Tag: self-improvement

HOW TO GET RID OF THE A.N.T.S IN YOUR LIFE (trust me, you have some)

In the grand scheme of things, ants are pretty cool creatures. They have super human strength. They don’t have lungs or ears. Some ants are both farmers and can swim. They have two stomachs and some species are asexual. If you are anything like me, you probably didn’t know many of these fun amazing facts. Do you know when ants suck? When they are in your house exploring your watermelon, ruining picnics and crawling between your toes as your are sleeping. Sorry for that horrible thought, but it is the month of scary things. Generally, even if we admire all of their cool traits, we would rather not have ants in our lives.

This post is about a different kind of ant. If you noticed in our title, A.N.T. is an acronym. It stands for automatic negative thoughts. These are the pesky little thoughts that can creep into our minds while we are enjoying our watermelon. It can ruin a seemingly fun time we are having at a picnic. For all I know they might even crawl between our toes as we are sleeping. They certainly crawl through our minds no matter what we are doing. Just like the pesky little insects, they can literally come out of nowhere and multiply by the thousands!

Much like the interesting, although annoying, insects, negative thoughts can be tricky to get rid of. If you find yourself having several negative thoughts ruining your picnics or crawling through your toes while you are sleeping, the question is how to rid ourselves of them. We are going to use several mental versions of the ant killer above. In this case, it would be A.N.T. killer. The first is to acknowledge they are there. If you do your best to ignore the ants in your pantry, not only will they stay there, they may very well grow in number. Same holds true of our negative thoughts. Closing your eyes and saying over and over, “There are no ants.” will not get them out of your pantry or your head. What will? We are going to look at a few steps to take that are not only affective, but enjoyable as well.

First things first. Get a handle on the A.N.T.s you have. I recommend doing this for a the very minimum of 3 days. Carry a little pocket notebook with you and jot down any of the negative thoughts you have. We can’t begin to deal with something unless we have a concrete idea of what it is. At the end of each day take a look at your list. Are these thoughts true? Most of the time the answer is ‘no’. In this case the simple solution is every time you catch yourself thinking that thought, counter with a firm dismissal and replacement of a positive thought. An example would be if you are constantly saying to yourself, “I am so stupid!” or some version of that. As soon as the thought enters your mind, say to yourself, “I am not stupid! This is my mind’s weak attempt to hold me back from becoming all I might be!” This is not only true, but correcting yourself and reminding yourself that you are in control of your mind and not the other way around, will go a long way to turning things around. Follow this up with a more constructive thought. “I am intelligent in many ways and expanding my knowledge base daily.” In fact, spend some time thinking of what an empowering statement would be to you. Jot that down in your notebook you carry with you. This may seem awkward at first, but it will feel empowering soon enough.

Another tool is to surround yourself with things that are inspiring. As you can see, I am writing at Starbucks today and this is my screensaver. It is a picture of myself and my lovely lady, Margie. Not only does her cute face make me smile, but the knowledge that there is someone who loves me that I get to come home to is a very positive thought. I suggest using screensavers, as many of us look at them a million times a day, to inspire us. If that is a picture of the person you love, your dog, a special spot in nature or an inspiring quote. Do this on your phone, your computer and any other place you can think of. Print out pictures and place them on your desk, your mirror and here is a great idea, keep one on your dash in your car! We drive almost everywhere these days and having some inspiring picture to look at along with some ‘feel good’ music will make that journey an empowering one. Even if some A.N.T. tries to hitch a ride.

A few last thoughts about A.N.T. or automatic negative thoughts. Just like the insects, they are never going to be totally gone. One will always continue to pop up now and then and be dealt with, whether that means catching it and setting it free, or stomping on it and crushing it into submission. The next thing to remember is just like insects in your home, thoughts in your head are best dealt with quickly before they have a chance to establish themselves and start to grow. If you have an established colony of A.N.T.s in your head, know that it may take longer than if there were just a few strays. Also, remember after extermination, if you don’t keep on top of them they can come back and start another infestation. There are also many ways to get rid of ants, both the thoughts and the insects. Some work better than others and some work better in certain circumstances than others. We have looked at just a few in this brief article. I would love to hear your methods for getting rid of the automatic negative thoughts in your life. If you want to include something for the insects as well that wouldn’t hurt.

