psychology for life

Where's all the money of the world?

2019-06-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

According to the discoveries of scientists, money was first used around five thousand years ago. At that time people were trading commodities. For example, someone gave you 1 kilogram of corn for 10 eggs in exchange. In most of the cases, it was difficult to put an exact value on different goods while trading. Hence, mankind came up with the idea of commodity money. They used somethings like seeds, salts, tobacco, etc. as commodity money to equalize the value of their exchanged goods. For instance, let’s assume that the value of 1 liter milk was equal to the value of 10 eggs. If the person had 9 eggs, he should have added a bit of seeds or salts to equalize the value of his goods while exchanging it for 1 liter of milk.

That was the original thought of human beings for inventing money. It was just a matter of time that humans came up with the idea of metallic coins out of iron, copper, silver and gold. Compared to seeds, salts, tobacco, etc. it was much easier to use coins as money. Based on the current evidences, the most logical reason that made people to invent money was a measure of value. However, this soon got taken advantage and deviated from its original purpose. It soon got seized by the armies as a measure of power to dominate the people. Thereafter, the money was mostly being used to indicate social hierarchies.

Sadly, to this day, the main purpose of money has been the same! To show power and social hierarchies. Today, the world’s population is about 7.5 billion and there’s an estimation of total world’s money of about $80 trillion. With doing a simple math, you could realize that each person on earth could have a share of around $11 thousand. But, why do you think that 99% of the wealth in the whole world belongs to less than 1% of the population and the rest of people are struggling to survive!? Today, more than half of the world are considered poor who live on less than $2.5 a day! The other half of the people (the middle class) are getting paid in a way to barely keep up with their living costs. Isn’t this a new kind of slavery that we are experiencing? Why should we keep people thirsty for money and give them single drops to keep them working? On the other hand, the upper class of societies (less than 1% of the world’s population) are getting richer and richer each day! Because there seems to be a threshold for money returns which the upper class has reached far beyond that line. That way the rich people don’t need to do anything. They just need to invest their money and use the labor from lower classes to get their profits back! Do you think the current economic system of the world is fair? I highly doubt it!

Considering the current situation, a lot economists are concerned that the middle class who builds the basis of democracy in the societies are losing their trust in the current economic system. They have been worried that the middle class might be disappointed and stop trying at some point, if they don’t see any improvements in their life quality compared to the upper class. What do you think happen if the middle and working class of people lose their faith in the system and stop working? Can someone blame them for demanding equity?!

I believe the economists should come up with a new plan to somehow spread the piled money of the upper class to the main stream of the societies. This could be done, for example, by applying higher taxes to the assets of upper class. Of course I’m not an economist and this must be carried out by the experts in the field. But, this should not be done in a way to discourage the billionaire entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and so on. These people are geniuses of our time who have taken the risks and worked hard on their ideas to accomplish their dreams. In other words, they have really earned their own money. On top of that, they have created a lot jobs and made many people rich as well. I am mainly talking about the people who have simply inherited their money from their family. As Tony Robbins call them one of the guys from lucky sperm club! Those who have inherited such a huge amount of money from generation to generation that they don’t even need to bother themselves to add any value to the life quality of societies.

Another issue which needs our attention is the way we spend the money. On 3^rd of August 2017, a football player named Neymar got transferred from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for $250 million! The money spent for the transfer of just top 10 biggest football players would sum up to around 1.37 billion dollars! Are you too wondering that what could have been done with that money? With that amount of money we could have built a lot of schools and hospitals in Africa. With just about 20 thousand dollars a school could be built in Africa!! So, we could have built more than 68 thousand schools in Africa with the same amount of money spent for just 10 football players!! That is correct! Building 68 thousand schools in Africa is equal to the money spent for transferring 10 football players! That is the world we’re living in! A mass of money is spent in football to entertain people while the education of children which is one of the strongest basis of any nation’s development is overlooked in some areas of the world. The opponents of this kind of subjects would usually claim that there is money in football because there is a lot of audience for that. And because of the huge audience, there are a lot of advertisements going on there which brings in the money. Well, remember that we are the audiences who are allowing them to waste the money that way. That is our share of the world’s money which is being wasted there. We all have a choice. We all have a remote control to change the channel. Less audience for them, means less money being wasted. If all visualize a big picture and feel responsible for the effects of our decisions on our societies, we could make big things happen. These were just some small examples of the wrong directions in our world. We didn’t even talk about the huge amounts of money wasted for wars and building weapons. There are a lot of ways to make a better world to live in my friends. And, I believe the way to achieve it is to first find peace in ourselves and then to spread it in the world. Let’s rebuild a world of quality & equality. Not a world of money slavery!

How to stand out in a world of volatility?

2019-04-14T11:04:00.001-07:00

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

─ Dr. Seuss

At this article we are going to talk about financial security. I hope you would also agree with me that money itself does not bring any happiness into our life. Money is nothing but a tool to be used for our convenience. The best laptop, cell phone, camera, car, house or whatever it is that you’re wishing for, are just the tools that we have linked a feeling of pleasure to them. Of course you might prosper in your life with having them or you might get more comfort in your life, I just want you to realize that it is the feeling that we are seeking for not the stuff itself. For example, some people believe that having a nice car can increase their self-esteem and personal security. Others might have linked a feeling of pleasure and comfort to having a big house and so on. So, when we wish for a house or car, it is the feeling of comfort, security or self-esteem that we want to have not the materials itself.

Today we are living in a world so different than decades ago. Nowadays the living style of people are changing so quickly and radically that sometimes it’s hard to keep up with! We are living in a period of time which most of the traditional job positions are being occupied by machines and robots. So, less labor is needed for the conventional jobs. In addition, new jobs need less and less daily interactions between people. We are getting so dependent on the internet that sometimes it would be impossible to even think about the future of our business and lives without internet!

Nowadays, there are thousands of ways to be financially successful by building your own business. It is not like decades ago that you needed to build a whole factory with lots of employees to start a new business. You can sit at home and run your business using the internet, such as selling on Amazon or EBay, blogging, writing eBooks, launching a YouTube channel, running a business on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on.

In general, there are much more opportunities for people to progress than last decades. But, at the same time, the competition is also so high at almost any area that you want to fit in. Let me get this clear with a few examples, as I have had a bit of experience with some of them. Let’s say, you want to start selling some stuff online on Amazon (which is the biggest online marketplace in the world). No matter what kind of product you choose to sell, there are already some big sellers that had started selling there before you. They have already made a lot of customer reviews that will help them enormously to beat up the new sellers on the platform. Let’s say you are really good at writing and you’re taking blogging as a serious career path for yourself. Again, there have been many bloggers before you who had started blogging years ago. When people search for a topic which you’re writing about, their content will be shown as the first suggestions not yours. The same story happens in the case of launching a new YouTube channel as well. When someone searches for something, the content of the channels with the most subscribers and views will come up and it looks like that your contents don’t even exist! These are just a few examples of the current competitions on some of the online businesses on internet. But, the main point that I want you to get is to realize that if something is out which is growing and you want to be part of it and have your share, be sure that there are already some rivals available there! If something is already out there and you want to be a part of it, the problem would be that the big leaders will get all the flesh and you would end up with some bones!

Then, how should we survive and prosper in this era? What if I told you that there’s a secret way to succeed in any area of your life? The answer to that is one world; uniqueness. To avoid getting sucked up at this world of volatility, you have to be original. That is the only way which is fair and available to anyone on the planet. This is not a strategy just for the guys from lucky sperm clubs who have inherited a huge amount of money from their family without the need to move their asses!

Nowadays if you want to succeed in your job, if you want to be appreciated, if you want to be seen, you have to be unique! That is the fastest yet most certain way to success. Be especial. Be unique. Just take a look around you. The world is full of anything you could think of. Any area which you want to enter, you face a bunch of competitors (leaders) who are beating that specific market. Instead, you should build something from the ground up which is entirely yours. In that case, you will be the first one (leader) in that area. That is the best way to gain your returns fairly. Never underestimate the power of creativity & innovation. Invent something, sell something completely new, write something especial, film something unique, etc. You’ll get where you want to be, you just need a bit of creativity and patience :)

The most important thing is to always remember that you can be happy where you are right now. The feeling of gratitude and appreciation is always around us, you just need to pay attention. Just listen to the sounds of nature, listen to your heartbeats, and see all the beauty around you. Appreciation of what you already have a guaranteed way to peace and happiness in life. If you can’t find any beauty in your life right now, if you can’t appreciate anything in your life now, that is highly likely that you won’t find it in your future as well! No matter where you are or how rich you are! So, it is better to work on yourself and your inner strength right now. That is the easiest and most straight-forward way to happiness, yet you have the full control over it.

If you think that money itself solves everything, I would strongly suggest you read the biography of some rich and even famous people who are miserable. They might have everything you wish for yet they’re unhappy!

How to deal with depression?

2019-02-14T14:07:00.001-08:00

How do you know when a person is depressed? What are the signs of depression? The most common signs of depression are feeling sad, hopeless and unmotivated to do anything. For example, a depressed person could easily lose her enthusiasm to do the things she used to do with passion. But, just talking about the signs of depression is not the main focus of this article and does not really help anybody! But, why do you think some people get depressed? And, what are the main reasons of depression? These are the most important questions that we should find a way to answer them, and then some solutions to cope with depression? In our previous articles about life values and hope, we somehow opened up the doors to the current topic.

Alright. Let’s start talking about the reasons of depression in people. Everybody has his/her own story and dreams for life. Someone thinks that life is difficult and you have to be tough and strong to deal with it. Someone think about life as a war of power & competition that you have to fight for yourself. Someone else thinks that life is beautiful and it is a gift given to you by god to celebrate it. Someone thinks life is just fun and it’s supposed to be enjoyed as much as possible. Someone else thinks that life is about helping and giving to each others. These are just a few examples of blueprints or life stories that people could build in their own mind. These life stories could be gradually created in your subconscious mind during your lifespan. Of course, most of your beliefs about life would be shaped during your childhood, however, these beliefs could sometimes be modified or even changed based on your life experiences (especially the most extreme life experiences that you’ve had). For instance, a terrible near-death car accident could change a person’s entire belief system about life. You could have an awful heart-breaking relationship that could change your view about being in a relationship.

Usually if you ask someone that: what do you want from life, most of them would immediately start saying that I want a nice car, a big home and so on. But, the important thing is that these are just superficial stuff right on the edge! You have to dig harder to find what you really want in life. I would strongly suggest you to read the previous articles about your life goals, life values, life rules and hope. If you have read those articles, then you should get the difference between your goals and life values. In a nutshell, you will set your goals based on your life values which are deeply rooted beliefs in your subconscious mind. Your life values are somehow coming from the different needs in human beings. For instance, all the human beings have the needs of love, security, success, fun, adventure, contribution, growth, freedom, etc. However, the order of the life values in each person plays a significant role in the eyes of that person of how seeing the world. Someone might have “love” as her first life value and has a desired life story in her mind about being loved, getting married, having kids and so on. Her desired life story could be very different from a person who, for example, has success at the top of his life values. To him, he might have to be the most creative and productive person in the science or industry to feel successful. Someone with the values of contribution and freedom at the top of her list might want to help as many people as possible to bring freedom for all around the world.

The most important thing to remember is that your life values are deeply rooted values in your belief system which are originating from the basic human needs such as love, security, power, and so on. However, your life goals are somehow the tools that you set them up to reach to your ultimate life values. It is also worth to mention that your life goals are easily shaped based on the influences you get from your external circumstances. For example, having a nice car, having a big house, and so on are the things we’ve seen around us and have pulled toward them by linking pleasurable feelings to them. I would put the labels of external influences on top of our life goals because they’re not usually the ultimate desires that we’re seeking.

