How to cope with a job you hate

imageYou spend at least a third of your life at work, so you better be spending it doing something you find rewarding. If the job you wanted turned out to be not what you expected or if you had to take a less than ideal job to make ends meet, there are plenty of ways to make your job more bearable until you can move on to a job you like. The key is to focus on long-term goals and possibilities so your current situation feels less hopeless and so you can move on faster to doing something you enjoy.

Remember that this is temporary
You have two choices: to wallow in how much you hate your job and let it bring you down or to take action and find a way to get out of there and over to a job you want as soon as possible. The only way to move on to a better job is to focus on doing everything you can in the present to get you there faster.

Always do your best
When you apply to a new job, you’re going to need strong references and work experience. Even if you don’t like your current job, you shouldn’t waste your time there either. Use your current job to gain experience and skills, to learn as much as possible, to take advantage of training programs, etc. and to show your current boss that you’re a great worker so he can pass that on to your future employer. Your performance at your current job could determine whether you get your next job. Further, doing your work well and with a smile will take your focus off of how much your work sucks and shift it to how much you rock for powering through it.

Don’t burn bridges
No matter how much you hate your job or even your boss, try to stay on good terms with your coworkers and employer. Even if you’re planning to leave that job, you never know if a former colleague may be a valuable resource in the future. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from past job hunts and applications, it’s that networking is an invaluable way to hear of jobs you didn’t know about, to consider jobs that didn’t occur to you in your original search, to get that extra good word in that will tip the scales in your favor, to share knowledge of job markets and hiring processes, and much more.

Set a job hunting goal
Setting a goal can jumpstart your job hunting process to get you to your next job faster. The more excited you are about achieving that goal and finding your next job, the more motivated you’ll be to do what you need to do to get it, the sooner your current job will end, and the easier it will be to bear with your current job when you are optimistic and focused on your exciting future. Set weekly and monthly goals and deadlines so you feel accomplished during the process of meeting your long-term goal and so you take concrete action and make your goal a reality.

It’s not the end of the world
If you work a typical eight-hour workday and sleep eight hours at night, you still have eight whole hours everyday to spend however you want. Even if you’re as miserable as could be at work (which you won’t be if you do the above steps!), leave those feelings at work and make sure you enjoy the rest of your life. 

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Why is stress so bad for your health?

imageIt’s National Stress Awareness Month!
What’s there to be aware of? 
We’re all familiar with the symptoms of stress, but most of us don’t know just how harmful stress can be. In small doses it can motivate you to take action, but when stress is excessive or long-lasting it can be dangerous for your physical and mental health. When I say dangerous, I mean depression, cancer, heart attack, premature aging, anxiety, and much more. No matter what you’re stressed about, it’s not worth all that. Read on to find out what causes stress, what stress causes, and what you can do to stay stress-free and healthy.

What is stress?
Stress is what you feel when you’re under pressure. The symptoms you feel, such as fast heartbeat, sweating, and blood rushing, are part of your body’s natural “fight or flight” response.
Imagine walking through a forest and suddenly seeing a giant bear charging toward you. Before you can consciously think about what to do, your mind has sent a signal throughout your body that there is a threat to your safety. You start sweating, your heart rate and blood pressure increase, and your blood flows away from your skin and vital organs to your muscles so you can run away or stay and fight.
Everyday stressful situations trigger the same response, even if you’re just stressed about a work deadline. It’s ok for your body to rise to this level of stress once in a while as a response to a stressor, but there are many harmful consequences of sustaining the elevated levels of stress response hormones and symptoms.

Why is stress harmful?

Next time something is stressing you out, remind yourself that getting worked up isn’t worth these consequences. Use these tips to reduce stress in your daily life.

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Beginner’s guide to meditation

imageMeditation is a state of relaxed alertness in which the mind stays focused in order to decrease its chattering and wandering. A common misconception is that meditation is about completely emptying the mind or quieting all thoughts; rather, it is about choosing which thoughts to focus on. The purpose of meditation is to embrace your true self, let go of judgment, and strengthen your mind so that you can remain stable through life’s fluctuations.

The benefits of meditation start to show from the very first time you try it and develop into profound positive effects after a few weeks of practicing regularly. Meditation has been shown to:

  • reduce anxiety, depression, anger, and stress
  • decrease production of stress hormones
  • increase production of anti-aging hormone
  • lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels
  • improve immune function
  • improve mood and inner peace
  • increase productivity and concentration
  • improve sleep quality

Further, when you shift the inner peace and awareness from your meditation practice to the rest of your life, you become more stable, centered, and accepting of your experiences and of yourself and others.

How to meditate:

  1. An optional step before you start is to add a small ritual to the beginning of your practice, such as lighting a candle or wearing certain clothes, which trains your brain and gives it a signal to get into meditation mode.
  2. Find a comfortable position in which you can relax- you can sit cross-legged, kneel, or lie down. Rest your hands on your knees, in your lap, or at your sides, palms facing up for more energy or down to feel grounded.
  3. Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Notice its speed, depth, quality, and just observe each inhalation and exhalation.