PLUG YOURSELF IN

Many of you wrote in to express how much you enjoyed our posts on self-care. With that in mind we decided to do another and bring you a little something different. I think the picture above is a great example of why we need to recharge our batteries, as well as that of our cell phones. In fact, if you need a good reminder to take care of yourself, every time you plug in your cell phone let that be reminder to charge your own batteries as well. Most of us cannot even imagine taking as much time for ourselves as we give to let our cell phones charge. Writing that just sounded crazy to me. Most of us take better care of an electronic device than we do of our own bodies.

What happens as our cell phone battery begins to get low? We may drop a call. Our connection to the internet may be spotting or may not exist at all. Perhaps our applications we are running slow down. We look at our phone and realize it is because the battery is low. We not only know this, but we expect it. As the energy in the phone becomes lower, so does its performance. How come this does not transfer to our thoughts on people, most of all ourselves? We realize our phones run best with a full battery. Wouldn’t it make sense we would too? We often feel guilty for saying no to someone or for taking time for ourselves.

Let us look at what happens when we let our battery run low. This can be skipping sleep, working extra long hours or not addressing stress in our lives. What are some of the symptoms? Let us first look at the physical or ‘outside’ manifestation of this. It often first appears as general fatigue. Much like our phone slowing down, so do we. Just like an electronic appliance, if we keep going at this rate we will eventually stop. Either by passing our or passing away. We also can get headaches. There are even specific pain relievers marketed as “tension headache relief”. If Madison Avenue can figure out stress can cause us physical discomfort, how come we can’t? Add muscle cramps or pain. This can come not only from stress, but not practicing other self-care methods such as staying hydrated.

Many of us “battle through” these symptoms. Some even consider them a badge of honor of sorts. Let us look at how this can affect our mental state or our mood. Stress can bring on feelings of anxiety or even paranoia in extreme states. Even milder cases can drain our motivation. This can cause us to get less done which can stress us even further. Talk about an equation for disaster! How about feelings of restlessness or overwhelm? Those are fun aren’t they? You may be tempted to say “So what! As long as I am making the boss happy, who cares if I am a wreck?” This brings us to our next reason taking time for self-care and to recharge is so important.

We may think being continually stressed and running ourselves on empty only impacts us, but we could not be more incorrect in that thinking. Being both physically and mentally drained can cause our behavior to change as well. We can be prone to angry outbursts. Have you ever found yourself snapping at someone who did nothing wrong except to cross your path when you were stressed and burnt out? Not only is this not good for our relationships, it also adds the stress of having to repair the damage your stress did in the first place. We can begin to overeat or even under eat when we are not taking time to focus on our well-being. We certainly wouldn’t be eating the stuff that will fuel our body and allow it the best chance of coping with what we are putting it through. Some people even turn to drug or alcohol abuse to help them cope with the stress when they are no longer able to do so physically or mentally. This often can be true of high-achievers, who have a hard time taking time out from chasing their goals to focus on themselves. Can you imagine how one or several of these behavior changes would impact the lives of those close to you or even those depending on you?

Most of us charge our phones at least once a day. Make sure you do at least that much for yourself. As you can see your cell phone is not the only thing that performs poorly when its battery is drained or it has too many programs running at the same time. Make sure you are getting enough rest, eating and drinking the right things to fuel our brains and bodies. Lastly, make sure you are taking steps to address stress. This can be meditation, exercise, talking with a professional or even a friend. Make sure you do not have too many applications running in your own life. Keep the batteries charged and you will keep yourself running smoothly.

