Tag: Self-Help

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Yesterday we looked a bit at a conversation I had with a wonderful friend of mine. Today we are going to look a little more specifically at the issue she was having which very well might be an issue that you are dealing with as well. Yesterday we discussed what to do if you had an issue from your past that may be holding you back. We spoke briefly about guilt and regret which are two of the main past issues that affect people. Today we are going to look a little closer at her specific issue and what I recommended. This amazing young lady who has truly a heart of gold, was being poorly treated by several friends and even some members of her own family. She was trying her best to keep everyone happy, but their nasty behavior kept on. Sound familiar? We all have people who come into our life at some point, some who may have been in there our whole lives that mistreat us. The question is how can we not let the hurtful things they say and do affect us? In short the answer is you can’t. We are all human, we all have feelings. A point it always helps to remember when we are dealing with others as well. So if we can’t stop their arrows of hatred, jealousy and anger from piercing our hearts, what can we do? Ask ourselves the most important question “what does this all mean?” Sometimes the person we are dealing with is just having a tough time and maybe some issues we don’t even know about. It could be they are just unfairly taking it out on us. In this case although it hurts, it is a good opportunity to practice compassion and understanding. Another good question to ask ourselves is “What could possibly make someone act this way?” This is an especially good question to ask if this behavior is new. In this case we also have a chance to further practice our skills at politely asking people what does seem to be troubling them. Often times we may discover an issue we can either assist with or at least further understand the person we are dealing with. That act of caring can bring the relationship closer.

So what if we do all this investigating and compassion only to discover the person isn’t having a rough time, or dealing with an unforeseen issue? What if we discover their only issue is that they are an ass, what then? Great question! In fact, that happened to be one of the examples my friend gave me. She was fired from her job so the gentleman running the company could give a job to his mistress. Now on the outside she thought, and rightfully so, “How unfair is it that I work my butt off and this guy is cheating on his wife with this woman so I loose my job just so she can have one?” That is a fair question to ask, but it is not a very empowering one. If we asked what does this mean we could certainly come up with the answer that it means this man has lost morals and values his sexual gratification over a good employee. That is a true statement and may help us feel good…for the short-term. How can we use this to empower us more. This is why it may be important to revisit things that have happened to us that may have seemed ‘unfair’ at the time. I asked my friend if she really wanted to work for a gentleman with those kinds of moral standards. She replied no. I also asked her to share with me what happened to her after she left this job. She told me her very next job only lasted a short while, but in that time she was able to bring a lot of good to the life of a coworker who was struggling. The second job she had after that, which she currently holds. Allowed her to move out-of-state and be someone warm where she is considerably happy. These things would not have happened if her former boss had not let her go. Sometimes it is hard to understand why people do what they do or how we can benefit from it until far after the time it happens. Sometimes we may never understand but if we are always approaching life asking empowering questions and looking for ways to benefit and learn from every situation nine times out of ten we will. So don’t play the victim, play the master! Plus, trying to guess why other people do what they do is only slightly harder than guessing the winning lottery numbers.