At this point, you can:

  • Continue observing your breath for your whole meditation.
  • Follow a specific breathing pattern. For example, inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4 counts, and repeat.
  • Use alternate nostril breathing. For example, use your ring finger to close your left nostril, inhale for 4 counts through your right nostril, use your thumb to close your right nostril, hold your breath for 4 counts, release your ring finger to exhale through your left nostril, inhale for 4 counts through your left nostril, use your ring finger to close your left nostril, hold your breath for 4 counts, release your thumb to exhale through your right nostril, and repeat.
  • Repeat a mantra or positive affirmation.
  • Open your eyes and focus on a visual point such as a candle flame or image.

When your mind starts to wander, just bring your attention back to your point of focus. Thoughts will inevitably arise; don’t judge them or yourself when this happens. The fact that you are aware of where your focus is means you’re doing something right. As you continue practicing, your internal awareness will deepen, your mind will become more comfortable with stillness and will feel less need to wander, and you will feel more inner peace both during your practice and during your daily life.

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How to get more done in less time

imageThe #1 complaint I hear from clients and friends is that they don’t have enough time. Between work, school, kids, and other obligations, they believe they can’t make time in their schedules to pursue their dreams, to reach professional goals, to have more fun, to exercise, etc. They are unhappy and wish they could make a change, but they feel stuck. Here is what I tell them:

When you say that you don’t have time for something, what you’re really saying is that it’s not important. When you rephrase “I don’t have time” as “pursuing my dreams is not important” or “achieving my professional goals is not important” or “taking care of my health is not important” you might realize that your priorities are a little mixed up. Claiming not to have the time takes the responsibility off of you and allows you to play the victim. Stating that you have decided something is not WORTH your time makes you realize that you are the one in control of your time and you can change your situation.

The truth is that you do have enough time, but you’re not making good use of it. Time is constant. You can’t make more of it, but you can get more out of it. Here is how to make better use of your time to be able to fit in everything important.

Be more organized
Organize your to-do list to sort out which tasks are priorities and which can wait. Thinking about all the things you have to do in too little time stresses you out, clouds your mind, and makes it seem impossible to go about doing all of them… so you don’t do any. This only leads to more stress the next day when you still haven’t done them and you now have even less time. Even if you have a gigantic to-do list, you can only do one of the tasks on your list at a time. Decide which one is most urgent right now and do that one.

Be more efficient
It’s estimated that we waste about 4 hours everyday that we could be using more productively. Think about how much more productive you could be during the time you spend checking email, checking social networks, commuting, watching TV, waiting in line, etc. Use this wasted time more productively and you’ll accomplish much more in the same amount of time. 
Shave some time off your lunch break or work while you eat. When you’re in the shower, organize your to-do list for the day. Spend your morning commute listening to audiobooks that educate you on your goal, listening to the news so you don’t need to spend time reading the newspaper, making important calls, etc. If you’re more productive at night, go to bed and wake up a bit later. If you’re more productive in the morning, go to bed and wake up a bit earlier. 

Be more effective
Even while you’re working, there are inevitable spaces of time when you’re not working at optimal efficiency. You might be distracted or might just not feel like doing your current task at 100%. Go with that distraction; take a break from your current work and do the next task on your list that you do feel like doing. It’s a more productive use of your time to stop your current task which is moving at 50% and to do the next one on your list at 100% than to drag out work that can be done in much less time. Then go back to the first task now that you’ve refreshed your mind and feel more inspired to work on it at 100%.

Take back your time
Make sure your priorities are in line. If you don’t have time to do things that make your life better because you’re spending all your time doing things that don’t satisfy you, something needs to change. Your life won’t change overnight, but you can start transitioning from a life with too little time for happiness to one that uses all your time on things that bring you happiness. The way to do this is to reclaim your time and use it to do the things you wish to do.
Think of a few negative, neutral, or non-urgent things that you can cut out or postpone to spend that time on positive things that work toward your goal. Even if that frees up just 20 minutes a day, that’s enough to start the ball rolling. In a week, you’ll have spent 2 hours working on it without making that big a change to your daily life. In just one month you’ll have spent 10 hours (more if you can spend more than 20 minutes on the weekends) and in a year you’ll have worked on your goal for over two full-time workweeks.

You definitely HAVE the time—just start using it well. The key to having more time is to take action and to use your time consciously, deliberately, and efficiently.

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How to stop comparing yourself to others

imageComparing yourself to others is a sure-fire way to ruin your self-worth and chances of being happy. Your self-worth determines your satisfaction with yourself and your life, your confidence in pursuing what you want, and your ability to stay stable through life’s fluctuations. It is one of the most important, intimate, and individualized components of understanding and accepting yourself—which is why it’s unreliable and unsafe to base it on other people. When you measure your self-worth by reflecting on your own qualities and achievements, you reach a point where you are proud and secure with who you are. But when you turn that reflection outward, focusing on others’ traits and successes that you lack, you slip into a downward spiral that makes you feel inferior and insecure. The good news is that these comparisons begin and end in your own mind.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

You are the one who decides whether to neutrally observe other people or to compare yourself to them. You decide whether to notice or even admire someone else’s positive qualities or to measure yourself against them and inevitably come up short. You decide whether that comparison means that you are simply different people with different traits or whether that difference means the other person is better than you.

There are two ways that you can train your mind to stop comparing yourself to other people and to become more content with who you already are.