THE BEST REPLY TO A FOOL

The weekend is right around the corner. A lot of us are breathing a sigh of relief and looking forward to not having to answer to the alarm clock…or push snooze a million times. Whatever your morning habit is, it usually is more relaxed on the weekend. We switch from focusing on our jobs to more fun and social activities. This can be time with the family, friends, going out for coffee or perhaps some cocktails. Our stress levels begin to decrease as well.

One thing this can do is give us a lot more time to think. In the mad rush of the workweek, we are often too busy to be bothered with petty things going on around us. It would seem one of the side effects of having time to ourselves is knowing how to make constructive use of it. We also tend to place additional importance on the actions of others and how they impact our lives. This can be a positive if we are feeling grateful for our spouse and all they do to keep the household going. Feeling grateful for time with friends that allows us to blow off some steam and stress built up during the work week is certainly a plus as well.

There are, however, those individuals who give us a little less to be grateful for. It can be the rude server or cashier when we are doing our best to have a relaxing night out. It can be the person who likes to speak gossip and start drama that ruins an otherwise good time for everyone else. How to we respond to these folks? In what sort of way to we spend our energy addressing their nonsense? If you read the picture above, I think you can guess the answer. We don’t. We don’t engage them. We do not waste our time or energy on them.

A good way to not be tempted to be sucked into energy-draining behavior is to think long-term. If you boat has a leak and keeps filling up with water, if all you do is bail the water out over and over again, you will not only continue to have the same problem, you will also be very tired. This is just like reacting to every foolish, drama-filled thing that passes through your life. If you respond to every fool and their actions, you will not only continue to have this problem, you will also be very tired. If, in our boat example, you fix the leak, then the problem will cease to exist. This is the same as not responding to a fool. Fixing the problem would be eliminating that person or their actions from affecting your life. Use your energy to improve your life and leave the gossip and drama with the people who created it…the fools.

THERE IS NO REASON TO DO THIS

There are many great things that we can get from having social media in our lives. This site is one of them. Having a resource to share and contribute what makes an amazing life can offer benefits to your life and the lives of others. Far too often, people confuse what they see on social media as the entire picture. You may hear about the amazing self-improvement book published by your favorite author. What you don’t hear is the endless suffering of questions endured by his beautiful cake-designing lady. Most people share their victories on social media and not the struggles they overcame to get there.

This is not only true online, but can be true at work, in the gym and any other place that humans regularly gather together. Let me ask you a question, who is a better singer, Michael Jackson or Prince? Who was a better baseball player, Babe Ruth or Jackie Robinson? Before you start lining up your facts and preparing your argument like Perry Mason, who might or might not have been a better television lawyer than Matlock, let me tell you the point of this post – it doesn’t matter.

I think we can all agree that in order to succeed greatly at any endeavor, it takes a great deal of risk. I can tell you this is certainly true of writing a book. What if the people don’t like what you wrote? What if they tell you it is no good? What if you spell your own name wrong on the cover? There are endless risks and doubts you must overcome to succeed. What allows us to overcome these challenges in life? It is one word – confidence. I find a lot of people struggling with this very subject. The chief reason for the struggle? In today’s world, more than ever, people are busy comparing themselves with others. We may have finally been able to trade in our beat up 1980’s sedan for a 2015 SUV. We are happy for a while until we see our neighbor Bill just bought a brand new sports car. We begin to think, “I wish I had a brand new sports car.” or “How come neighbor Bill has all the good luck?” “I wish I made more money than neighbor Bill.” Listen, he might be a nice guy, but in this case, forget neighbor Bill! Great for him he has a nice car, but you know what is better? Improving our own driving situation!