For example, our primitive ancestors in hundred thousand years ago had a totally different life goals than us. For sure, they didn’t know anything about a nice car, a penthouse, a boat, a private jet and so on. They had their own life goals of having probably an arrow, sword, a shelter, a big hunt to eat, being the leader of the tribe, conquering the rival’s territory and so on. So, you can see how extremely different could be our life goals based on the environment and era which we are living in. On the other hand, the human needs for love, security, success, power, contribution, adventure, fun, freedom, growth, etc. have always been intact. In other words, people seek love as our ancestors were seeking it thousand years ago. People still seek for power as our grandfathers were seeking it. They just might have different ways to achieve it. That’s why I would like to draw a line of internal & external desires between our life values and life goals. Of course, we might also have some spiritual life goals for ourselves. For example, you could say that I want to learn a new thing each day so that I grow and progress continuously. Obviously, this is not a materialistic goal, but in the end it bridges back (serves) to one of your life values which was the need of growth in this case. If I want to put the words in a simpler way, I would say your goals either materialistic or spiritual are the ways you establish by yourself to achieve your desired life values which are somehow the basic human needs throughout the history.

In addition to that, our life rules are a kind of frame lines that we set in our own mind to judge ourselves. We could all have different standards for our lives. For example, two persons could both have success and financial security at the top of their life values list and both want to be a millionaire. But, one will be satisfied with 1 million dollars, the other one see himself as a millionaire once he has achieved 100 million dollars. They both have the same desire, but have a totally different set of rules and standards for their intention.

Depression comes into play, when you say that I wanted to be something, but I’m not there at all! You already had some dreams and life stories about your desired life, but you’re far away from reaching it. In this kind of situation, what choices do we have? You could blame anyone or anything that it may or may not be the reason of you not being where you wanted to be. But, this approach is the worst kind of reaction that you could show because it does nothing but to make you more furious and frustrated. A better approach is to always seek for a solution instead of just blaming and focusing on the problem itself. Training your mind to think about the solutions is one of the best ways that could help you to quickly shift your mind’s attention from the problem to a productive & creative level. So, what is the solution in the case you feel you’re not in the place you dreamed to be?

You can either change your life and current situation to reach where you want to be, or you can work on your beliefs and blueprints about life to change or at least modify your life stories to become closer to your dreams and reality. Usually, there should be combination of both of changing your life and your beliefs. But, the worst case of depression happens when the person realizes that he is far away from his dreams and has no control over it to change the situation. In other words, you feel hopeless to change your life. I would call this stage an inside death! Feeling hopeless is equal to death in my eyes. Just take a look at our article about hope here. Then, you notice that having hope for a better day in the future is in the essence of human beings. Losing your hope means losing everything. I believe that in our soul we could die a couple of times during our lifespan whenever we lose our hope to reach one of our dreams. And when the person lose his hope in everything, he feels there’s nothing to live for. That’s when the final death of the person arrives! Suicide, sickness or something else. Nowadays, so many people are dying because of cancer or some other types of sickness. But, the certain death comes when the person loses his hope in healing and passing the sickness. There are a lot of examples that have beaten up the cancer and some other types of fatal sickness, and those are the ones who always had hope for a better day in the future and never imagined themselves defeated and hopeless against the sickness.

Do not let anyone or anything take your dreams away from you. Nothing is impossible, there’s always a way.

So, up to now you should clearly understand the signs and causes of depression and the role of our beliefs and hope about life to overcome the depression.

To wrap this up, I would suggest you to brainstorm about what you really want in life. If you’re feeling a bit frustrated or depressed in your life, try to remember your desired life story and dreams. You could easily find the answers by asking yourself the questions about your life values, life goals, life rules (standards). Then if you don’t see yourself where you wanted to be, there could be different scenarios: 1. If you’re just a bit far from your dreams, you’re highly likely not a depressed person. Then, you just need to work on your actions and strategies to change your current situation and pass the obstacles to reach your ultimate dreams. 2. If you’re far away from your dreams, but you’re trying to be where you want to be and know that for sure that you will achieve your dreams in the future, you’re still fine. You may just need to work on your strategies and standards to facilitate and speed up the process of reaching your goals. 3. But if you’re far away from your dreams and you’re feeling hopeless about it to change anything, then that’s a critical point to take care of it immediately. You can still set some new strategies and standards for your dreams. Make new plans and goals for yourself to reach your desired life story. If your dreamed life story seem a bit unrealistic, you may adjust it a little bit and work on your beliefs and standards to reach there easier. You could easily get on track by lowering down your expectations and setting up some smaller goals. Then, you will fulfill them much faster and easier than before. And, you could gradually increase your standards (life rules) and set some new goals for reaching your ultimate life story.

I sincerely hope this article would help you to kill any kind of depression inside you. And, never lose hope for getting where you wanted to be.

A Healthy Diet is one of the keys to Mastering Your Life

2019-01-20T12:33:00.001-08:00

The first thing that we need in order to do anything in life is our health and energy. Without having enough energy, it is very difficult to proceed with anything in our daily life. Being healthy could be dependent on different physiological and psychological factors such as exercising, meditating, getting enough sleep and eating. You should always pay much attention to the significance of your mind activity on the level your health and energy. Psychological reactions such as stress, fear, anger, overthinking, etc. could easily take a lot of your energy during the day. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the health of our body and mind is extremely linked to each others. Neglecting each of them could easily and drastically impact the other one. However, in this article, we are going to talk about the influence of our eating diets on our health & energy.

How often do you feel down after eating your meals? If that happens often, it means that either you’re not mixing the right kinds of foods together in your meals (for instance, some foods need acidic environment in your stomach to be digested and some others need alkaline environment to be digested) or you’re not eating healthy foods. Having a healthy eating diet seems like a great fuel source for your body that helps you to achieve more in life.

Eating a healthy balanced diet is a must for keeping our health and boosting our energy. An exact example of a balanced healthy diet could be highly different due to the individual characteristics (such as age, gender and lifestyle), cultural background and locally available foods. However, the primary principles of what constitutes a balanced healthy diet stay the same.

Nowadays, more and more people are eating unhealthy foods high in energy, fats, free sugars and salt. On the other hand, they don’t eat enough fruits, vegetables and grains.

What should we eat to reach a balanced healthy diet then?

We could reach our aim by eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the right amount of food and drink. Taking into account the influence of many social and economic factors our diets could be changed over time. The individual’s diet could be influenced by their income, preferences and beliefs as well as food prices, cultural traditions, geographical and environmental situations (including climate change) which might affect the availability and affordability of healthy foods. Therefore, promoting a balanced healthy diet requires the contribution of multiple sectors, including government.

Let’s take a look at a balanced healthy diet that could be promoted in the societies by policy-makers:

There are 5 main groups of foods which you should include a variety of them in your daily diet.

1. Fruits & Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are a great source of vitamins and minerals that should consist about a third of our daily diets. Eating at least 5 portions or 400g of fruits and vegetables a day reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancers.

2. Starchy foods

Starchy foods such as potatoes, bread, pasta and rice should contain over a third of our daily meal. That means starchy foods should be chosen as a basis in our diets.

3. Milk and dairy foods

Milks and dairy products such as cheese and yogurt are a good source of protein and calcium. However, it is very important to always choose low-fat dairy products. Milks, yogurts and cheese out of soya could also be a great alternatives for dairy products.

4. Beans and protein foods

Foods such as beans, eggs, fish and meat are the main source of protein which is essential for the muscles to grow and repair itself. Meat is also a great source of vitamins and minerals such as iron, zinc and B vitamins. It is recommended to always have lean pieces of meat and skinless poultry to reduce the fat content.

5. Unsaturated oils

Some fats such as olive oils are good for our health. Unsaturated fats could lower cholesterol. However, the servings of the oils should be limited to small amounts.

And if you care about your health, eat less saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Consuming too much of saturated fats could increase the level of cholesterol in the blood which can increase the risk of having heart disease. The intake of saturated fats could be reduced, for instance, by boiling instead of frying when cooking, and lowering the consumption of fried and pre-packed foods.

Consuming too much of sugars could increase the risk of tooth decay, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The high amount of salt consumption could lead into high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. People are mostly unaware of their salt intake. The majority of salt intake comes from processed foods such as bacon, salami, cheese, salty snacks, etc. Beware of small amounts of salt already included your daily foods such as breads. Lowering the daily consumption of salt to the recommended intake of less than 5g per day could prevent 1.7 million deaths per year.

Then, I hope you get the importance of your diet in defining your health. Take care of your physical health as well as your psychological health to be able to have enough energy down the road!

Don't forget to take a look at the short video down below which was the main source of this article:

Let us know about your specific eating diet down below in the comment section.

Sources:

https://www.who.int/

https://www.nhs.uk/

Life goals make you to keep moving forward with a clear direction.

2018-12-28T06:28:00.001-08:00

“Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.”

─ Hugh Hefner

What is the role of goals in our daily life? How important is the impact of goal setting on our future? And, how to properly set goals in your life? These are just a few questions which will be answered in the current article. As you remember, we have talked about finding our life values and hope in previous articles. I would strongly recommend you to take a look at those articles before reading this one. If you’ve already read those articles, you would probably feel how closely related are the subjects of life values, hope and goals.

Let’s take a brief look at the gist of those articles here. In the article about life values, we understood that our values are deeply rooted beliefs and life stories that we have subconsciously created in our minds. And, our closeness or distance to that story defines the level of our happiness in life. If you’re far away from your desired life values, you’ll be sad or depressed. And if you’re very close to your life values or at least moving toward them, you’ll reach an internal level of happiness and satisfaction.

In the other article about hope, we talked about the significance of having hope in our lives. There, we discussed that having hope for a better future is the essence of life for everybody. It’s in the nature of human beings to always want more and hope for something in the future. Without having progress and hope for a better future, your soul will be decayed.

So, now it’s time to talk about our life goals and show their importance in our lives. We would also talk about the relevancy of goal setting to the subjects of life values and hope. If I want to define goal setting in just one sentence, I would say a life goal makes you keep moving forward and gives you a clear direction throughout your daily life. Assuming that you have recognized your life values to know what you really want in life, then you have to set your life goals to move toward your desired life story. For example, if health is one of your top life values, then you could easily set your goals based on that value. Let’s say you’re overweight and would like to lose some weight or you eat too much meat & junk foods and would like to have a healthier diet. Then, the only things you need are just a pen and a piece of paper. Write down your goals on a piece of paper or on your computer (Do it how you’re comfortable with). Now, you know what you really want, you know what is your outcome and you set your goals for that outcome with a time-frame. Depending on your outcome, your time-frame could be anywhere from 1 day to 10 years. Make a detailed clear plan for achieving your goals and pick up different strategies to arm you with solutions when facing difficulties and failures. Of course the way to set goals depends on you, and it could be done highly different for people. For instance, you could set daily goals for yourself to give you clear daily directions. On the other hand, you could also set long-term goals which give you a detailed map down the road for coming years. After setting goals, it's time to be prepared for making decisions, taking actions and being as flexible as possible along the way. As we have already discussed about decision making and personal flexibility in previous articles, we skip those subject here.

The most critical part about setting goals is that it could easily be influenced by your external environment. So, you have to be very careful when setting your goals. Try to set your goals based on your internal beliefs and desired life story (the things you really want in life), not based on the external influences and distractions you get from your circumstances.

As mentioned before, setting goals in life gives you a clear direction and purpose to move forward. The important part is to not just wander around with having blinded superficial goals in opposite directions which won’t make you satisfy in the end. It is highly likely for some people to accomplish something (a goal) and to be unsatisfied with the achievement. That could be clear signal that your goal was not assigned based on your internal belief system and life values. Instead, it might have been some superficial thing that you thought you liked to achieve just because you saw it in the other people’s life. Of course a little bit of dissatisfaction feeling after achieving a goal is reasonable, since ambition and wanting more is in the nature of human beings. No matter you’re poor or rich, no matter you fulfilled a goal of earning 100$ or 100,000$ you may still want more. Never forget that no matter which level of life you’re in, you have to have something to look for in the future.

As the last words you should realize that goal setting is a vital step in a person’s life. Notice that goal setting (either short-term or long-term goals) based on your life values gives you a clear direction and it provides you with the energy to keep moving forward.

How to kill negativity with the power of your focus?