GIVE THE PERFECT GIFT

I originally started this site because I wanted to create more joy in my own life, and wanted to share the tips I discovered in my journey with anyone else who may be on the same path. One of the greatest gifts this website has given back to me is the continuing discovery of new and exciting ways to improve the quality of my life. I am constantly looking to strengthen anything I think needs work on me. Luckily I have no shortage of flaws to work on. We all do. They may all be different, but they are all a blessing in disguise. Challenges and imperfections give us a chance to learn and to grow. Plus, the pressure on somebody who is perfect would be more than I could bear. One of the interesting things about me is that on occasion I stress over gift giving. I always want to give the perfect gift. Of course I would recommend my book  A Happy Life for Busy People which captures the very best of this blog. That may be just a shameless self-promotion. Actually my wonderful friend Cheryl gave me the best gift idea ever. If somebody asked you what gift you would want if you could have anything, what would it be? Chances are the answers here will be varied. Diamonds? A new sports car? A promotion at your job? Roses from an admirer? Why do we want any of these things? Diamonds could make us feel extremely valuable. A new sports car? Well that could certainly makes us feel powerful or really cool. Promotion at work could give us a sense of importance. Roses from an admirer would most certainly make us feel loved. I know what you are thinking, “Neil these are not one gift, they are many gifts. On top of that, all of these gifts are different” Very true indeed. What if I were to tell you there was a gift that could make you feel all of these things? It would make you feel more valued than a diamond, more cool than a sports car, more important than a promotion and more loved than several dozen roses! Would you not want to go out and buy that gift for the most important person on your gift giving list? Would you not want to give this gift for the most important of all occasions? Well I have good news and bad news for you. First the bad news, you cannot buy this gift. It is not available for any dollar amount and cannot be created by anyone other than you. No, in fact this gifts only price is a few moments of your time, some honest reflection and a pen and paper. That is the good news, this powerful priceless gift is available to anyone! Ok, so you have read this far and stuck with me, what is this gift already? Well, here it is. An honest and heartfelt letter of appreciation and gratitude. You may be tempted to dismiss this as trivial…don’t! Think of how you would feel receiving a letter from someone in your life not only expressing their appreciation for you, but going in-depth as to why they appreciate you and all the things you have done for them. How easy to you think it would be to write and give one of those letters to someone? Here is a little secret for all of my shy friends. The letter still works (although not nearly as well) even if you do not give it to them. Sitting down and writing out all the ways you appreciate someone and all they have done for you will change the way you view and thus treat that person. I also imagine that the energy will be picked up in some subtle way by that person. Of course the feelings would be far more intense and have a far greater effect if they could actually read the letter. Give it a try. Write one, maybe even hang on to it a while. Just see how life changes. Maybe shoot for writing one a week. Pick a different person each week. Tomorrow we will discuss another once a week action you can employ that will have a great effect on your life this coming year…

YOUR MISSION SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO ACCEPT IT

Sample mission statement
Sample mission statement (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We ended last week talking about goals. Hopefully by now you have developed a set of goals you hope to attain in the coming year. Even though we have shown how important these goals are and how much benefit they can bring to your life there still exists one problem. Time. Now truly taking 5 minutes twice a day to review your goals and cement them in your mind should not be that great of a challenge. Especially considering the great benefits you stand to gain. Today we live in a nanosecond world. If an internet page takes more than ten seconds to download to your phone something must be wrong. So to review a list of several items several times a day just is too much to ask most people. In some ways this sounds crazy to me considering I know what a difference it can make. Still the point of this blog and my mission in life is to help the most people change their lives for the better. So taking the modern person into consideration how can one stay focused and give their life direction without taking time to review goals. First, let me make it clear and am saying you should give up on the practice of reviewing your goals. Try to incorporate it into your life as often as you can. Still if we can get some of the same results and make it as simple as remembering a single idea or theme wouldn’t that streamline the focusing process?

How many of you have heard of a mission statement? They are pretty popular with companies and organizations in the corporate world. The main purpose of a mission statement is to define a direction and ethical standard for companies to follow. That way they can easily decide if they or any situation they find themselves in meets their standards. Sound familiar? It is the same thing we have been discussing on an individual basis. Viewing your life as a corporation where you are the president and CEO has great value. that is a subject we will approach tomorrow. Keeping that in the back of your mind begin to think of what would make a good mission statement for the company that is your life? What is your life’s main purpose? Are there any standards you must not violate? What are you passionate about? There is a great website that can assist you in crafting your own mission statement nightingale.com is a site full of self-improvement products you can purchase. Still one impressive thing they have available free on their website is a tool allowing you to write your own mission statement. After you do so you will have one emotionally charged, positive and descriptive statement for the purpose of your life. This statement can be amended throughout your life, but it provides you a great tool to decide if you and any situation in your life is meeting your standards and purpose for being on this amazing planet. I highly suggest beginning to view your life as your own company and do so by crafting your own mission statement. We will examine the benefits of this tomorrow.

NEW AVENUES TO EXPLORE…

Sometimes a path seems so obvious that you cannot believe you have not wandered down it before. Such is a new Facebook page dedicated to this very blog. In a never-ending search to reach more souls dedicated to and searching for ways to live life to the fullest and bring as much joy to their lives as well as the lives of others, I forgot the ever popular social media giant. So for those of you who may be looking for additional motivational and inspirational ideas, or just feel more comfortable reading a Facebook page I invite you to join our new page. It is simply Secret2anamazinglife. There you can interact by posting your own comments, pictures or inspirational stories. You can also view other followers advice on living the most joyful and positive life you can.