Here are two great secrets for improving our own self-confidence. First, mind our own damn business. That might sound harsh, but why should we concern ourselves with what neighbor Bill is doing, or worse yet, compare ourselves to him? We should be so busy working on improving our own lives that we would only learn about neighbor Bill when he comes up to us to tell us he just bought a brand new Bugatti. The second secret to developing our own self-confidence involves what we do when neighbor Bill tells us about his new ride. We should celebrate others successes as if they are our own. Why does this help our self-confidence? It is hard to start comparing yourself with someone when you are busy celebrating them. Also, jealousy and envy are a complete waste of time and energy. We would be better served spending that time and energy sending out feelings of gratitude and celebration for neighbor Bill.

Another upside of this is it makes you a lot nicer of a human being. The more cynical of you may be asking what does that get me? A lot! It certainly will get you a lot more friends. After all, would you rather be around someone who gets down every time you share some good fortune that happened to you or someone who celebrates with you? Would you want to surround yourself with people who are filled with jealousy and envy when it comes to your success or a person who celebrates your success as if it was their own? I think the choice is pretty clear. With more friends comes more opportunities and more…you guessed it confidence! Stop comparing yourself with others. It does not serve you. Instead, focus on the person you were yesterday! You are one of a kind. Comparing yourself with those of a different DNA, different social circles and just different person over all makes as much sense as comparing apples and oranges!

START ACTING LIKE IT!

Students of the law of attraction know that wherever your focus goes, energy flows. In short, whatever you are spending a good deal of your thoughts and emotions on tends to feel more important in your life. Are you focused on how inconvenient it is that your car is in the shop for the afternoon? Then you will begin to notice all of the places you would like to drive to right this minute. Places you would probably not have the urge to even think about if your car was sitting in your driveway. It is human nature. If you tell someone they can’t do something, they are going to want to do it.

Much of what we do on this site is turn what seems to be a flaw or a negative on its head and put it to use for us. What if we used our focus to expand the good in our lives. We are all living lives with incredible blessings we take for granted. I do NOT in any way advocate spending a great deal of time watching the news. It will just fill your daily life experience with lots of negativity. Whenever we are greeted with some not so pleasant news, there is a simple solution here. When you hear unfortune circumstances, after sending some love and light to the affected party, pause for a moment of gratitude that it was not your life that was affected.

We often focus on what needs ‘fixing’ or ‘improving’ in our lives. That is healthy and keeps us moving forward. That is why this whole industry is referred to as the ‘self-improvement’ industry. To do so, however, with a total lack of appreciation as to what is working and what we do have to be grateful for is detrimental. Here is your challenge for the remainder of the week – try to have one more grateful thought every day than you do negative thought. Sounds easy doesn’t it? When you start noticing how many negative thoughts you have in the running conversation with the person in the mirror, it may seem a bit more challenging. A simple way to do this, every time you catch yourself having a negative thought such as, “I hate having to wear glasses!” Catch yourself and follow that up with a positive thought such as “At least with them I can still see.” Then, pick a time to throw in a grateful thought for good measure, such as when you wake up for right before you go to sleep. Waking up to and falling asleep to thoughts and feelings of gratitude will be enough to positively impact your life. Matching every negative thought with a positive and grateful one will have you appreciating and enjoying your life more than ever before, regardless of your circumstances.

LEARNING WHAT YOU NEVER KNEW

Last post we discussed addressing some issues we may not have known we had inherited from our family, neighborhood or other influences. It may make some people uncomfortable to think they are changing or God forbid, improving something about themselves. I get it. In today’s world it can be hard to admit we are anything less than perfect, even if it is through no fault of our own. Nobody likes to admit they have something to work on. Do you know what nearly everyone likes? Realizing they are getting better at something. It can be close to downright exciting to think you may be working on mastering something. Here is some great news, there are plenty of areas in which we can do this!