2018-12-01T01:08:00.002-08:00

Do you know anyone around you who often says “I always mess things up”, “this is always happening to me”, “I never get a break” or “every time I get the worst”? Probably you know a lot of people who say: all the bad things happen to me. I hope you are not one of those people by the way. Do you even believe in such thing that all the things could go wrong for you or a particular person? There’s actually a theory or law named “Murphy’s law” that, in a nut shell, says things could always go wrong. But, is that really true? Let’s dig in.

I want to link this subject with the topic of our last article about the power of focus. In order to better feel the power of focus in your life, I will give you a couple of examples. Have you ever noticed that when you bought a car or bike or whatever, you suddenly started to see the same (or similar) thing all over you? Do you think they were already around you? You bet they were. The only difference is that you were not paying attention to them before, because you didn’t think about them or better to say you were not focusing on them. But, suddenly your mind started to think that “hey! This guy looks like me or has the exact same thing as mine”, and your mind began to pay more attention to it.

A great example given by Tony Robbins is that, he once asked his audiences to look for the red stuff in the room and then asked them to close their eyes and guess all the brown stuff in the room. The answer of the test is quite obvious; most of the people couldn’t name anything in the other color (unless they were well familiar with the environment). This is a very interesting example that proves us that our mind always looks for the things that we ask for. Think about it. Your mind has a capacity and it can’t consider all the data at the same time, so it needs to selectively filter most of the stuff out and just focus on certain things in its desired areas.

Let’s consider an example of a party. There are a dozens of people in the party. It’s very crowded. A couple of people have gathered up in each corner and are chitchatting. Let’s say that you run into the first group and join them the entire party. The whole time they are talking about the worst things that have ever happened to any of them. One of them described how he was in a terrible car accident. The other was telling how she lost her husband. The other one was talking about a horror story of a murder in their neighborhood. So, what was your impression of the party when you left there? How do you judge the atmosphere of the party? Most likely, you would describe it as a sad gathering. On the other hand, your friend also came to the party. But, she joined a second group of people in the party that were always joking, laughing and dancing. What would be your friend’s impression of the party? Most likely, she would say: it was an amazing party! Then, which one is right? The first person or the second one? Was the party sad or amazing? The answer is both of them are right! They just took different frames of the party. They didn’t see the whole picture. They just focused on a particular area of the party. Negative, Positive or Neutral stuff are always all around us at any moment of our lives, it is just us who define what to focus on.

Nowadays, when we talk about positivity, some people start thinking that positivity does not exist in the real world or it’s just BS! Most of this people think that you have to deal with the hard face of life in order to progress and make a good life. Of course, it is true that you have to deal with the realities in life! I don’t think that none of the people believing and practicing positivity close their eyes on the real challenges in their lives. They have just achieved the art of focusing on the bright sides of the life at any moment of their lives. That could surely make them happier and lift them up to deal with the daily challenges much better than the other people.

In the reality, what are the chances of stuff happening? I mean the simplest stuff in the daily life of people such as facing a red traffic light. I bet you know a lot of people that say, I always get into the red light! Tell me what are the chances of all stuff happening in life? Not just this simple example, it could be extended to almost anything above our control. Isn’t it 50-50? It should be because otherwise it doesn’t make any sense. The only thing different is your frame of life that you’re looking into. When you turn into the green light, you won’t notice it. You don’t say: hey how lucky I was to get the green light exactly at the moment. But, you focus on the other 50% of stuff in your life such as heading to a red light and you magnify it. I hope you realize that this simple example could easily be extended to any other aspect of your life. That is the problem that some people even try to expand it to say I always get this, I always get that. That is called negativity my friends. Try to not use absolute adjectives for things happening in your life. Open your eyes to see that there are opportunities and possibilities in life. Look at the possibilities from different frames and angles to see the other half as well.

So, it all ends with what you’re focusing on. Kill the negativity inside you to allow the positivity blossoms.

How to get what you want in your life? You get to choose what to FOCUS on.

2018-11-09T10:04:00.001-08:00

What do want to achieve in your life? What are your life goals? What are your outcomes? The answers to these questions and thinking about them enable you to better find your life values and true desires which we talked about them here. However, do you think it is enough to just figure out your outcomes, sit down tight and wish for them to come true?! Of course not! Finding your outcomes is just the first step which, by the way, is one of the most important steps (if not the most important one) in your life. As we see, the majority of people are just wandering around aimlessly to deal with their to-do lists. We’ve already covered the topic of managing your daily challenges and workloads, and there we talked about the importance of prioritizing your to-do lists based on your values. However, worrying and obsessing about your to-do lists without putting your main focus on your priorities and outcomes could easily overwhelm you and suck up all of your energy. That is the reason, we talked about not doing a couple of tasks at the same time in the article about decision making and taking actions.

How do you define focus? I would say focus is the level of your obsession for something important to you. How bad do you want to achieve your outcomes? How big are your WHYs (reasons) for achieving them? Are you willing to give most of your time and energy for accomplishing them? If you have a big WHY that why you want to achieve something in your life, you will probably put most of your energy & time on that to get there. You’ll be motivated to get there because your WHYs (reasons) for getting there are big, and you’ll link pleasure to getting there and pain to the opposite of that. Let’s take the example of having big WHYs on a couple of things and focusing on them at the same time. In that case, you’ll probably be there and achieve them, but as obvious as is, it takes longer to get where you want to be. Because you are distributing your main focus, time and energy over a couple of things which they might all be equally important to you. I am not saying anything here, I just want you to know that the ways to proceed and lead your life by your focus is all up to you.

As you may have realized, you get to choose what to focus on in any second of your life. What’s wrong is always available so as what’s right. There are always two sides to focus on in any second of your life. You could always focus on the negative side of the things in your days, or you could choose to focus on the positive side of your days. As I’ve already mentioned “Life is nothing but our own interpretations of it.”. So, our focus is the core element which determines how we feel and what we get in the end. On top of that, focusing on the big pictures and final outcomes could easily rescue us from drowning down by daily distractions.

I’ll give you an example, how important would be answering to your emails and paying the bills when you start to picture your final outcome such as living on a beautiful island next to a see and having fun with your loved ones? How happy and energized will you be visualizing those pictures in your mind? How small would be your daily to-do lists then? Would still let worthless stuff to steal your focus and joy?

All of the successful people that you see, they have been able to constantly focus on their outcomes. They didn’t let the worthless distractions take their most precious asset which is their focus (you could also call it, your time and energy).

Think big and don’t settle for less than you deserve. In any case during the day when you realized that you’ve been stuck in your daily to-do lists and distractions, take a couple of deep breaths and remember your final outcomes. That makes you to either build a connection between these little stuff with your outcomes or to get rid of them (if they are not helping you to get your outcomes). I promise you that anytime you do this, you see how your daily distractions would shrink and become small compared to your long-term visions. So, you won’t be distracted, angry or frustrated over worthless stuff anymore. In a simple sentence, your reality is shaped based on your constant focus.

HOPE. The ultimate meaning of LIFE.

2018-09-08T02:09:00.001-07:00

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

─ Aristotle

What's the meaning of life? What's the reason for living? What's the essence which keeps us moving forward? Have you ever thought about these kinds of questions? If yes, then you might have come up with a bunch of different answers such as love, freedom, peace, success and so on. However, I would strongly believe that the ultimate meaning of life, the juice of life or whatever you want to name it, is our hope. Hope for a better day in the future. Hope to live, hope to love, hope to give, hope to achieve… Any of us is on this planet at this exact moment to serve a specific purpose. You have a destiny to fulfill, you have a mission to complete. Don't always think about yourself. Think about bigger pictures than yours. Be more spiritual. A hope to do something meaningful to fulfill your life destiny will rescue you from any internal emptiness.

In one of the previous articles, we talked about true happiness which comes up with the fulfillment of your core life values. What it meant was that you have your own blueprint for life which interprets how your life should be in order for you to be happy. If you have read the other articles of Psychologyforhappyliving, I am sure that you know that this interpretation comes from your belief system which you have created for yourself during past years. To put it another way, you have your own story in your mind that keeps reminding you how your life is supposed to be. If you're not there, that could be the starting point of your frustrations and unhappiness. If you are far away from it (from your ideal life), then you might even get higher levels of unhappiness. However, this might turn into a huge problem for anyone, once the person thinks that the situation is out of his control. In other words, he thinks that he can do nothing to make his dreams come true. This is the critical point which he starts to suffer and feels powerless to change his life. I would call this critical point as broken hope. When you lose your hope to achieve your dreams, the life will be meaningless to you. You might see no reason for living anymore. The significance of hope on the life of human beings should never be overlooked. There’s actually an old Persian phrase which says “Man is alive by his hope”.

Then, what should we do to keep our hope for living? And what to do, if we have already lost our hope for living? Losing hope is one of the worst things (if not the worst thing!) that could happen to anyone. However, to fix this issue, you need to either change your blueprint (your story of how your life is supposed to be) or change your life to make your own desired life story. In most of the cases, you need to change a bit of each.

An important point to notice is that happiness would never fall on you by accident. It's your job to catch it. Happiness is a state of mind filled with pleasure. There should be a specific reason for you to be happy. You cannot be artificially happy no matter how hard you try. For example, if I want you to laugh, I need to tell you a joke or do something funny to make you laugh. It doesn’t work, if I either encourage or force you to laugh because it wouldn’t be a real laugh. The harder you force yourself to do something, the harder it becomes. As discussed before in the article about life values, even your life goals would not 100% satisfy your needs in order for you to be happy. For instance, let’s say that having a great car or a big house is one of your life goals in the next year. What do you think happens when you get there? It is guaranteed that in a few days you'll get used to the new situation (your accomplished goal!) and look for another future-oriented goal to fulfill. Think about your current life, how many things are in your life that once they seemed just like a dream to you? We should realize that it's in the nature of human beings to be always ambitious and seek for future-oriented tasks & goals to fulfill. So, once we get to the point of our goal accomplishment we should be prepared for the next steps. Otherwise, we would have been completely saturated at the point of our achievement and we would have lost our motivation for a better day in the future, since there would be no more to get in the coming days! You could consider it as a useful instinct in mankind as it keeps us moving forward to grow. You should also remember that our life goals are mostly manipulated and created in our minds based on the superficial influences that we get from our environments. Hence, even if you achieve those goals, you won’t feel satisfied because it is not fulfilling your true desires.

In order for you to be happy, I believe that you have to meet your core life values & blueprints. You should live on your own terms. It is not what you get that makes you happy, it the way you live, the way you see and interpret your life. That's what makes you happy. So, living your life the way you desire based on your beliefs, values and blueprints will give you a sincere feeling of pleasure and happiness.

How do you define the meaning of your life? How do you define happiness? How do you define hope? Think about your answers to the above questions for a while.

This is my answer: whatever I do, I must never ever lose my hope & faith in making my future better. I would like to see a meaning behind anything happening in life, even when we’re suffering. Because if there's any meaning in life, there should be a meaning in our sufferings as well. I believe that sufferings are the basis of life which makes us stronger for living. Think about your whole life for a second. Is our life anything but our own interpretations of it? It depends on us to be wise enough to interpret the life in a beautiful & meaningful way that serves us. It is up to us come up with a positive mindset toward life. Life is nothing but our own interpretations of it.

Life is not about me, but about we. Hope to love, to feed your children, to end hunger & war around the world, to protect animals, to protect environment, to save the planet earth, to be useful for your family, friends and society, to achieve what you really want in life. These are just a couple of examples which make us keep moving forward. These are the reasons for living. These are our hopes to live for.

Never stop dreaming. Trust God. Have faith. You’re not in the wrong hands. You’re not in the wrong place. Be faithful and do not lose your hope because that’s the ultimate meaning of life which keeps us moving forward to grow and prosper.

This article has been inspired by the words of Tony Robbins, Joel Osteen and Viktor Frankl.

How the big changes happen in life?