After accomplishing this it caused me to pause and ponder, which I must confess to doing quite often. I began to ask myself some very interesting questions. Unlike the ones I ask when I have had too much rum, these you may also want to ask yourself as well. I began to wonder what other paths have been presented to me that I may have overlooked. New places to meet friends? New places to donate my time and ideas? New places to help? So this week I am going to try to step out of the box and see what I might be missing. I encourage you to do the same. Much like our new online avenue to bring joy to others, where can we do the same offline? Take a look in your own life. Where/what/who would benefit from having a little more of you around. If you have any suggestions for us to share, feel free to leave them in the comments here or on our new page and thank you for all of your support!

Don’t think about it

Everyone has heard of the value of positive thinking. In fact one of the best books one can read is “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale. That being said there is a problem with positive thinking. I believe it was Tony Robbins who said “The problem with Positive thinking is you have to think about it” What we need is a change in perspective. You must train your brain to think as many positive thoughts in a row. Our brains have been trained since birth to find the problem in any situation in order to fix it. This kind of thinking sure does have its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. First, it keeps us focused on what is ‘wrong’ with any situation in our lives, which in turn prevent us from focusing on what is right and beautiful. Second it creates neural pathways in the brain that keeps us focused on our problems instead of our blessings. It has been said that people routinely focus on the ten percent that is wrong in their lives to the detriment of the ninety percent that is right. Initially that sounds hard to believe, but just imagine having a toothache while on a vacation in a tropical paradise you have won and you get the idea. It is not our fault that we think this way. When we are young our parents teach us what not to do and how to address problems that may arise in life, which is surely good advice. Then in school far more intention is placed on correcting our deficiencies than growing our talents. The same holds true in the working world. So how do we change this life-long way of thinking? Start employing several of the ideas listed here especially the one in the post entitled ‘Start out easy’ which will help us focus on the positive aspects and events in our lives. Second, here is a fun game you can try with yourself. The first time I tried this is shocked me how ‘badly’ I did. That being said remember you are fighting against a learned behavior that has been ingrained over years, decades, maybe even longer. So be patient with yourself. The idea here as with all of my posts is to have fun while working your way towards a more amazing life. Here is the game. Try to think as many positive thoughts as you can in a row. These can range from “My what a beautiful garden” to “I am so grateful for my dog”. As soon as a negative thought pops up you must start over. You will be surprised at the amount of negative self talk going on inside your head. Again, be patient with yourself. When I first started this I thought to myself “Hey Mr. amazing life blog writer, Mr. happy book author, you’ve got this” My personal record for the day…five. Yes that’s right I could not get past the fingers on one hand. So why play this game? To depress us with how negative our thinking really is? No, to begin to retrain our brains to incorporate the positive as well as the challenging. Life is all about balance and dancing around like Mary Poppins is not going to help us learn and grow. That being said neither is sulking like Eeyore. One other interesting fact that I happened to notice is how insane some of the negative thoughts that honestly would pop up in my head without me even noticing. I think if counting how many times I called myself stupid, dumb and countless other things in my own head during this test I would’ve needed fingers and toes. Not only did I notice those thoughts as ‘ruining my streak’ but noticed how ridiculous they sounded. I made a mistake and was usually harder on myself than anyone else it affected was on me. So be patient with yourself, have fun with this and let’s see if you can beat five!

