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By Tora Cullip

“Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said. They came.
He pushed them… and they flew.”
~Guillaume Apollinaire

From the moment that I met my best friend at school, Karen, she told me that she was going to be a doctor. She seemed to arrive at this decision with little need for reflection or soul-searching; she simply knew that she wanted to be a doctor, and that was that. Not even those treacherous 18-hour shifts at medical school, her dislike of seeing blood, or going into massive debt to fund her study made her question her career choice.

I, however, never had that clarity. My career path has been as undulating, meandering and seemingly haphazard as the most challenging of rally circuits. I have never even had that “eureka” moment that people who have found their life’s calling often talk about.

Instead, my journey to finding work I love came through a series of false starts, well-intentioned (but ill-thought-through) decisions, uncomfortable realizations, and a lot of courage.

From Badminton Nets to Bali

That’s not to say I didn’t think I had chosen a career that I’d be passionate about right from the start. I loved sports and, when a career adviser suggested I go into sports management, I thought it was a wonderful idea.

So, right after university, I became an Assistant Manager of a health club thinking that my career path was certain. After all, who wouldn’t want to get free access to a gym and be able to escape the 9-5 office hours in their very first job?

Turns out, I didn’t. After taking down and putting up the same badminton net many times each day and working more Saturday nights than I care to remember, I escaped this job as soon as my first year was up. My next job, working for the government’s sports services department, was so boring and unchallenging that I could have completed all my work on a Monday and had the rest of the week off.

By this time, I realized that working in the leisure industry was not affording me much in new challenges or in a luxury lifestyle so I accepted a sales role in the biggest health club in Europe. For the longest four months of my life, I attempted to sell memberships to the well-to-do of London so I could hit my monthly targets. Selling of any kind is so against my reserved, introverted nature that this was the most miserable I’ve been in a job. Not only did I clock watch, I also often hid in the gym or changing rooms to avoid having to fail at yet another cold call.

Fortunately, two good friends of mine were mid-way through a round-the-world trip and invited me to visit them in Bali. To stop my rapid spiral into despair and depression, I decided to quit my job and join them.

Bright Lights and a Big City

I expected my few months of travel around Southeast Asia to allow me ample time to do some soul-searching so that I could return with complete clarity about what career to follow next. Instead, I came back with a pile of dirty clothes and a dire need to eat food with a knife and fork again, but I was no further ahead in my career choice.

I had resisted corporate life until now, in part to rebel against my upbringing, but with no money in the bank and no fresh ideas I decided to start climbing the corporate ladder until I moved to Australia about 7 years later.

In truth, there were moments that I really enjoyed during my time working in a top London advertising agency. I liked the money, I liked the prestige and I liked the eclectic mix of people who were my colleagues. Of all the places that I’ve worked, I still remember this most fondly as a place that I made the best connections, had the biggest laughs, and it proved to me that an office job doesn’t always have to be torture.

The Land Down Under

However, on a three-month trip to Australia, I realized that I didn’t want to go back to my job, or back to the UK. Once I’d experienced the Australian “no worries, mate” approach to life, I recognized that my life had far too many worries. I was so immersed in my work by this stage that I’d forgotten how to turn off the worry switch even when I got home. I would wake up at night and make notes, fret on Sunday evening about how much I had to do the following week and find it difficult not to talk about work incessantly to my partner and friends.

What I wanted was less commuting, less stress, fewer deadlines and I wanted more of this sun-filled Aussie lifestyle that I had quickly come to love.

Unfortunately, the only way I could stay in the country was by being sponsored and so I found myself in another corporate job a few months later. This time there was no great work culture or great people to fall back on. Each day that I went to work, I still remember thinking to myself: “OK, park my soul and my heart at the elevator door but remember to pick it up at the end of the day”. I felt miserable and empty inside, and no amount of money seemed enough to counteract this growing unease that I had still not found a career that I loved.

I’m hesitant to mention the other jobs and careers that I started and stopped, but here goes. I’ve been a counselor, personal trainer, health coach, market research consultant – these things were my way of desperately trying to find the thing I finally felt was the best fit for me. But, everything fell short of the mark.

From Pain Comes Passion

About two years ago I was sitting in a seminar with about 800 people, listening to a Wealth Guru talk about having a money mindset. I don’t know if it was being in an environment full of excited people, the passion of the speaker or simple sleep deprivation, but while everyone else was learning about wealth, I was coming to realize exactly what I was passionate about.

What came to me in that crowded room that day was that I had been weaving my way to finding my passion right from the outset. But, all of those career twists and turns had one thing missing: my personal story.

You see, for many years I struggled with an eating disorder, Anorexia Nervosa. Food, and my weight, came to dominate my life. I went to bed thinking about food and I woke up thinking about food. Food was my obsession 24 hours a day.

One of the things that helped me get over my eating disorder was running. Running gave me a purpose to be fit and healthy again. I believe that being physically strong and fit empowers people in other areas of their life, and gives them a new-found confidence and, looking back, I realize it was that belief which drove my first career choice in sports management.

When I had an eating disorder, I was holding myself back from giving life my best shot. I believe that women, in particular, often have such a preoccupation with their weight that they shy away from what they are capable of because of how they feel about their body. I realize now that it was this belief that drove me to be a counselor, a health coach and a personal trainer and, often, the confidant in my corporate roles.

It wasn’t until I made peace with the pain and shame of having an eating disorder that I was able to see that so many of my career choices had been subconsciously driven by my desire to help people overcome the same struggles as me. I could have done any one of my jobs without the need to be open about my eating disorder, but it was when I had the courage to speak out about it so I could help others that everything fell into place.

I believe that if you want to bring passion into your work and your life you can’t pick and choose which parts of yourself you reveal. And when you do something you truly love, there’s a drive within you that runs so deep you want to bring all of yourself to life’s table.

And that’s why I now help women gain control over their weight so that they can have more confidence, more freedom and more lifestyle choices. But I couldn’t have done this without confronting my pain, and from that find my passion.

Finding A Career You Love

Here’s what I believe is the moral of my story:

1. Don’t be afraid of the twists and turns

If you have yet to find the work or career that’s a fit for you, don’t despair. Enjoy the ride, and celebrate the fact that you are already living a more passionate life simply by taking the journey.

2. There comes a POINT when it’s time to leap

Along the way, I tried to make sensible choices (not leaving one job before I found another, trying things out in my spare time, and so on) but the biggest breakthroughs came when I just made a leap. As Guillaume Apollinaire said, “Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them… and they flew.”

3. From pain can come passion

Since using the pain of my eating disorder to help others, I’m amazed at how many people I have met who have also leveraged some painful period of their life to do work they are passionate about. If you are unsure of what you’re passionate about, try (with gentleness and compassion) looking to your own pain and seeing what you find there.

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By Maya Ackerman

80% of us dislike our jobs. Eighty percent!! That’s 4 out of 5 people, dragging themselves out of bed every weekday morning, counting down the hours to come home, only to repeat the same senseless exercise all over again the next morning.

What’s worse, we feel powerless to do anything about it. And so, we are stuck.

How did this happen? How did the great majority of the population end up in this sorry state?

You guessed right. It all comes down to money.

The problem isn’t with money itself, but our perceptions of it. Like helpless fish in a net, we are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Worshiping Wealth (The Rock)

On the one extreme, society teaches us to value wealth. After all, that’s what the American Dream seems to have evolved into recently. We work countless hours at jobs we hate so that we can buy large homes and fancy cars – or, at the very least, we feel the need to keep up with our friends and neighbors.

Mind you, we quickly get used to these novelties. But, instead of stopping the rat race, we work even harder to buy a TV that’s even larger, a home with one more guest room, or whatever happens to be the new buzz.

The problem goes far beyond the desire for material possessions. The more money we have, the more respect we get from our peers. We even have an expression for it; it’s called “socio-economic status.” So, if we don’t do it for the wealth itself, we do it for the respect of having wealth.

Fearing Poverty (The Hard place)

On the other hand, if we dare say that we don’t care about all this, that we want to live life as we please, if we dare proclaim that we are not materialistic, and that there are more important things in life than money, then they get us with fear of poverty.

If we as much as hint at the possibility of pursuing a dream, our peers immediately assume that we will go broke and have nothing to eat.

Tempted by wealth, and scared by poverty, we return to work, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, to a job that bores us and brings us neither joy nor satisfaction.

And so, we’re stuck.

TAKING BACK OUR DREAMS

Taking back our dreams starts with the realization that you don’t have to choose between wealth and poverty. Essentially, we control the rock, and the hard place is a door leading to the middle ground.

The middle ground is a place where your passion earns you a living.

Forget about get-rich-quick schemes. And forget about living on the streets. You can make a living – enough money to cover all of your expenses – while working at a job that you really love.

How much is your time worth? How much money would you pay to have each and every day feel like a vacation?

Let me make this clear: your passion probably won’t make you the richest person you know in one day. But, coupled with hard (and enjoyable!) work, it won’t leave you outside to rot either.

Here is what making a living off your passion looks like: You wake up every morning eager to start the day. Then you spend your day having an absolutely wonderful time doing work (of all things). When you check the clock, it is in hope that there is more time left to work.

And while you are living the dream, you also earn enough to cover all of your expenses.

Eventually, your income will rise – sometimes to pretty amazing amounts. That’s because when you love what you do, you don’t just put in the time – you actually put in the effort. This allows you to become extremely good at it, which is why some of us who love what we do also end up making a killing doing it.

But money really isn’t the point. What’s important is that you’re enjoying your life, and you can afford to do so.

 ***

 So, don’t let wealth tempt you into a life of boredom. And don’t let poverty scare you into compliance, either.

Get started today, and make progress toward your dream job, using whatever free time you have now.

Bit by bit, pave your personal road to a fulfilling life, until you can make a living from your passion. Remember, money can’t stop you from doing what you love – only you can do that.

Also read:

• Finding myself: From programmer to singer, writer & researcher
• Work you love: A guide to discovering your passion and landing your dream job
• How to find your passion
• Work for love: Start the revolution

The post Two Ways That Money Steals Our Dreams (and How To Take Them Back) appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

We all know that something isn’t right with today’s society. Something is missing.

We go through life doing everything we’re suppose to: we go to work, we get married, we have children, we save for retirement. And yet, even if we follow this recipe exactly, we might still feel that life is empty and meaningless.

Although we’ve made incredible scientific progress, we aren’t any happier. To the contrary, depression and anxiety are at an all-time high.

What happened?!?

A Search for Meaning In The Technological Era

We entered the technological era with great hopes and aspirations. Technology was meant to serve us. But instead, we are serving it. Unable to create artificial humans, we have instead turned ourselves into machines.

Ever wonder what really makes us different from machines? The greatest mystery to scientists, stopping them from creating artificial intelligence, is emotion. Yes, our emotions are what set us apart from machines.

As we moved into the technological era, our society started to devalue emotion. In our worship of technology, we have adopted values that are more appropriate for machines than for people: we value perfection, rules, and control.

We are a society of overworked, exhausted, perfectionists with low self-esteem.

Emotions have no room in the world of machines. The machine must do what it’s told, no questions asked. Nobody cares if a machine had a rough day, if it’s heartbroken over a recent breakup, or if a machine is having an existential crisis.

Machines don’t have all these messy emotions, and so when we deal with machines, we expect them to obey. And if they don’t, then we either fix them or destroy them all together.

The problem is that we have come to treat ourselves like machines. We do what society expects of us regardless of how we feel about it. We smile when we are hurting. We say that we’re “fine” when we are depressed. We keep working well past our breaking point.

On the other hand, we also downplay our excitement and joy, for fear of appearing “too emotional” or plain old silly. So we end up suppressing the positive emotions along with the negative ones.

Emotions are messy. They interfere with order and they don’t follow the rules. They make it hard to behave like a well-oiled machine. So we silence our emotions.

We hide how we feel from others, and ultimately, even from ourselves, until we no longer even know how we feel.

As we systematically undervalue our emotions, we start to feel unsatisfied, lost, and confused. At this point, we may not even know why.

Discovering Your Purpose

Whenever there is a clear purpose, there are also powerful emotions.

Think back to a time when you really wanted something with all of your being. Something you wanted so badly that just the possibility of attaining it made your heart light up. That’s having a purpose. When we feel like this, then our life feels meaningful.

But, when instead we shut off our emotions, then we eliminate the possibility of being emotionally connected to anyone or anything. Our relationships feel empty, and we feel lost, perplexed, and unfulfilled.

The first step to discovering your own unique purpose is to reconnect with your emotions. Your emotions will show you what really matters to you, and light the way to your passion.

What is Passion?

Passion is the strongest of all emotions. The dictionary defines it as a “strong, barely controllable emotion.” Indeed, passion is when you let your emotions take over.

Passion represents everything that our society is not. It is emotion taken to the extreme. It is letting go of our rational mind and letting our feeling take over.

Letting your emotions lead you is not nearly as scary as it sounds. Society suggests to us that if we let out our emotions, then something is bound to explode.

Yet, having feelings is as natural as breathing. It is the foundation of the human experience. To learn how to connect with them, regulate, and express them is integral to a meaningful life.

As you get used to paying attention to your emotions, you will start to feel them stronger and stronger. Eventually, you will experience truly powerful emotions. This is when they can be called “passion.”

If emotions are what make us human, then passion is what makes life worth living. The stronger the emotion, the more alive you feel.

Nobody has to pause to ask themselves “Why am I here?” when they have passion in their heart. When you feel passion, you already know.