2018-08-18T12:25:00.001-07:00

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

─ Leo Tolstoy

If you remember, the main aim of our life journey on Happy Living was to be better persons than ever before by understanding ourselves & our behaviors. It is highly likely that each one of us has at least a few negative behavioral patterns which need to be changed by practice. But, let’s be honest here. It is not that easy to change a behavioral pattern which has been rooted in your personality for years.

We're all unique in our own personalities and have very special characteristics. You should always appreciate your uniqueness. Once you accept your own uniqueness, you won’t be in an internal conflict with yourself anymore.

But, all of the above do not justify the fact that we should always stay the same! In fact, we should seek for ways to progress & grow. The important thing is to make growth a consistent part of our life.

Let’s see when the urge for change arises? In which cases do you want to modify your personality? For instance, when your characteristics and life rules (standards) are not in the line with your life values. Let’s say you have financial security as one of your top life values, but you've been broke for a long time. What do you do then? You decide to do something to change your situation. If you don’t do anything, it will certainly lead to frustrations. As we have already discussed about frustrations and making decisions, you might already noticed that most of the subjects in the articles are tightly related to each other and they're part of a chain. Anyway, back to our example mentioned above, the person is broke because of his decisions, rules and standards. So, to change the situation he needs to raise his standards and break his life rules which are limiting him.

Usually the big change in our personality or our behavioral pattern happens in two different ways: either life will change us or life will change us! Either subconsciously or consciously. You have probably seen some people who've had hard times in their past, grow stronger than the average people. That is life teaching and shaping their personality. However, it is not guaranteed for everyone to grow and prosper out of the hard times. That is highly dependent on each person's life beliefs which make them react to the situation in a specific way. In other words, their life beliefs make them to interpret the same experiences in a different way. The examples of the life lessons could be countless: the person loses someone important in life, and will be changed afterwards. Again, the way of changing depends on the person’s beliefs and the way he responds to the situation. The person experiences a terrible near-death accident and it will change her. The probable response of her to the experience could be in a spiritual way when she appreciates the value of her life more than ever before. She could be more grateful for the value of her health and each seconds that she has on earth with her loved ones. The most important thing to always remember is that life happens no matter how, it is our job to be wise enough to react to it properly. Usually the big changes that life brings, could potentially change the way that we have been interpreting our experiences. In other words, it could change our life belief system (usually in a subconscious way).

The other way is that we have experienced life in a certain way for a while (usually in a frustrating situation for a long time) that we reach to a point where we consciously decide to put an end to it. In other words, we reach a threshold by the little stuffs piled up which would be unbearable for us not to change. When something gets unbearable for us, it means that we have linked so much pain to it, so we will do anything to change the situation to reduce the pain. Let’s say you’ve been in a job for a long time, but you hate that job. You don’t like your working environment, the type of work you do or whatever it is that’s keep bothering you. You'll finally reach to a point to say I’ve had enough of this! That is the point you have reached your threshold in which you'll no longer settle for anything less than you want. In the best case scenario, you'll change your beliefs to meet your true desires in life.

You might be asking about the cases in which you don’t like the way of your living, but you’ve not been able to change the situation yet. What is the reason of that? What should you do then? A simple piece of advice to you would be to take it easy. Either the situation you're experiencing in your life is not yet that influential to change you, or the little stuffs were not enough to build your threshold point. As I said earlier, life will go on, so flow with it and don’t force yourself to change. That just makes your frustrations worse and you’ll end up miserable. The big change will happen when its time arrives. Meanwhile, make peace with yourself and appreciate your uniqueness. At the same time, never give up learning, practicing and growing.

In a nutshell, you don't have to insist on the change, if the time has not arrived yet. Be in peace with yourself, and appreciate your uniqueness to flow with the life in a beautiful state.

How to get along with social and cultural influences?

2018-08-11T12:12:00.001-07:00

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.”

─ Oscar Wilde

Have you ever thought about the impacts of the society on your life? Have you ever noticed the ways that you get influenced by the culture? If not, you might be amazed that how much our behavioral patterns would be affected and, in some cases, shaped by the society & culture. In fact, society & culture play a big role in setting rules for our lives. In previous articles we sometimes pointed out the influences of the environments on our mind, but here we're going to talk about it in more details.

My main purpose from this article is to open up your eyes to the possibilities beyond your current visions which might be sometimes faded out by your limiting rules. Before we get started, let’s talk a bit about the cumulative social influences. We are where we are because of the human’s capability to gain knowledge and to share it with each other for thousands of years. By having a brief look at the evolution of humanity, this ability could be the main reason which distinguished us from other living creatures. Without having any disciplines, rules and values, it's not hard to imagine that we would have been struggling to survive in the nature like wild animals. In fact, the rules of our societies helped us tremendously to be at this point of the history of human beings in which we not just survived but also prospered as rich civilizations.

But, sometimes social influences might form a norm which could be a kind of limiting rule for us. Most of the times people would fall into the rules blindly and try to be the same as anyone else. How many times were there wrong rules throughout the history of human beings that needed to be changed? Probably thousands of times. Was that right to call people slaves because of their color?! Was that fair to take the voting right from colored people?! Was that right to kill the people because of their religious beliefs (sadly, this is still happening in some parts of the world!)?! Believe it or not, these were the norms of the societies and people were following them (without even questioning the rules!) How do you think the rules got changed? At some point, someone questioned the current rules and decided to do something about it. The heroes that we have today, were regular unknown people at the beginning of their path. But, they were deeply motivated that something needs to be changed and constantly persisted on their actions to finally break the rules (conventions).

We still have a long a way to go. There are so many things wrong in our societies that need to be changed such as poverty, economic systems, political systems, environmental management systems, nuclear wars, racism and so on. There are so many heroes on the way to be born soon. And the good news is that you could be one of them. Think about it.

Let’s talk about more personal influences that we get from our societies. How about smoking cigarettes? People know that it tastes horrible and it will cause a health problem for them. But, why do they still try it? It is because they have subconsciously linked the feeling of pleasure to smoking. You were a kid and saw your father smoking and you subconsciously said in your mind: wow that is cool. You saw your friends who were smoking and to be able to get acknowledged by them, you also joined them to be part of the gang! You saw in the advertisements that the guy who was smoking cigarettes was so sexy or was getting laid. If you would like to have any of those fictitious pictures, you will link pleasure to smoking. In other words, you take smoking equal to being cool, being acknowledged, being sexy and so on. Now, it is time to consciously ask yourself: were those the right people for me to model? Better to lead your own life as conscious as possible.

On the other hand, we see the examples of kids who had alcoholic parents and grew up against drinking alcohol. How didn’t they turn like their parents? It is basically the result of the interpretations of their life events. The kid might have seen their parents always arguing, fighting, vomiting after drinking alcohol. It is likely that the kid will link pain to drinking alcohol and refuse to do the same thing in the future.

Based on the examples mentioned above, you could realize that how big the parents’ responsibility is to be a good role model for their kids. They should either illustrate enough pain for the undesirable behavior to turn the kids against the behavior, or illustrate enough pleasure for the desirable behavior to attract the kids to it. The parents shouldn’t always be personally involved in the experiences to show their kids the consequences of their decisions. They can show them a movie, a documentary or a cartoon which displays the consequences of their decisions. If the experience you are picturing for them is strong enough, or if the experience is repeated enough, they would buy it. I am not suggesting that parents should be so manipulative to influence the entire subconscious behavioral pattern of their kids based on their own calls. Actually, in many situations, it is very good to leave the kids alone to make their own judgments and decisions freely. But, the least that parents can do is to don't link pleasure to the wrong habits and behaviors.

By any chance, if you did have wrong role models, don’t think that it’s too late for you to do something about it. You can always find new role models in any area you like. Read books, watch movies, TV-series or any other thing about your concerns. The good thing about reading a book or watching TV-series is that you connect and get used to the characters in the story. That is an important factor to get positive influences from your new role models. Choose your resources wisely.

Try to be as conscious as possible in your life and question anything before committing yourself to do it. Personally, I try my best to don’t follow the herd blindly. A simple example of this is when some people are crossing the red traffic light when there’s no car around. If I am not late for something, I won’t do that at all. I don’t care even if hundred people are doing the exact same thing. I don't let the peer pressure force me to do something in contrast to my intention. When I know the rule is right, I won’t do the wrong thing just because everyone else is doing it!

Another current social situation that needs to be changed is generalization, discrimination and judgement of each other based on the external factors. In general, people have a tendency to categorize each other and put themselves into different groups. And, they would mostly like to stay in the category of majority. For instance, LGBTs (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders) who don’t have hetero-sexual interests in the common terms of straight people, have many difficulties to get accepted by the society. They couldn't simply get involved in the social engagements. They're not able to easily get a job or even to have a normal life as anyone else! Is it fair to make it difficult for some people to live just because of their personal interests?! Fortunately, the situation has gotten better for LGBTs (in 2018) compared to a couple of years ago, but there is still so much to do so that people wouldn’t always look at them as a minority. I would encourage you to be as open-minded as possible, and never judge the people by their beliefs, rules, religion, sexuality and so on. Do not put the people into different groups by drawing a line between them. Be sure that in the next hundred years, people look back to this period time and wonder that how could have people discriminated or even judged the other people by their sexual interests (the same way that we now think about slavery in the past). Media could play a big role in reducing discrimination between majority and minority of people in different subjects of sexuality, religion, etc. Better to erase those differentiating lines completely so that everyone lives as freely as possible.

The same concept could be extended to social pressures (peer pressures) as well. It means that there would be demands on you to do the things people would expect you to do. For instance, having a girlfriend, getting married and so on. Again, the majority is doing something, and they want you to do the same thing as well. I can just say that you live once, so do it the way you want. You should live for yourself not anyone else. You can fulfill all of the people’s demands and still they won’t stop asking. Whatever you do, there will still be some people that ask you for something else. You can never control the other people’s thoughts and judgments, but you can control yours. So, ask yourself do I really want to do the same thing as everyone else? Do I need to have the same thing that everyone else has? Consciously thinking about your decisions will reduce the chances of regret for a wrong path in the future. Many people realize it too late that it was not what they wanted, but other people wanted from them!

I am sure that you’ve got the message of this article loud and clear. Do not follow the herd blindly. Do not imitate other people’s rules without questioning them. Do not do anything to just impress others. Do it for your own sake, for your internal desires and belief system.

Expand your vision to see the hidden possibilities beyond the current rules and conventions. Raise your standards and break the limiting rules to evolve.

How to deal with OverThinking?

2018-06-04T10:24:00.001-07:00

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

─ Lou Holtz

What is overthinking? As the name of the word implies, overthinking means thinking too much about something. Almost all of the people overthink sometimes. But, the level of overthinking and the frequency of it could be vastly different between people. A good point to notice is that thinking deeply about a subject is not bad at all. And, most of the times it could bring out great results such as discovering something valuable. However if this process of deep thinking gets so long focused on the worthless subjects, that could be a big problem for anyone.

How many times have you caught yourself thinking about worthless stuff during the past days? The problem is that thinking about unimportant stuff will just take your energy, time and focus which are all too precious to be easily ignored. A big portion of overthinking could often be due to our thoughts about the future which we will discuss it in another article. In the other article about changing our states, we learned two different techniques which could be a big asset for us to cope with overthinking.

Let's see what we can do about the destructive pattern of overthinking to stop it or at least reduce it to an acceptable level.

1. First of all, admit that your brain is unbeatable and you can never ever turn it off. It's like a gigantic machine that is always working. It's always processing information and commanding you by sending signals. So, try to be a friend of your mind by understanding it rather than to fight with it.

2. Be present and aware of your actions and behaviors as much as possible throughout the day. Doing meditation twice a day would be great to both start & finish the day in a meaningful & peaceful way.

3. Realize that no one is perfect. Don't judge yourself. Don't compare yourself with the others in a way that let you down.

4. Do not spend more than enough time for worthless stuff in your mind. Set some time-limits for your thoughts. For example, for minor thoughts about cooking, shaving, showering, shopping, etc. set 30 seconds time-limit. Lets say 30 seconds is more than enough to be wasted on thinking about those subjects. When you get aware of your situation and thought, make your decision quickly, give the last word, and move on. For a bit more serious and important stuff such as decision making about your job, family, friends and so on you can set a time-limit of 30 minutes or whatever that suits you.