THE TALLEST BUILDING IN TOWN

I was listening to a cd the other day.  I want to say it was one by Tony Robbins.  It reminded me of a situation that often gets under my skin.  Now I try not to let too many things get to me, but here is something that does.  Perhaps you know someone who does this.  Perhaps you, yourself are guilty of it as I think we all are at some point in our lives.  The question is simple, How do you get to have the tallest building in town.  There are two answers.  Which one you choose goes to show a lot about the kind of life you are living at the time and the kind you are going to live in the future.  The two choices are simple.  If you want the tallest building in town you can either knock everyone else’s down or you can work on your own.  Now I think the answer as to which is better is fairly obvious.  Still, how many of us hear people, or ourselves put people down, or minimize their accomplishments because we don’t feel strongly about our own?  This causes us three kinds of problems.  First, when people hear you belittling someone else’s life, they think, even subconsciously, “how are they talking about me when I am not around?”  This may lead to mistrust on the part of your friends, or at the very least, a lack of desire to share details of their life with you.  What that gets you is relationships that are not as close and beneficial as they could be.  Second, when we put down someone else, it is because we feel inferior to them in some fashion.  By putting them down, instead of forcing ourselves to work harder we provide ourselves an excuse not to improve our lives.  In other words work on our own building.  Lastly, when it comes to the law of attraction, when we celebrate our friends, and even our enemies victories no matter how hard that may be, it draws the same thing to us.  In simple terms, when you finally achieve a goal do you want everyone putting you down? Saying you succeeded just because “you were lucky” or “got all the breaks” I would guess the answer would be no.  So next time you hear of someone’s success. Cheer them on.  Celebrate as if the success was your own.  You will make them feel better and life will work better for you.  If we all just worked on own buildings we would build a far better city, and a far better planet.  We can’t control what other’s do anyway, so let us just focus on us.  Start the positive revolution one person at a time.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRAYER…

Yesterday we spoke of challenges and seeing them as opportunities.  Let me tell you, I sure got some practice at that today.  Life is an amazing practice ground for maintaining a positive lifestyle.  In addition to all things at my job at the post office. I discovered my aunt had lost her job and my uncle who is recovering from a serious injury may have taken a step back at least emotionally.  In fact, it may even be affecting his relationship with his wife.  Now, all these things are stressful. Most of them are either completely out of my control or involve the variable of other people and their personalities. So while speaking with my mother about this and hearing some of the challenges she encountered today we found ourselves discussing all the things and people we were concerned about.  In this case ‘concern’ could be a quick replacement for worry.  Well I am a firm believer in the law of attraction and focusing on other people’s problems, even if it is with the intent to solve them just sends more negative energy to the situation.  It was then I remembered an idea I had read in a book I just finished. When there is a person with a problem, be it you or someone you care about, instead of focusing on their problem I have a solution that will not only help them I believe but it will feel better for you.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it would feel good. That is exactly what I am talking about here. Say we are worried about a person who lost a job. Instead of focusing on how they must be worried about being able to pay the bills, and how hard it is to find a job, do something a bit more constructive.  Close your eyes and picture that person in a job they enjoy being paid a decent wage.  Feel their happiness and send them your happiness as well. Then, and this is very important, feel gratitude for that situation turning out for everyone’s good.  Really feel it. Do this every time worry rears its ugly head. It won’t be easy, but it will make you feel better.  If this is for somebody else and you think they would be receptive, encourage them to do the same. Then calmly keep your eyes open for that job. It can work with an illness too. Picture the person, or yourself, healthy.  Don’t say “I’m thankful that illness is gone”  instead say “I am thankful to see Kim healthy and happy” or Bob or Tom or…well you get the idea. The important thing here is the emotion. Really feel the joy, really feel the gratitude.  You will feel better and you will be sending a lot better energy out to the world. Will it work? I believe it will. Not to mention it will feel a lot better than worry. Oh and if you want to be happy and grateful for my new-found wealth I would be ok with that too. Stay positive and stay grateful my friends!

TRIAL AND ERROR

“My life has been based on trial and error. I finally paid attention during the trial, now I’m learning from my errors”
-Kari Hutton

Life, it always has its ups and downs.  No matter how far along we are at creating the life of our dreams, there will always be challenges. Now this may seem depressing news, but it is quite the opposite.  Challenges provide us a chance to grow. The are the seeds to great opportunity. You could never have the feeling without overcoming a challenge.  The secret to making challenges work for you is what you do with them.  When you find yourself in a troubling situation is your first feeling “Why me?” or how life is not fair?  I’ll admit there are days I am as guilty as the next person of this.  When we are faced with a situation that is not what we desire we can make it work for us. Even if it is completely out of our control, we can still have a victory if we ask ourselves “What can I learn from this?” If you say nothing, just think if you could learn something from it, what would it be?  Maybe it is as simple as who will stand by you when the chips are down, or how you will react when faced with a tough time.

I have a friend who was recently sent to prison.  She is a young single mother and for some serious life mistakes she faces over a year away from her family.  Now she could simply focus on missing her son, or how her life is so far down the wrong path, but she is not.  In fact, she is working on transforming her life while behind bars.  She is beginning to explore things like the love of attraction and the power of positive thinking.  She is working on educating herself in different fields and writing a book to help others who may be headed down the path she went to so that they may not make the same mistakes.  Whenever I receive a letter from her it reminds me how much good can come out of a situation that seems so bad.