What’s beautiful about passion, is that it doesn’t ask us to conform. Passion is an emotion, and as such, it is unique to each one of us.

Your passions come from the very core of your being. When you feel passionate about something or someone, it gives purpose and meaning to your life.

Living passionately is being powerfully alive.

I created Great Living Now to help bring passion into our lives, focusing on the two most important areas of our lives: our relationships and our jobs.

Let me show you how you can find passion at work and at home.

FIND Passion in The Workplace

“Bread baked without love is a bitter bread
that feeds but half a man’s hunger”
~Abdul Kalam

Nowhere is passion as lacking as in the workplace. We literally force ourselves to get up in the morning to go to work. Then, we force ourselves to make it to lunch time. Then, we count down the hours until we go home.

I know because I was there, too.

We don’t have to live like this. We really don’t! Seriously, enough is enough.

Sure, we need money to survive. But, who said that we have to suffer to earn this money?!?

Influenced by our parents and the rest of society, most of us start off on career paths that leave us feeling empty. Then, years later, when we are finally old enough to question this, we feel that it is too late to do anything about it.

It is painful to me how much people underestimate their own abilities. If you spent just a few hours a week learning something, then you can become extremely good at it within a few years.

How many working years do you have left until retirement? How many of these years do you want to spend working at a job that feels like torture?

If you start today, then within a few years – or perhaps even sooner – you will be able to make a living from your passion. How many years of fulfilling work does this leave you with?

But for some of us, the problem goes deeper. We are so used to suppressing our emotions that some of us no longer even know what our passions are.

Go back to your childhood memories. Surely, you had dreams back then. Ask yourself the following questions: what brings you joy? What did you always want to learn? What would you do in a world where following your passion was normal?

It isn’t our fault that we end up with jobs that bore us and leave us feeling empty. Strong social forces brought us there when we were too young to fight back.

But, there is no reason to continue this kind of life for the rest of our days. You deserve better. And you can have better.

Find the courage to ask for what you want, and start following the path to passionate, personally meaningful work.

FIND Lasting Passion in Relationships 

Despite the social suppression of our emotions, there is one type of passion that has survived: passionate, romantic love. But, even in this one place where we still know passion, it usually doesn’t last. According to psychologists, passion usually dies down between the first 3 to 7 years of a relationship.

We even have a term for it; it’s called the “honeymoon phase.” But, what happens after the honeymoon phase? Well, then the passion dies. And with it, dies the relationship.

You see, unlike what we’re taught, passion isn’t an isolated thing. How attracted we feel to our partner is tightly intertwined with the rest of the relationship.  Passion is actually a reflection of the health of a relationship – much like a thermostat.

The reason that passion dies down is that we lose our individuality in the relationship. As romantic as it sounds, “two become one” doesn’t do any good for a relationships. When this state of oneness is allowed to go on for too long, it destroys passion.

The reason that being too close for too long has this devastating effect, is that it calls for an inordinate amount of sacrifice. Suppressing our differences comes at a high price: our ability to live life as we please.

In an effort to keep that feeling of intense closeness, people have been known to drop hobbies, relinquish personal space, stop seeing old friends, and suppress their opinions – to name a few. After enough sacrifice, it’s just not worth it. And when we hit the point where we’ve given up too much – even if it done of our own free will – attraction beings to taper off.

Restoring passion boils down to re-establishing the individuality of the two partners. It is the process where you once again become two different people. This requires reconnecting with your own feelings, needs and desires.

Becoming a strong, separate individual isn’t easy. It requires you to express how you feel. It calls for you to express your opinions even when they differ from your partner’s. It requires you to start putting yourself first. Being a separate person means that you need to ask for what you want, even if you aren’t sure if you’ll get it. And it’s about standing on your own two feet, instead of relying on your partner.

This is a difficult process, but when both partners can find the courage to become individuals again, the process rewards them with a passionate love that puts the “honeymoon phase” to shame.

To read more, check out my free report on how to restore passion in relationships.

***

We live in a world that values rules and structure and devalues emotions. Yet, it is our emotions that make us human.

More than anything else, our daily lives are lacking passion: passion for what we do, and passion for our partners.

By reconnecting with your emotions, you can get in touch with who you really are and what you really want. This is how you make fulfilling connections with others, and discover the meaning and purpose of your life.

When you live a passionate life, following what is in your heart, your life will be meaningful and deeply fulfilling.

A passionate life is a life worth living.

Truly yours,

Maya

The post Passion: Bringing Meaning To Our Existence appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

At the start of my journey, I often felt that pursuing your passion was a privilege of the rich. Trouble is, my family was anything but rich.

I come from a time and place where material goods were valued not because of greed or gluttony, but simply because there wasn’t enough to go around.

My grandfather on my mother’s side fought in the second world war, his unmoving glass eye a constant reminder of what he had suffered. My grandfather on my father’s side, a Holocaust survivor, was left a homeless orphan when the Nazis shot his entire family and took away all their possessions. They both knew what it was like to have nothing to eat.

By the time I came around, times were better, but I still remember the long lineups for bread. My mother would stay up all night stuffing pickles into jars so that there would be enough food for winter. Although both of my parents worked from morning till night, we were barely making ends meet.

This was life in the eighties in the Eastern European city of Gomel, where I was born.

Since I immigrated twice before the age of twelve, I spent the better part of my childhood living in government subsidized housing and wearing my older sister’s used clothes.

If someone would have told me back then that money isn’t all that important, I would have laughed.

My original career plan

When I was eighteen years old, I set out to have a safe career, effectively guaranteed to earn me a comfortable living. I was to become a manager at a software company, and I was well on my way to achieve this goal as I’d just gotten into a prestigious university.

Everything was looking great when, after my very first semester, I managed to land an internship at Sun Microsystems.

As a driven and hardworking person, I was determined to have a good career and earn a comfortable living, and nothing was going to stop me.

But then, something happened for which I was completely unprepared. As the internship went on, I began to notice my good mood fade away. Gradually, I started to be completely miserable.

I hated waking up in the morning. I hated the commute, the smog and downtown traffic. I hated coming in to work in the morning. Every minute that I spent in the office, I wished that I was somewhere else.

I tried very hard to like my job. I asked for, and received, a more challenging task. I took longer lunches. I tried making friends with my colleagues.

Nothing helped.

Eventually, I was forced to face the cold hard truth: I hated my job. In retrospect, I can tell that the job conflicted with the core of my personality, not giving me enough flexibility and room for creative expression. I had no idea how painful it could be to work at a job that didn’t match who I was.

By the end of the four-month internship, I was gasping for air.

That experience transformed my entire world view. I didn’t care anymore about being rich (or “comfortable,” as some might call it). I didn’t care about how prestigious my career might be. I only cared about not suffering like that ever again.

From money to love – Finding Myself

Now, I would like to tell you that, after a bit of soul searching, I found the one job that fit me like a glove, and then lived happily ever after. But, it wasn’t quite so simple. My journey took me along many twists and turns. It took many years to peal away the layers of fear and insecurity, and create a life that is congruent with who I really am.

I can tell you one thing, though: since then, I have learned how to make money doing what I love. I financed the rest of my computer science education by being a teaching assistant. Teaching didn’t come easy to me, and it paid a lot less and was a lot less prestigious than an industry job. But, I loved it. I gave it my all until, by the end of the first semester, my class rewarded me with a standing ovation (no joke).

My next adventure was when I decided to try my hands at research. I didn’t want to teach at a high-school, and teaching at a university level requires a PhD.

I thought to myself, “Do I have what it takes to do research?” I had no idea, and I was very scared. Bit by bit, I entered the elusive world of academia, and made it my own. Both teaching and research offered me the flexibility I craved and the creative outlet that I needed.

I was so happy that I couldn’t care less about how much I was making, just as long as I could make ends meet. But, the irony of it all was that I ended up getting so many scholarships that I earned more than most of my friends who were working in industry while I was in school.

Eventually, I also found the courage to go after a long forgotten dream: singing. Today, I am semi-professional singer. But, above all else, I discovered writing; the love of my life. And so, I was able to turn passion into money more than once.

Helping others

As I was traveling along my own path, I couldn’t help but notice others who struggle working at a job that brings them neither joy nor satisfaction. After talking with more than a few, and figuring out what keeps them from making a change, I began to notice patterns. I started making it part of my mission to help these people work towards their dreams.

Naturally, I couldn’t reach very many people one-on-one. That’s when, as a writer, I realized what I needed to do.

I spent the last few months working hard to put together a book that would help others along their journey to meaningful, fulfilling work. I am so excited to announce the release of Work You Love!

Work You Love gives you concrete, actionable steps to finding your calling, landing your dream job, and turning it into something that pays the bills.

Working at a job you love doesn’t have to be just a dream. It isn’t something that is reserved for the rich or lucky few.

No one should have to suffer for a paycheck. Everyone can make a living doing what they love. Sometimes, we just need a little help, and that’s what my book is for.

Now is the time for all of us to take charge or our lives.  Start your journey towards work that is fulfilling and deeply satisfying – work that you love.

Your truly,

Maya

The post Finding Myself: From Programmer To Singer, Writer & Researcher appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

I had a life-changing conversation the other day. The lady I was talking with spoke with such conviction, such energy, and such passion. “We create our reality,” she said.

She spoke about the law of attraction - which is how our beliefs form the foundation of our experiences. She described in detail our vibrations and how they interact with the universe. Although I’ve heard it all before, and dismissed it long ago, I was moved to my very core by her passion.

Her words penetrated me. All of a sudden, I could recall countless examples from my life that supported what she was saying.

Yet, there was my mind, my academically trained mind, standing in my way. Ten years of education would do that to anyone: It isn’t enough that it feels right. I need to understand.

I’ve wondered about this ever since. Can there really be such a thing as The Law of Attraction? If so, then how does it work?!? I felt that there is something there, and yet, I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Then, last week, I was visiting a friend who is a psychologist. I took a deep breath. Maybe she could help me solve this mystery?

Upon hearing my question, she went right to her computer, and pulled out an academic paper. Here it was! The answer I’ve been looking for, staring me in the face. “The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships,” was the title of the article.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. The three words to solve the mystery: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. I’ve known it all along, but did not connect the dots until then.

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy

The term “self-fulfilling prophecy,” coined by  sociologist Robert K. Merton, refers to an expectation that causes us to behave in way that leads to the realization of that expectation.

What’s amazing is that psychologists were able to create studies that proved the existence of such prophecies.  The classical study on self-fulfilling prophecies was in the classroom setting.

A small number of students were selected at random. Then, the experimenter told the teacher that these students are “bloomers,” and so they’re bound to improve their academic standing sometime in the near future. Following that, the experimenter left.

When the experimenter returned at the end of the year, the academic standing of these randomly selected students had radically improved.

How could that be? The students were selected randomly. The information told to the teacher was simply false. Yet, the teacher’s belief that it was true caused the prophecy to come true.

“Knowing” that these kids are about to become better students affected how the teacher interacted with them. The belief that a student will soon show radical improvement in their academic performance caused the teacher to interact, challenge, and praise the student more than the teacher would do otherwise.

OK, but this study talks about a teacher’s belief about the student. Is there something that proves that our beliefs shape our own reality?

A more recent study of close relationships shows that believing that our relationship will end creates this very result. Namely, people who believe that their partner will reject them end up creating the very rejection that they fear.

Was this the law of attraction or a self-fulfilling prophecy? For once, spirituality and science unite: we do create our own reality.

A note about the straw man

A straw-man argument is a form of argument that reduces the opponent’s position to something ludicrous, and then easily dismisses it.

As I was doing research for this article, I ran into many critics who used a straw-man argument to attack The Law of Attraction. They would say stuff like, what happens during an airplane crash? Do you really believe that everyone on the plane had a secret death wish? And what about childhood illness, and wars?

This is where I take out my mathematician hat. What these critics are missing is that life is all about probabilities. Nothing is certain.

When psychologists say that something causes something else, all they mean is that it increases the odds of that event. So, for example, if they say that taking the time to go out on dates prevents divorce, all they mean is that going out on dates reduces the probability of divorce.

The same applies to the Law of Attraction, or, the scientific term, Self-Fulfilling prophecy. By believing something, we don’t guarantee that it will happen. Rather, we increase the probability that it will occur. Things can still happen that utterly and completely surprise us. And not everything that we believe will come to pass.

But believing something radically increases the chances that it will occur. And since nothing is certain, this is as good as it gets.

The Feedback Between Beliefs and BEHAVIOR

The main reason that our expectations are so powerful is because they influence our behavior. What we believe about our world influences how we behave.

But, it goes even further. There is a feedback loop between beliefs and behavior that works to strengthen our initial assumptions. Our beliefs influence our behavior  which creates situations that reinforce our beliefs, making our beliefs even stronger, which affects our reality even more, and so on and so forth.

For example, say you are about to meet a new colleague who was transferred from another office. You heard that this person is particularly unpleasant and difficult to be around. These expectations will undoubtedly color your interactions with this person, making you more reserved and less open to them.

On the other hand, if you had heard that people from other office were upset to lose this person, a person who was the life of the party and loved by everyone, then you would likely behave very differently towards them from the beginning.

Now, here comes the interesting part. The way that you behave with this colleague will in turn influence how they behave with you. If you seem excited to meet them, tell them about yourself, and act happy and relaxed when they’re around, then that person is a lot more likely to be friendly in return, thus creating the opportunity for friendship.

