Tag: self-improvement

THE ONE THING WE ALL MUST FACE 🤨

In life, there are certain things that we all go through. One of those things is change. We all face it in many areas of our life. When things are going great and we are happy, change can seem like a terrible thing. When we are struggling, change can seem to never come. Yet, come it will. No matter how certain things may seem, change will come. If the pandemic and the last few years of chaos have taught us anything, it is that things can change when we least expect it and do so quickly.

I hear a lot of people tell me, “Neil, I just don’t like change.” For anyone, that is only half true. You do not like change to things you know, like and are comfortable with. If there was something that caused you pain or inconvenience, you would not mind that changing at all. That is the first thing we must consider. Without change, none of the things we dislike would ever improve. That wouldn’t be too much fun would it? How about never getting a raise? We wouldn’t want our salary to change now would we? Never getting a new car? Wouldn’t want to change what we are driving. I think you get the point.

What about when it is something we like and are familiar with? We know how to do our job and do it well until some bigshot decides it should be done differently. Maybe that bigshot decides they don’t even need us doing the job anymore? Then we find ourselves out of the street. Not the type of change we enjoy. How about the change of someone we love passing? Probably the most painful change we have to endure. What do we do then? It takes a realization and a change in perception to deal with these changes. First, we must realize that change, like the law of gravity, doesn’t care if we like it or not. If we hate the law of gravity and throw a ball off of the roof, it will still go down, no matter how much we complain about the law of gravity. Same with change. It will always come, so complaining and getting upset will only cause us undue stress and wasted energy.

If change is not going to stop, and some of it really sucks, how can we still live an amazing life? Think of ourselves as a sailboat. What?! Yes, a sailboat. When a sailboat is trying to get from point A to point B and the wind changes, what does it do? Does it complain about the wind and say, “Well, I guess I am going in this other direction now.” I think you know the answer to that is no. What does it do? It adjusts the sails. Ah, there is the key to using change in our own life. Let us say, hypothetically of course, you are an author who wrote a book you hope will inspire a lot of people. You sell many copies and wait for the reviews to come in. Then you wait and wait some more. None come. Do you just say, “Well I guess that was a failure.” You could, or you can hire a PR firm and do your best to get yourself out there. You must adjust your sail. Maybe you have a job you thought you would retire from and the company goes out of business. You could complain about the change and tell everyone how it wasn’t your fault. Keep doing this and they will come and take your house away. You could also maybe go back to school, look for a job in a field you would enjoy more or find a job that better aligns with your purpose. Adjust your sail.

Change is constant for everyone. The better we learn to work with change instead of complaining about it, the more successful we will become. Think of your life as that sailboat. You are the captain. When the winds of life change, what are you going to do? Are you going to let your boat get tossed in the ocean of life, or are you going to grab hold of the helm and adjust your sail?

BUILD EVERYDAY 👷‍♀️

Earlier in the year, we had a post that highlighted the importance of doing small things with a great deal of consistency. The example we used was doing 20 squats a day and the cumulative effect of doing so. After 1 day, you will not notice anything. Other than a little soreness, even after 1 week you might not notice much. After 30 days of doing squats, you are sure to notice the clothes fitting a little different and the reflection the mirror being a little more forgiving. If we are being honest, I didn’t do so good on the squats, but will get back at it for my yearly charity run

One of my goals this year was to have a blog a day for an entire year. As you can see in the picture above, we have made it 300 days straight. Actually, by the time you are reading this, it will be 303. As I have dedicated myself to bringing the world motivation and inspiration daily, my reward has been a growing global audience. This site has gained followers in several new countries. The amount of people viewing us daily has increased as well. Our presence on the great continent of Africa has nearly doubled. More people began following us in South America than ever. This includes in Peru, Brazil, Columbia and several other countries. This has happened in no small part because of the daily commitment of sharing these inspiring words.

What daily habits could you start today that will have a great impact on your life the rest of the year? Think the month of May is too late to start something new? Let me ask you how different you would feel if you did 20 squats a day for 7 months? Feel free to share your commitment with the community in the comments below.

THE SECRET TO BECOMING BEAUTIFUL 😍

Here are a few interesting facts that I have learned lately. On average, Americans spend between $244 and $313 on cosmetics…every month! The average global income is $9,733. The global cosmetics industry is valued at 571.10 billion! This is a lot of money to be spent in the quest to make us look better. Yet, most of these people do not invest the money, or the time, into the one thing that is sure to improve their appearance – their soul. How does working on your soul, or personality, make you more attractive? More to the point, how can we do it? Let us take a look.