5. Use a future-oriented perspective. Be aware of your thoughts and prioritize them based on this question: Would this thought matter in the next week? Next month? Or next year? By asking this kind of question in the moment of an arising thought, you can realize that how important the thought is and how long it could last. If it's something that won’t matter to you in the next days, you probably shouldn’t spend more than 30 seconds on it, because it’s not worth it, is it? On the other hand, If it is something which matters to you in the next years, it is obviously an important thought about your life. In that case, you may dedicate some more time to the thought.

6. Be positive and see the positive sides of the present and future situations. Why to be negative by thinking about all of the problems and obstacles to paralyze yourself ahead of time?! Change the game by changing your mindset. Focusing and thinking about the positive sides of the present or future situations will automatically change your physiological states and lift you up.

7. Focus on the solution instead of the problem itself. This strategy will direct your mind to be always curious and creative for finding a solution.

8. Do not overreact to the things beyond your control because you'll lose! Do not invest your time thinking about the things that are out of your control because you can do nothing about them, and you just make yourself miserable & powerless by thinking about them.

9. Set a time for yourself to overthink! For example, set 20 minutes of your time in the evenings to overthink. During this period of time give yourself freedom to think about every little detail of your day. Organize them, write them down on a piece of paper, or do whatever you feel comfortable with. So, whenever your mind starts to overthink during the day, you can let the thoughts go easily, since you already know that there will be a dedicated time for them.

10. Do not lock up your mind by worthless stuff. You should already know that how strong your mind is and how much capability it has. It could act like a stone-cutter laser when it's focused on something. So, let its potential be used & focused on the places where it's needed. It's better to don't do multitasking. Instead, focus on a single task at a time. You can schedule your tasks and then work on them one by one. Generally, people with high level of overthinking could be highly valuable in organizing & planning jobs. Since they have very analytical insights to every little details and get satisfied with organizing & planning tasks, this kind of jobs could be a good career path for them.

11. Workout. Doing an exercise such as running, jogging, swimming, body-building, etc. could help you to release the daily pressures off your shoulders. This is a quick way to refresh and clear your mind.

12. Get enough sleep at nights. Having a good quality sleep at night could help your mind to work more efficient & productive the next day.

Implement the above strategies in your life and see how things could change for better. Do not forget that overthinking is not a bad thing in essence, you just need to make a balance to optimize your mind productivity.

How to overcome the Fear of Future?

2018-05-23T10:18:00.005-07:00

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

─ Albert Einstein

Fear is one of the most common primal instincts in human beings. And most likely, you've experienced it in many situations of your life. A little bit of fear and stress could serve us as a stimulant to be aware & awake for the upcoming situations. However, like most of the other emotions we experience in our daily life, fear could be very destructive when it grows and goes out of our control.

Fear usually gives you a kind of alarm (signal) that you need to be prepared for something that is going to happen in the future. That's why you rarely get fearful about the past. In fact, it mostly gets your attention about something in the future or present. Let's take a closer look at the fear of future. As the name itself implies, it is a feeling linked to the unknown future that affects your mind and behaviors. This isn't always a negative thing, since there are many people who are adventurous and will be excited about the unknown future. However, there are so many people on earth that would prefer certainty, comfort and security. These people usually panic when something goes wrong or out of their plans. As you may know severe levels of fear could be very destructive, since it could paralyze people to take any action. A couple of examples for the fear of future could be: fear of changes, fear of time (age), fear of loneliness and so on. In general, all of them could be categorized under the fear of future or fear of uncertainty.

So, how could we deal with the fear of future?

1. The first thing you need to do is to recognize that no one knows what will happen in the future. Do you?! I guess not! :) So, try to make your peace with the unknown. For a second imagine that we all knew that what would happen in the future. Not just in the long term, but in the short term as well. For instance, if you would take a walk, you'll see john on your way! If you would go to the cinema, the movie makes you cry! As a result, our life wouldn't be the same again and it might get so boring for us.

2. Be present. Being present is an essential factor in the happiness of human beings. It makes you to be more aware of the real things in the present instead of wondering about the past or future. Always remember that our health is one of the most (if not the most!) important things in our life. When your health would be in jeopardy, you would give everything you have to take your health back. Heart attacks and strokes take the lives of millions of people per year. Notice that how fragile our lives are. Everything could turn upside down in a heartbeat. Think about it. You might not even be here in the next moment. I don't want to be negative or scare you. It's just a good thing to remind you sometimes that how fragile our lives are so that we would appreciate the value of our life, be more present and never postpone joy.

3. Do not make all of the worst case scenarios in your mind. Most of the times people start thinking about their life and begin to predict all of the problems and details of it in advance. If you don't control your mind, it will control you! And, you'll end up frustrated for no good reason. Interestingly, more than 90% of the predicted scenarios in our mind won't even come true! So, you're just making yourself miserable for no good reason! And, when you realize that you wasted so much time worrying about whatever was your case, you wish that you didn't lose so much of your precious time on it. So why don't you stop the negative pattern right now? Why don't you think about the future in a positive mode instead? The bottom line is that the future is unknown and no one knows what will happen in the future. Then, why don't you predict the details of future in a better way to inspire you, to encourage you, to motivate you, to excite you? Think about the real power you have in your mind. It's all up to you. The things in the future do not exist yet, right? So, what do you want to do with the thoughts of future in your mind? Either get rid of them to be able to focus on the present or build the best possible scenarios in your mind to excite you. If you want to think about the non-existent things in a way to make you upset, it's your choice!

4. Practice to be always positive and optimistic, specially about the future. For instance, if you have a fear of time or age, realize that your case might be solved by science in the near future. Let's say that in the next three years there would be vaccine that elongates the lifespan of human beings twice as normal. This could be similar to the other vaccines that people would take nowadays to protect themselves from some diseases which were taking so many people's lives decades and centuries ago. Then, when you get there (the discovery of the new vaccine in our case) you won't regret that you missed so much of your time worrying about the worthless issues that have been solved by now! Think about the value of your time. Make every second counts.

5. The next thing you need to work on is your flexibility. We have already talked about flexibility in details here. In a nutshell, you need to practice being more patient and easy-going with your plans & schedules. Always remember that nothing in life is ever achieved easily and you have to make an effort to get what you want.

6. Try to recognize that nothing in life ever happens without a reason. If you look closer to the events, you could always find a way that it serves you. It's always up to you to be more positive and focus on the solutions instead of problems. Let's say that you got out of a relationship because your partner dumped you. What do you think will happen then? Of course, after a while that person will find a way (or life will show him a way) to deal with the situation. Millions of people on earth are alone and find their own ways to go on. The bottom line is that being alone could sometimes be very useful as well. Some people could find their real missions & true meanings in life when they're alone. So, if you're in a relationship instead of the fear of being alone in the future, focus on the present to make it better and more fun.

Realize the true power you have in your mind. Notice that nothing could limit you. Practice the above ways to get rid of your non-sense fear of future, and let the real empowered you appear.

Why you're not happy? Change your State!

2018-05-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”

─ Marcus Aurelius

What is the ultimate desire of human beings in life? Is it something else than true happiness? You and I might have very different values & goals for our lives, but we are not that different in the end. Ultimately, we all seek happiness in our lives despite the different paths we might take to get there. In other words, each person might have his own definition of happiness. If you agree with me that the ultimate purpose of life is to find true happiness, then we might be wondering that why we often suffer from worthless situations in our daily life? If we get trapped in those situations, what can we do? How can we rescue ourselves from suffering?

The most important lesson You and I need to always remember is that we are the real source of our happiness not anyone or anything else. Your happiness is defined in your mind not anywhere else! If that's true, You and I should be able to be happy all the times. But, why do we have difficulty to be happy most of the times? Why it is so rare for us to be free (independent) of the external factors in our circumstances?

One of the best ways to be in full control of your mind and emotions is to change your state. Your state could be defined as your physiological & psychological conditions in a moment which enable you to respond to your internal & external stimulants in a specific way. Let's get clear about this; how do you picture a depressed person? Most likely, a guy with sad face, down shoulders, low voice, low level of self-esteem and energy, etc. Can you imagine the downsides of having this kind of state in your daily life? Clearly this person is in the wrong physiological & psychological conditions. Most likely, he's not going to take any actions and doesn't enjoy from his moments in life.

Then, how can we change our state, if we notice that we're not at the peak of our state to be happy and productive?

1. The first way to change your state is to be mindful and aware (conscious) of your emotions. You can read here, that how our subconscious mind works and how destructive it could be by having negative emotional patterns installed on it. And, the worst part is that most of these patterns have been created through no choice of our own. They have been formed during our childhood and afterwards in our living environments (by our parents, friends, colleagues, teachers, etc.). So, analyze your emotional patterns for at least a week and write down all the emotions that you feel in that period of time. Be committed that you stay aware of your emotions during the whole day. In the first day, you just have to notice the emotions and write them down. For example, write down Anger, Fear, Gratitude, Joy, Frustration, etc. if you noticed that you experienced those feelings during the day. When you do this exercise, you would notice that the range of your emotions which you feel during a day are not too broad. There are mostly a bunch of emotional patterns which come up occasionally and put you in different states. The next assignment is to find the situation or environments which trigger these kinds of emotions. So, for example, the next day whenever you realized that you got angry! Ask: Why did I get angry? What was the case that triggered the feeling of anger? What was the situation? By asking this kind of questions, you consciously try to find the reason which caused you to experience that specific state (in this case anger).

Up to here, you have categorized your patterns of emotions which you mostly feel during your daily life, and you have found the situations that trigger those emotions. So, what is the next step?

Now, you have to figure out how you can get more of the positive emotions such as gratitude & joy and less of the negative ones such as frustration & anger. To get more of the positive emotions, you could simply put yourself more often into the situations that triggered those emotions. For example, if you see hanging out with a specific friend brings lots of fun & joy into your life, do it more often. If you realize that helping others makes you to be more grateful for life, do that more often. On the other hand, to get less or none of the negative emotions, you should practice on their antidotes. You can have your own ways to deal with the negative emotions and find your own antidotes for them. For instance, to deal with anger, you might want to work on yourself to take things less personal. You could practice to let the things go when they're out of your control. You can relax by breathing deeply and counting your inhales & exhales. This is always a great antidote to anger because it makes your mind to cool off and better appreciate the present moment. You can get some more tips about coping with anger here.

To sum up, be aware as much as possible during the day, analyze your feelings, their triggering situations and work on the solutions (antidotes) to optimize your emotional patterns.

But, what if you got stuck in a bad emotional state without knowing why!? For example, you feel angry or frustrated because of something during the day that you don't remember the cause of it! In this kind of situations, when you can't recognize the triggering source of the emotions, it is much better to instantaneously change your state to a positive one without wasting a second! It's always better to focus on solutions than to focus on problems, right? So, how's that possible to change your state in an instant? This is where the technique of anchoring is used.

2. The second way to change your state in an instant is anchoring. Anchoring is a psychological technique to get you attached to a desirable state in an instant regardless of any situation or environment you're in. Have you ever heard a song that reminded you of a specific period of your life? This could be a reminder of either a good or bad period of your life regardless of the song itself! Let's say that you were in a relationship for a year. In that year you were having fun with your partner and listening to a specific music all the time. What kind of feeling do you think you get when you hear that song again? Of course, all of those good memories & good feelings keep coming back to you. This could be the other way around too. Imagine a tough period of your life, when you lost someone. A lot of your friends came to you and said "I am sorry man" and gave you a red rose. After a year, what happens if someone gives you the same kind of red rose or says "I am sorry man" with the exact same tone as before?! That could subconsciously bring all the negative emotions to your mind that you had linked to loss of someone. Then, you'll suddenly feel down and don't even know why! Keep in mind that it's in the human nature to attach meanings & feelings to experiences in life.