On the other hand, when we are careful and reserved around someone, that causes them to shut down and keep to themselves, closing the doors to any friendship that may have developed.

How our beliefs influence how we interpret reality

Not only do your beliefs affect how you act, they also influence how to interpret what does happen.

This is easiest to see this effect is by looking at married couples. In many ways, both members of a couple lives under similar circumstances. In particular, many couples share finances.

Yet, despite having precisely the same number of dollars in the bank, I’ve seen partners who feel completely different from each other about their financial situation. It’s quite astonishing: One can actually think of themselves as poor, while the other feels rich! The “poor” partner would be stressed out about money, desperately trying to find more sources of income, while the “rich” spouse is peacefully enjoying, feeling that there is nothing to worry about.

For another example, let’s take a look at how our beliefs color our interpretation of reality in interpersonal relationships. Say we feel secure in a relationship. We believe that we are loved, and that our partner will never leave us. Everything is going fine, until one day, our partner comes home out-of-sorts. They are irritable and down right unfriendly.

To reconcile our beliefs with their behavior  we are likely to conclude that they had a rough day at work, and let them be. “Honey, why don’t you go and calm down, and come talk to me when you feel better,” we might say. Or, we could even go a step further,  saying “Did anything happen at work? Is there anything I can do to help you feel better?”A friendly, thoughtful response will likely lead to a peaceful resolution, and will certainly not escalate the problem.

On the other hand, if we feel insecure in our relationship, then the same event would elicit a very different reaction. We might get flustered and start a fight, escalating the situation and potentially damaging the relationship.

How we manifest positive and negative expectations

Many of our expectations can be classified as positive and negative.

Negative expectations lead to stress. The stress, in turn, makes it difficult to think on your feet and make the right choices. Consequently, the negative expectations manifest into reality.

Virtually all situations benefits from a relaxed, peaceful mind. Whenever we expect a result that we don’t want, then we worry. Stress makes it a lot harder to get what we want. This isn’t the only way that negative expectations can lead to the manifestation of what is feared, but it is a common pathway.

Now, let’s consider what happens when we have a positive expectation.

When we believe that something that we want is supposed to happen to us, (for example, we believe that we will be promoted, or meet a suitable partner) then we are a lot more likely to work towards that goal. On the flip side, when we don’t think that it’s going to happen, what’s the point of wasting our time trying to attain it?

So, if you believe that you are going to get promoted, you are likely to work hard to make sure that you “don’t mess it up.” If you believe that you will soon meet the love of your life, then you will probably get out more and maybe even try online dating. Who wants to stand in the way of their own good fortune?

Not only do positive expectations cause us to act on our goals, but they also lead to persistence  Again, this isn’t the only way that positive expectations lead those who hold them to create what they expect, but is one common pathway.

For example, armed with the belief that we will soon be promoted, we are likely to continue to strive towards that goal even if we were not selected in the current round of promotions. Beliefs lead to creative solutions. We might talk to our boss about what we can do to earn the promotion next time, or even convince them that we deserve it.

If you believe with all your heart that your business will succeed, then you will put in the time and effort to make it happen. When something doesn’t go your way, instead of viewing it as failure and giving up, you will align reality with your beliefs and conclude that this is a just a small setback and work even harder to get things back on track.

My experience has shown me that the same principle works for interpersonal relationships. When my husband and I were having a rough time, I decided that we were going to stay together. I had no idea how to make that happen, but I read every book I could get my hands on and asked everyone for advice, until we finally figured out the problem and fixed our relationship. Had I not believed that it was possible to repair our marriage, today, we would not be together.

***

The research I did for this article reminded me of the importance of being open-minded. I was delighted to discovered that there is real, scientific evidence for The Law of Attraction. And yet, there is so much more that is currently in the spiritual realm that has yet to be proven scientifically.

Take a moment to consider how the law of attraction has effected you in the past. Did you ever experience a self-fulfilling prophecy? Please, share you thoughts with us!

Understanding the science behind The Law of Attraction is the first step towards utilizing it. But, there is more you can do. In the next few weeks, I will put together an article showing you how you can using The Law of Attraction, or Self-fulfilling Prophecies, so that you can become a more active participant in the creation of your own destiny. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive free email alerts when our articles come out.

Your truly,

Maya

The post The Science Behind The Law of Attraction appeared first on Great Living Now.

By David Loker

How to love your job? The question seems daunting. But a few years ago, I was dying to know the answer.

I didn’t believe that loving my job was an option. I thought disliking your job was normal and even expected. So here I was, working 9-5 at a large software company, got paid, and tried to enjoy the remaining time I had at home.

This pattern led to a deep depression and left me deeply lost and confused. Through baby steps, I worked my way out of the depression and stumbled upon a passion that had eluded me for years.

Since then, passionate living has become my new mantra. I believe that everyone should enjoy that passion throughout their lives.

While there seems to be a consensus that we should have passionate relationships, being passionate about our work is something most of us don’t get to experience. In fact, approximately 80% of people dislike their job. I think that’s tragic and completely unnecessary.

What upsets me even more is that society teaches people to believe that disliking their job is perfectly fine. As a result, it has become normal to not only dislike your job, but to be complacent about not liking it.

We feel that we’re not even supposed to like our jobs! How did we end up in such a sorry state of affairs?

Let me clarify something here. While I am not OK with working at a job I dislike, I am willing to accept the need to work at such a job while I am working towards something better. If I am not constantly (as in every day) making progress to that end, then I know I’m in trouble and need to take a step back, clear my head, and get back on track.

Why It’s OK To Dislike Your Job

It’s not. Not really.

Like I said, if I have to take a crappy job temporarily while I go to school for something better, then I think it’s worth it. If I have obligations and responsibilities then I might work somewhere I don’t like while striving for something more. But I have to take action.

This section is titled this way because I have found that many people have been conditioned (against their will) into believing that it’s perfectly fine to dislike their job. They feel that way because society tells them to be realistic, and that they are all cogs in the wheels of machines created by people greater than themselves.

But, if anything is ever going to get better, we had better start believing it’s possible. We can only succeed if first we dare to dream.

My dream is that 100% of us love what we do. That might be unrealistic, but I just don’t care.

How To Love Your Job

You may have guessed if you skipped a bit to look at the headings, but I’m not here to tell you how to love your current job. As I listen to a few of you groan over my poor choice of title, hear me out.

I’m not saying you have to quit your job right now in order to find a job you love. The first step is simply being willing to experiment. If you are reading this, I think perhaps you are willing.

Where there is a will, there is a way. But in this case, it’s your way and you must carve it out for yourself. Taking action is the only way that can happen.

What should you do? In short, you should pursue your passion! Find work that makes your heart skip a beat and keeps you up at night with excitement!

Of course, there are many details in how you should go about doing that. To get into everything would take an entire book. But, here are four points to get you started.

1) Get Over Your Fears

We often underestimate ourselves because we’re afraid. We tell ourselves it’s OK to dislike our job, because we’re afraid to risk trying something else.

Instead of allowing fear to rule, we have to start purposefully doing things that scare us. Push our limits. Test those boundaries. Try something new! Turn your fears into fuel!

Make breaking fear a habit. Do it as often as you can. Once you do, taking the risk of making your job one that you love will come naturally.

For another unique perspective on fear, try reading Overcoming Fear by Nadia Ballas-Ruta or Fear & How To Beat It by Tina Su on Think Simple Now.

2) Find Your Passion

Perhaps you know what your passion is, but some of us don’t. I certainly didn’t, when I was working 9-5 at a job I loathed.

Experimentation is key here, and for that you need to be willing to try things you might be afraid of, at first. But then again, you’re not afraid of anything any more, right?

Another thing that helps in this regard is knowing yourself. Your dream job is going to be as unique as you are. Understanding your values and what excites you is paramount.

Unlike some people, I am staunchly against the notion of talent. Forget talent. If you can’t do it now, but you are passionate about it, you can learn it! You absolutely, 100% can most definitely learn the skill required to be great at it. But you must be committed to it, passionate down to the bone, and be willing to work hard!

3) Dare to Dream

No success will come unless we first dare to dream.

With fear being kicked to the curb, it’s time to dream big. There is no room for failure or realistic in this discussion. If you want big things for your life, you can’t start by dreaming small. Dream so big that no matter what happens, you’re bound to end up with a job that you love.

Dare to dream that you can find/create a job so amazing, that you can’t even sleep. Make your dream so ridiculously good that it’s like you’ve fallen in love for the first time.

4) Take Action

Remove all sense of complacency from your mind. It has no place in the new world you’re creating for yourself. You are now the master of your own destiny, and sitting there wishing things were different is not part of your agenda.

Plan out what you need to do, and start taking action to accomplish it. Set goals, and then break those goals down.

Perhaps a goal is simply to find your passion. That could be given a month-long timeline, or longer. But don’t stop there, break it down further into what exactly you’re going to do about it. How are you going to go about finding your passion? What are you going to try first?

Whatever you do, do something!

After several months of hard work, we are excited to finally bring you something to help those who find themselves part of the 80% who dislike their jobs: a comprehensive guide to finding and pursuing your passion. I am so excited to announce the upcoming release of our ebook “Work For Love,” coming out this February!

“Work for Love,” will show you what’s really standing between you and a fulfilling career. In “Work for Love,” we will show you how to discover your dream job and how to make a living from your passion. It is especially designed to help you transition from dreaming to reality through action.

In gratitude to our readers for their support and encouragement, all of our subscribers (prior to the book’s release) will receive an exclusive discount upon the release of “Work for Love.” Join our free mailing list to receive your discount and be the first to know when the book is released!

The post How To Love Your Job appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Almog and Shir Shanun

John Lennon, the wise philosopher, said that “all you need is love.”

But, there is a deep valley separating philosophy from real life. Sometimes, we need more than just love to make a relationship work.

Don’t get me wrong, love is an important ingredient. But to keep the love alive, we need more than just philosophy. Love is all we need as long as we are also willing to work hard to keep it alive. Relationships cannot be sustained without constant rejuvenation and reinvention.

Valentine’s Day reminds us that we need to celebrate our love. But, the truth is that we need to remind ourselves how to truly love for the remaining 364 days of the year. And as the years go by, we need to work harder and harder to sustain it.

Long-term relationships go through tremendous change and the expectations/projections we started with are lost over the years. As time goes by, we lose some of these projections that we hang so neatly on our partner and consequently develop disappointments, anger, and sometimes even hatred towards our loved ones. In order to keep the love going, we need to resolve these emotions.

Why Relationships Go Through Hard Times

We all begin a relationship with projections. These projections are expectations that we hope that our partner will fulfill. We believe that our partners are more than what they truly are and we project these beliefs on them. We imagine our partners to be flawless, with only desirable qualities – the solution to all of our problems.

Unfortunately, these beliefs are not real. Slowly, we learn to see our partners for who they really are. What we need to realize is that projections are completely natural, and that losing them is not a bad thing.

Slowly, as time goes by, we progress from having projections to feeling alienation from our partner. When you become alienated, you want to wash your hands of your partner – you want nothing to do with them. At the start of a relationship, no one can imagine that this would happen to them, and yet this is very common, particularly without therapeutic intervention.

The only way to resolve the painful emotions that can arise in a relationship is to recognize them before they become too substantial and we cross the “line of no return.” The outcome does not have to be grim, because all issues in a relationship can be solved.

As we progress on this axis, moving from projection to alienation (The evaluation and treatment of marital conflict. Philip J Geurin, et al.), we need to remember that both we and our partners move separately along this line. While we can be full of bitterness or even hatred, our partner can be oblivious to the emotions that we carry inside. In most cases, we are simply not on the same page.

The good news is even that can be solved quite simply. We can do it by following 4 simple steps

1. Recognizing the problem

Recognizing the problem can be hard. Sometimes, we need a ton of bricks to fall on our heads before we finally notice it.

The easiest way to recognize that a problem has come up is to notice when things are different. When we find ourselves suddenly not sharing everything, or when we find that the things that were easy to say become hard, then we can tell that something has gone wrong.

At this point, we can no longer deny the existence of the problem and we need to take steps to keep it from deteriorating the relationship even further.

2. Admitting That There Is a Problem 

Once we recognize it, we need to admit, sometimes even verbally, that something is not working.

Admitting a problem does not mean that we failed or that the relationship is not working at all. It is simply an admission that some part of the relationship needs a tune-up.

If our car is low on oil then we fill it up, we don’t get rid of it or say that we can’t use it anymore! The same is true for relationships – we fix the things that need fixing, and we continue to celebrate the things that are working.

In order to admit that something is not working, we need to sit down with our partner and talk about how we feel. In the beginning, it might seem hard or artificial, but as time goes by we will learn to do it naturally and periodically.

Talking about problems is the best way to admit that they exist. After all, if we don’t fight and talk about our problems, then we have failed the relationship anyway.

3. Finding Ways To Resolve The Problem

Sometimes, even commonly, we cannot do this on our own. For many problems we require the help of a professional. Therapy is not bad or evil; going to a therapist is not an admittance of failure.

Problems that require therapy are more common than you might think and going to therapy can bring better outcomes than ignoring the problem or then failing to resolve it alone.

Many couples believe that a successful relationship means continual happiness, or, at the very least, no ground shattering moments of conflicts that effectively hang the relationship on a thread.

This fantasy of a couple that resolves all crises moments, conflicts and painful moments all by themselves reminds me of an old family taboo where dirty laundry must never be washed in public, and reaching out for the help is frowned upon.