If we stop and think of the very important issues in life, how many were we taught or have we stopped to research? What do you think is important in your life? Where did you learn how to do it well? Did you ever stop to learn how to do it well? Relating to others is one of the most important skills a human can have. How well did you do in your ‘relating to others’ class in school? Do you recall when your parents sat you down and explained some of the many aspects that go into a healthy and sustainable relationship? Me neither. How about communication? The ability to both convey your thoughts, feelings and emotions to others as well as hear and understand theirs is skill that is as rare as it is valuable. How many years did you study that in school? If your education was anything like mine, that answer would be less than one. . What good is learning our alphabet and how to spell words if we are never taught how to effectively convey and use those very words.

It would seem a great deal of important subjects are left for us to learn by chance, or for far too many of us, by trail and error or not at all. The problem with this is that the stakes are far too high for most of us to learn that way. One mistake in how we relate to others can not only cost us a job, it can ruin relationships and cause emotional trauma to others, including those we truly care about. We occasionally get some instruction on interviewing to get the job we are seeking, although even that is limited. Did ever seem odd that nobody ever told us how to ask the right questions to discover if someone would be the right life partner for us? The same holds true with maintaining a healthy mental and emotional state. As far as I know, there exists very little, if any, instruction in public education on this subject. Is it any wonder, as the stresses in life continue to rise, we are seeing a host of people with mental health challenges. We were never even told how to deal with the stress that is all too prevalent in our lives.

We repeat here the axiom from the last post that fault does not equal responsibility. It is certainly not our fault we were never taught how to succeed in some of the most important areas in life. This is not a knock on our teachers and parents. They were never taught these things either. It is, however, our responsibility to educate ourselves on these very subjects. If a healthy relationship is important to us we need to learn what the components of one are and how to get them. If being able to communicate to others and have them understand you may be valuable, don’t you think it might be worth a few hours of research? How much effort is living a life with less stress and more joy worth to you? What other areas are important? Do you think being a great parent to your child is important? Do you think you may have received some bias or incomplete information on that subject growing up? Would you like to give your children the best possibility of success as they grow up?

When I share this information I hear a lot of groaning about having to dedicate additional time learning. “I spent enough time studying in school.” is a refrain I hear all too often. If that is your mindset you must then become comfortable at the thought you will not develop past the person you were when you left school. “I don’t have time.” is another answer I hear. To that I say this – it is not that you don’t have time, it is that it is not a priority for you. If I told you that you could have ten million dollars but I would need 2 days worth of your time starting tomorrow at 6am, where would you be at 5:59?

Dedicating time for study in these subjects is worth more than that ten million dollar price tag mentioned earlier, it is priceless. Being able to better understand, and even more importantly meet, the needs of your spouse? How much would you pay for that? Not feeling so stressed out at the end of every work week, or even every work day, how much would that be worth to you? You see, studying the main topics in life is like digging in a vain of solid gold. The knowledge you get can not only positively transform your life, it can do the same for lives of those you care about. Can you imagine sitting down to share topics like these with your children while at the same time listening to what concerns they may have? How valuable would that be? How about learning how to help people feel good about themselves? Would that be skill that might come in handy with the boss at the office or the one you love at home?

Here is the grand upside to all of this. The knowledge on all of these subjects is readily available and it is free. All it takes is some time and effort on our part. There are literally millions of books available in the public library system at no charge to us. There are forums, articles and experts available online with a click of a mouse. There are audiobooks we could listen to in the car, seminars we can attend, videos on YouTube we could watch while we are in line at the grocery store. There is so much information out there, in so many different forms that there is no excuse not to become an expert in any area of life that is important to us. Learning one new thing a month, which is painless to do, can give us 12 tips to a healthier lifestyle. Can you imagine incorporating 12 new things this year to improve your health? How much of an impact do you think that would have? What if we learned one new way to improve our intimate relationship a week? This is still insanely easy to do. Do you think adding 52 improvements to your relationship in a year would positively impact your love life?

There is no excuse not to begin to become an expert on the important areas of our life starting today! How important is the success of your children? How important is the happiness of the love of your life? How valuable would having extra energy and health be? Decide what is important to you and begin to study today! Your life is far too valuable not to.

THIS IS SCARY!

