funeral. Why not start doing this while they are alive? Post this picture and see what people like about you. I would love to hear what answers you get. I will certainly share mine. Encourage your friends to share the same picture so you can share what you like about them. It sure beats the “share this or God will fill your bed with fire ants.” or the “If you don’t share this, I know you don’t care” type post. Let us get people focused on, and discussing, something positive. Maybe ask people one positive thing that happened during their day? How about having them name a person who made a positive difference in their life? There are so many ways we can change the narrative.
As an added bonus, try using this in person. You can begin to change the narrative of in person conversations as well.
As the year draws to a close and we look forward to 2023, I would invite you to do one thing. Introduce yourself. This blog is called Secret2anamazinglife. It is a place to both give and receive. We are followed in all but 8 countries in this amazing planet of ours. We are followed on all 7 continents. That means there are so many of you out there with secrets that help you live an amazing life. It would benefit us all to know them. That is why I would like to extend an invitation to introduce yourself. Tell us where you read these posts of inspiration and motivation. Let us know a little about yourself. What do you enjoy about what we share here? Most importantly, share your knowledge. What do you do to live an amazing life?
Each of our lives, whether that be our personal experiences, the country we live in, the people we know, the jobs we hold or the pets we have, hold secrets to living an amazing life that are worth sharing. I get regular feedback from my friends in Italy, Greece, and Lebanon. I would love to hear from people in every country we are followed in. By all of us sharing, we can help each other live a more amazing life. We have over 4000 followers in India alone. 1000 in South Africa. Each one of you is awesome and a great asset to this website. In the coming years, I hope to meet a lot more of you. Certainly, my followers in Fiji and the Maldives can host a book signing. I would be happy to come out and shake your hands. In regards to our friends in France, Peru, and Kenya, as well as everywhere in between, it would be wonderful to meet you at the very least virtually. Tell me what you would like to read more about. Tell me what you enjoy about this site and what is important to you. In what ways do you benefit from what we share? In what ways could we improve?
Lastly, I invite you to share this site. The more people we can reach, the more we can spread the positive, motivational and inspiring messages we share here. Share the posts you enjoy on your social media pages. Invite others you think could benefit from learning secrets to an amazing life to be a part of our family. That is what I consider all of you, a family. We all gather here to both discover and appreciate the true miracle we are all living. Let us introduce and meet each other. Share a little about yourself in the comments below and please continue to do so all year long. Your interaction only makes what we share here stronger. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
As a bonus, you are all invited to become a part of my new Podcast, Living the Dream with Neil Panosian. Here you will hear me read sections of my books and get the behind the scenes information as to what went in to creating them. You can also listen to inspirational messages as you drive in your car, go for a walk, workout at the gym or whatever else you may be doing. Just click on the link below to listen and subscribe. It is an opportunity to become part of another inspiring community of like-minded people.
We have talked many times about how you receive what you give away. This is especially true when it comes to positivity. If you treat everyone in a positive manner, if you pay them genuine compliments, show them compassion, and give them the gift of your time, they will definitely be more likely to treat you in a similar fashion.
This doesn’t sound overly complicated, does it? Then I encourage you, I beseech you, I implore you to be as kind as you can be to as many people as you can be. The kinder you are, the more people you are kind to, the greater the positive impact will be on your life.
Why wait? The sooner you start, the sooner your life will become more positive. Even if you are happy with the life you have right now, try increasing the joy you bring to others. Try this for the next 7 days. You will create connections and joy with others that will last a lifetime!
I welcome ideas on how to bring joy to others. How do you positivity affect others? How has this impacted your life?
In our quest to discover as many secrets to an amazing life as we can, there are many things that can get in our way. One of them is overwhelm. There are so many things to incorporate into our lives that it may prevent us from even beginning. There is meditation, visualization, positive self-talk, getting into the right mindset and a million other secrets and tools we can use. Much like my motivation for writing A Happy Life for Busy People, today I want to take it down to the basic principles that we can use to begin our life transformation. Sure you candeliberate over how to create the perfect vision board or what affirmations will bring about the biggest positive change. Before getting hung up on these details, we should just start with the basics. Oh, and if you are already on your self-improvement journey, trust me, you will benefit from going back to basics.
We are going to use the picture above for our guide. The four principles listed are not only good basics to start with, but they play off each other just like it shows in the picture. Let us start on top with Positive Thinking. If we approach life with the right mindset it can make all of the difference. There are so many ways to develop that mindset feel free to explore what works for you. One of the ways that has helped me the most is having more gratitude in my life. It is very hard to feel grateful and not be positive. No matter what is going on in our lives, there is always, always something to be grateful for. What if your life is a total mess right now and you are just deciding you have to do something because you find yourself on rock bottom? That your journey is just beginning and you will be improving your life a little each day (even though it is important to remember there will still be ups and downs) that is something to be not only grateful for, but excited about. Another great way to start to develop a positive mindset is to try and find the beauty in everything. As you drive to work you can notice the flowers growing in your neighbors yard. Have a coworker who really gets on your last nerve? Be grateful there is someone to help you strengthen your patience and positivity. Not to mention, they help you be grateful for all of the nice people in your life.