In the real world, successful relationships are forged in moments of happiness as well as in moments of hardships, and asking for help is a sign of strength. Reaching to our partner and to the world around us are the basis of any successful and fulfilling relationship.

When we can’t reach a common ground with our partner, therapy can become a useful solution, especially because we are not always on the same page. Most couples postpone going to therapy until they’ve crossed the point of no return. At that point, going to therapy is a test to see whether the relationship is over.

We don’t have to wait for a crisis to arise to see a professional. We can go to see a therapist periodically for short times to get that tune-up and sustain the relationship.

Again, it is easier to go see a therapist when a crisis presents itself because this might be the only way to save the relationship. The question that we need to ask ourselves is: are we going to solve problems only when the relationship is in danger?

Therapy is often the nurturing place were struggling couples can perfect their capacity to be intimate, passionate, and loving with one another and not as a last resort. Imagine reaching out for help at the all-or-nothing moment as a last option before your relationship is coming to an end vs. engaging in a mutual journey of discovering yourselves and your partner.

After we’ve recognized the problem and admitted its existence, we are then free to find a solution and grow from this experience. Whether we solve it by ourselves or see a professional, solving the problem enables us to resume dealing with one another with passion and love. Solving our issues will get us back on track so we can celebrate our relationship instead of being burdened by it.

4. Work on keeping the love alive until the next problem

Lastly, we have to remember that this work will never end. We will have to work out new problems and new difficulties for as long as the relationship is alive. A relationship that doesn’t require work is a relationship that we have given up on.

Relationships are not easy, but this is also what makes them special – as long as we love, we can grow, learn and continue to renew our love.

So, John was very much on target – love is all we need to work on, so that we can continue to have all that we need.

I wish you luck and I hope that these words will inspire you to strengthen your relationship and to see that working hard can be a fun and enriching thing. After all, things that come too easily are never as fulfilling as those that we work hard to achieve.

The post 4 Steps To Keep The Love Alive appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

Would you marry someone you didn’t love?

What if they were rich? No? How about famous? No, you wouldn’t. Forgive me for suggesting something so preposterous.

Why not? Because, in today’s society, we know that nothing can replace how we feel about our partner. No amount of wealth or fame can compensate for what’s in our heart. But, I’d like to remind you that this wasn’t always the case.

There was a time when marrying for love was not only rare, but frowned upon. You were expected to choose your partner based on much more “reasonable” considerations, such as money and social standing.

Furthermore, you weren’t trusted to make the decision on your own. Your parents, who have more experience and generally “know better” were entrusted with the task. They found you a “reasonable” partner, one that provided you with financial stability and/or an improved social status.

For a long time, those who were unsatisfied with the status quo, those who exclaimed to the world that they would settle for nothing less than love, were ignored, disregarded, and labelled ”irrational”.

But today, we know better. The marrying-for-love revolution was a success.

It All Comes Down To Happiness

Allow me to take a short detour. Why do we even care so much about our personal relationships?

One answer comes from psychological research on happiness. Scientists showed that the two most important factors in our happiness are relationship and job satisfaction. More precisely, what matters is how we feel about our relationships and our job.

The marrying-for-love revolution successfully addressed one of those issues. We now strive for relationships that bring us profound joy – in other words, we seek relationships with those we love.

But what about our job?

The Work for Love Revolution

When it comes to the work we do, we still have a long way to go.

It is perfectly normal to dislike our job. In fact, a whopping 80% of people dislike theirs!

Our parents continue to play a central role in directing, and sometimes even dictating, our career choice. We are expected to strive for work that brings us nothing other than money and prestige.

Now, I am the last person to suggest that you should work for free, or that you could somehow manage without money. But, when money and prestige dominate the reasons behind our career choice, at the expense of how we feel about we do, then we end up suffering.

When we don’t love our job, we are left feeling empty and unsatisfied. We are not living up to our potential, and we know it.

We suffer in silence, our only consolation is that we are not alone – many people don’t like their jobs. “You gotta do what you gotta do,” we keep repeating to ourselves.

And, yet, there is a part of of us that has never given up. It is tired of sacrificing our life, our precious time, and our very being.

It is time for a change.

We don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to live like this. Together, we can successfully push through the work-for-love revolution, so that our children will live in a world where loving your job is normal.

Let us learn from the brave souls who stood up against society, saying, “I will not marry unless I am in love!” One by one, we can lead society to a new way of working: working for love.

We need to stand together and be the change we want in the world. This revolution isn’t mine. It is all of ours – everyone who wants to be a part of it. If you want to join our revolution, leave a comment below with a “I’m in!” or “Hell yea!” or whatever strikes you! Let’s do this!

Ever since the inception of this blog, I wanted to help my readers discover passion in their lives and help them find the courage to go after their dreams. I wrote many articles on the subject, but kept getting emails from people asking for advice on what they should do with their lives.

I thought to myself, “How can I do more to help?” That’s when I took a deep breath and began one of the biggest projects of my life.

I thought back to every person I’d ever helped go after their dreams. What was really stopping them? What ultimately helped them go after what they always wanted? I dug back through years of my life. What helped me to overcome the allure of the “big bucks” from the software industry, discover my passion, and go after my dreams?

After several months, I finally have something to help those who find themselves part of the 80% who dislike their jobs: a comprehensive guide to finding and pursuing your passion. I am so excited to announce the upcoming release of my ebook “Work For Love,” coming out this February!

“Work for Love,” will show you what’s really standing between you and a fulfilling career. In “Work for Love,” I will show you how to discover your dream job and how to make a living from your passion. It is especially designed to help you transition from dreaming to reality through action.

In gratitude to our readers for their support and encouragement, all of our subscribers (prior to the book’s release) will receive an exclusive discount upon the release of “Work for Love.” Join our free mailing list to receive your discount and be the first to know when the book is released!

–

The post Work for Love: Start the Revolution! appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

I’ve always known that, like kale and vitamin C, mindfulness is good for you – - but I didn’t know what it was really for, or how to use it.

Mindfulness is the attentive awareness of how things really are, in the present moment. Emotional mindfulness is the attentive awareness of how you feel in the present moment, without reacting, judging or trying to change your emotions.

Emotional mindfulness turns the tables around: instead of trying to control our feelings, it challenges us to trust in the wisdom of our feelings, and learn from them.

OK, this may sound simple and a little mystical… how useful can this possibly be? Initially, I was definitely not convinced.

But, then I started applying emotional mindfulness unintentionally, and gradually increased its use, until it became an essential part of my life. Recently, it dawned on me that emotional mindfulness is in fact one of the very best tools for achieving and maintaining happiness. I also saw why being mindful of our emotions makes us happy, and how to apply emotional mindfulness in our daily lives.

To understand why emotional mindfulness helps with happiness, let’s first take a quick look at what happiness is really all about.

A closer look at happiness

First, let’s establish an important point: our happiness is entirely dependent on our emotions. The more moments in which we experience positive emotions, such as joy, excitement, or simple contentment, the happier we are. On the other hand, experiencing moments with negative emotions, like boredom, frustration, and disappointment, detracts from our overall happiness.

This simple observation is also at the heart of how psychologists define happiness.

Second, psychologists discovered that the two most important factors of our happiness are relationship and job satisfaction. This makes perfect sense in light of the importance that emotions play in our happiness: when we have good relationships and love our job, then we experience many positive emotions, which then literally makes us happy.

So where does emotional mindfulness come in? I discovered that mindfulness is the key to figuring out who we should form relationships with and what jobs will ultimately bring us the most satisfaction. Furthermore, when we are anxious or feeling blue, mindfulness can help us figure out the root of our problems so that we can address them and return to our natural state of happiness.

How Emotional Mindfulness Leads to Happiness

Since happiness is all about emotions, all we need to do to be happy is engage in activities and associate with people who make us feel good.

Now, most of us already try to do this. The problem is that it can be a lot harder than it seems.

It was a hard pill to swallow: I realized that I am no good at explaining or predicting my own emotions. These are my emotions, shouldn’t I have a good grip on them?

But here is the thing. We only have direct access to the conscious part of our mind. However, most of our emotions are stored in the unconscious part of our brain.

So, when you ask yourself, “Why am I upset?” or, “Why am I happy?” you are really asking your conscious mind to figure out what is happening in your unconscious.

Understanding how we feel requires insight into our unconscious. And this is a very, very hard thing to do. Psychologists have been trying to crack this since the inception of the field.

Now, here is where emotional mindfulness comes in.

By practicing emotional mindfulness, you take on the role of the scientist.  Just like a scientist, you spend some time collecting data. There is no guessing when you collect data. You simply observe how you feel in different situations and around people, and keep track of this information. To help yourself remember, you may want to keep a journal.

Don’t rush to make any conclusions. Soon enough, a pattern will arise. You will begin to notice that you tend to feel the same way in similar situations and around the same people. You can then make an informed prediction: if you consistently feel a certain way in a specific situation or when you are around some person, then you are likely to feel the same way in the future under the same conditions.

Once you have enough data and some predictions based on your observations, you can choose to put yourself in situations and associate with people that actually make you feel good. If you discover that certain people or situations repeatedly bring on negative emotions, you can decide whether you want to continue to put yourself in those situations or if some problem requires fixing.

Below are some concrete examples of how to apply these ideas.

How to Use Emotional Mindfulness to…

1) Form Happy Relationships

I used to have it all figured out. I wanted to marry a guy who was smart, tall, blue eyed… I kept all these lists because I truly believed that being with such a guy would make me happy.

Then, I found a guy who was a living embodiment of my list, and after only three weeks of dating him, I found myself miserable. But, I wasn’t about to give up. For three long years, I desperately tried to make that relationship work. After all, it took so long to find someone who satisfied my every requirement.

When that relationship finally ended, I was so tired and disappointed that I threw away my list. Instead of coming up with yet another checklist of requirements, I decided to try to find someone with whom I felt good. That’s it. So when I went on dates, I was mindful of how I was feeling. And when I started a relationship, I paid close attention to how I felt about my life in general, and about myself in particular.

Simply paying attention to how you feel around people right now is the best predictor of they will influence your happiness in the future. These lists we make are nothing more than guesses. On the other hand, when you are actually spending time with a person, you know how you feel.

Next time you are on a date, observe how you feel. Do you feel relaxed, interested, and excited? Or are you tense, bored, and self-conscious? It might take more than one date, but soon enough you will see a pattern.

In the end of the day, the way someone makes you feel, in the past and the present, is the best predictor of how they are going to make you feel in the future. And when it comes to happiness, how we feel is all that matters.

Let me note here that all relationships – even the best ones – go through difficulties. If your relationship is going through a rough patch, there is much you can do to repair it.

The same principle applies to our other relationships. Just like we choose our partners, we also choose our friends. Pay attention to how you feel around your friends, and keep mental notes. If we have friends that ruin our mood on a regular basis, then the friendship is taking away from our happiness. Becoming aware of how you feel around different people can help you decide who is contributing to your overall happiness, and who is detracting from it.

2) Discover work that makes you happy

We spend so much of our time at work. In fact, by the time that most of us get home, there is very little time, and hardly any energy, to do anything else. This is why job satisfaction is so important for our overall happiness.

But first, we need to discover what job will make us happy, and this is where mindfulness comes in.

You see, just like with relationships, when it comes to work, we are often focused on an artificial list of requirements. The primary one is, of course, money.

Without our realizing it, we are taught that money brings happiness, and so we narrow down the careers we consider to those that can easily bring a comfortable living. But it doesn’t even end there. We are also taught to give high priority to prestigious jobs, those that will bring us the admiration of our peers. This is equally misleading, and shortens our list of potential jobs even further.

Just like with relationships, when it comes to finding a job that we love, we need to pay attention to how we feel when we engage in different activities. Practicing emotional mindfulness will lead us to a job that will make us happy merely by doing it, regardless of any external reward we may receive.

To discover your passion, go out and try different things. Always wanted to be a singer? Go out and take a singing class. Want to be a teacher?
Considering tutoring in your free time. Try out jobs that you think you may like, and pay attention to how you feel when you try them.

Predicting which job we will like is very hard to do. So many of us get entire degrees only to discover that we cannot stand working at the job for which we were trained. This is why it is so important to try out jobs that you think you may like before making a commitment. On the other hand, when we give ourselves permission to experiment and really pay attention to how we feel when we engage in different activities, we may discover our dream job in the least expected place.

So go out and experiment. What you find may surprise you. If you would like to learn more about how to discover and pursue your passion, stay tuned for the release of my book Work of Love, coming out this February!

3) Get to the root of our problems

Be it depression, anxiety, or just a bad mood that won’t go away – when we feel bad and don’t know why, the bad feeling persists.

Of course, sometimes, our mood isn’t always a mystery to us. Maybe we just had an argument with our spouse, or a disagreement with our boss. At such times, the reason is clear.

But at other times, we keep trying to figure out what’s wrong, desperately fixing one thing after another, only to have the bad feeling return time and time again.

Since getting to the root of our problems requires accessing the unconscious mind, it isn’t surprising why it is so difficult to do.

Let me give you an example from my own life. In several of my previous articles, I shared one of the most difficult experiences of my life, when my husband and I were inches from divorce. What I didn’t talk about is that a few months before our problems were brought to light, I started feeling anxious and I had no idea what was happening.

It seemed as if everything was going great. “I love my job, I have a beautiful baby boy, and a wonderful marriage,” I kept telling myself.