The month of October is filled with scary stories, decorations and Halloween parties. In this blog, I want to discuss something even scarier than your favorite horror movie – continuing the issues that plague generation after generation. What is even scarier is that these issues can be silent killers that are very hard to spot. Why? Simply put, that is how things always were. If you were raised in a family that always said “Children are to be seen and not heard.” It may be very difficult to give time to and respect for the emotional wants and needs of your own children. Grew up in a family where your parents, and perhaps even your aunts and uncles fought and got divorced? It may be more difficult to know the ingredients that make the recipe for a successful relationship. Recognizing these situations for what they are can make them seem a lot less intimidating. They are great opportunities for both growth and ending generations of communication failures.

As if these challenges were not scary enough, there may be lessons we are not even aware that we can improve upon. Perhaps you grew up as an only child, you may have a little more difficult time learning to compromise in a relationship. If that childhood included a single parent as well, it may be even more difficult. Did you grow up in a tough neighborhood? You may feel great for having made it out, and congratulations are in order to be sure, but realize you may have lingering issues trusting the motives of others or have difficulty letting your guard down. What served you in situations past, may hinder you moving forward. Discovering and healing these issues is not easy, but doing so will help you live a fuller, richer and more rewarding life going forward.

Solving these issues can be as tricky as the issues are, but they don’t have to be. Often, just realizing we have them and being aware of them can go a long way. Knowing you have and issue and admitting you have an issue does not solve an issue. Telling someone “I have trust issues because my last partner cheated on me.” can be helpful. It can help your partner understand some of your behavior and even adjust some of their behavior to account for that issue. Telling another party in a relationship that you have ‘communication issues’ and expecting them to just be understanding while you do nothing to change those issues is not only unfair, but it is unhealthy. Admitting a struggle we may have but doing nothing to address that challenge places the onus entirely on the other party. Any relationship involves two or more parties and so should any solution for a challenge in that relationship.

How do we overcome relationship challenges that may have existed in our family long before we were even born? The answer is many faceted as the challenge itself. The first step is always to come to terms with the fact that we have this challenge in the first place. This can take long time of reflection, discussions with our partner or every therapy in some cases. People can be very sensitive when it comes to discovering this. It takes suspending our egos and viewing it as a growth opportunity and not as discovering a fault. This can be easy to understand intellectually, but another to grasp emotionally. It also requires an understanding that fault and responsibility are completely unrelated. Although it may not be our fault that we picked up the bad habits of our parents or friends, it is our responsibility to address those issues.

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON NONSENSE!

As we grow older we realize what we thought was important in our youth may very well turn out to be quite less important in later years. If we think about our own lives we undoubtedly will realize that this is true for us. I have heard people say “Ask yourself if this will mater 10 years from now.” Some things in life that seem make or break we can’t even remember a year from then. Gossip, even work related issues that can certainly be tricky at the time, can pass by to be forgotten. In looking back, I have been upset by some pretty silly and stupid things. How do we know what not to waste our time on? How do we know if the issue we are currently dealing with will even matter a year from now? After all, in the heat of the moment, most things do seem pretty important. There is a simple way to reduce the time we spend getting upset with, and wasting our time on nonsense. This will not only reduce the amount of time we spend upset, thus reducing a good deal of stress in our lives, but will also allow us to put that formally wasted time to better use.

A great way to make sure we do not spend time on what does not matter is to spend some time deciding what does matter. This is best done when you are not emotional. Being able to reflect on what is truly important in your life will allow you to often see the nonsense of life for what it truly is. This is helpful when you find yourself in a highly emotional state. If what is important to you is your spirituality, your family and your health, does it really matter what foolish thing a politician does? Is it worth wasting your time arguing the point with your coworker or the guy standing next to you at the bus stop? Probably not. Then again, if your politics are very important to you, it might be. If you can spend an afternoon (or whatever time of day works for you) pondering what you value in life and writing it down, this could pay great dividends down the road. When you find yourself greatly upset about something, refer to your list. If it is not on there in some capacity, find a way to let it go.