1. Focus on what you have, not what you lack
When you compare yourself to others, you tend to focus on the things they have that you lack. While you’re focusing on all those things you’re supposedly missing, you forget to appreciate all the great things that you already have. The differences between you and someone else are just what make you different individuals with different strengths—not better or worse. If you focus on what you have going for you rather than what you think you need to be better, you will realize that you already have everything you need and it’s more than enough.

2. Compare your present self to your past self instead
If you can’t help but compare yourself in order to see how you measure up on some scale, why not use a more accurate and relevant scale and compare yourself to where you were last year? Think about all the things you’ve learned, experienced, and accomplished in the past year. Comparing your successes to someone else’s means nothing about either person’s worth, but comparing who you were to how far you’ve come is what really creates self-worth—and makes you realize how far you have yet to go. 

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Open your heart to give & receive more love

imageOur insecurities can hold us back not only from being able to love ourselves but also from being able to love others. It is easy to close up your heart to protect it from being hurt, especially if you have suffered heartbreak or betrayal in the past. However, you suffer more by denying yourself the joy of giving love to others. Even if it makes you feel vulnerable, giving love and opening your heart ultimately fills you with deep strength, security, and genuine happiness, and allows your relationships to thrive.

If you have given love in the past and been hurt in return, a logical defense mechanism is to close your heart to avoid going through that pain again. It can be scary to go out on a limb and give love and to risk someone not reciprocating your feelings or, even worse, taking advantage of them. Hardening your heart can seem like a good way to protect it, but in truth the best protection is to open your heart more fully and love more freely. I know it’s counterintuitive—but as with everything, learning to open your heart is a matter of changing the way you think about it.

If your idea of opening your heart as a calculated risk that you decide to take in order to receive love in return, and that not receiving that love in return means your world will shatter… then opening your heart makes you feel vulnerable, helpless, weak, or defensive.

If instead you think of having an open heart as a way of life, as a wonderful way to connect with everyone around you (not just romantic partners, but also friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers), as a personal attribute that makes you a better, warmer, more helpful, more compassionate, more approachable person, and, most of all, as something that you enjoy doing for you and for those you care about without expecting anything in return… then opening your heart makes you feel happy, lighthearted, uninhibited, inspired, and invincible.

When you love freely, your heart allows more love in. Others are drawn to you and are more eager and able to love you if they see that you are a big-hearted, warm person who is kind and full of love. If you don’t allow yourself to give love, others might see you as cold or distant, and in the end your effort to protect your heart from pain actually inhibits it from receiving and being filled and nourished by love.

Further, when you give love and don’t expect anything in return, you have nothing to lose; you are not risking anything and you are not waiting for someone else to validate your love by reciprocating it. You are allowing love to flow between you and others and to form meaningful connections. If you give love only in order to receive love in return, you can’t open your heart fully because you are still guarded and because what you’re giving the other is not truly love—it is a request for love back.

“Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.” - Jean Anouilh

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How to never diet again (woo hoo!)

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Being at a healthy weight is simple (really!). Eating correctly and having a healthy body that looks and feels great is easy. I promise. But you can forget how easy it is because you’ve been brainwashed. 
Don’t believe me? How many of these apply to you:

  • You wonder why someone who is in shape is exercising or eating healthily since they’re already in shape.
  • You think eating a salad or fruit is a chore and eating a twinkie (or 5) is heaven.
  • You want to get thin for the summer/ prom/ your wedding/ the new guy/girl at work/ other external reasons or events.
  • You believe you can trick yourself thin by buying low-fat, low-calorie (high sugar, high salt, high chemicals, high processing) foods.
  • You think filling up on 0-calorie soda, skipping meals, or balancing over-eating with over-exercising are good ways to lose weight. 
  • You believe your mystery weight problem may finally be solved by the new faux-science breakthroughs in the latest fad diet book or infomercial, or the new super-fat-blasting magic sap from the stem of this special plant found only in the amazon that the thin members of this tribe have been eating for centuries and now we’ve put it all in this little pill that you can buy here! (I was trying to be over-the-top, but it’s actually not that far off!)
  • You call the person eating organic, non-processed, raw, natural foods obsessive, a follower, or “extreme” while you eat processed, packaged, dyed, preserved, mystery-ingredient-filled, chemical-soaked, hormone-inflated, genetically modified, “food.”

How have you been brainwashed? Society relentlessly feeds us messages about what we should look like, eat, buy, wear, enjoy, do, and think. These messages encourage us to hate our bodies and selves, skew our body image, place our self-worth in our appearance, and make us think we can never look or be good enough. We become unhappy with ourselves, confused by all the misinformation, and consumed by these skewed messages and obsessive thoughts about food.

imageWhy would they do that? Money. Money, money, money. If you’re told twinkies and fast food and soda are delicious (and eat the chemicals inside them that make you believe it and become addicted), you’ll eat them and get fat. If you’re then told you have to be skinny or else you’re disgusting and ugly, you’ll want to lose weight. You’ll turn to extremes, quick-fixes, and desperate measures, which means you’ll buy the lose-weight-fast products, the diet books, the weird new machine that massages the fat out of your thighs, and none of it will work. You’ll starve yourself or force yourself to eat only raw lettuce or water with cayenne pepper, only to end up binging on more twinkies and fast food and soda than ever. You’ll be unhealthy, disappointed, most likely malnourished, and very likely fatter than when you started. Which means you’ll become more desperate, buy more junk that doesn’t work, fail, repeat.