Starting to think positively brings us to our next basic tool – Feel Good. When you begin to think good thoughts, you begin to have good feelings. Nothing too tricky there. What is important to think about is what does feeling good do for us? On the most basic level, that kind of is the whole purpose of life. Think about why we do anything in our lives, it is either to feel good or avoid feeling bad. You may be thinking, “If that is true Neil, how come I go to work every day at a job that doesn’t feel good?” because the feeling of not paying your bills and living on the street would feel a lot worse. Even altruistic activities we do fit into this category. I used to help at a meal program once a month. The main reason I did so was because I wanted to give back. Why did I want to give back? I felt it was the right thing to do. Guess what? Doing the right thing had me feeling good. When we feel good we are also far more likely to try new things. This can lead to an expanding of our life. Which can, in turn, lead to more things to have us feeling good. To me, the most important reason to feel good is because it makes it easier to take actions that lead to a healthier and more productive lifestyle. Think about your own life, when are you most likely to stray from your healthier eating or exercise routine? When you are stressed? When you find yourself feeling down?
That leads us to the third step in our basic life improvement series – Regular Exercise. While some of you might be cringing or debating about concluding your reading here, rest assured this may not be as tough as you think. Especially if we have focused on developing Positive Thinking and Feeling Good, this will be a little easier. Regular exercise does not mean going to the gym everyday, unless of course that works for you. No, regular exercise, especially in the beginning, can be any physical activity you enjoy. Do you like basketball? Head to the playground and shoot around for an hour a day. Perhaps walking in nature and looking for different kinds of birds is your thing? Then make a trip to different parks several times a week. Maybe you would much rather be shopping than doing any kind of exercise? How about a walk around the mall? You could even get a little resistance training depending on how much you buy. Just make sure to avoid laps around the food court as it may undo all of your hard work. You can even mix a couple of these together in a week. The secret here is to find something that is fun for you, yet requires some physical activity. Another great tool to use here is an activity tracker. You don’t necessarily need to purchase an expensive Fitbit. Most smart phones have free apps that allow you to track much of your activity as well as other healthy aspects. Even a simple step counter can be fun. Set a daily and weekly goal for yourself and then find fun ways to reach it.
I saved this one for last because for many of us, myself included, it can be the most difficult. Eat Better. That sounds simple enough, and it really is. Think about what eating better entails. No crazy diets. No skipping this and having to eat that. It is just eating better in general. Less pizza, more vegetables. I know, writing that line was even a little painful for me. Still, eating healthier is not that tricky and like regular exercise, does not have to be that painful. Let us take the example of eating more vegetables. What is your favorite? Margie’s is corn. I rather enjoy green beans. We try to work in a vegetable with each meal at home. If they are ones we like, we are far more likely to eat them. The more vegetables we consume, the less room we have for stuff that is not so good for us. Think of snacks too. This is a place where a lot of damage can be done to our diets. Try to find a healthy snack you enjoy and make it convenient. Do you enjoy snacking on carrots or cucumbers? Have some washed, sliced and ready to be enjoyed. This is where a little meal prep can make a big difference. The same trick can be used for healthy meals. Think of a healthy dish and prepare it ahead of time.
From my experience, the greatest challenge to Eating Better is time. We are running around with a million different things to do and our diets are the sacrifice. We often settle for fast food because…well…it is fast. Plan accordingly. Perhaps on a board in your kitchen write down meals that are quick to prepare but still healthy. If you don’t even have time for that, make note of some of the ‘healthiest’ meals you can order out. Here is another GREAT way to motivate yourself to eat healthy. Note how many calories you burn doing certain activities. For example, on an elliptical machine I know I can burn 700 calories (give or take) in an hour. If you run a mile you burn, on average, 150 calories. These numbers vary depending on the individuals, but serve as a good example. Next, look at what you eat. There are 563 calories in a Big Mac. Doing the math, you would 3.5 miles to burn off one Big Mac. When you are sweating and near hyperventilating at the end of your workout and find that you burned 700 calories, are you really that keen to replace 563 of them with one greasy sandwich? Now, there are roughly 3500 calories in a pound of fat. Multiply that by how many pounds you care to lose. This is how many more calories you will have to burn than you consume. This may seem like an insurmountable number. A mere 10 pounds is 35,000 calories. This is why it is important to understand that weight loss takes time. You can also understand why losing 2 to 3 pounds a week is a great accomplishment.
Working on these 4 basic principles can transform your life in big ways. It can also be easy and fun. Looking for things to be grateful for and finding the beauty in everything? That’s fun. Finding different things that make us feel good? Also a fun check mark there. Regular exercise fun? Yes! If it is an activity that we enjoy. Eating healthy can be fun when we understand it does not have to involve restrictive diets and starvation. We need to incorporate more of the healthy foods we enjoy and even experiment with new healthy recipes to dazzle our taste buds while at the same time helping our waistlines. These 4 areas are broad categories and leave plenty of room for customizing it to fit our individual liking.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 