My “wonderful marriage” was so important to me, and such a large part of my self-image, that I simply could not admit to myself that something could be wrong in this department. In all my attempts to figure out why I was feeling so tense, I didn’t even consider my marriage as a potential cause.

But, in retrospect, the answer was there all along. On some level, I was aware that being around my husband had become increasingly stressful. I have many recollections of my mood radically dropping when I’d get home from work.

The problem was that I wasn’t mindful of these emotions. Instead of admitting the pattern, and addressing the problem, I was pretending that the problem did not exist. By the time my husband and I realized that we had a problem, it was already quite severe. Luckily we figured out how to repair our relationship, but it was also an important lesson in mindfulness.

Now, when I feel out of sorts, I begin to pay close attention to how I feel throughout my day. When are the bad feelings strongest? Do I feel more stressed at home or at work? Is the stress worse when I am around a particular person, or when I am doing a specific activity? Within about a week, I can usually identify the root of my problem, and get on to fixing what is really bothering me.

***

Emotional mindfulness is one of the most effective shortcuts to happiness. But there are many more. As a gift to all our readers, I recently wrote an e-book about how to achieve and sustain happiness. And, for a limited time, it’s available for free! If you haven’t already, get your free copy of Hacking Happiness.

Lastly, I would love to hear your thoughts on emotional mindfulness. How else does emotional mindfulness make us happy? What are your experiences with emotional mindfulness? How has it effected your life?

Have a mindful and happy day!

Yours truly,

Maya

–

The post Emotional Mindfulness: Your Gateway To Happiness appeared first on Great Living Now.

By David Loker

Awhile back, I noticed that my days were getting hectic. I found myself wishing there were more hours in the day.

Toward the evening, I would be getting ready for bed wondering where all my time went. It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting stuff done, I just felt like I could be doing a lot more

At some point, it finally struck me that I should actually sit down and figure it out. As a result of that endeavor, I’ve discovered the following 8 simple tips for having a more productive day.

1. Track Your Internet Social Time

As a nation, we are constantly connected. Our phones get email, twitter, and Facebook feeds. We get popups on our screen when new email arrives. We’re on Facebook or Google+, combing through updates and commenting, sharing, liking, etc. We browse instagram, and share photos of our own.

Nomophobia, which is the fear of being without your phone, is on the rise.

All this constant updating gives us too many ways to distract ourselves. My solution: disconnect, kind of.

Track how much time you spend on services like Facebook, twitter, Google+, etc. Try limiting yourself to 30 minutes a day. I would also recommend trimming down to only two services – like twitter/Facebook, or some other combination. You should also try following fewer people, if you choose to stay on twitter.

It might seem difficult at first, but try it for a week or two, and see if you actually miss anything important (to you).

I got rid of my smart phone recently, and I don’t miss the constant updates. In fact, I rather enjoy not being responsible for emailing/tweeting/facebooking back instantaneously.

I also cut back on my usage of Facebook, and, after a couple weeks, I didn’t miss it. I check my feed two or three times a week, checking in on close family and friends.

2. Limit Time Spent Checking Email

I used to have this problem in spades! All of my email windows were constantly popping up with new messages. Most of the messages were spam, but I would go look at them anyway.

As a result of this constant influx of email jumping up on my screen, I was always being distracted from my task. If I was writing, it would require a short break. Then, it would take me another bit to get back into my train of thought. I was just wasting time, and I thought I was actually doing something productive by checking email.

This isn’t a new concept, but there is no need to check email constantly. Instead, check in a few times a day at specific times, and tell everyone to call you if they have something urgent.

The time you’ll save from switching back and forth between tasks is worth the delay that others will receive from not receiving an instant response.

Of course, if your business involves reading emails, then reading email really isn’t necessarily a waste of time. Just make sure to tell others not to send any non-work emails to that account.

3. TAKE PLANNED BREAKS

I need breaks. I can’t work non-stop and expect to stay at peak performance.

There’s no reason to take a break if you’re on a roll and don’t want to stop. But, it’s more important that you don’t push yourself, and force yourself to continue even when you should take a break.

According to James A. Levine of the Mayo Clinic, the general guidelines are as follows: work in intense bursts of about 15 minutes, followed by a break, in cycles throughout the day.

It’s also very important to move around during your breaks. Take the time to stand up, move your body a bit, stretch, and maybe grab some water.

If you can, take 5-10 minutes during some of your breaks to meditate, and clear your mind.

Most importantly, allow yourself to take the break. Clear the work from your mind, let yourself think of something else. Really take a break. Then, when you return you will be refreshed and in a better state of mind to bring your best, most creative and productive self to the task.

4. Save Internet Articles For Later

Bookmark articles and blog posts for later. This will let you focus now, and not worry about forgetting what you want to read.

Set aside 30 minutes in the evening to peruse through your bookmarks, and then clean them out.

5. Watch Less/No TV

If you stop watching TV altogether, you are going to save a TON of time. The average american watches 34 hours of television, per week, according to Neilsen statistics in 2012. Depending on your age, you may watch up to 7 hours a day!

If you can’t imagine watching no TV, try cutting back. For every day for the next two weeks, cut back the time you watch TV by 30 minutes.

Can’t do that? Try cutting back by 10 minutes, every day, for two weeks.

Replace that time with time spent pursuing your passions, reading books that you’ve always wanted to read, going for walks, taking up hobbies or classes, or meditating. Honestly, with all the time you may be saving, you’ll have enough time to do all of those things.

If you already watch very little TV, my hearty congratulations to you! The next step would be to try and watch no TV. It’s a challenge, but I think one that everyone can accomplish.

6. Pack Some SNacks

If you want to stay productive, you have to keep up your energy. That means eating well, and often.

The more time you leave between eating, the less glucose you have in your system. As it reaches lower levels, your body’s ability to function will become impaired.

If you can, bring your own snacks with you that are healthy and that you like, rather than hitting up the vending machines. Not only will it be healthy, but it will also save you some money.

7. Get Adequate Sleep

Getting adequate sleep is essential to functioning at your peak levels throughout the day.

If we want to be truly productive, then we need to sleep about 8 hours at night. Your own body may require more, or less.

If you’re having trouble in this area, I would recommend the following:

1. Tired of being Tired
2. How I Became an Early Riser
3. How to Wake Up Early
4. Sleep Like a Baby

8. Set Productive Goals

I put this last because it’s very typical. Almost everyone recommends it. If you set 3-5 small goals for your day, you’re far more likely to accomplish those goals than if you hadn’t.

You can also think up larger goals, and set those. Then, break those goals down into weekly, and then daily goals, so that you can do something more complex.

* * *

These certainly aren’t the only tips out there, and they aren’t the only simple ones. They worked for me, and I think they can work for you, too.

Have a great 2013, and let’s make it a productive one!

The post 8 Simple Tips To Have A More Productive Day appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

“It is only possible to live happily-ever-after on a day-to-day basis.” ~Margaret Bonnano

When it comes to happiness, we are all in the same boat. The search for happiness is universal. Virtually everything we do comes down to our fundamental desire to be happy.

And, yet, it often proves harder than we imagine.

We are so sure that once the next big thing happens, then we will happy. “Once I find the love of my life, then I will be happy,” I used to think to myself.

Marriage, promotion, retirement – we set up milestones, believing that once they are achieved, happiness will be ours.

The fundamental misconception we make in our quest for happiness is that we are searching for eternal happiness. We want to secure our happiness. We want the kind of happiness that will never expire.

It is sad but true: there is absolutely nothing we can do make sure that we will be happy for the rest of our days. No matter how much we wish for eternal happiness, life simply doesn’t work like that.

Life isn’t broken down by monumental events, such as marriage and that promotion. Instead, life is composed of little moments.

The only way to be happy is to have many of these moment be good ones. That’s it. If you are skeptical, let me add that this is also how scientists define happiness.

All that matters for how happy we are with life is the frequency with which we experience positive emotions.

Not realizing this, we keep falling into the trap of searching for eternal happiness. And so, much of what we do in our effort to be happy is counterproductive.

I will address some of the most common mistakes we make in our quest for happiness, and discuss how they can be corrected.

1) We buy things instead of experiences

Psychologists suggest that we use our money to buys experiences instead of things. And yet, we keep choosing things, over and over again.

I was thinking about it the other day. Why do we do that? Surely, we all want to have good experiences. We all want to go on vacations. We all want to see the world.

But somehow, most of our money goes into buying things.

I, too, used to spend all of my money on things. So I looked within, and asked myself, “Why?”

Here is how my reasoning goes: “The experience will only last a few days,” I’d think to myself. “But if I buy this thing, I will have it forever. I can use it over and over.”

Does this sound familiar?

We behave as though we have all the time in the world. So, instead of making the best of our time now, we invest in things that we can, in theory, enjoy for a lot longer.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out like that. Before we even realize it, we get used to living in a larger house and driving a fancy car. We stop using the new electric device before we even had the time to remove the last tag.

In fact, most of us have so many things that we couldn’t possibly use all of them on a regular basis. Never-mind using it all, our houses are so overflowing with stuff that we can’t even find everything we have.

On the other hand, when you buy experiences you are directly buying happy times.

Next time, instead of buying the next electronic device, go for that weekend getaway that you keep delaying. Sign up for that class that you always wanted to take – be it yoga, dance, acting – whatever it is for you.

Our life is our time. Let us buy some happy times.

2) We expect our relationship to keep us happy

This is very common, and I’ve definitely been there. We expect that being with the right person will bring us lasting happiness.

Not only is this expectation unrealistic, it is also highly destructive. When we don’t feel happy, we turn on our partners. “If only I were with the right person…,” we think to ourselves. The fairy-tale promise of “happily ever after” causes much tension in real relationships.

The truth is that nothing, including our relationship, has the power to bring us lasting happiness.

Happiness is not a one-shot-deal. It is something that we need to work on every day. Don’t blame your partner. Instead, work on your happiness by yourself.

Relationships don’t have the power to make us happy in the long run.  Happy people make happy relationships. Focus on your happiness, and your relationship will flourish.

3) We live in the future

We put most of our energy towards creating a happy future. We search for love. We work towards that promotion. We save for retirement. We worry, we plan, and we prepare for the future. Meanwhile, time is passing.

Instead of putting so much of our attention on the future, we should focus on being happy in the present.

The present moment is literally all we have, so learning to stay present is at the heart of being happy.

But, the mere realization that we should focus on the present isn’t always enough. Sometimes, we need a bit of extra help. Yoga and mediation can be very helpful in learning how to start living in the now.

4) We Dwell on the Negative

Sometimes we’re experiencing many happy moments, but dwell instead on the few that are negative.

There are many times in my life when I’ve experienced this. I am going along, having a great day, when something negative happens. For some reason or other, I then find myself dwelling on that moment, and ignoring the great things that preceded it.

Practicing gratitude is a great way of overcoming this particular obstacle. Each night, write down 10 things that happened to you that were positive or for which you are grateful. At first it might be difficult, but after very little time you’ll find it extremely easy to do.

When you find yourself in a funk after what used to be a great day, try practicing gratitude right there-and-then. It will help to immediately lift your spirits!

With practice, gratitude can prolong the influence of positive events. Moreover, practicing gratitude improves physical health, raises energy levels and, for patients with neuromuscular disease, relieves pain and fatigue. In addition to those benefits, from my own experience, if you’re having trouble sleeping, it’s a lot better than counting sheep!

* * *

Social pressures and misconceptions may lead us in the wrong direction. But this doesn’t change the fact that we all deserve to be happy.

I believe that happiness is our birthright. This is why I put together an e-book to help my readers find happiness. In my book, “Hacking Happiness,” I discuss how psychologists define happiness, and give 9 effective tools to achieve happiness. And the best part is, “Hacking Happiness” is 100% free. If you haven’t already, get your copy now.

I am always happy to hear from my readers. Please feel free to contact me with your questions and comments.

To your happiness!

Your truly,

Maya

—

The post 4 Mistakes We Make in Search of Happiness appeared first on Great Living Now.

By David Loker

All of us have been there, wanting to change our lives, at some time or other. Maybe we’re working at a job we hate, or our life has been drained of all passion, or we’re unhealthy and looking to fix that. Or perhaps we’re just unmotivated, staring at a huge to-do list but falling short on finding the strength to accomplish anything.

I have certainly been there… more than once.

My Story of Change

I worked at a job I loathed, and while it sucked the life out of me, I had no idea how to fix it. There was nothing that I felt passionate about. To make matters worse, my Crohn’s disease was acting up, and I was getting more unhealthy by the day.

I remember clearly the loneliness and desperation that comes with being unhappy and not knowing how to change that. I know the feeling of wanting so desperately to change, but not being able to find the willpower and motivation to follow through. I remember going to sleep at night wishing somehow that today had been different; that I had managed to do something different.

I would constantly escape from my life into TV or video games, the negative feelings I had being pushed to the background momentarily, only for those feelings to make their way back in full force once I was done.

It seemed impossible to fix, because the changes I needed to make were monumental. I could barely get out of bed on some days, how was I supposed to fix these huge issues I had with my life?

The answer, it turned out, was to take a tiny action. On the surface, it was almost insignificant. I searched the internet for alternative ways of healing Crohn’s. But the far-reaching changes of taking this very tiny step are indescribable.

After that first search, it became easier to keep searching. Within days of sporadic searches, I found a diet book on Amazon, and within a week after that, I started to feel better.

With that small change, I had started an avalanche.

Right now, I cannot even imagine where I would be, and what state of health I would be in, had I not made that tiny step.