How do you break free from this cycle? Understand the myths and facts of diets and learn to have a healthy attitude toward food for a long-term, healthy lifestyle. You’ll never need to diet again.

Fact: Diets come with a lot of negative thoughts.
Diets tend to be extreme and unhealthy because they stem from extreme and unhealthy thoughts. You may want to diet because you think being thinner will make you happier, but that mindset plus the disappointing process of inevitably failing at dieting can actually make you unhappier. Diets can perpetuate an unhealthy body image, make you feel guilty or a failure, and preoccupy your mind with obsessive, negative, and often untrue thoughts.

Fact: A healthy lifestyle is the only thing that will make you lose weight and keep it off.
“You are what you eat.” You start developing a healthy lifestyle by understanding how important eating correctly is for your health, functioning, positive energy, good mood, brain function, and every part of your life. It’s not just about filling up on whatever you find when you get hungry. Your food is your fuel; what you put in is what you get out. Your body is a beautiful machine that needs high quality fuel. If you feed it crap, it drags and feels like crap. If you feed your body the nutrients it needs, it flies and feels amazing. Raising your standards for what is allowed into your body makes you start noticing what’s really in the so-called food you’re about to eat, makes you dread the processed, sugary, fatty, fried, preserved, salty,  and makes you crave vegetables, fruits, nuts, water, healthy fats, plant oils, etc. This is what your body WANTS to eat and what makes it thrive. You will NOT be missing the junk food when you start thinking, eating, and living this way. This is what I mean when I say it’s easy to be at a healthy weight- if you listen to your body and do what it naturally wants to do, you’ll be super healthy with no mental struggle.

Myth: Healthy food tastes bad.
The belief that causes the most trouble with weight loss and learning to eat healthily is that crappy food is irresistibly delicious and healthy food is a bland, boring chore. This belief makes you unwillingly eat healthy food while yearning for unhealthy foods until you snap and eat everything in sight. The truth is that healthy foods are actually delicious (I’m eating carrots with red pepper-jalapeno hummus as I write this and delicious doesn’t begin to cover it). Once you realize that you can enjoy healthy food, you start to rethink the crappy food. You understand how many chemicals, fats, sugars, preservatives, salt, fillers, and other artificial garbage that makes your body deteriorate go into tricking you to like the taste, and delicious is the last word you’d use to describe it.

Myth: No treats allowed ever again.
When you begin with that mindset, you will end up eating an entire cake in one sitting. Of course you can—and should!—eat treats while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It’s the only way you can maintain one. The trick is that eating healthily satisfies you and changes how your mind and body respond to food. You won’t be yearning for unhealthy foods everyday while forcing down food you don’t enjoy; you’ll be satisfied by the healthy food, and free to eat treats in moderation as well.

Fact: Diets are unsustainable.
When you diet by restricting calories or going to extremes, your body switches to survival mode and stops burning fat. If you don’t eat enough, your body thinks you don’t have food to eat so it stores fat to use it for energy instead of food. And after that, when you start eating again your body will scramble to store everything you eat as fat and you’ll gain fat faster than ever. If you continue restricting to the point where your body has no choice but to break down your fat and muscle to survive, well, in short, you’re killing yourself. Eat, but eat right.

Fact: Most diets are yo-yo diets.
Deciding to diet for a certain length of time is setting yourself up for failure in the long run. When you finish the diet and start eating normally again, what do you think will happen? You’ll gain back the weight you lost, usually even more. If you’re on an extreme restricting diet, you’ll hate it, your body will hate it, and you will eventually overcompensate for it at the other extreme by stuffing yourself with every fattening food you can find. If you don’t feel deprived, you won’t feel the need to compensate for it. If you always eat healthily, you’ll maintain a stable, healthy weight and not feel the need to go to either extreme.

Fact: Most diets cause malnutrition.
Many diets cause you to become malnourished by focusing on taking out calories and ignoring what you need to be putting in. Eating healthily requires all kinds of nutrients because your body requires all kinds of nutrients to be healthy. This includes a balanced diet of carbohydrates, fats from healthy sources such as avocados, protein, and enough calories.

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Myth: Low calorie = healthy.
Low-calorie foods that are naturally low-calorie, such as vegetables, fruits, etc., are healthy, but you still need to eat enough of them to add up to a healthy daily total. On the other hand, low-calorie or low-fat foods that normally have fat but have been processed to remove the fat in this version, are NOT healthy. They are not your ticket to success or sneaky weight-loss. To make up for the flavor of the fat and calories that have been removed, those processed foods have been filled to the brim with sugars, salts, artificial flavors, chemicals, and lots of garbage that is a lot worse for your body than the original food’s fat.
Low calorie diets are not healthy in any way for the unsustainable and yo-yo reasons above. Your body needs a certain number of calories for energy and to survive. Even if you’re eating an appropriate number of calories, you might be getting them from “empty calorie” foods that don’t satisfy you and leave you craving more. When (or instead of) counting calories, count vitamins, nutrients, minerals, protein, fiber, healthy fats, etc. The more nutritious the food you eat, the more satisfied you will feel and the healthier you will be.