These are one of those times that recognizing that we are different in this regard will also save you a lot of stress. All of us place importance on different things in life. If it frustrates you why your spouse does not get as upset as you do about a certain issue it may serve you well to consider it just might not be that important to them. Although that might also frustrate you, it could certainly help you to understand your spouse and the situation better. If you are in the market for someone to spend your life with, this is also a great exercise to do. Finding someone who is passionate about the same issues as you do, could save a lot of stress as the years progress. If you are already in a relationship, being able to articulate what upsets you in a clear and concise manner to your partner will be helpful in both reducing upsets, but also getting to know one another on a deeper level. Like most relationship tools, this does not only work in an intimate relationship, but in other relationships as well.

As we grow older it is helpful to realize what is important to us and what becomes nonsense can and should change. As we mature, so does what is worth our time and energy. When I was younger, I placed great importance on solving every issue with people in my life. As I grew older, I began to value my own peace of mind more. When there was an issue that involved a conflict of values, or some unnecessary drama, the question went from “How can we solve this?” to “Is this an issue that really needs to be solved?” Sometimes we just have to agree to disagree. On a few occasions, when the other party refused to do so, it was sadly time to let that person go. My own peace of mind was more valuable than maintaining a relationship full of conflict. As a result of getting clear what is most important to me, I have been able to not only reduce the stress in my life, but use the time that would have been wasted on this unproductive conflict to further and deepen the healthy relationships in my life. One secret to an amazing life is periodically checking in with ourselves to ask “Are there some issues in my life that I spending time on that are just a bunch of nonsense?” As the years go by that answer will change and develop as we do.

GRATEFUL IT DIDN’T WORK OUT

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, once said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” This is one of the easiest quotes to understand, but one of the hardest to actually accomplish. Learning to trust yourself and the way the universe works is a very big secret to an amazing life. Knowing this will help your life immensely can be easy to grasp intellectually, but very tricky to act on emotionally. The fact that it can be extremely difficult does not make it any less true.

Another more relatable example can be found in a country song by the artist Garth Brooks. In this song a young man has a crush on a particular girl. He prays every night that the girl will fall in love with him and they will live happily ever after. She doesn’t. Sounds like a typical country song so far, right? What happens in a later verse I always enjoyed. He ends up falling in love with another woman and they have a wonderful family. He and his wife run into this crush he had so many years ago. He looks at her and realizes that she is not everything he imagined when he was young. He then looks over at his wife and realizes the amazing woman he would have missed out on had he been granted his wish of having the first lady fall in love with him. He is then very thankful for his seemingly “Unanswered prayer”.

BELIEVE IT!!!

Giving yourself over to the flow of life while maintaining a positive attitude will go a long way to creating a positive life. The secret is discovering how to do this. One way is to imagine how we may benefit from or be able to use the challenge we are currently facing. Didn’t get that job that we just know would have made our lives so much better? Perhaps there is an even better opportunity just ahead that we would have missed if we were comfortably engaged in the employment of the afore mentioned job. I recall a lot of jobs, events and circumstances that I wish would have went differently. I often wish I still had my radio program. I wish I would have moved to a warmer climate. Still, I look at my life now and think of what I would have missed had that happened. I would not be with the amazing and beautiful lady who wrote the forward to my latest book, Living the Dream. I would not have met some of the wonderful people I have from bartending, DJing and working at the post office. That is not to say if I were offered a six-figure radio gig in San Diego that Margie and I may not be looking for moving companies, but that is for another day.

To some of you this may sound like a lot of positive Pollyanna, but it is actually a great secret to an amazing life. Trusting that the dots will somehow connect looking backwards will keep us from getting down with the obstacles we are currently facing. The everything happens for a reason mentality can go a long way in reducing our stress. One of the ways that I put this to work is to ponder what reason that may be. If I am faced with a great challenge or seeming setback in my life I sit down and literally say something like this to myself; “I know everything happens for a reason, but what the hell reason can this be?” Not only do a shake my head and have a little chuckle at the expense of myself and the challenge that I am currently in, but my brain begins to consider possible answers to that question.