The first thing to consider is what accessories you choose to wear. I am not talking about that expensive bracelet or purse you carry with you. The most attractive accessory anyone, man or woman, can wear is a smile. When you smile, you cannot help but to increase your own mood. When you do that, it is infectious. When you see someone smile at you, it is natural to smile back. We have already mentioned that smiling can make you feel good while you are doing it. So it stands to reason, someone who makes you smile, say by smiling at you, will be a person you will want to be around.

Here is something to consider. You do not only smile with your mouth. We all know people whose eyes light up when they smile. Having a welcoming posture makes you more attractive as well. If you are walking around slouched over, eyes down, with a shuffling gate, you won’t be nearly as appealing as someone who is walking upright, bright-eyed with a spring in their step. Here is another crazy thought. Smiling is not just physical. You can smile with your words. How is this possible? When you are someone who only relays the negative news of the day, or spreads today’s gossip, this will detract from your looks no matter how beautiful you are. On the flip side, if you are constantly speaking encouraging words and bringing out the best in everyone, you will be instantly more attractive.

These suggestions may sound trivial or corny to you. This does not make them any less true. Think about your own life. Would you rather spend time with someone who has a cheery disposition and always has a good word to share, or someone always spreading negative gossip and wearing a frown? I don’t know about you, but I would choose the former. While we are investing in new outfits, cologne, make up, shampoo and other things to help our physical appearance, let us not forget to invest some time and money to increase our inner beauty. Unlike the outer beauty, this investment will not fade with time.

10 THINGS TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE THAT REQUIRE ZERO TALENT 😀

Yesterday, we showed you something that would have a positive impact on your life and not require a single cent. If you missed that post, it would serve you to check it out. Today, we are going to look at some things that could radically improve your life and require zero talent. If you are keeping score at home, in two posts we will show you how to improve your life without spending any money and without the need for any talent! Can you see why subscribing to this blog can be so powerful?

We are not going to go through everyone of these, but I want to touch on a few to give you an idea. Let us start at the top, being on time. Why will being on time improve your life. Believe it or not, being on time says a lot more about you than the fact you are punctual. Being on time shows that you have respect for the event you are attending. If you are meeting someone for coffee, being on time shows that you have respect for both that individual as well as their time. Being on time for your job shows your boss that you respect the employment they have given you and the money they are paying you to do the job. Being on time also shows the world that you have self-discipline. It shows the world that you know how to control the events in your life and to adjust circumstances to achieve a certain goal.

A positive attitude is one of the most important tools in our toolbox. It doesn’t require any talent, but can propel you past people with talent! The quote above gives us good food for thought. Why is having a bad attitude so…well…bad? If we are negative, or pessimistic, it can often prevent us from seeing solutions and opportunities. This is not only true when life is going well, but even more so when we are facing a challenge. It will also help us with out social contacts. More people would be willing to, and likely to, help someone with a good attitude verses a bad attitude. Developing and maintaining a positive attitude will go a long way to improving every aspect of our life.

The final of the 10 things we will look at is being coachable. Socrates once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.” That is so true. To this day I am learning more in every field I am involved in. Writing, self-improvement and speaking. I am constantly learning more about relationships, work ethic and how to positively impact others. When you have the attitude that you know everything, you close your mind off to any possibility of improvement. We all want our lives to improve right? Sometimes that requires us to be humble enough to admit we do not know everything. Nobody does. Admitting that does not diminish you in anyone’s eyes, but demonstrates that you are a student of life that is eager to improve themselves.

There are so many other great things on this list. The point is that there are many things you can do to improve your life that do not require a degree, years of schooling or even any talent at all! I encourage you to look at the other items on the list and meditate on how you can incorporate them into your own life. I also invite you to think of additional items that could be on this list that would improve your life with zero effort and share them with the rest of us.

ARE YOU SORRY, OR ARE YOU SORRY YOU GOT CAUGHT?

Here is a situation that many of us find ourselves in. Someone does wrong by us. They then say they are sorry. Whether that was saying something hurtful, not fulfilling a promise to us that they had or a host of other things. We have also been the one apologizing. Here is a good question to ask, “Are you sorry, or are you sorry you got caught?” What do I mean be this? Let us take a look.

Apologizing is a necessary and important first step. It is not an entire step. Let us take a really simple analogy. If I were to kick you in the shin because I am mad at you, that would be a very bad thing. I apologize, as I should. Does your leg feel any better at this point? Probably not. If I were truly sorry for your actions, I would want to do something to help. Maybe I would get you some ice to put on your leg, or some pain pills? I could help you lay down and put your leg up to rest. I would also have to develop a plan as to what to do in the future with my anger, so we do not find ourselves in the same situation. This is good conflict resolution. Apologize for the wrong. Take what immediate action you can to help repair and correct the wrong. Finally, develop a plan so that in the future you will not have the same situation come up.