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How to set goals (so you actually achieve them)

imageIt’s important to have goals so that you always have something to work toward, to look forward to, to challenge your mind, to improve your skills, and to expand your interests. But it can also be hard to turn vague dreams into clear, concrete goals. Here is how to set effective goals that you actually achieve.

1. Focus on your core needs, passions, interests, values, and things you enjoy.
Your goals should be things that you love and want for yourself, not things you think you “should” do or things that others impose on you. Your important life goals are the ones involving your core needs: self-worth & improvement, managing negativity, relationships, productivity & success, health, and life purpose. Achieving the goals that involve your passions and interests are part of pursuing your life purpose. These goals can be about the type of person you want to end up with, a healthy lifestyle change that you want to make, a new skill that you want to learn, etc. These are the most important things to focus on so that you can live a thriving, well-rounded life.

2. Dream big
Be ambitious when you set goals for yourself! Don’t cheat yourself by setting a lame goal that you know you can achieve. Believe in yourself and make your goals big enough to challenge you and to motivate you to succeed. You never know what you’re capable of until you try, and you can’t know your limits unless you try to exceed them. Remember that we are often held back more by limiting attitudes than by actual lack of opportunities or ability. These goals might seem impossible at first, but you’ll break them down to manageable steps later.

3. Write down your goals
Writing down your goals is a way of holding yourself accountable for completing them. It’s also a way to work out and organize the necessary steps toward achieving each goal. Finally, it’s a way to review your progress, both by seeing where you might be falling behind and by looking back on all the steps you’ve already taken so you feel motivated to keep going.
When you’re writing down your goals, phrase them positively. If your mind goes to “I don’t want to hate my job,” “I don’t want to be fat,” etc., rephrase those goals as “I want to find a job I love” and “I want to look and feel healthy.” When you think about your goals negatively, you think about them as things that you’re doing wrong or that you need to fix. Phrasing your goals positively gives you something to work toward and to feel excited about.

4. Break goals down into manageable, specific steps
Dreaming big is good, but can make your goals seem distant and intimidating. This is the point where most people get stuck because they don’t understand how to go about achieving their goal. So once you know what your big goal is, to actually achieve it you then need to break it down into clear, manageable step by asking yourself:

1. What skills, information, and resources do I have to achieve this goal?
Write these down and keep them handy as a reminder of why you know you can achieve this goal. Take advantage of all your resources and other people who can help you. Use anything you can that will help you achieve your goals, and if you’re not sure if someone or something is able to help, ask.

2. How much time can I set aside everyday to work on my goal?
This can be 15 minutes, 1 hour, full-time, 1 day per week, or whatever fits your schedule. The key is to do something everyday, now, that gets you closer to your goal. Even if you can set aside only 15 minutes a day to work on it, that’s still better than spending zero time on it and never getting around to it.

3. What do I have left to do to achieve my goal? What skills, information, and resources do I need to obtain? Where can I find them?
Write down your answers in a list (or type because you’ll be editing and moving things around!). This list will become your master to-do list toward your goal.
Order the to-do’s from #3 according to what needs to be done first in order to move on to the next one. Break down each to-do into tasks you can do in the time you allotted in #2. Some steps will already be short enough, others will need to be broken down into two parts, and others into several parts to make them short enough. Again, the key is to do something useful everyday that moves you closer to your goal.

That’s it! Nothing you didn’t already know, just something most people don’t apply. The trick is just to get organized and to bite off as much as you can chew at a time. If you focus on the big picture, you’ll become overwhelmed and probably give up. If you focus on one step at a time and start taking action now, you’ll have achieved your goal before you know it.

What are some of your goals that you’ve been putting off? What’s your first step going to be?

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Share your secret & your burden—you’re not alone

imageI recently went to a Postsecret live event where Frank Warren, the creator of Postsecret, shared lessons and stories from his experience running the site. Postsecret is an online community art project where people anonymously mail in secrets on postcards which Frank then posts on the site every Sunday. In 8 years, Frank has collected over half a million secrets. Some secrets are powerfully deep and emotional, some are refreshingly funny and silly, all are real and relatable.

That relatability is what Frank kept emphasizing all night—first by telling us that the secret he receives most often is “I pee in the shower” and asking other “members of the club” to raise their hands, which most of the audience did, and then by sharing a story about a secret he received toward the beginning of the project which he said “changed everything.” The secret was written on a photo of a broken bedroom door and explained that the door had been broken by the sender’s parent trying to break in to continue beating him/her. Within an hour of posting it, Frank received more and more emails with photos of broken bedroom doors and messages saying that they had no idea someone else was going through the same thing and that that somehow made their horrible burden a little lighter.

So many people feel lost and discouraged because they think that their struggle is unique to them and that they need to be alone in their suffering. Even if nothing about their own situation changes, just knowing that someone else is in a similar situation can change everything.

As with the broken bedroom door, I’ve seen countless comments on the Postsecret site expressing a deep sense of relief just from knowing someone somewhere is going through the same thing. I’ve seen friends and clients change before my eyes as the weight of keeping a secret about anything from relationship issues to their mental disorder to their doubts and fears was finally lifted. I’ve seen the surprised look and the positive shift in outlook when I’ve told my clients with psychosis, depression, eating disorders, severe anxiety and trauma that the thoughts and feelings they’re describing are totally common.