I guess up to now you've realized how the anchoring technique could work on people. It links a specific feeling to a specific stimulant. Then, if you get the stimulant, you'll get the same feeling attached to it. So, how could you take advantage of this technique? The good thing is that you can attach all of the good feelings to anything you desire. Imagine the best possible scenario for your life. Imagine that all of your desires and goals have come true. Picture your life dreams in the present like they're 100% real. At the same time, you can listen to your most inspiring music to increase the feeling of pleasure in your mind. When you're at the peak of pleasure feeling, give a stimulus to yourself such as squeezing your thumb or arm. The important factor is to give the stimulus exactly at the peak of your pleasure feeling. And, you have to repeat this process a couple of times (let's say twice a day for at least a week) before you get anchored to the feeling. After that, you can instantaneously change your worst states into a great one linked to lots of pleasure. So, whenever you're feeling angry, frustrated, etc. just squeeze your thumb or whatever your stimulus was to start a whole new state fueled by pleasure. It could be like restarting your computer system.

You don't need any specific reason to be happy. You should always be able to feel happy no matter what. So, engage yourself in positive and empowering states that support your happiness because that's the ultimate purpose of life. Learn, practice and grow.

How to set up rules for your life values and goals?

2018-05-07T03:03:00.001-07:00

“Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.”

─ Hugh Hefner

We've previously talked about our core life values which by achieving them we could be directed to the true internal happiness. However, in order to have a real cheerful life, we still need to practice on our patience, flexibility and most importantly our life standards. I would call our life standards "life rules", since they would somehow rule over our actions & behaviors throughout the day. What are the life rules anyway? Life rules are the ground-rules or standards which we define for ourselves (mostly subconsciously) to measure the level of our progress in life.

Let me make the definition of life rules clear by giving you some examples. Let's say that there are two different persons whose both top life value is success. The standard of the first person to be a successful guy is to have a million dollars, but the second person needs a billion dollars to feel successful! Do you see how different could be the life rules (standards) for the same life values?

As another example, let's say two persons have health as their first life value. However, the first one feels healthy and great whenever he walks, exercises, bikes, eats something healthy (fruits & vegetables), etc. because he believes that all of those actions are aligned with his life values. On the other hand, for the second person in order to be healthy (to believe that he's healthy), he always has to go to the gym 5 times a week, runs three times a week and eats a lot of protein (meat) to feel at the peak of his health. Taking the example of the second person could picture a guy who's very strict and must commit to his plans entirely to feel satisfied & happy with his life values. He could easily get mad anytime he breaks one of his rules. Do not get me wrong. I don't mean that commitment to your life rules are bad or something like that. I just mean that it's you who define these rules and set them up as ground-rules to be happy. So, you have the full control to take care of them.

So, i guess you got the idea by now. It is your life rules which give meaning to your life values and make them alive. I know that most of the meanings you give to the life values are coming from your internal belief system. But, you should know that most of them have been shaped in your subconscious mind accidentally through no choice of your own. So, the key is in your hands to switch them off and change your life rules to more empowering ones.

Recognizing your true life values is one of the most important steps to achieve happiness in life. After recognizing them, you can set up your goals in life based on your core life values. But, what's the point, if you're not enjoying the road leading to your goals?! The main thing is to set up your life rules wisely & consciously based on your life values and be as flexible as possible along the way to fulfill them. Don't be so strict. Don't wait a long time to achieve your goals to feel happy. That way, be sure that even if you achieve your goals you'll find another way not to be happy. You have to be aware that each goal that you set up for your life, on its path brings its own side dishes. So, be as flexible as possible to taste them too and be as positive as possible to appreciate them. Never forget that the real source of happiness is all within you. It's all in your heart, in your soul, in your magnificent brain. First you must work on your mind to prosper, then you should think about the external possessions. You could even have a billion dollars and still feel miserable! Think about it.

Practice and try your best to enjoy as much as possible until achieving your life values and goals. You might want to take another look at the list of your life rules.

How to overcome anger?

2018-05-01T05:43:00.004-07:00

“Peace begins with a smile.”

─ Mother Teresa

Anger is one of the most common emotions which people deal with in their daily life. As long as you don't realize its presence in your subconscious mind and don't change your state, it could be very destructive emotion. You would probably know some of the consequences which anger brings to your life. When you're angry, you will easily lose your temper, you can't concentrate well, you can take things too personally and make your worst decisions at that times. The list of destructive consequences which anger could cause, can go on and on. But, let's see that how the feeling of anger is triggered. You can read about your core life values here, which ultimately determines your true internal happiness. You can also read in another article about your life rules which you'll subconsciously create for yourself to get satisfied by the level of your progress in life. The important thing to consider here is that you will usually set some ground-rules for your life values that they're almost impossible to be met. So, anger could appear as a result of not meeting your life rules (ground-rules for your core life values).

How many times do you usually get angry during your daily life? How does the feeling of anger affect you? What do you do to cool down when you get angry? Let's see that how we can cope with the feeling of anger:

1. You should always remind yourself that your life rules are not necessarily the best ones. So, when you hear or see someone else's rules, don't fight with them blindly. Open up your eyes and ears, listen and watch their rules carefully because they might be better than yours. You don't need to worry about being changed (manipulated) by others' rules. In the end it's your choice to push the button to either accept their rules or not. Be the boss of your mind to say the last words.

2. You should always keep in mind that everyone is unique. Not any two persons could exactly be the same. Everyone has his own ground-rules. There is no right and wrong between your rules and the other ones. They are just different shapes of interpretation of the same experiences.

3. Stretch your mind and welcome to take different opinions than yours. Be as flexible as possible in taking different ideas than yours. Appreciate having different thoughts and rules and try to learn from each one of them. This could be one of the best ways to grow. What if all of us had the same rules, ideas and thoughts? How boring and declining would have that been? That would have been the exact opposite direction of growing!

4. When you notice that you're feeling angry, the most important thing you should do is to change your state. The best way to change your state in an instant is through anchoring technique which is discussed in details in another article. In a nut shell, when you become aware of your undesired emotion, change your physiology & focus to come up with the best possible state in your mind & body.

5. Breathe deeply and concentrate on your breathing by counting your inhales and exhales. This will help you to cool down your mind and refresh by focusing just on your breathing.

6. You don't need to always take things too personally. Things are not always about you. You might think that way, but in most of the cases they're not! Too often, people with low level of self-esteem and security take things too personally.

7. You better rethink that you might have had a misunderstanding in the situation that caused the anger. That person didn't mean it deep down to upset you. It wasn't his intention to make you angry and it's just a way that you are representing and interpreting the things to yourself.

8. Always become aware of the things which are out of your own control. These are the things like getting stuck in traffic, having a bad rainy/snowy/windy day when you're out, and so on. When you recognize that it's something entirely out of your control, let it go. At the times of getting angry by these kinds of situations, ask yourself: is this thing out of my control? If yes, let it go. Instead, focus on the stuff which are completely under your own control. Besides wasting your energy, what's the point in thinking about the stuff which are out of your control?! When you can't change a single thing about it, you better let it go.

Practice the above techniques to get strong enough dealing with the feeling of anger. Next time when you got angry, face it with all the power you have in your mind to control it and see how easy it is to defeat anger. Good luck practicing and progressing :)

How to find your life values and true happiness?

2018-04-21T04:00:00.001-07:00

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

─ Mahatma Gandhi

Do you know a person who's been really successful in life, but still feels unhappy (unsatisfied)? Or by any chance, are you one of those people? I hope not. But, if the answer to any of the questions is yes, do you know why this happens? How could a person be really successful in life, and still feel miserable? The answer lies within their life values which most of the people are not even aware of, particularly, in these days which people get so influenced and directed by their social interactions and comparisons. For instance, a person could see the other people's achievements and mostly blindly says (in his mind) that I want to have the same thing. He doesn't notice that it’s a goal set by other people which is not aligned with his own life values. In this case, after the achievement of these fictitious and superficial goals, he won't feel satisfied at all.

What are your life values anyway? l would say that the life values are the strongest beliefs that shape your entire life and behaviors. They act like a powerful internal system which filter your actions and behaviors all the time. You could read about the life experiences in childhood and the way that your subconscious mind interpret them to shape your internal system here. It should be obvious that life values are so different than your life goals because life values are a very strong internal belief system which has been shaped within you years ago, while your goals are targets which you define for your future usually according to your external environment.

The most important thing is that your goals must be defined by yourself and they must be in line with your values. You have to avoid setting up your goals based on the social influences or the manipulation of others as much as possible. Life is too short, why do want to waste it by blindly copying the other ones' goals & dreams?! That might be a wrong direction for you! Listen to your heart. What do you want? What are your own dreams? What do you count as your core life values?

Your happiness is defined in your mind, not anywhere else. So, please look no further! To give you a clear way to start finding your core life values, here is a list of the most common values which could be yours as well:

1. Love

2. Health

3. Financial Security

4. Comfort

5. Passion

6. Success

7. Adventure

8. Contribution

9. Fun

10. Freedom

11. Growth

12. Power

The list is open-ended which means you are not restricted to the above values, and can have your owns to add them to the above list. Please sit down and think about these life values. This could consequently lead into your true internal happiness. Which one of the values seem the most important one to you? What is the second one? What's the next one? Compare them one by one to give them orders from 1 to 10. Think about them deeply based on your true internal beliefs. Which signals you receive from your brain when you think about any of them?

When you finish with your list of values, you get a clear picture of why your life is at the current stage and how your life values are shaping your actions, behaviors and your future. The first 4 to 5 values of your list usually shape your entire life and destiny because they are your core values for life and dominate the other ones. But, what if your life values are not in line with your goals? In that case, you have to modify either of them. However, my experience says that it's much better and easier to change (modify) your goals based on your life values. The reason is that your life values are rooted inside your internal system and fulfilling them give you a sense of true pleasure. On the other hand, goals could easily be shaped and manipulated by the society, culture, traditions, etc. On top of that you might not feel happy (satisfied) after achieving your goals. So, which one are you willing to sacrifice? It’s your choice.

In a nut shell, recognize your core life values, take care of them and nurture them by moving along the way to fulfill them. That is your way to true happiness :)

How to find your passion in life?

2018-04-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

─ Albert Einstein

Probably you have also heard that people say: "I don't know what my passion is", "I haven't found my passion yet", "I don't know what my mission in life is" and so on. Why do you think nowadays is getting so often to hear this kind of phrases? I hope that you wouldn't be one of the people who are still searching and struggling to find their passion in life. But, if you are, let me help you in this article to handle the situation much better.

First of all let's take a look at the definition of passion. Passion could be defined as your strong enthusiasm with deep emotional feelings to do something. However, you must notice that your passion shouldn't always be one single thing (and most likely isn't). The other point is to notice that interest could be another word to describe your enthusiasm to do something, but on a weaker level than passion. You could have many different interests and passions in life, and by fulfilling even a single one of them you could be satisfied and happy with your life.

The most important thing is to remember that all of your happiness originates from your inner belief system. You have to have an internal way of representing things to yourself to interpret your achievements based on your life values. You don’t have to look for your happiness based on your external environments. In the end, your achievements should make you happy not anyone else! Otherwise, you can be working on something and still feel unhappy because you are not fulfilling your true life desires (values). In this case, you should try to change (at least modify) either your life style or your life values. The importance of your life values will be discussed in details in another article.

For now, let's take a look that how you can figure out your life passions and interests:

1. The first thing to keep in mind is that no one is born with a passion! They might be born with specific talents and interests. But, those interests and talents need to be taken care of and nurtured to be bloomed.

2. Second thing to memorize is that there's lots of efforts and tears behind every success and passion. Keep in mind that nothing in life is ever achieved easily. And, you have to really make an effort to find your way to the success which is laid down in your life passions.

3. One way to search for your life passions is to think about your childhood interests. What was your favorite game? Course? Sport? Your favorite heroes (role models)? and so on. Brainstorm for a while to get some great hints for your possible life passions.