The moral is this.  Sometimes life will suck.  The two real secrets are as follows.  First, how to reduce the times that happens.  Second, how to make the most of it when it does. If you can do this your life will be a success.  So this week as we are faced with challenges let us stop and ask ourselves “how can I make this work for me?”.  Be a master of your life, not a victim.

QUALITY AND QUANTITY

There seems to be a statement that is brought to my attention frequently and it may be in the back of your mind as well.  So today we are going to bring it up front and address it.  Honestly before embarking on a life-long journey to live a life as full of passion and meaning as possible this very question plagued me as well.  Ok, I know stop stalling and let us get to the question.  The question I get is this.  “Motivational and inspirational things are great, but they never last and they are never there when I need them most” Although I often feel the same about rum it had me thinking.   Well to answer this I am going to quote the famous motivational speaker and author the late Zig Ziglar who said,

“Motivation doesn’t last.  Neither does bathing.  That is why we need to do it every day”

Following this blog is a great first step into having a motivational pick me up delivered right to your inbox, so be sure to click the link on how to follow this page to make it as easy for you as possible.  I also suggest picking up some Motivational cds to listen to when in the car or if you have a free moment at home.  A book or two would be great as well.  Motivational movies like “The Secret” are good to have around when you just feel like you lose your direction or are just having a bad day.  Feel free to print out your favorite posts from this blog to review when you need.  Remember you are never going to agree with 100% of what anyone says, nor should you.  Each of us has our own unique life and circumstances.  Which is why it is so important to gather as many positive points of view as you can.  Surround yourself with people who are positive motivated people who just might have slightly different way of going about the world.  Keep your mind open to what everyone has to offer.

If we drink a cup of coffee a day (or diet coke or whatever works for you) to keep our bodies going.  We should at the very least expose ourselves to something motivational or inspirational to keep our souls and spirits going.

KELLY’S WORDS OF WISDOM…

Proof that inspiration can strike you anywhere happened to me today.  While I was getting my haircut today the wonderful lady doing the service and I began chatting about all things positive.  She brought back a quote I haven’t heard since I was young.  “It’s like my mom always said” she exclaimed. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”  As she started rinse the shampoo from my head I started thinking. Which is pretty much all you can do while somebody else is washing your hair.  That is a piece of wisdom a good many of us have heard from childhood.  As I may have mentioned in previous posts, my good friend Jamie taught me to look at things backwards.  Not saying anything mean certainly helps the people you are talking to, or about.  What does it do for us?  I began to meditate on this for a while.  Not to intensely as by this time there were sharp instruments near my head. It reminded me of another quote from the Buddha that I particularly enjoy. I am paraphrasing here as I do have the exact quote in front of me. “Anger is like holding a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned”  Think about how you feel when you say something about that driver that cut you off. The lazy co-worker whose work you end up doing on top of your own.  The in-laws that won’t mind their own business.  In all of these cases we have a right to be upset, but while verbally lashing out may help us relieve some anger in the short-term, does it really help us feel better?  After leaving the break room while either joining in or sometimes just overhearing a long session of gossip how do you feel?  Now let us flip this around.  We know what will make us feel terrible, but what about the first part of the motherly quote, saying something nice.  Think about how you feel when you tell somebody how nice their spouse is.  How does it make you feel when somebody gives you the same compliment.  I have a good friend Cari, who is very kind and inspirational to a lot of mutual friends we have.  At any given time when the friends are together without her, inevitably her name comes up.  The funny thing is 100% of the time we trade stories telling how amazing she is and what joy she has brought to our lives.  We all end up leaving feeling a little bit happier inside knowing what an amazing friend we have.  Although the compliments are all for Cari and she may never even know they were said (unless of course she reads this post) all of us who said them also receive the gift of joy as well.  It is the opposite of the quote from the Buddha.  Instead of getting ‘burned by the coal of anger’ we are being ‘blessed with the gift of love and compliments’.  So next time you are tempted to join in on some gossip, or curse at the bad driver in front of you.  Do what Kelly told me, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” It will be better for those on the receiving end, but it will also be better for you level of happiness as well.  Who knows, it may even make the world a little better of a place.