We think our secrets disconnect us from others and should be shamefully buried inside, but in reality our secrets are shared by so many and can connect us to others rather than isolating us. We all know the feelings of guilt and isolation that come with keeping even the smallest secret, but for some people, the loneliness of keeping a painful secret can become unbearable. Finding out that someone else shares and understands their pain can be the only thing that can give them hope.

Revealing a secret not only frees you from living a lie all alone but also forms a mutually beneficial relationship with the others who share your burden. A great thing about the internet and tumblr is that it’s a platform for you to get your secret out anonymously and to receive support from others who are going through the same thing, who search that tag, or who just want to help. There’s no reason for you to suffer alone when you could finally be free of your secret and connect with people who understand and who can help you through. You can post anonymously, send an anonymous ask, reach out to others who are posting about the same problem, and start a conversation that can change your life. (I’m more than happy to be that person if you need one – Contact me here.)

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How to get motivated when you’re stuck in a rut

imageEvery goal comes along with obstacles that make the goal worth achieving and make you feel accomplished when you achieve it. However, while you’re still pursuing your goal, the obstacles can sometimes overwhelm you and make you lose sight of the motivation and excitement you felt when you were starting out. You might feel frustrated, discouraged, tired, and stuck because you don’t know how to move forward past the obstacle. The key to getting through a problem that makes you feel like you’re running into a brick wall is to turn it into a positive challenge that makes you want to scale that wall. 

1. Accept your situation in order to fix it
To fix your problem, you have to keep a calm, clear mind. Be honest with yourself about what’s going on and what’s wrong. If you try to deny the problem, you won’t be able to solve it and you’ll just stay stuck. 
If your gut reaction when a problem arises is to freak out, pity yourself, place blame, complain, or run away—Stop. Make yourself calm down, step back and think logically through the steps toward solving your problem. You’ve handled problems before that seemed impossible at the time. You can handle this one too. But your mind has to be clear and calm to be able to figure out the solution. 

2. Remember the reasons it will work
We tend to overestimate the narrow, negative aspects of circumstances while overlooking the positive aspects. All the reasons you decided to pursue this goal didn’t disappear just because a bump surfaced along the way. All your skills and strengths that made you want to achieve this goal and that have brought you this far are the same ones that will get you through your problem. Your current obstacle might look huge when you isolate it and focus on its consequences, the resources you have to overcome it outweigh it. 

3. Your goal is worth the obstacles along the way
The process might not always be easy or fun, but it makes the goal that much more rewarding. When this is all over, the relief, inner peace, pride, lessons, and skills you’ll have gained will make it worth it. This stage of your process is not only a natural and necessary part of success but also an experience worth going through for the ways you’ll grow and learn from it. Imagine how proud you will feel when you succeed and all the things you’ll be able to do when you don’t have this problem hanging over your head. When you remember , you motivate yourself by giving yourself a big-picture incentive to keep powering through.

4. Take action
Identify the steps you need to take to get through this challenge, write them down in order, and start doing them right away. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are as long as you are doing something that moves you forward. The steps might be to read a book, take a class or workshop, or otherwise educate yourself more about how to get closer to your goal. If you’re facing a personal problem, get help from a friend or go to therapy to work out the issues holding you back. Take any action that gets you moving forward in productive, useful steps toward your goal. You’ll be out of your rut and motivated about achieving your goal again in no time.

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10 ways to improve your self-esteem

imageQ: How can I raise my self-esteem? Thanks… Your blog is a lovely guide to happiness.

Low self-esteem is something that a lot of people struggle with yet most people don’t know how detrimental it can be. Although everyone feels unsure of themselves sometimes, self-doubt can cause a lot of damage if it goes from a fleeting moment of uncertainty or fear to a permanent negative opinion of yourself or your potential. Low self-esteem can bring down your self-worth and your capacity and even your desire to live a full life. However, there are easy ways to raise your self-esteem. 

Identify your negative beliefs: If you trace back from thoughts, feelings, or behavior that contribute to your low self-esteem, you’ll often find underlying negative beliefs about yourself. For example, you might skip a big test (negative behavior) because you had too much anxiety (feeling) from your doubts about your ability to pass the test (thoughts) caused by an underlying belief that you’re not smart (belief). Or you may drink too much at a party (negative behavior) to loosen up because you’re nervous (feeling) from thinking that no one will want to talk to you (thoughts) because you believe you’re not good-looking (belief).

Challenge your negative beliefs: We take our underlying beliefs about ourselves for granted, but they’re usually not even true. So, for each negative belief you identify, think logically about it and ask yourself whether it’s really true. Think of concrete evidence that disproves it. For example, if you believe you’re not smart, think of all the tests you’ve passed, all the correct answers you’ve had in class, all the moments where you were discussing a topic about which you’re knowledgeable, etc.

Keep your self-talk positive: Negative self-talk is hugely detrimental to self-esteem and actually tends to be unwarranted. Whenever you’re berating or criticizing yourself, pretend you’re talking to a friend who made whatever mistake you made. You probably won’t be half as harsh to a friend, so don’t ruin your most important friendship with yourself by being so mean. Forgive yourself and move forward by encouraging yourself with kindness and positivity. Similarly, accept compliments from other people! Own your positive qualities and be proud of them.