Here is a little inside secret. When we ask our mind a question, our subconscious mind will not rest until it comes up with an answer. It is our job to ask the question in such a way as to come up with a positive answer. Instead of the usual “Why me?” which our mind could come up with many not so inspiring answers to, try wording it more positively. “I know everything happens for a reason. What possible positive reason could this challenge be happening for?” or simply, “How are these dots going to connect in a positive way for me in the future?” Even if your first answer is “I have no idea in hell how they will connect, but I know they will.” That is a great first step. Begin practicing this with the next challenge you face and know that your life will begin to change for the better. We may never know why something may have occurred, but our subconscious minds will continue to work in the background searching for positive explanations. Fostering this trust in our lives and the purpose of the universe will reduce our stress and help us lead a more amazing life.

DO YOUR BEST THIS WEEK!

We touched on this last Monday, but it is worth repeating. As we gear up for the week ahead, I know the vast majority of us are looking to make progress on our goals. Whether that is finishing the book we are working on, promoting our website or physical business or just being on time to work to make sure we can keep earning funds to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. One important aspect to keep in mind is scheduling some mental health time. If you can get so much done in a certain amount of time, it would make sense that the longer you work, the more you will get done. This is true, to a point.

Let us take this picture of these people paving a road, I am guessing. Let us say they can get a certain amount of road done in 8 hours. If we kept them working 24 hours straight would we assume they would get three times that amount of road done? Of course not. Eventually, they would begin to tire and become less physically able to do their job. We have all had this happen, haven’t we? Even if we do not do construction for a living. We could be working around the yard, for example. When we start out we are feeling good and making great progress. After a few hours that shovel begins to become a little heavier, that lawn mower a little harder to push. Sure, if we keep working we could make a little more progress, but it would be at a slower rate and more likely to contain some mistakes. The human body has its limits. They vary from person to person, but we all tire out eventually.

It is not just physical exertion we need to be aware of. The brain, just like any muscle in the body has its limits, maybe even more so. Your brain requires glucose and oxygen to operate at peak efficiency. We need to make sure our diet and exercise are good if we are going to push ourselves mentally. We also need to make sure we let the brain rest as well. This could be working in some meditation, laughter or even a nap during the day. As we push our brain we also begin to lose the rate at which we can produce and increase the chance we will make a mistake. As a writer I can testify to this. I can sit down and write for hours if I am properly rested (and caffeinated) After a while, if I don’t give my brain a break I may struggle to spell “cat”. This is one of the many reasons there are not a lot of cats mentioned near the end of my blog posts. Just remember your brain is muscle like your arm or leg and needs to rest to perform at its best.

As we work towards all we wish to accomplish this week let us keep this in mind. Hard work is a noble pursuit to be sure, but intelligent hard work is what leads to the best results. We need to remember to recharge both our physical and mental batteries as we go along. There is a law of diminishing returns, or arc of productivity as I prefer to call it. There reaches a point where if we push ourselves the returns will slowly get less. Keep pushing ourselves and we will end up making mistake after mistake, generating negative returns. It would be better, and more productive, to take a break, get some rest and begin again.

Look, I get it, sometimes the cake for the party is due and you only have an hour left. Maybe your publisher (or mother) is expecting that book to be done yesterday. What can you do other than keep pushing? When the cake falls over or you accidentally delete 3 years worth of writing and find yourself worse off than when you began, you will say to yourself, “I should have listened to that Neil guy.” or you may just utter an explicative. Either way by pushing beyond your limits, you will have created more work for yourself. The best way is to plan accordingly. Schedule some time to rest. Believe it or not, this is one secret to an amazing life.