With my renewed health, I had more energy, and started to tackle other aspects of my life. I found things in life that brought me joy, and started to incorporate them more into my daily life. I switched to doing my PhD, bought a house, gutted and completely rebuilt the kitchen, learned to cook all sorts of dishes, took up singing opera, and finally started to act in theatre and film.

It was the proverbial straw that broke that proverbial camel’s back. That one event has led me to the greatest passion I have known in life – acting.

I was waiting for some great action that would fix my entire life. What I really needed to do was to take any action; something to help me move forward, and give me hope.

Change Your Life

If you want to change your life, go out and do something, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Once you do that one thing, you will have changed. After that, it will be easier to make that second or third change. But without the first, the later changes may seem insurmountable.

Make a list of the things you want to do. That, in and of itself, is doing something. Go for a walk. Get rid of one thing you never use anyway.  Clean up the mess that’s been there forever. Sing a song. Write a poem. Start learning the guitar.

You can do any of those things. You can do all of them, if you want. It doesn’t matter how small the step. Whatever you do, you will have started something different.

Whatever you choose, indulge in it. Enjoy it! Be completely present with it, and just cherish it. It doesn’t matter what you have to do next, or what bigger things you want to change. Right now, love what you are doing, and allow yourself to love it.

Then tomorrow, do it again. Take another baby step. You may not have changed your entire life, but the movement has begun.

By making these tiny actions, these baby steps of change, you will soon realize, as I did, that it wasn’t just the unhappiness that was the problem. The problem was also the feeling that it would continue indefinitely; that it felt impossible to move forward. And so, we did nothing, and the cycle continued.

Once you break that cycle of unhappiness and non-action, a whole world of possibility opens up. Even though with that tiny action you may not have changed your whole world, you will have changed yourself. That is the start of something great.

The post Baby Steps To Change Your Life appeared first on Great Living Now.

By David Loker

It’s that time of the year again. The end of one thing, and the start of something new. For many of us, it’s the time of year for crafting our New Year Resolutions.

I’m not sure why we wait until January 1st to try something new, or make a commitment to improving ourselves in some way. There are 365 days in the year, any one of those would suffice.

Nevertheless, it is a tradition and some traditions bring us comfort. First, let me list off some of the most popular New Year Resolutions, as published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

1. Lose weight
2. Get organized
3. Spend less, save more
4. Enjoy life
5. Get fit
6. Learn something new
7. Quit smoking
8. Help others
9. Fall in love
10. Spend more time with family

If you are making similar resolutions to some (or all) of these, then we have a number of articles to help. Looking to get organized? Read 20 Tips To Simplify Your Life and 6 Benefits Of A Minimalist Home. Want to save money and spend less? Check out our articles Paycheck to Paycheck: Understanding the Epidemic and How To Save Your Money.

All of these resolutions are terrific, and can help to greatly improve our lives. Ultimately, I believe these resolutions are helping us work toward a single, larger goal: happiness.

To that end, I suggest the following resolution:

Be More Vulnerable

It turns out that our happiness is most dependent on how connected we feel with others. I don’t mean how many friends we have, but how deep those connections are. A few, very deep connections are worth more than any number of friends that are essentially acquaintances.

Being vulnerable involves being true to you. It means exposing yourself to the world, exactly as you are.

To truly connect with others, we need to let them know us. Not just a part of us, but the whole of who we really are.

Inevitably, we will disagree on some things with each person we meet because no two people are exactly the same.  Being vulnerable means we need to be willing to disagree, to not change ourselves for others, and let the chips fall where they may.

This may seem risky, and it is. That’s the point. You will feel vulnerable doing this. However, in the end, your relationships will be strong, and deeply connected because your friends will know exactly who you are.

You will stop feeling ashamed of the details of who you are, because you will realize that no matter what, there are those that love you for exactly who you are! A feeling of self-worth and self-confidence inevitably follow.

Vulnerability: The Path to ACCOMPLISHING All Of OUR Resolutions

I don’t know about you, but, I have found it very difficult to stick with my resolutions in the past. If I want to exercise more, eat better, etc., I usually lose my willpower within a few weeks.

Vulnerability can help with that. By being open with those around us, we open ourselves up to the opportunity of asking for help. This means we can tell others we want to lose weight, or quit drinking, or smoking, or go to the gym more.

Moreover, by exposing ourselves in this way, we invite others to do the same. You will probably learn that your friend also has a similar ambition for the new year. Instead of “doing it alone,” you will have found yourself a partner to share in the challenges. Together, you can push each other and keep each other motivated in your mutual struggles.

Admitting Failure

By being more vulnerable, we can admit failure or lapses to our friends and family. After admitting failure openly, it becomes easier to ask for help in getting back on track.

One of the worst things you can do for yourself in life is to cover up your mistakes. Our mistakes offer great insight into who we are. You could not have become the amazing person that you are without the mistakes and hardships. By allowing others to know these failures, you will discover rich, deeply connected relationships.

The Key To Falling In Love

At this point you can predict what I’m going to say. The key to falling in love is being vulnerable.

As I’ve already pointed out, vulnerability leads to deep, meaningful connections with those around us. By practising this with everyone we meet, we are inviting the opportunity for deep connections with everyone.

Given some time, those deep connections we gain by being vulnerable will lead to love. Better still, the person we fall in love with will know the exact truth of who we are.

Worried about telling someone you love them? Do it anyway! Dare to be bold, and live a vulnerable, freely expressive life. It is nerve-racking, but it may lead to some amazing things!

* * *

“Those who mind don’t matter and
those who matter don’t mind.” ~ Bernard Baruch

Being true to yourself is difficult, at times. It can also be very uncomfortable at first, if you’re not used to it. But, with time, you will learn that through vulnerability comes a great sense of self-worth, self-confidence and connectedness. Self-worth, self-confidence and connectedness will ultimately lead to happiness. And, being happy is our real New Year Resolution?

Happy New Year! I wish you all the happiness in the world!

The post The Most Important New Year’s Resolution You Haven’t Made appeared first on Great Living Now.

By David Loker

From thought to action. Without that transition, nothing would ever get done. Whether we’re talking about personal growth or doing something for work, it isn’t enough just to wish it to be.

We can focus on what we want to happen with all of our intellectual might, see the results in our mind’s eye, and use all the positive thinking in the world, but if, at the end of the day, we don’t take action, it will all be for nought.

I don’t think any of this is controversial. We can all agree that to get something done, we need to actually do something. The question I set out to investigate was why I so often have such a hard time making that transition.

There are many people out there who would label me “lazy,” at times. Sometimes I have something I’m supposed to do and I just can’t bring myself to do it. Instead of accepting that label, I set out to discover the real reasons behind my occasional procrastination.

1. IT’S TOO HARD

“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours
of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated
with being a world-class expert—in anything.” ~ Daniel Levitin

One can look at this quote and either be inspired or defeated. How will I ever manage to accumulate 10,000 hours of practice??

I choose to be inspired because I firmly believe that talent  is simply countless hours of practice that have been attributed to some mystical phenomenon we don’t understand, and so label “talent.”

Malcolm Gladwell’s original thesis is, in fact, often misstated as: “You have to have 10,000 hours in a subject to be an expert.” This is absolutely not what he said or meant. He meant that if you spend 10,000 hours at something, you will be such a world-class expert that people will often refer to you simply by your first name, like Peyton, Tiger, Venus, Kobe, or Oprah.

Having said that, there is no point staring at the mountain from the valley and simply never taking that first step because there are 9,999 more steps to take before you reach the top. You have to focus on what’s in front of you. What is the first step, how do I take it, and what is the path up the mountain it is leading me toward?

Is taking a single step hard? Definitely not. So then, take it! And after that, is taking another single step difficult? Certainly not. Rinse, repeat.

In practical terms, you need to break down your mountain of a goal, your ultimate desire, into doable steps. What is the first step?

Let’s say you want to meditate for an hour, every day. Maybe it’s a simple goal to some, and others very lofty. Don’t let others judge your goals, though that’s a separate note for everything you choose to do in life.

The first thing you should do is break it down. Let’s try to meditate every day for 15 minutes. But wait, before that, how about meditating three times a week for 15 minutes each. Break it down into steps you feel confident you can accomplish. After you’ve done those easier steps, you’ll feel even more confident and be able to take that next step.

You want to be a famous singer? That’s a lofty enough goal to intimidate most people. First things first. Take vocal lessons. Learn technique. Read books on the voice about how it works. Understand it. Set goals with these things in mind. Small goals, little steps, that in the end will lead to mastery.

2. I’M TOO OLD (OR TOO YOUNG)

I used to tell myself that I was too old for acting or singing. Why bother learning it? It’s perfectly normal to feel this way. Lots of us do.

So what changed things for me? The simple realization that I’m never too old to enjoy my life. I wanted to enjoy my life now, not later.

If that doesn’t help, think about this: what sort of example do you want to set for others, like your children? That they should give up on their dreams because they discovered them too late? What advice would you give someone else who felt this way?

Regret is a painful thing. If you already regret not starting earlier, think about ten years from now how you’ll regret not starting today. You could be a master at it, by then.

Regardless, I say to you: do what you love, and do it now! Forget about your age. You deserve to be happy no matter how old you are.

3. I’M TOO BUSY

I found this was just me making excuses. Either what I wanted to do wasn’t very high priority for me, or I was afraid for some reason.

I think the “I’m too busy,” excuse is an epidemic that needs to be squashed out of existence. It’s a polite reason to give a friend or family member, perhaps, but it’s not the truth. I think we should start being honest with ourselves and with everyone else.

Now, there are lots of reasons for being “too busy.” My reasons aren’t the only ones. Maya recently penned an article related to this topic of being too busy for everything you want to do.

For me, the reality was that I wasn’t too busy. I just chose to give everything else a higher priority. I needed to figure out what else was going on. If I didn’t want to do it, why not? In which case, I would now refer myself to points 7 and/or 8.

4. OTHER PEOPLE THINK I SHOULDN’T/CAN’T

This really used to bother me a few years ago. Before I learned about differentiation and self-validation, I was constantly building up my self-image from how other people perceived me.

As you can imagine, such a system is bound to fail, or at the very least make one miserable trying to please everyone. And, of course, it failed for me.

I can’t stress enough how what other people want should not take precedence over your own needs and wants. Put yourself first. You’ll feel better and suddenly you’ll have more time, other people will respect you more, and you’ll feel happier and more fulfilled.

5. IT’S NOT REALISTIC

Do you think the iPod seemed realistic back when people were using tapes or CDs to listen to music? What about when Michael Jordan was 6, was it realistic for him to want to play professional basketball? Kobe Bryant?

If someone tells you, “Be realistic. You can’t do that!” it’s them placing their own fears and doubts about themselves upon you. They believe they can’t do that, so why can you?

If you love it, do it. Realism (which is a word most people are substituting for making money) will come. If you a truly passionate about what you do, then you will become good enough to make a good wage at it. Also, if you like doing something, undoubtedly there are others that also like it and are willing to pay to see you doing it, or learn from you.

You want to succeed in life? Forget realism for a moment, and dream big about something you are absolutely passionate about.

6. FEAR

I’m talking about a fear of failure.

I struggle with a fear of failure quite often. I lean toward perfectionism, and it’s something that I constantly struggle to overcome.

What helps me here is reminding myself of my reasons for wanting to take action, writing them down, and posting them up. If it’s really important to me, I remind myself of the goal and the reasons on a daily basis.

Ultimately, I read about the great failures of others. I remember that you must fail to learn. In fact, asking a question, which is itself a failure to know something, is the greatest tool a human being can possess.

7. I DON’T WANT TO

I don’t really want to do it. There are any number of reasons here. I may not agree with why it should be done or the desired purpose. I may not agree with the method, or I may know of a better way to achieve the same result.

This used to happen to me more often, when I would fail to speak against someone else’s desires. I wasn’t putting myself first. I was ignoring how I felt because someone else wanted something done. Somehow, their needs had taken precedence over my own.

Of course, the situation can be very complex. Sometimes, we need to do things we don’t want to do. So how do we move past this?

The answer is quite simple. We need reasons. I need reasons to do the undesirable. Now, not just any reasons will do. I need reasons that speak to my values and personality. They have to be good reasons, which leads me to my final point.

8. I DON’T KNOW THE REASONS FOR DOING IT

This is closely related to the previous point. To find motivation, we need to make the reasons intrinsic.

When I lack motivation, I sit down and go through my reasons for wanting to take action. I make it as personal for myself as I possibly can.

If I’m still not motivated after reminding myself of my reasons, then the reasons are not sufficient for me. I don’t ask other people for reasons, because it has to be insanely personal. And who cares if my reasons don’t make sense to others. They don’t have to take action, I do.

Need to do laundry? Well, I want clean clothes and appear presentable to others, so those reasons are sufficient for me. Need to take out the trash? Well, I want a clean and sanitary house that doesn’t smell, and those reasons are sufficient. The reasons have to speak to you.

Just to emphasize this very important point, I need to make sure I know the reasons for me. The reasons for other people are irrelevant and are not going to help motivate me into doing it.

If there are no reasons for me to do something, I simply don’t do it. If the reasons I find aren’t sufficient in my mind, I don’t do it.

For example, if your boss needs you to do something immediately, and you can’t find sufficient personal reasons (perhaps money, etc. are not sufficient motivational reasons – which they might not be), then probably the job isn’t right for you. I’ve been there, so I know what that’s like.