Don’t compare yourself to others: Sometimes low self-esteem can come from not fitting in or not having certain traits. But what makes you different from the crowd is what makes you unique—in a good way! Embrace your differences as great parts of what make you the special individual that you are. Be proud of who you are and always be true to yourself.

Acknowledge your strengths: List the meaningful positive qualities that make you proud of the person you are, whether it’s being intelligent, funny, loving, kind, or whatever other traits make you proud of yourself. Appreciate your talents and skills, such as playing a sport, organizing, writing, painting, etc. Next time you’re doubting yourself, come back to this list to remind yourself that you have a lot to offer.

Play to your strengths: Take up a hobby or even a career that uses your skills and positive qualities so you actively reinforce your self-esteem in your daily life with activities you enjoy. Not only will you be doing something you’re good at and feeling proud of yourself for succeeding at it but you will also add more purpose and meaning to your life by doing things you enjoy, and that will feed back into your self-esteem.

Acknowledge your achievements: Low self-esteem can come about because you focus on your doubts and forget about all your achievements and successes that prove otherwise. Make a list of your achievements, things you’ve done that make you feel proud of yourself, such as volunteering for a good cause or helping friends, and the challenges you’ve overcome. This will remind you how much you’ve done already and how much more you’re capable of doing.

Face your fears: Try doing something that makes you doubt yourself. By doing something you never thought you could do, you’ll bash that insecurity and realize that your doubts aren’t so limiting. You’ll also get a huge confidence boost and may start noticing other doubts that you can disprove. At the very least, you’ll be proud of yourself for being brave, taking a risk, facing your fear, and believing in yourself.

Failure is an event, not a person: Remember that failure and mistakes are inevitable and do not define you. Describe failures objectively as attempts toward a goal that didn’t work out this time, not as permanent statements about yourself or your potential. Acknowledge your effort and use what didn’t work this time around to help you figure out what will work the next time.

Surround yourself with positive people: If you have people in your life who reinforce your low self-esteem, either ask them to change the behavior that affects you negatively, be more assertive and don’t let other treat you with lack of respect, or spend less time around them. Spend your time with positive, supportive friends and family who love and appreciate you for you and you will start to do the same. Bond with them, open your heart to them, give them your love, help them, and your self-esteem will flourish.

imageDefine your values and live according to them: Decide what being a good person means to you, what living a good life means to you, what gives your life purpose and meaning, and what makes you happy, and then do it. Make these values the content of your mind, the reasons behind your decisions, the motivation behind your actions, the feelings behind your relationships, the meaning of your life. Learn, experience, and try new things as much as possible, keep an open mind, love yourself, and trust your choices. When you live a life true to yourself and true to what you believe in, your self esteem is sky high because all other judgments or doubts will be completely insignificant next to the fulfilment and wholeness you’ll feel.

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How to love yourself more

imageQ: How do I learn to drop any ideas that I myself am not perfect as I am to let love of myself flourish? I find when I do feel this I’m a lot more outgoing and social, and the opposite otherwise. I do feel to go with the flow of things is to simply accept and love what is, but I find self-esteem a problem or allowing myself to be filled with my own love somewhat distant.

Because there’s a lot of meat to this post, I’ve split it into: How to forgive yourself and How to accept yourself. A summary is below, but read the other posts for full explanations.

Forgive yourself

You need to work out any negative feelings, judgments, or grudges you’re holding against yourself and forgive yourself. Who you are is not defined by your past; who you are and can be is up to you to determine in the present and future. [Read more]

Separate what you do from who you are

Failure and mistakes are inevitable and are a necessary step toward success, but you are not defined by your failures. Describe your mistakes objectively as attempts toward a goal that didn’t work out this time, but that will inform a better future attempt. DON’T phrase your mistakes as permanent statements about yourself or your ability to do something. [Read more]

Eliminate negative self-talk

When you notice that you are thinking negative thoughts about yourself, force yourself to switch and think about your positive attributes instead. Boost your self-confidence by doing things that you know you’re good at, praise yourself for your talents, and practice positive affirmations. [Read more]

Make positive affirmations 

Retrain your mind to think positively about yourself with daily positive affirmations. The affirmations can relate to specific issues you want to work on or to living a more positive life in general. [Read more]

Accept yourself for what you are and what you can be

Instead of holding an impossible goal of how you “should” be over your head, focus on all the great qualities you already have. Think about all the things about you that you like and are proud of. Instead of seeing the rest as flaws or imperfections, see them as room for improvement. [Read more]

Be yourself- stop comparing yourself to others

By comparing yourself to others or aspiring to be like someone else, you’re creating unreasonable expectations and impossible goals for yourself that will only lead to disappointment and low self-esteem. Focus on your own strengths and gifts and be the best you that you can be. [Read more]

Be confident and trust yourself- stop seeking approval

We all want to be accepted and liked, but for many people this makes them scared to be themselves for fear of rejection and disapproval from others. However, you can’t love yourself if you are ashamed to be yourself or if you place your self-worth in what others think of you. Be yourself, have confidence in yourself and trust yourself. [Read more]

Be proud to love yourself

imageWear your love for yourself proudly! We receive messages that make us feel like you’re not allowed to say that you love yourself and that you’re happy as you are. Loving yourself is not something to be modest about; it’s something to be proud of, especially in a world that tells you never to be content with yourself and always to look for more flaws. Be proud that you know you deserve love and happiness, and shout your love for yourself to the world!