4. Another way to figure out your life passions is to imagine that how you would like to be remembered by others when you're gone. What if today was your last day of living? What would have you done then? Maybe one day would be too short and you instantly say that I would love to spend all of it with my family and loved ones. Well, what if you had just 1 year to live? What would you like to do then? What would you like to learn and achieve in this period of time? Think about it. Your life passions could shape your entire life, success and future.

My suggestion: Once more, I would like to emphasize on the point that no one is born passionate to do something! You might have a lot of different interests and talents. You should find your way out of it. Think about all of your interests such as photography, cooking, sports, research, being an actor/actress, writer, etc. Then, pick one of them and work on it until you get master in it. What do you think the chances of happiness are when you get master at doing something you really enjoy (one of your interests)? The answer is almost %100! You usually start to enjoy doing something when get good at it, even if you didn't like it so much in the first place. So imagine, what kind of joy you'll have while you get good at doing something when you liked it so much in the first place. I strongly believe that passion is not born with you, it grows in you. Passion grows from your interests when you work on them to progress and get master. Be cautious to pick up only one interest at a time to work on it to master. Otherwise, you can't focus on any of them efficiently which might lead to frustrations. After a while (at least one month of consistent work & progress) if you were not enjoying doing one of your interests, you could switch to your next interest and start the procedure again. Good luck working on your interests and finding your true passions in life :)

How to deal with frustration?

2018-04-07T13:32:00.002-07:00

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”

─ Peter Marshall

Frustration is one of the most common emotions which people would experience it at least during some periods of their life. Usually, there could be two different scenarios which lead into the frustration in the first place. Either the person has not made any progress for a long time that he feels paralyzed to do anything. Or it could be due to the social comparisons and the person's evaluation about himself based on the values of his ideal life. For example, he could see someone else is doing a good job or is getting progress, and he begins to think about his own life. If he realizes that he hasn't moved enough on his own path of living, then he gets frustrated or even disappointed.

Let's take a look at some of the common factors that could trigger the feeling of frustration in you:

1. You haven't taken any action in a long time. If this is your case, the chances are very high that you often feel frustrated.

2. You haven't found your true passion. Most of the people have difficulty finding their real powers and passions in life. That could easily lead them to frustrations or even sometimes to difficulty in finding a specific reason (meaning) for life.

3. You get directed (influenced) by your environments easily. If you don't have a clear mindset about your top goals & values in life, then you could easily get distracted by your environments including your friends, colleagues, family and so on. This is a certain way to lead you into frustration.

4. You get trapped too much into the negativity. If you have a negative mindset, you begin to count all the things that could go wrong in the next step of your life. In this scenario, you could get paralyzed due to the high levels of frustration which you create in your mind. And, it is obvious that you won't take any action in this state, isn't it?

So, how can we deal with these problems to cope with frustration?

1. Take action, even if it's just a tiny action. The important thing here is that these small actions must be based on your top values for life. Otherwise, you won't feel satisfied by your actions (you still get directed by your environments because you're still wandering around and not fulfilling your true desires). Try to take the first small steps with patience and flexibility.

2. Do the things you're passionate about (at least interested in). In this way, you will feel happier because you're doing some things that you really enjoy. You don't have to force yourself to do the things you don't like. You always have a choice, don't you?

3. Find role models for your passions and interests. That is the way to benefit from the precious experiences of the role models who have already achieved a lot in the area of your interests. Instead of being directed (affected) by your circumstances, be directed by your role models. There are role models everywhere for everything. Nowadays, you can easily use internet to find the most successful people in your specific field of passion.

4. Develop a positive mindset. Before doing anything, change your state and words into "I can", "I will", "I must", etc. These are the great ways to start your sentences with. By using this kind of positive sentences in your mind, you're giving yourself a real power to take actions. Why are you trying to be negative, anyway? Before doing something, you don't know what will happen or how the situation will be. No one knows! Then, why are you bothering yourself to predict all the possible scenarios in the future which may or may not happen. Indeed, most the times, our expected scenarios don't come into reality. So, instead of counting all the negative things that might happen in the future (which paralyze you), why don't you think about all the positive things or the benefits that you can get by taking action. At least in this case, you will boost your mood and energy to be excited for the future. In a nut shell, nobody knows what could happen in the future, so instead of being negative and getting paralyzed, be positive to change your state to be able to take actions.

Have fun getting rid of all the frustrations in your life.

How to gain personal security and high self-esteem?

2018-04-02T04:33:00.003-07:00

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”

─ Rumi

We've all had some days in our lives that we compared our progress and achievements to the people around us. Particularly, these people are the ones who are so close to us such as our friends, cousins, colleagues and so on. They are usually at the same age as you, and subconsciously you have a feeling of competition with them. That's why you don't usually feel jealous about your parents, uncles, aunts, grandpas and so on. For instance, your colleague gets a promotion and you begin to compare (perhaps with a bit of feeling jealousy) your job progress and achievements in life with hers. Or your friend gets in a relationship and you start to compare yourself with him and you think about having the same thing for yourself. The bases in our societies, cultures and traditions which mostly blindly shape our blueprints and beliefs about life is a very important topic which will be covered in another article.

For now let’s take a look at the following questions: where does this kind of comparison feeling (jealousy) come from? And, how can we overcome this feeling? The answer to the questions lies down in your self-esteem and personal security. Let's first define the terms self-esteem and security by asking you a few short questions. What do you think about yourself? How do you evaluate yourself? How worth do you think you are? Your answers to these questions reveal your attitude to yourself as an individual which is the definition of self-esteem. The more you think of yourself, the more self-esteem you have and you will be a more secured person. An example of a secured person would be a person who is proud of himself and won't be easily influenced by the circumstances (distractions). So, the more self-esteem and security you gain, the less comparative and jealous you'll be.

But, what if your self-esteem and security is very low? How can you improve that? There are actually a couple of ways to take to improve the level of your self-esteem & security:

1. Think about the things in your life that you're proud of. If you can't come up with a bunch of the achievements and successes that you're proud of in life, you would probably have a low self-esteem. So, brainstorm and think about it deeply. They don't need to be very big stuff that you've conquered in your life, they could be little things such as getting a degree, completing a course, passing an exam, losing weight, helping someone or donating something. When you think about the good things that you have achieved in life, you will automatically start to feel good about yourself (higher self-esteem) on a conscious level of thinking.

2. Think about how ridiculous it would be to tie your own happiness to the other people. One day you see someone’s doing better than you and you feel down, the other day you see someone’s doing worse than you and you feel good. Of course, it is good to notice that there are people who are beneath you and wish to have the things in your life because it increases your self-esteem and makes you to be grateful for what you already have your life. For instance, you can think about the people in the Africa struggling with the water shortage or innocent people around the world trapped in the nonsense wars (such as Middle East wars). When you start to consciously think about these kinds of situations, your little worries and problems start to shrink and disappear. Always remember that no one is ever perfect and most of the people that you feel jealous about might feel the same way about you, even for the smallest things in your life. They might have so many problems in their lives that you’re not aware of. A good example of this is the pictures and videos that people share on social media these days, but you don’t see the stories behind their faces. Just notice that it might be the biggest possible success or the best moment of their life to share, but, there has been so much efforts, difficulties, tears and harsh realities behind their faces that you don’t see. Most of the times, they don’t share their problems, their failures, their humiliations and so on. So, you’re just taking a look at the final piece of their efforts. But, a big mistake that some people do is that they usually tend to compare the best moments of others to the worst moments of themselves. Do you think it's fair like this?! You tell me!

3. Be focused on your own interests, priorities and values. The more you concentrate on your own way of living (which deep down aligns with your values and priorities in life), the happier you will be. In this case, you will not compare yourself to the others because you have established your own values for life and have already achieved some of them (or at least you're moving in that direction). So, instead of wasting your time to fulfill the external demands of others that don’t have any meaning for you, get busy with your own way of living that makes you to meet your inner life values.

4. Compare yourself to your past version. You should always measure your own success and progress on the way to your desired life. Compare the present version of yourself to your old version in yesterday, the day before, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago and so on. Nowadays, with the busy daily life of people, it is sometime hard to remember that where we were and where we are right now. How far you’ve come? How much you’ve learned and grown? By asking this kind of questions you can remind yourself about your achievements compared to your old version. In this way, you can clearly see that how far you’ve come and achieved along the way to your goals.

To sum up, you should be proud of your achievements in life so far, you should tie your happiness to yourself not to the other people, you should be focused on your own way of living (values) and measure your success along the journey to your desired life.

I wish you all the best along your life journey :)

How to be more flexible?

2018-03-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”

─ Leo Tolstoy

Flexibility is one of the most important characteristics that people should have in their daily life in order to succeed and achieve their goals. If you want to succeed in your life, you should always try to take some steps towards your goals and values in life. It doesn't even matter if they're just tiny steps towards your values. But, you should always be consistent & flexible in your steps. When it comes to flexibility there are three strategies, better to say beliefs, which could be adopted to help you.

1. You should always be easy-going and patient along the way to your goals to be able to adapt yourself to the environment. It is very important to behave this way when things don't work the way you desired (expected). By adapting yourself to the environment or conditions, I mean to look for the new strategies & techniques to cope with the challenges. To be more efficient coming up with the strategies, learn to always focus on the solutions instead of the problems.

2. You should always notice that nothing in life is ever achieved easily. You have to strive and be patient to achieve anything even if it is just a small thing. Nobody in history ever achieved anything in an instant without any failure. You should be prepared in advance for the probable failures on your way to your goals. In that case, you would be flexible enough to change your strategies to get what you want at the end. Never tie your entire happiness to the external short-term goals so that you don’t feel down when you face a failure.

3. You should always remember that there is no such thing as perfectionism. When you do something wrong or something that you're not satisfied with, be kind to yourself and tell yourself that no one is ever perfect.

Everyone has a weakness, even the most successful people that you picture in your mind, the important thing is to not always focus on the weakness. At least, do not make your weakness worse than it is, instead work on it to get better and focus on your strengths more often.

You don't need to get angry or frustrated whenever the things don't go your way. Take a deep breath, be positive and move on :)

How to make decisions and take actions

2018-03-26T13:40:00.002-07:00

“Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”

─ Keri Russell

Sometimes making decisions and taking actions could be a frustrating process for people that they prefer to close their eyes on the possibilities and forget about their new decisions. There are a couple of factors that could increase the level of your frustrations and decrease your confidence level which will be discussed in another article. Here, I will try to show you that how you can facilitate the process of decision making for yourself to be able to take actions instantly. So, let's take a look at some strategies that will help you tremendously on the procedure of your decision making & taking actions:

1. First of all, don't try to do a bunch of stuff at the same time. Focusing on different tasks simultaneously will take most of your energy, reduce your efficiency and leave you frustrated. You can read the methods to order your workloads, tasks and goals based on their importance and your priorities here. Make your prioritized list of stuff and go one by one (you just need to focus on one at a time).

2. Do not generalize your goals. Be specific about your desires and draw a clear map with full details.

3. Assign little steps which are very easy to be taken and accomplished. Specially, the first steps leading to your final goals need to be very easy to give you enough confidence and encourage you for the next steps.

4. Find role models for your dreams. In any specific field which you are interested, passionate or would like to be successful, there are already some people who have achieved what you want. So take advantage of their experiences and model their beliefs and strategies to achieve the same thing.

5. On the way to your goals, set some rewards and punishments for your achievements and setbacks, respectively. Whenever you take a step closer to your goal, give yourself credit and reward to link a feeling of pleasure to succeeding and taking actions. And, assign punishments for yourself if you don't follow the steps (actions) required for your final goals.

6. Announce to the people around you (your family and friends) about your upcoming goals. This kind of announcement will help you to take your goals more realistic and serious than before. It will be like a punishment, if you don't stick to your ground-rules and actions. In this scenario, your family and friends could also be a big help for you by reminding you about your goals and required actions for achieving them.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead, make your decisions and take the first steps! :)

How to influence your subconscious mind to change your negative behavioral patterns?