* * *

There are lots of reasons why we don’t make the transition from thought into action. Sometimes they’re quite simple, and other times very complicated. I’ve shared with you some of my struggles, and I hope it helps you with your own.

My hope with this is to inspire you to do something, not just think about it. Pick something you’ve always wanted to do, and do it. If you can’t, figure out why. Take an active part in your life, and live it on your terms.

In the end, I hope we all arrive at life’s “finish line” bruised, battered, and exhausted saying, “Now that was living!”

The post 8 Reasons We Don’t Put Thought Into Action appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”  ~Socrates

We’re exhausted. We’re overwhelmed. We’re so badly overworked. But above all, we’re just plain too busy: Too busy to relax, too busy to have fun, too busy to do what we really want to do.

Have you ever met anyone who was not too busy? Someone who, despite having to pay the bills, wash the dishes, and do the laundry always had abundant time left over to use as they pleased? I once met a person like that. I was so impressed that I married him.

When I first met my husband, I was very busy. There were so many things I wanted but had no time for. So many dreams were sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Forget about dreams, I was so busy that I hardly even had time to rest.

Gradually, I began to figure out how my husband avoids the busy trap. By the time we had a child, house, and a multitude of other duties and responsibilities that I never had before, I found myself a lot less busy. I took my dreams off the shelf, dusted them off, and went for it! I picked up singing, wrote a book, and started this blog. And, against all odds, I still found time to relax!

That’s when I realized that being busy goes far beyond the number of things that we have to do.

The Psychological Side of Busy

We all have exactly the same number of hours in a day. Yet, only a few of us have time for what they really want to do.

Why some of us are always busy, while others go through life at a peaceful pace, goes a lot deeper than most time-management advice suggests. To understand why we are busy, we need to dig deeper. We need to get down to the root of the problem.

When your psychological dial is set to “busy”, you will find a way to eat up all of your time. Have you known students who do nothing but study? Housewives who do nothing but clean? It doesn’t take much to drown ourselves with work.

I want to help you get out from under the sea of work. When you understand the real reasons why you have been so busy for so long, you will be ready to make the changes necessary to free yourself and enjoy your life on your own terms.

The following are 6 time thieves – the real reasons that you don’t have enough time to do what you want – and how to overcome them.

1) We undervalue our desires

Two people can spend every minute of the day doing exactly the same thing, yet only one of them will feel busy. This is because one of them wishes he or she were doing something else, while the other enjoys what they do.

Busy isn’t how much we do, but how rarely we do exactly what we want to do. 

Becoming less busy is not about finding time for sitting idly to do nothing. It is about using your time however you please. More precisely, it is about increasing the number of moments in which you do exactly what you want to do. Doing so is also the most direct way to make you happier, according to how scientists define happiness.

Our to-do list never ends. It really doesn’t. By the time we are done cooking breakfast, walking the dog, and doing laundry, it is time to make lunch. As living, breathing human beings, there is always something that we have to do.

This why so many of us never get to do what we want to do. There is always something more important, something that belongs in the “need” category.

The only way that we’ll ever get to do what we want to do is to allow WANT to come before NEED. 

Think of something that you’ve always wanted to do. If you are ever going to get to it, you will have to make it a priority. Yes, make something that you want to do more important than something that you have to do.

If this sounds absurd, this can only be because we undervalue ourselves. If you can agree that you matter, then you must agree that what you want matters. When you love yourself, making your own dreams come true becomes a priority.

Sometimes, the dishes can wait. Those emails can be answered later. The phone can be turned off. Sometimes, what we want to do can take precedence over the mandatory, every-day have-to’s.

Did you always want to take an art class? See Europe? Write a book? Whatever your dreams are, let them see the light of day, and in return, they will bring light to your very existence.

2) We feel that we are not enough

Most of us feel that we are not enough. Not beautiful enough, not rich enough, not exciting enough, not original enough..

So we overcompensate. We strive to be “A” students and exemplary employees. We want to be the perfect husband or wife, the perfect parent, the perfect friend. We measure our worth by external achievement. “If I am a good student/employee/mother…. then I am someone,” we might think.

But the struggle to become “enough” is futile. There is no amount of recognition, fame, wealth, or appreciation that can make us feel that we are enough when inside we don’t agree. We might feel better for a little while after a heartfelt compliment, pay raise, or big promotion, but quickly we find ourselves feeling empty and overworked once more.

The first step to reclaiming your time is to internalize that you are already enough. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. You are worthy of your own time just by virtue of being alive. Yes, you can decide what to do at any moment in time just because you exist.

3) We try to bulletproof our lives

Life is risky. We never really know what is going to happen next. There starts an uphill battle against reality, where we try to protect ourselves against everything that could go wrong.

We want to make sure that we do well on that final exam, so we stay up studying all night. We are afraid to end up alone, so we spend countless hours trying to look perfect. We want enough money to protect ourselves from anything that could go wrong –  so we work ourselves to death.

The effort to protect ourselves from the unknown can literally use up all of our time and energy.

It is much more healthy to accept the uncertain nature of our existence. This way, when something goes against our plans, we will not be burned out. Instead, we will be alert and have the energy to deal with whatever comes.

4) We are escaping reality

We know that drug addictions are an escape. Overeating is an escape. Even shopping can be used as an escape. But we don’t usually think of being busy as an escape. However, being “busy” is one of the most effective escapes out there.

So many of us are so busy that we hardly have time to pause and reflect on our lives, to feel what’s it’s like to be us, to face the reality of our lives.

This is precisely why so many of us are so uncomfortable with time off – why we feel so uneasy during vacations. Even when on vacation, we run around from place to place, or desperately try to catch up on side projects.

The bottom line is that when we are not at peace with our lives and ourselves, we find ourselves restless and unable to relax – regardless of how much work we really have to do. In such a state, it is easier to stay busy than it is to stop all the hustle and bustle and face ourselves.

If you realize that being busy is an escape for yourself, try to figure out exactly what it is that you are escaping from. Then, find the courage to face your life, and shape it to your liking, so that you wouldn’t feel the need to escape from it.

5) WE STRIVE FOR PERFECTION

Perfectionism. In our culture, this doesn’t even sound like such a bad thing. “I am a perfectionist, I work too hard,” we might answer in a job interview when asked to list our weakness. Small wonder we are all too busy.

But perfectionism is a weakness. It is a highly destructive force that can suck all of life out of you, without you as much as realizing that there is a problem.

For the perfectionist, nothing is ever good enough. This typically stems from them feeling somehow that they are fundamentally not good enough. So they spend hours upon hours trying to reach the impossible.

The perfectionist only needs a single goal, and there goes all of their free time. If you are ever to have enough time to enjoy your life, and overcome the busy trap, it is essential to go against the tendency of striving for perfection.

6) We put ourselves last

Want to be so busy that you will have no time to sleep? Here is the recipe: Declare everyone else to be more important than yourself. That’s all you need. You will not have a moment of free time.

Others always want us to do something. And if we think that they are a lot more important than us, they might not even have to ask. We will work ourselves to death doing what we think they want us to do.

If you want to stop being too busy, if you want to have time to do what you really want to do, then learn to put yourself first. Putting yourself first also has many other benefits. Others will take you more seriously,  respect you more, and even appreciate you more.

You are the only one who really understands you. This is why you need to become your own advocate and best friend. Put yourself first, and the world will smile back at you.

***

I hope that some of the above points spoke to you, and helped you identify the real reason you are too busy. When you understand why you are constantly overworked, you are in a better position to change it. Take charge of your life, and release yourself from the burden of being eternally busy.

On her deathbed, Queen Elizabeth wished to exchange all of her riches for a moment of time. You have at your disposal the most valuable resource in the world. Give yourself a priceless gift: Reclaim your time.

The post 6 Time Thieves: The Real Reasons We’re Too Busy appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman, PhD. and Mary Reed Gates, CNHP, MH, ND.

Everyone worries from time to time. But while it takes no less than a tsunami to disturb some of us, others seem to worry all the time. Each time we think that life is about to get better, something else crops up. It is as if we cannot escape anxiety, no matter how hard we try.

You don’t have to live like this. You can become one of those people who isn’t prone to anxiety.

Now, I know that there is a lot of advice about anxiety out there. And, indeed, much of it is useful. However, a lot of it is inappropriate for those with long-term anxiety. If most advice on overcoming anxiety doesn’t seem to help you for more than a few days, then this article might just be what you are looking for.

What you need is a different tool-set. This article was written to give you that tool set, so that you stop worrying, relax, and enjoy life as you know you should.

Why You Can’t Stop Worrying

The first thing you need to understand is that your inability to control your anxiety is not your fault. It is essential to understand what the problem is on a deeper level. A physical level.

When your body is wired for anxiety, it is exceptionally difficult to relax, and almost no amount of effort is going to cut it – unless you target that effort to healing your body.

This doesn’t mean that you are sick, or that your doctor missed a serious disorder. Our bodies and minds are connected on a deeper level than we are led to believe.

Understanding the Mind-body Connection

We tend to view our bodies and minds as separate. Nothing could be further the truth.

A bit of digging into biology quickly reveals that your body can explain everything you feel. Your mood is 100% represented by the chemicals in your body. Your body both responds and affects your mood, attitude and emotions during every moment of every day.

If this doesn’t ring true, simply think about what drugs can do to our bodies: Drinking, antidepressants and other drugs affect mood, attitudes, and even behaviour without any changes whatsoever to the environment.

The good news is that it is often unnecessary to make us of drugs to tap into the mind-body connection.

Our mind can be affected through our bodies using much gentler methods. And these methods are often much more effective in the long run.

Now, we aren’t here to give you generic advice. We are here to give you precise, targeted “lifestyle changes” advice aimed specifically to reduce your anxiety.

But first, it helps to have a basic understanding of what is causing your anxiety.

What is the Adrenal Gland and Why You Should Care

The adrenal glands are two tiny glands that sit at the top of your kidneys, where they produce adrenalin – “fight or flight” hormones. If someone finds themselves in a life threatening situation, this physical response gives them a substantial energy boost to help them survive.

The adrenal response makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary point of view. If a person were attacked by a wild animal, adrenalin could help them fight for their lives or run away. Hopefully, they either successful fight off the animal or run away. Either way, the problem does not persist.

In the modern world, many of our problems cannot be solved with the fight or flight approach. Our problems are a lot more complex than they used to be.

A frustrating job. A difficult marriage. Even children face significant stress, from abusive parents to bullying. These problems persist, and gradually destroy the function of our adrenal glands, which work overtime pumping adrenaline into our system.

When our adrenals have been overstimulated for too long, they begin to produce more adrenaline than is needed regardless of whether there is a real danger present, putting us in a constant state of unrest.

Are your adrenals the root of your anxiety? 

The tendency toward anxiety is itself a strong indicator of problems with the adrenal glands. Moreover, there is a vicious cycle at play: weak adrenals cause anxiety, while anxiety weakens our adrenals. Therefore, anyone with prolonged anxiety problems should consider healing their adrenal glands.

Additional symptoms of weak adrenals include sinus problems, blood pressure that is either too high or too low and unhealthy blood sugar levels.

Another strong indicator of adrenal weakness is being a typical night person. You might have trouble falling asleep at night and have difficulty waking up in the morning. A mid afternoon lag in energy, following by a second wind in the evening is common.

Constant fatigue is a strong indicator of weak adrenals. If you have problems with energy levels, healing your adrenals can make a big difference.

How To Heal Your Adrenals

The best thing you can do for your adrenals is give them a chance to heal. This is why we first discuss what should be avoided in order for your adrenals to have a fighting chance. We then give you some advice on how to speed up the healing process.

Note that all of this advice is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. However, keep in mind that this is highly effective.

If you can find the strength within yourself to put this advice to action, you will experience the benefits of radically reduced anxiety, 100% naturally.

1.     Avoid caffeinated drinks

Coffee may seem like a lifesaver. But it comes with high interest. Caffeine causes your adrenals to release large amounts of adrenaline, making you feel more alive and energized for a little while.

But in the long run, caffeine destroys your adrenal glands.

People with weak adrenals are often addicted to caffeine. Here, we see yet another vicious cycle; Those with weak adrenals feel tired, and so they crave the caffeine rush, while having caffeine weakens your adrenals making you tired.

The number one thing you can do to heal your adrenals, and consequently relieve yourself of anxiety, is to stop taking all forms of caffeine. This includes coffee, tea, and caffeinated soft drinks.

Because caffeine is addictive, this can be very difficult. But it well worth the effort. First, it will give you real, natural energy. Natural energy produced by your own body feels a lot better, and is a lot better for you, than the nervous energy you receive from caffeine.

But most importantly, removing caffeine from your system gives your adrenals a chance to heal, and gives you a more peaceful life as a result.

2.     Avoid decaf drinks

We put this in a separate bullet because it is very important. Most of us don’t know that decaf drinks still contain caffeine. Decaf means that it has less caffeine than the caffeinated version, but it still contains caffeine!

The amount of caffeine in decaffeinated drinks is more than enough to aggravate your adrenal glands. If you want to heal your anxiety, then it is essential to cut out all decaffeinated drinks, as well as their caffeinated counterparts.

What you should look for is the “caffeine free” label. That is the sign that there is no caffeine present. Look for this label when buying herbal teas.

3.     Stay away from sugar

If you pay attention, you might notice that sugar has very similar effect to that of caffeine. It gives you an energy rush, only to be followed by an energy crash. All of that is very hard on your adrenals.