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On Religion

imageI’m often asked how religion influences my way of thinking about life and my approach to coaching. The short answer is: the ideas I live by and write about are products of philosophical thinking and psychological understanding rather than of religious beliefs; however, these are not mutually exclusive and can actually be applied together beautifully.

Nothing I teach goes against any religion—in fact, many of my views about life, purpose, fulfillment, love, positivity, compassion, etc. are reflected in many religions. What I want to do is to guide you to live the most fulfilling life for you, whatever that means for you, by sharing some ideas that can help you take steps toward your best life. I share my views and advice not so you’ll do as I do, but rather so you’ll think more deeply and clearly to understand your own views so that you can then apply (if you want) my advice to your life in a way that you agree with. Making the most of life is something everyone can do, along with, not despite, their individual beliefs, religious beliefs, values, personality, and any other traits and lifestyle choices.

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How to let go of your expectations of the “perfect” partner

image“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” -Sam Keen

We all have some idea of the person we’d like to end up with, but some expectations and demands can make you miss the opportunity to be with the right person because you were waiting for the perfect person. By holding onto expectations, you can even ruin your relationship with the right person by rejecting or trying to change them when they inevitably don’t live up to your expectations.

You haven’t seen or dated every possible personality, so when you decide on a list of traits your partner must have, you’re closing your mind, rejecting many good options that you haven’t considered, and robbing yourself of new experiences and new things you can learn from other people. You’re also trying to have control over your partner, and as I’ve said many times, trying to control someone is not love—love is free and accepting.

When you let go of those expectations, you open your mind to seeing what each person has to offer in their own unique way. You’ll most likely find out that the expectations you had were not so important, and your idea of what you want will expand and change by embracing your partner instead of judging them against your list of musts. You become more accepting, more interested in the other person, more open-minded, more forgiving—qualities that help build a great relationship.

To let go of your expectations of the “perfect” partner:

Be aware of your judgments of others, “deal-breakers,” etc.
When you notice yourself rejecting someone, ask yourself if they really deserve that. Try to quiet your judgmental thoughts and give everyone a chance.

Work out the issues behind your expectations
Ask yourself why you have these expectations or demands of others in the first place. Do they stem from your own insecurities? Are you dealing with past unresolved issues? Are you worried what other people might think? You have to resolve the root of the problem so you can get rid of its consequences and allow yourself to love freely.

Rethink flawed assumptions
You may define what’s perfect, what love means, what your partner “should” do if they really love you, etc. based on faulty logic. Try to think clearly and objectively about the fundamentals of a relationship and try to understand that there are no “should”s or demands in love nor in healthy relationships.

Look for the good in the other rather than your own criteria
Everyone has unique personality traits that make them special and interesting. When you look at what the person is actually like instead of what you want them to be like, you open your mind to see what they have to offer—which you might like much more than the criteria you’re comparing them to. You’ll see the person for who they are instead of just seeing the gap between who they are and who you want them to be.

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What are you grateful for?

imageWhen things aren’t going so well, and even when things are going great, we can take a lot of special parts of life for granted. Here is a list of things we tend to take for granted and why you should take some time out to be thankful for them:

  • Yourself, for your mind, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, personality, quirks, memories, dreams, and all the unique qualities that make you so special
  • Your family, for raising you, loving you, cheering you on, caring for you, and being happy when you’re happy
  • Your friends, for supporting you, cheering you up, accepting you, helping you, and having fun together
  • Your enemies, for teaching you patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility, and the path you want to take not to be like them!
  • Your partner, for staying by your side no matter what, understanding you like no one else can, listening to you, taking care of you, making you happy, and loving you unconditionally
  • Your education, for giving you a foundation to understand what you want to do in life
  • Your teachers, for devoting their lives to making the next generation better and putting up with a lot of crap in the process!
  • Your mentors, for giving you someone to look up to as a role model and to teach you lessons in life
  • Your health, for allowing you to live fully and passionately
  • Your body, for being an amazingly detailed, vibrant machine from its structure to its movements to its strength to its softness to its sexiness to its ability to do the amazing things it does
  • Medicine, for helping your health and body be at their best
  • Your challenges, for helping you to learn and grow as a person and to achieve new things
  • Your successes, for giving you a goal to work toward and for bringing you satisfaction when you achieved it
  • Your failures, for keeping you grounded and showing you the way that doesn’t work so that you can find the one that does
  • Nature, for being stunningly beautiful and fascinating and for giving us everything we need
  • The little things, for giving us reasons to smile through life
  • Technology, for connecting people despite distance, allowing us to travel and experience the world, to keep in touch with those far away, to entertain us, to make life more efficient
  • Your life purpose, for giving you direction, passion, challenges, and fulfillment in life
  • Being alive, for being able to do anything with your life and having this one chance to live an amazing life
  • Love, for giving everything else meaning.

What are some things you want to stop taking for granted? What are you taking time out to be thankful for today?
I’m thankful for you! For being who you are and for all the messages, comments, questions, and stories you share with me. You remind me of my purpose and allow me to fulfill it in such a rewarding and exciting way. Thank you! Love you guys. Have a great Thanksgiving! :)

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