2018-03-24T04:19:00.006-07:00

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

─ Aristotle

Before getting started, let's take a look at the definition of the subconscious mind. What is subconscious mind? Subconscious mind is a part of your brain which is controlling or at least influencing all of your actions, behaviors and feelings on an unaware (or partially-aware) state. Subconscious mind composes the main part of your brain which is bigger and much stronger than your conscious mind. That's why studies have shown that even the great thinkers of our history such as Albert Einstein has only used a small fraction of their brain's potential during their lifetime (which is mostly the conscious part of the brain). Our subconscious mind is like a huge and powerful computer which takes all the information from our daily experiences, and tells us how to react to them based on our history. But, what is the history of our subconscious mind? And, how is it formed? Our subconscious mind is formed mainly during our childhood. During the childhood, our mind is intact and ready to be shaped by our life experiences. For example, we hear something, see something, feel something as an experience which produces strong emotions deep down in our brain such as an accident, crime scene, being abused as a child, etc. These experiences will change something deep inside us which is our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind takes a mental picture of the experience, interpret it based on our observation (seeing, hearing or feeling something) of the experience and save it as a history in our mind and delete the rest of the details. In that way our internal representations to the life experiences are shaped solidly. For instance, by having a car accident you get a phobia of driving a car, airplanes or something like that. Or if someone has been abused as a child in the past, that person might be turned on by kids in the future to do the same thing (which is the worst reaction to do and the person has to immediately get some help by visiting a psychologist!) .That person could also have a completely different reaction to that tragic history , for example, based on his life environment and observations he could interpret that situation as a painful experience and try to guide and protect all of the kids from facing this kind of tragic life lessons. These experiences as you see can shape your subconscious mind, rule over your actions and behaviors and even build a strong passion and motivation inside you to do something meaningful in your life.

The life experiences during our childhood which strongly shape our subconscious mind could also be positive such as being encouraged, awarded and admired by our parents or teachers when we did something nice or helped someone. In that way, our subconscious mind will make a mental picture of doing something nice or helping someone, link it with pleasure, and then save it. Now, whenever we do something nice or help someone we subconsciously feel good about it (pleasure). The rewarded or punished actions don't necessarily have to be something you did on your own. For instance, your father could repeat doing something again and again that could have a big influence on you as a kid. If you see your father is smoking or drinking alcohol and you see that he’s getting rewarded somehow by the others or he’s enjoying doing that, the chances are high that you will interpret the situation wrong and link pleasure to doing the same thing later on in your life. I guess by now you've realized what the subconscious mind is, and how it affects your actions and behaviors.

Now let's take a look at the subject that how we can change our subconscious mind, if it is causing us a negative behavioral pattern or pain. You should always remember that your subconscious mind doesn't understand NO or NOT, since it just gives commands and releases signals based on the already saved mental pictures in your mind (not to mention that there are strong feelings of pain and pleasure attached to all of those mental pictures). If you say that I won't eat chocolates anymore, the first thing that comes to your mind is the chocolate itself not the act of not eating it! Your subconscious mind will remember and think about chocolates and all your experiences with it (probably linked with pleasure!). So, you should be focusing on the things you want to achieve and give your statements in a positive way (not in negative ways such as not, no, don’t, etc.). For example, you could think about the alternatives of eating chocolates such as eating fruits. When you say "today I will eat an orange, a peach and some strawberries", that's where your mind is headed not to the opposite undesired directions. Furthermore, the subconscious mind doesn't understand the difference between present and future. That's why it can't distinguish between reality and imagination. Therefore, you can trick your subconscious mind and make it believe in a visualization of your desired life goals.

Now let's take a look at the method that we can practice on it to change our subconscious mind:

Brainstorm and think deeply about your life goals, values and dreams. What do you really want in your life?

Do not generalize your life goals and values. Be specific and clear about them. Provide enough details about your life dreams.

Visualize that you have already achieved your goals and dreams like you are watching yourself in a movie. You could finish this visualization step with some affirmations for a few minutes. Try to include emotions related to those specific affirmations that you're practicing. For example, when you say I am confident or I am successful, imagine yourself in a present situation that you are acting and talking in a situation confidently or see yourself succeeding in a specific area.

You should boycott the stuff which are not along the visualization of your desired life because they would again influence your subconscious mind in an opposite direction. These could be watching TV programs, movies, news or spending time with some of your friends (who could have a negative and destructive effect on your subconscious mind).

You can also record a version of your visualization & affirmations and play it each night when you’re going to sleep. Your subconscious mind is active while you're asleep and it can hear everything to be affected by.

Act and treat your friends and family in the same way that you've been practicing and visualizing. Behave in a way that it's like that you have already achieved your goals and dreams.

Remember that like every other skill, your subconscious mind needs consistent practice and patience to be improved. So, be patient, positive and consistent to get the results you want.

Master your subconscious mind. Take full control of your mind and enjoy the difference.

How to be more positive by changing your vocabulary?

2018-03-22T02:48:00.001-07:00

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

─ Norman Vincent Peale

You would probably know that our behavioral patterns in our subconscious mind get mostly shaped during our childhood. As a child we see or hear something in our environment (from our parents, friends, teachers, TV, Internet, etc.) and interpret it in our mind to specific kind of behavior. These interpretations might need to be repeated in our minds a couple of times to shape a behavioral pattern. In some cases, our experience might be very strong that its interpretation shapes a pattern instantly, such as having an accident, losing someone or being abused as a child.

The influence that we get from our environments and the way that society shapes our behavioral patterns is a long story itself which will be discussed later in another article. Here we are going to represent a method for breaking our negative subconscious behavioral patterns through changing our vocabularies. In order to apply this method, you just need to be aware of your words and statements throughout the day. Then, try to modify them into more empowering ones. Which words and statements do you use more often during the day? A partner could be a big help here, since he or she can help you to recognize your repetitive words and statements. How many negative words and statements have you found that you're using too often? For instance, when I was doing this for the first time I found out that I often use the phrase "I am tired" during the day (especially in the mornings!). Probably you have heard the phrase "you become what you say" or as Joel Osteen says "your words become your reality". What happens when you use some pattern of words during the day is that you give a command (signal) to your brain to come up with all of its resources from your life experiences to make your words come true (Or to make you believe in your words!). When you say "I am shy", be sure that your subconscious mind has already stored all of your life experiences related to that subject! For example, you might have been humiliated or mocked a couple of times by your friends during your childhood, you might have been told that you're not a good speaker, singer and so on. This all could be the resources which you are subconsciously referring to in order to conclude (make yourself believe) that you are a shy person. When you say "I am tired" you are sending signals to your brain to make you believe that you really are tired (even if it's not true), and your state (on the subconscious level) will be automatically changed to a tired and weak person with a low level of energy. So, figuring out these kinds of negative statements and not saying them could revitalize you by preventing you from sending wrong signals to your brain.

Furthermore, you can try to improve your good vocabularies to excellent ones. As an example, instead of always saying "I'm not bad" or "I'm okay" say "I couldn't be better" (even if it's not true) or make an excellent phrase yourself that suits your style. The thing is not to be focused on the empty half of the glass. And, a little bit of exaggeration on the full half of the glass could always help you to better see the bright sides of your life. By practicing this kind of strategy you become more aware of your words, and use your conscious mind instead of subconscious more often. Once you get used to your new patterns of vocabularies, you will feel the difference. Take care of the words you use during your days. Take care of your words, and see how they’ll take care of you.

How to manage your daily challenges and workloads?

2018-03-20T13:45:00.002-07:00

“Every problem is a gift, without problems we would not grow.”

─ Anthony Robbins

During our daily life, we've all been busy dealing with our to-do lists. Sometimes we feel stressed and worried about our workloads and tasks in a way that we think they are getting out of our control. Or maybe we feel that we have too much to do that we cannot concentrate on our current work anymore, or we could even be frustrated and paralyzed to take any action towards our goals. There are two main strategies that you can implement into your life style and with a bit of practice you can easily feel that you are in total control of your life and face every challenge without any fear.

1. On a piece of paper, write down a list of your tasks, works or whatever it is that you have to do. By writing them down on a piece of paper, you already get a feeling of control over them. Then try to order them based on their importance. The importance should be given by your own desire not anyone else. I mean think about your values and priorities in life and order your tasks in the same way because if you do something that you don't like or it doesn't have any value for you, at the end you won't feel satisfied with the results. When you make the list, you automatically put more of your attention and time on your inner core values (tasks and actions related to your desires) because you will start with your most important tasks in your to-do list. In this way, the less important tasks such as answering back your phone calls, answering back your emails, doing laundry or whatever will remain as side dishes. I know you might think that they're also necessary to be taken care of, but if you follow this strategy, at the end, you will take care of these side dishes (less important stuff) in a short period of time since they usually don't need your full potential and energy to be managed. You can have a piece of paper for each day, and cross the tasks when you're done with them.

2. Train your mind to be always focusing on the solution not the problem itself. Try to remember yesterday, the day before, a month before, a year before and so one. Could you find a day that your mind was completely free of any pattern of thinking? Of course not, because our mind has been developed in a way to always come up with processing and interpretation of the things around us (inputs to our brain). All of us have challenges to cope with in our daily lives. Even if we don't have any specific challenge, task or job to do, our mind will come up with the most stupid stuff to get occupied. Probably you've had days with nothing to do, and you somehow decided to get yourself busy with cooking, cleaning, washing the dishes, watching movies and so on. As Tony Robbins says "your brain is not designed to make you happy, it's there to help you survive". The message is clear, it means that your mind is always coming up with a way to get engaged with something. So why not engaging its incredible capabilities with the solutions of the challenges we are facing in our daily life? Isn't it better to always put your focus and energy on the solutions to be an achiever guy rather than just focusing on the problems (which usually result in useless act of blaming others instead of taking accountability)? Anytime facing a challenge (problem), you can train your mind to this strategy by asking the following questions: What could I learn from this challenge? How can I take advantage of this problem? How can I turn this around? You should come up with a positive mindset and try to find a benefit on your side when you're facing a problem.

How to sleep well?

2018-03-19T14:56:00.001-07:00

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”

─ Nicolas Chamfort

I'm sure you've had the same experience waking up in the morning when you felt extremely exhausted and low-energized. Well if this is just a few times a month, it may be normal because of your sleeping time schedule, your eating diet or other factors. However, if you keep waking up tired and exhausted, it isn't normal and you have to pay more attention to the quality of your sleep. Here's a list of ways to apply in your sleeping routine to have a good quality sleep and to feel refreshed & energized the day after:

1. Keep a constant time schedule for your sleeping routine. Usually adults need something between 6 to 8 hours of sleep during night to recover and refresh themselves. The important thing is that you have to try to keep a constant timetable for your sleeping plan (e.g. 23:00 to 06:00 or 24:00 to 07:00).

2. Watch a comedy Movie, TV series, stand-up comedy or whatever that makes you laugh before going to bed. This will help you to change your mood which will put your subconscious mind in a positive state and improve the quality of your sleep.

3. Do not eat foods that take too much time for your stomach to digest at least 3 hours before going to bed (such as fast foods, dairy products, chips, etc.). If you felt hungry before going to bed, you can instead eat fruits which take only a short period of time to be digested.

4. Put your cell phones and laptops on night light mode to help your eyes relax by avoiding the blue lights emitting from your electrical devices. Do this at least 3 hours before going to bed.

5. Drink a glass of water before going to bed to hydrate your body organs (specially your brain which needs lots of water to function properly) throughout the night.

6. Before going to sleep ask yourself: what did I learn today? What did I do today in the direction of my desired life? Many times throughout the day and, of course, before sleeping our subconscious mind is wandering around and being trapped in the negative thoughts without our awareness. This might lead to a low-quality sleep and probably bad dreaming and nightmares. By asking these questions you will review your progress and improvements during the day which automatically put your subconscious mind in a good phase before going to sleep.

7. Try to imagine and visualize the goals and dreams of your desired life style for at least 2-3 minutes before sleeping. This also helps your subconscious mind to go into a good mood during sleep same as the last step.

Have a great sleep :)