Getting off sugar completely can be just as difficult as it is to quit caffeine. But if healing your anxiety is really important to you, then it is well worth the effort.

To avoid sugar, it is essential to read labels. Sugar is added to almost everything, so it is best to buy raw ingredients and cook from scratch when possible.

Note that many artificial sweeteners can be even worse for our bodies than sugar. Instead of sugar, use honey, in moderation.

When you go off sugar, you will notice an interesting thing: Other things start to taste sweeter!

4.    Avoid intense action or horror movies

We all watch movies. We get engrossed in them, and emotionally respond to them. In fact, this is precisely why we love watching them so much.

While there is nothing wrong with intense action and horror movies for those with healthy adrenals, they aren’t good for those who have weak adrenal glands.

Such movies cause our adrenals to respond in much the same way as if something threatening were happening to us. If your adrenals are weak and need rest to heal, then it is best to avoid such stimulation.

5.     Create a low stress life

To those prone to anxiety, avoiding stress may seem like hopeless advice. However, while you are trying to heal your adrenals, it is essential to make your life as relaxing as you possibly can.

This means avoiding adrenal stimulating activities such as, say, sky diving, but also making personal life choices based on what you know stresses you out.

Regardless of how stressed out you might feel, you will feel even more tense if your environment is stressful. If you reduce the amount of external stress, and give your body a chance to heal, soon enough, there will be less stress internally, too.

6.     Eat Parsley!

One of the best things for your adrenals is potassium. A great source of it is the simple leafy green known as parsley.

Simply buy raw parsley and mix a generous amount of it into a salad. Several handfuls could work well to sooth your adrenals.

If you don’t like the taste of parsley, you can also take it in capsule form.

This simple, natural food can greatly speed up the healing of your adrenal glands, especially after you eliminate foods and activities that overstimulate your adrenals.

7.     Sleep

We have saved the best for last. One of the very best things you can do for your adrenals is sleep. Yes, simply sleep.

Unfortunately, people with weak adrenals often have difficulty falling sleep. There are a lot of good resources about sleep out there, and there is even a free e-book on sleep. Some gentle herbs can also do wonders to solve this problem (consult a good herbalist before taking any herbs).

As much as possible, make whatever lifestyle changes are necessary to build adequate sleep into your life.

The beautiful thing about sleep is that it doesn’t take long to feel its benefits. After a good night sleep, you should feel the improved might away. But overtime, it will make an enormous difference.

Parting words

Don’t give up on yourself. You can reduce your anxiety, and you can do that 100% naturally.

It is hard enough going through our everyday trials without having them magnified by excess adrenaline rushing through our veins. The peace and ability to turn off the anxiety mode is amazing. You will love it.

You now have 7 effective tools to beat your anxiety. Try them out, and let us know how it goes. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below. Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Gather your will power, and do what it takes to restore your health, and restore your sense of balance. Keep learning and seek the advice of a good natural health practitioner when needed. Inner peace is within your reach. You can heal your life.

The post Overcome Anxiety Naturally: The Mind-Body Connection appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

Remember the day you got married? The moment you said “I do?” Your first kiss as husband and wife?

On our wedding day, we can’t even conceive of divorce. And yet, as you know, about 50% of marriages fall apart. But, what you might not know is that virtually all marriages come very close to this unfortunate end.

The good news is that there is hope. Psychologists have had plenty of time to figure out what leads to marital problems, and to find effective solutions. Yes, there is a very real and tested way to save your marriage.

The process by which I came to learn how to save a marriage wasn’t an easy one. In fact, it was a most painful journey. After three years of marriage, and a small child, my husband announced to me that he wasn’t sure how he felt about me anymore.

Needless to say, I was devastated. We had a life together. We had a house, shared finances, and a living, breathing human being who depended on us.

The desire to fix my marriage overwhelmed my entire being. It appeared to defy logic. I didn’t believe at the time that it was even possible.

I looked for an answer everywhere – and I mean everywhere. I asked everyone I ran into for advice. I search the internet tirelessly, night after night. I read every book I could get my hands on.

For a long time nothing happened. Everything I tried seemed to just make the relationship worse. I was so devastated that I was beginning to come to terms with the possibility of divorce. “I’m OK,” I remember telling myself, “Many people start over and survive, and so will I.” Finally, I stopped crying.

This is when the answer came to me. It turned out that psychologists have had the answer all along. Experts have identified key solutions to solving marital problems many decades ago.

Unfortunately, these solutions aren’t very well known, but they should be. Something that works so well should be common knowledge. In a world marriages are just as likely to fail as their are to succeed, this information can make a real difference.

That is why I wrote this article. If you find the information in this article useful, please share this article to help spread the word.

Here are the three things you need to know to save your marriage.

1. Differentiation

Differentiation is the process by which two once again become two. It all boils down to creating space in the relationship. But, it isn’t superficial space that I am talking about. What I am talking about is recreating emotional separation.

You see, when a couple first gets together, it is all about closeness. At first, this feels wonderful. The dreamy state of falling in love and merging with another human being brings about a feeling of inordinate joy. The technical term for this is “fusion.”

“Fusion” is a state in which the separation between two people becomes blurred. It’s when two becomes one. At this stage, people sometimes start using the word “we” instead of “I.” They care deeply about their partner’s views and opinions, to that the point that they can be deeply hurt by disagreement on an important issue. Spouses start leaning on each other and become overly reliant on each other for emotional support.

Unfortunately, this state of “fusion” doesn’t work out so well in the long run. No matter how great it feels to imagine that we have found our other half, no two people are the same. Each of us needs space, both physical and emotional, in order to pursue our own path in life and grow as individuals.

At one point or another, the cozy feeling of intense attachment becomes suffocating. This is when serious problems arise, and one of the partners (the one who feels suffocated first) pulls away. This is so confusing and immensely painful that it often leads to divorce.

What we usually don’t realize is that the key to resolving relationship problems is to create space, and restore a sense of individuality. With our sense of individuality restored, the desire to run away usually fades. This is also when people remember why they fell in love in the first place.

Try to remember what it was like before you got together with your spouse  Remember that feeling of freedom and independence? You don’t have to break the relationship to restore this feeling. While it does take practice, it is possible to live together and yet feel a healthy dose of separation at the same time.

Want to pursue a hobby? Want to change your career? Want to wear clothes, eat food, and see friends that your partner doesn’t approve of? Go ahead! Fight for your right to be who you are.

When that sense of independence is restored, not only are partners less eager to run away from each other, but that initial passion, the spark, reignites!

And this isn’t just theory, I’ve been there. My husband and I went through the process of differentiation, re-establishing ourselves as separate individuals. It might not sound very romantic, but we learned how to care a little less about each other’s opinions and approval and think more independently.

With this came a great sense of freedom, which I used to believe was a privilege of the single. But more importantly, the separation between us make us a lot more interested in each other. Differentiation reignited the spark, and awakened our marriage.

2. Self-soothing

A key part of differentiation is the reduced reliance on your partner for making you feel better. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t our partner’s job to be our therapist.

They don’t have to fix our problems, and they shouldn’t have to listen to them all the time, either. If you have ever been on the receiving end of a needy person, then you know how profoundly difficult this position can be.

Give your partner space, and do something a lot more effective instead of asking them to sooth you: go ahead and sooth yourself!

Not sure how to go about it? Just think what you would do had you been single. Would you take a nice bubble bath? Would you watch your favorite funny movie?  Would you write about it in a journal? No matter what it is that works for you, you have a much better shot at finding the solution than your partner ever will.

When a relationship is going into a crisis, both people need every ounce of their energy to take care of themselves. When you rely on yourself instead of your partner for soothing, the relationship is relieved of a great burden. By taking care of yourself first, instead of taking care of each other first, you give your marriage a much better shot at survival.

When I first learned about self-soothing I was very confused. I thought that being in a relationship was all about taking care of each other. But as my marriage was then falling off a cliff, I had nothing to lose. I decided to give it a shot.

So the next time I was upset, I imagined that I was home alone. Instead of complaining to my husband, I took a long bath and then wrote in my journal. An amazing thing happen. I felt so much better! A lot better than I felt the previous times when I expected him to take care of me. Moreover, self-soothing radically reduced the frequency and duration of our fights (which were common during that delicate time), leaving more room for positive interactions.

3. Self-validation

Finally, there is self-validation – the act of reassuring your own views and opinions when you partner disagrees.  Surely, you allow room for disagreements with your friends. The same applies to healthy marriages.

Remember, your partner is entitled to their own opinion. It’s OK to disagree. You don’t have to change your mind, and neither do they.

Find within yourself the strength to believe in your own beliefs, and trust your own opinion – regardless of how your partner sees things. As a side effect, this confidence will even be attractive to your partner. But more importantly, it will give you strength to live life on your own terms.

My husband and I used to be so uncomfortable with disagreement that we fooled ourselves into believing that we always agree. As a result, we used to make many unnecessary compromises, which lead to a great deal of resentment in the long run.

Now we are getting better at self-validation and it has made life so much easier. Learning how to be comfortable having different opinions made our relationship more honest, simpler, and even more interesting. Unhindered by the need for consensus, we each live life on our own terms, giving us a great sense of autonomy and freedom.

***

Stay strong. There is hope. The journal can be hard, but the days of love and peace return.

If you can, show this article to your spouse  You don’t need them to cooperate in order to see the effects of these well-tried methods. But, if they work on differentiation, self-soothing, and self-validation at the same time as you, then you might heal your marriage even faster.

But even if your partner does not want to participate, working on these skills individually can make a huge difference to your marriage. Yet, you don’t have to do it alone! As you practice these three principles, come back here and share your experiences with us in the comments section below.

I know how hard marital problems can be. This is why we welcome your questions and advice. Let’s learn from each other and help each other out. Together we are stronger.

The post Expert Advice On How To Save Your Marriage appeared first on Great Living Now.

By Maya Ackerman

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~ Thomas A. Edison

Many of us today are lucky to live in a world filled with opportunity. We live in a free society, where everyone has the right to be their own boss. Yet most of us, well, we take it for granted. Even worse, we don’t do anything about it.

We should appreciate how truly lucky we are. There were times and places where owning a business was a crime – a punishable, serious offence. Never-mind renting a building and hiring employees, opening a lemonade stand could have landed you in jail.

Then, why is it that many of us never take advantage of this world of opportunity in which we live?

There are good reasons for this. Many of them are stemming from common myths – myths about what business is and what it’s like to start one.

I am here to debunk these myths, so that hopefully you can come out of your shell and live up to your full potential.

Myth #1: you don’t have enough Time

Too often, we think of a business as something large and complex. Names of multi-million-dollar companies come to mind. We feel overwhelmed before we even start.

But businesses come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. And today, with the internet, you have before you more options than ever before.

You don’t need a lot of time to get started. You don’t. It’s that simple. You can start a business with as much as two hours a week. Surely you can squeeze out this much time.

There is no need to quit your job. Many business can be started from the comfort of your own home, on your own schedule.

Million-dollar applications, including simple phone apps, are often developed by a single person working in his or her free time. Some of the most profitable websites were started by those with full-time jobs. Services you can offer on your own, such as private teaching, consulting, and graphic design, can be arranged at your convenience.

Expend your definition of a “business”, and you will find a world full of opportunities that fit your schedule.

Myth #2: you don’t have enough money

A surprising number of businesses can be started with minimal to no initial investment. Many service-based businesses, such as the ones mentioned above, have minimal start-up costs.

Even more so, software and internet-based business, which have incredible earning potential, can be started on a very low-budget.

In fact, some experts recommend avoiding external investors as a general strategy. Having limited resources forces you to be creative, and can sometimes result in better solutions.

Myth #3: You just don’t have a good idea

I used to imagine that the founders of successful companies simply woke up one morning with a great idea, and jumped out of bed screaming ”Eureka”!

But in reality, a good idea, just like anything else, takes time to develop. To come up with a good idea, the first step is to try!

Start brainstorming, or better still, read my free Book of Brilliance, whose sole purpose is to help you come up with brilliant ideas.

Myth #4: You need to do something COMPLETELY unique

Another big mistake that we make is believing that if we are to start a business, it must be something entirely unique, something that is in no way similar to anything else.

While brand new business ideas are certainly worthwhile, so are ideas that improve on existing work. Perhaps you can find a worthwhile improvement for something that is already there. Or maybe you can give it your own personal touch. Remember, the iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player.

Myth #5: Business is corrupt

Business has a bad reputation. Businessmen are sometimes perceived to be immoral people who would do anything for profit. Some even believe that business can corrupt otherwise moral people.

But the truth is that there are different types of business people. Many of them do business in an honest way while genuinely benefiting their customers.

In fact, business is highly compatible with very high moral standards. When you have nothing to hide, you pave the road to long-term success. Moreover, when you work towards something that you believe in with all your heart, when you feel that your work is truly benefiting society, you are that much more likely to succeed.

***

I sincerely hope that becoming aware of these myths will help you start acting towards your business goals. Think up some ideas, get started on it, and years later you may look back at this time with delight: this is when you were brave enough to take that first step.

Also, if you know of other myths that prevent so many of us from working for ourselves, we would love to hear about them! Please share with us in the comments below.

There is little in life that feels better than being your own boss. You deserve to take a chance at real freedom. Reward yourself with that chance.

This world is filled with opportunity. Now, it’s your turn.

The post 5 Myths Keeping You From Self-Employment appeared first on Great Living Now.