Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference in life.

Sometimes changing your circumstances isn’t possible, or simply not possible soon enough. You can’t get to a new job in an instant. You can’t make someone else change against his or her will. And you certainly can’t erase the past.  So what options do you have left?

Change your perception, belief or opinion about your circumstances. Doing so will help you change your attitude and ultimately allow you to grow beyond the struggles you can’t control.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said it perfectly more than 2,000 years ago: “People are disturbed, not by (more…)

Happiness doesn’t start with a relationship, a vacation, a job, or money; it starts with your thinking and what you tell yourself consistently. And the human mind often needs lots of proactive reminders — lots of good practice — to operate effectively on a daily basis. For example, deep down you know it’s OK to…

• Say “no”
• Speak up
• Tell the truth
• Believe differently
• Change your mind
• Prioritize your needs
• Learn from your mistakes
• Embrace your imperfections
• Forgive and seek forgiveness
• Begin again, stronger than before

Yet, you often do the exact opposite when (more…)

One of the strongest signs of your growth is realizing you’re no longer holding on to the beliefs that have been limiting you.

I received a thank you email recently from a longtime reader and coaching client named Kevin (I’m writing about him today with permission). He said the work Marc and I do helped him and his wife maintain healthy mindsets as they struggled and grew through one of the most difficult periods of their lives. Certain sections of his email nearly moved me to tears:

“After injuring my back, losing my job because of it, being evicted from our apartment, moving in with my in-laws, nursing my five-year-old through a nearly fatal bout of pneumonia, I was stuck in a deep rut. And I was sitting on the front porch of my in-law’s house feeling sorry for myself one day, when my childhood best friend called me crying and said, (more…)

Twenty years ago he walked into my dorm room on the verge of tears.

“I can’t take it anymore!” he groaned. “I’m just running in place. I aim. I sprint. And I fall every time. I’m getting nowhere! Nowhere!”

His desperate eyes stared into mine, hoping and searching for an answer…

His Story of Procrastination

He has dreamed of pursuing a (more…)

A good morning, and thus a good day, aren’t experiences that magically happen — they are created consciously.

Most of us are distracted from the get-go every morning. Trivial activities like checking social media, watching TV, and worrying about things we can’t control often set the tone of the day. And that means we waste our most well-rested time on things that don’t matter, while gradually losing touch with the significant, controllable parts of our lives that actually do matter.

We simply forget that the morning hours are enormously important — they form the foundation from which the day is built. We forget that how we choose to spend these hours can be used to predict the kind of days we’re going to have, and ultimately the kind of lives we’re going to live. So if you feel like you’ve been getting a rough start lately, and stumbling through your days with diminished intention and focus, it’s time to consider (more…)

May you truly live every day of your life.

Alyssa was my best friend. She was a talented musician, a graceful gymnast, a brilliant writer, and a deeply passionate human being. She cared about people. Love bled from every facet of her being. When she spoke, her eyes were as sincere as her words. And she always wanted to understand what was wrong so she could strive to make it better.

But Alyssa woke up one day during her senior year in college with a strange pain in her chest. The on-campus doctors didn’t understand why so they (more…)

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
— Margaret Mead

Our children grow up so fast. Before we know it they’re out there somewhere in the real world, and we’re left hoping that we’ve done enough to prepare them for everything they’ll encounter. Marc and I talk to coaching clients on a daily basis — mothers and fathers alike — who share these sentiments. They worry about their children. They wonder if they’ve done a good enough job parenting up to this point. And Marc and I can relate too because oftentimes we feel the same way. We’re concerned about our son Mac’s well-being and education, and we discuss it frequently just like most parents do.

In fact, from what we’ve researched and studied, the well-being and education of their children is more important to most parents than just about anything else — more important than health care, cost of living, public safety, and even their own (more…)

You ultimately become what you habitually do. If your daily habits aren’t moving you forward, they’re holding you back. Here are four prevalent examples of the latter that often drain the best of us of our true potential, and some strategies for turning things around if you’re currently stuck in that cycle…

1. We hold on too tight.

Twenty years ago, when Angel and I were just undergrads in college, our psychology professor taught us a lesson we’ve never forgotten. On the last day of class before graduation, she walked up on stage to teach one final lesson, (more…)

There’s a big difference between empty fatigue and gratifying exhaustion. Life is too short not to focus more on what matters most.

Before you know it you will be asking, “How did it get so late so soon?” Perhaps you can already relate. So take time to reflect. Take time to realize what you want and need in the days and weeks ahead. Take time to take calculated risks. Take time to love, laugh, learn, cry, and forgive. Life is so much shorter than it often seems.

In our line of work we speak with people on a daily basis who have been forced to wake up to life’s fleeting nature. Consider these two small excerpts from people’s stories that we recently received (more…)

Love is great when spoken, but greatest when shown. Do little things daily to show your loved ones you care.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on a park bench in the early afternoon when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the car stereo. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door for the woman, took her hand and guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced to a song under the oak tree. It was such a beautiful moment to witness.

This morning when I opened my laptop to write, the elderly couple immediately came to mind. I spent a few minutes daydreaming about them, wondering how (more…)

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
– Annie Dillard

Are you willing to spend a little time every day like most people won’t, so you can spend the better part of your life like most people can’t?