We all know some people who seem to be forever apologizing. What is worse, they seem to be doing so for the same reasons. If you apologize for something, and then continue to do that very thing, are you really sorry? You might be, just not for why you think you are. You are not sorry for the thing you did, you are sorry you got caught. If you were truly sorry for your actions, you would do your best to correct them and improve them. That is not to say you would not make another mistake, just not the same mistake. Growing and evolving includes making new mistakes. We are human after all. If, however, you are continuing to make the same mistakes, you are not growing and evolving.

Pay attention not only to the people in your life, but to yourself as well. Are you following the formula for conflict resolution, or are you just saying you are sorry and hoping that fixes everything? A good rule to follow is to not just say you are sorry, but to show that you are sorry. We do so but taking actions to correct the wrong we have done and to put in place plans that will stop us from doing that same wrong in the future. That is how we grow and evolve.

ARE YOU A ZERO?

This idea may seem very basic to many of you, but it is still very valuable and has a great deal of truth. This is a simple scale. As you can see it goes from negative four, to positive four. This is a great metaphor for our lives. If we think that by eliminating the negative, it will give us a positive life, we can see that is not so. If you think, “I don’t beat my spouse. I don’t smoke. I don’t say anything bad about others. That makes you a positive person.” As you can see by the graph above, that is not exactly so. If you are not doing anything negative, that puts you at zero.

To get to the positive, we must add positive things. We must work hard to make our spouse feel loved and appreciated. That is a positive. Ok, now we are at one. Don’t smoke? that is great. Staying active and eating a healthy diet, that is a positive. That puts us at two. It is good to not say anything negative about others or spread gossip. That means you do not get a negative. Want another positive? Try speaking empowering and kind things about as many people as you can.

The secret to an amazing life is to blend eliminating as many negatives from your life as you can. You also have to add as many positives as you can. Doing both of these at the same time will lead to the biggest improvements. Just make sure you are not making yourself feel overwhelmed. How many negatives can you think of to eliminate in your life? What are some positives you can add?

FAILURE IS NOT FINAL, IT IS FORMATIVE

Last post, I shared with you that fact that I had decided to throw away the months of work and writing I had been doing for my fourth book. It was, in some sense, a failure. It did not meet the expectation that I had for what I wanted to share with the world. Does this make me a failure? I really do not feel like it. The project was. I will still write a fourth book. It will be different than the one I was writing. It will be better.

Think of any great accomplishment we have had in life. Learning to walk. Learning to speak. Getting in shape. Starting a relationship. Finding the love of our lives. Which one of those was a linear process? Which one did we accomplish flawlessly? I am not sure about you, but my total is something slightly less than one. I fell a million times learning to walk. Some days I feel that I am still learning to communicate with those in my life. Getting in shape? That is a life-long journey. My relationship is something that took a lot of work on both of our ends and continues to do so as we navigate the challenge of two different people living one life.

Society’s definition of failure is wholly inaccurate. If it were, no babies would ever learn to walk without a terrible self-image. People would give up on each other before their love had a chance to fully blossom. To, of course, authors would never complete their next book. Failure is not an outcome unless we choose to make it so. It is, more accurately stated, a stepping stone. Next time you feel like a failure, ask yourself if you were failing, or merely learning. Are you going to give up, or begin again more intelligently?

THIS IS YOUR DUTY✊️

I want to remind all of you the importance of putting a priority on yourself. This is not to say that you should disregard other people’s feelings. Quite the opposite. By being the best version of yourself that you can be, you are able to bring the best to those you interact with. What you should guard against, is sacrificing what is truly important to you to avoid upsetting others. If they truly value who you are, they will understand that you need to do certain things for your own physical and mental well-being.

If you face a situation like this, it is important to convey this information with tact. It is also important not to be persuaded by guilt, threats or anything else that will make you give up what is truly necessary to you and your well-being. By devoting your life to pleasing the masses, you wear yourself thin and will eventually break. You need to take time for yourself. You have a duty to make sure that you keep your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health up. Just as you can only change yourself, you should be the chief person responsible for yourself and your health.

THE MOST PRODUCTIVE TIME IS WHEN YOU ARE DOING NOTHING 😌

When something is scarce, it becomes valuable. The less there is of it, the more valuable it becomes. Coffee, for example, used to be extremely expensive. Now, with better international shipping, a cup of coffee can be had almost anywhere. This is great news as a blog writer and future best-selling author. In the modern world, many things have become more available and thus, more economical. There is one thing that has become extremely rare. It may be something that many of us think has little or no value. The truth could not be more different.