Think about that question for a moment. Let it sink in. You ultimately become what you repeatedly do. The acquisition of knowledge doesn’t mean you’re growing — growing happens only when what you know changes how you live on a daily basis (most people miss the second part).

And isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different? That’s the power of daily habits.

Now it’s time think about your habits — the little things you do every day.

Because these little things define you.

All the results in your life come from (more…)

In the end, more than anything else, we regret the little things we wish we’d done differently.

“If only…” Those two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

Here are ten choices in life that ultimately lead to that phrase of regret, and how to avoid them on the average day:

1. Wearing a mask to impress other people.

If the face you always show the world is a mask, someday there will be nothing beneath it. Because when you spend too much time focusing on (more…)

The goal each and every day of your life is to gradually grow stronger on the inside, so that less and less on the outside can affect your inner wellness without your conscious permission.

Truth be told, how you cope with unexpected problems and frustrations can easily be the difference between living a good life and living an unhealthy one. If you choose unhealthy coping mechanisms like avoidance or denial, for example, you can quickly turn a tough situation into a tragic one. And sadly, this is a common mistake many people make.

When you find yourself facing a disheartening reality, your first reaction might be to (more…)

As we all look forward to the next step in our lives, I know many of us are yearning for a simpler and selective range of life experiences — the happy days, the normal times, the settings and experiences that make us feel more comfortable. And yet, the full range of our reality often brings something very different. The days in front of us will inevitably provide an extensive array of experiences that evoke feelings ranging from sadness and struggle to growth and pride, and more.

So we have a choice starting today. We can revolt against reality — the reality of having to deal with discomfort, of having to cope with uncertainty, of having to feel upset sometimes. Or we can (more…)

Opportunities are like sunrises, if we wait too long we miss them.

Too often we waste our time waiting for the ideal path to appear. But it never does of course. Because we forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting. Let this be your wake-up call today!

If you always sit around until you feel 100 percent ready for the journey, you’ll likely be sitting around for the rest of your life. Most of the time you just have to get up and go for it. And no, you shouldn’t feel any more confident before you take the next step. Taking the next step is what gradually builds your confidence.

Today is the day and now is the time! Thus, it’s finally time to admit that… (more…)

Each prompt below contains a quote and question to think about. I have personally used each of these prompts countless times in the past to nudge myself into self-reflection, and I continue to revisit them regularly. They bring awareness to the subconscious attachments and assumptions we all have. And they can help you think and move through situations, big and small, so you can let go, refocus yourself, and make better decisions going forward.

Challenge yourself to read and reflect on one prompt a day for the next few weeks…

1.

Forgive yourself for the bad decisions you’ve made, for the times you lacked understanding, for the choices that hurt others and yourself. Forgive yourself, for being young and reckless. These are all vital lessons. And what matters most right now is your willingness to grow from them.

What specifically do you (more…)

You can’t lift a thousand pounds all at once, yet you can easily lift one pound a thousand times. Little repeated efforts will get you there.

I have witnessed people reinventing themselves at all ages — 48-year-olds starting families, 57-year-olds graduating from college for the first time, 71-year-olds starting successful businesses, and more. How did they all do it? In a nutshell, they started being more mindful about making progress in their lives, step by step. And by doing so they changed the trajectory of their lives.

What you need to remember most right now is that it isn’t too early or too late to start making positive changes in your life. Your future is always affected by what you start doing today. Yet so many people wait around for some arbitrary date and time, like tomorrow, to take action. Don’t be one of them! Make yourself a bigger priority starting now. It’s time to…

1. Insist on embracing your humanness.

“Human” is the only real label we are born with, yet we forget so easily. To become attached to a loaded label of (more…)

It’s not what you say to everyone else that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power and influence.

The best lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn over and over again. The human mind needs lots of reminders — lots of practice — to operate effectively. For example, deep down we know it’s OK to…

• Say “no”
• Speak up
• Tell the truth
• Believe differently
• Change our mind
• Prioritize our needs
• Learn from our mistakes
• Embrace our imperfections
• Forgive and seek forgiveness
• Begin again, stronger than before

Yet, we often do (more…)

“You only live once, but if you do it right once is enough.”
— Mae West

Twenty years ago, I was lucky enough to witness the humble, elegant, peaceful passing of my 89-year-old grandfather. As I sat quietly in his hospice room alongside my grandma and other family members, his nurse smiled softly and said, “I can see he lived well. People his age often pass just the way they lived.”

And as I drove home that evening a couple questions kept cycling through my mind…

“Am I living well?”

“What do I want to be able to smile about on the inside when I’m close to the end?”

These questions are tough, especially the second one. At the time, I struggled to fully accept my own mortality — just thinking about it stressed me out. So I simply avoided the question and the soul-searching it demanded of me. I distracted myself for a few more years until I found myself back in a hospice room with my grandma on her 90th birthday (more…)

The truth doesn’t disappear when it is forgotten or ignored.

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a bunch of different ways before it finally gets through to you? The ten truths discussed here fall firmly into that category — timeless lessons most of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of since, but for whatever reason we haven’t fully grasped them yet.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1. The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will (more…)