What is this thing that has become more rare and is often overlooked for its extreme value? The answer is this – down time. In today’s world, we are so busy trying to accomplish as much as we can that taking a break can have many of us feeling guilty. We are so well connected that being ‘disconnected’ feels wrong. The other day I drove by a high school on my way home from work and what did I see at the bus stop? Roughly 5 kids all staring at their phones. I won’t get into the online verses personal connection, that is for another post. What is sad, is that we are always busy doing something.

I love to go for walks in nature. I see people walking, jogging or riding their bikes. If they are alone, they usually have headphones in or a phone in their hands. What is the cost of all of this business? Lack of connection with the most important person in our lives – ourselves. We spend so little time in our own heads, we often have no idea what is going on there. I hear so many people say “I just feel down and I don’t know why.” Maybe it is because we are not paying attention to the thoughts and emotions we are feeling? We are busy watching, reading, and listening to things that we drown out the voice coming from within. You know, the one that might have warned us something was bothering us before it became overwhelming!

How do I know this to be true? Because one of the people I have heard say these things more often lately is the man writing this blog. On more than one occasion feelings of dread or sadness have overcome me and I have had no idea why. Not only is this a negative feeling, but it is frustrating as hell. How can you fix something when you don’t even know what is wrong? How indeed! What we need to do is spend some time doing nothing. Just relaxing and being present. It will not only be good for our mental health, which is worth its weight in gold, but good for our productivity. How can doing nothing be good for productivity? We all have hundreds of million dollar ideas in our wonderful brains. The reason we usually never realize them, and act on them, is because it is too loud for us to even hear them.

I am not just talking at you, I am talking to the man at the keyboard. Today I leave for my first real vacation in over 4 years. I will be gone for a whole week. Do you know when the last time I took a week away from everything? Here is the sad part, neither do I. These blogs will be written and scheduled ahead of time. My fourth book that is due out in the next few months? It will have to wait. What will be true is my mind will be clearer and better able to complete that book and bring you insightful thoughts in future blogs after this week. I encourage all of you to schedule some downtime and do so soon. It will not only help you be more productive, it will be a goldmine for your mental health!

1 OF THE BEST LESSONS I’VE LEARNED. 👩‍🏫

In this crazy world, I have learned lots of lessons. This has become accelerated the older I get. That is a lesson itself. People generally go one of two ways when they get older. They become more rigid, or stuck in their ways, or they realize that they ‘don’t know what they don’t know’. I am fortunate enough to fall into the latter category. The older I get, the more open and compassionate I have become. Going through challenges in life can make you hard or allow you to relate to others in a deeper and more meaningful way.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned through everything is the importance of remaining calm. Extreme emotions can be beneficial. They can give us a boost of energy when we need it. Extreme fear can heighten our senses to keep us safe. More often than not, extreme emotions are a negative. They drain us of valuable energy and deplete our immune systems. Yes, you may get a boost of adrenaline at first, but it comes with a price eventually. When we are in the whirlwind of emotion, it can cloud our judgement and we may make decisions we will regret. Things that seem like the right thing to say or do when we are angry, sad, depressed or a host of other intense emotions, can have us asking for forgiveness for years after.

The quote above is some great advice. Decisions that could affect you long-term are best not made in an extreme emotional state. Why? When you act impulsively, you are transferring control of your decisions from your logical mind, to your irrational emotions. When you are able to stay calm, it is almost like being able to look down on a situation from above. When you act emotionally, it is like looking out from inside a whirlwind. You may not have all of the information to make the best decision. Even if you do, you may not be taking it into consideration.

I am not going to be foolish enough to tell you that staying calm in the middle of an emotional decision is easy. It is not. It takes a good strategy and a lot of practice. What is a good strategy for staying calm? That varies as much as the individual. You can try deep breathing, counting to ten, picturing something that makes you laugh. Whatever works for you. There is plenty of books and research on the topic I invite you to investigate on your own. What I can tell you is that developing the ability to stay calm is worth all of the effort. Staying calm is not only a talent, it is a rare and valuable talent. It allows you to maintain control when others lose it. It saves you the stress and heartache of regret over something you said or did that you should not have. One more thing that staying calm requires is patience with yourself. This is not a talent that will come all at one. No matter how much you study and practice methods on your own, it will be a lot different when you have to put them into practice.

My advice is to invest some time and energy into developing the ability to stay calm. It will not only give you the ability to objectively approach challenges in life, but will save your relationships much of the pain you will inflict by acting emotionally. Invest time in discovering strategies for staying calm. Invest time in practicing them. Your relationships will thank you. Your stress level will thank you. Your life will thank you.