A few weeks ago I was reading a very interesting article about a pharmaceutical plant that was awarded the 2009 Facility of the Year Overall Award by the Pharmaceutical Engineering Magazine.  The impressive thing about this plant was that it was built in a constrained area within a dense city, and the project was finished before the scheduled deadline, within budget, and with no major complications!  The planning and execution for this plant to be built was worthy of praise, and as such it was being featured in the magazine.  Although many factors contributed to this successful project, there was a very particular philosophy that the managers maintained, “No blame, fix the problem.”  If there is a problem, look for a solution rather than finding someone to blame for it.  Applying this philosophy to our life problems would allow you to improve things, see the silver lining in a situation, rather than get stuck in a cycle of negativity.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/madeiraarchipelago/20244382/

Although many would hear this and immediately agree that it’s a good philosophy to follow, very few have the courage to apply this to their own lives on a constant basis.  Why do I say courage?

Each time we are faced with a difficult situation, we have two ways to look at it.  We can try to avoid it or dissociate ourselves from the situation, or we can fix the problem.  Sometimes we just disregard it as non-important in our efforts to keep ourselves from facing the problem at all.  Will this get you anywhere?  Say you had money problems, which is a very common problem these days, what do you do?

We can blame the economy, God, Obama or even Bush, or many others for our money issues, but the fact is that blaming them solves absolutely none of your problems.  This approach can make you feel better temporarily, but it hinders your creativity and will stop you from finding a good, tangible solution to your problem. Instead of blaming, focus your energy on fixing the problem, something that will be to your benefit.

What decision do you usually make?  Are you the person that somehow is pulling through challenges, doing everything you can to keep moving forward, or are you the one that falls into the trap of blaming, mentioning how life is not fair at every step?  If this person is you, write down on a piece of paper the benefits & harm you are causing for yourself because of your mindset.  I’m sure you will soon find out something to improve, a problem to fix.

Don’t blame anyone for the problems you find that need to be fixed, whatever it is, just find a solution.  Focusing your energies in solving problems will lead you to have a more fulfilling life, cause in the end, no one feels genuinely better after complaining about an issue.  Having fixed the problem, however, will help you move on with your life to bigger and better things.  Would you postpone that simply to complain?

Be conscious of your daily actions, study what things you do out of habit.  Sometimes we just blame our parents for how we behave because we are used to hearing that parents are responsible for their children’s behavior.  Then we blame junk food for our health problems, because obviously it’s their fault for making unhealthy food so attractive.  Be more critical with yourself, and find solutions. With some effort, many of your problems can be solved, and the weight of such problems will be lifted from your shoulders.

As a child, I often heard people say, “After the storm comes the calm.”  The belief is that a turmoil, whether we are talking about psychological or physical, can only last for a finite time, and after this finite time things will be calmer, better.  This way of thinking is supposed to lift our spirits and give us hope.  Hope that sometime in the future things will be better.  But, think about it, why must this be the case?  Why should we wait patiently for some calmness to come after we endure a full storm?

Picture by http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonivc/

We have a choice not to surrender to our mental turmoils and struggles

Which one would you prefer, calmness after the storm, or calmness throughout and after the storm?  The answer seems obvious, yet we often choose to wait until after our struggles are over to allow that sense of peace to sink in.  Why would we do this?

The main issue we have is ourselves, and what we believe to be true.  We think that being calm while struggling or going through a problem is not an option.  We think it is beyond our control.  But be honest to yourself, who chooses how you feel?  Do I?  Your friends?  Your neighbor?  Or is it you?

It is you. No one else can force you to have a certain feeling.  If you don’t like someone, you won’t like them until your thoughts about that person change.  You are the only one who will make that happen, when you feel ready to change the way you think about such person.

The same is true about our problems.  When was the last time you stressed about a problem? Do you think everyone else would have stressed as much as you did under that situation?  Definitely not.  So, why would someone else be able to go through the same situation you went through, but have a different experience?  Why would Mother Theresa be able to go and help, help, and keep helping, without stopping, while the majority of us won’t even make the first step to help our neighbor in need because we think it’s not going to be good?

The answer is, we all choose what we focus our attention to.  If I am told that I must spend the next week at the hospital because of a health problem, I could be glad that I will receive professional healthcare before the situation is worse, or I could be angry that I won’t be able to go to dinner for my friend’s birthday that Saturday night.  Although both thoughts will probably be present simultaneously in any person with such a situation, each person will choose how much they focus on the missed birthday dinner vs. receiving proper healthcare.

We, as individuals, have an option.  I am not saying that you should care less about your friends and feel good about missing their birthday dinner, but no amount of complaining and personal sorrow will make the dinner taste better for anyone that is able to go, nor will it improve your moods.  So we must find a way to deal with problems.

Find a way to focus your attention to the positive side of a situation. You may have to be creative in order to find the positive side of some situations, but once you do you will have a much more pleasant experience.  This will allow you to improve the lives of those around you, and will allow you to feel in control of things.  Wouldn’t you like that?

We have all probably heard about vision boards or any of the many tools that people use to attract the great things they want in their lives.  Why do they work?  People have many explanations, but the one that resonates with the way I think, and goes in par with Napoleon Hill’s teachings, is that a vision board aids you to establish your purpose, your goal.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amaynez/2145618222/

Napoleon Hill said many times that the most important principle to achieving your goals is ‘definiteness of purpose’.  You need to be able to concretely state what your idea of success is, and what you are going to be giving in return for it.  Not only stating it will bring it to you, but if you don’t have a very clear and foolproof image in your head of what you want, you won’t ’see’ the opportunities laying on your path as you walk your day.  You will miss all these critical moments in which it seems that only ‘luck’ would have allowed you to obtain what you wanted.

I was talking to a good friend of mine a few days ago, and something she mentioned was that she wasn’t yet sure exactly what she wanted the rest of her life to be like.  This is completely understandable, because we all know that is nearly impossible to have a good idea of where we are going to be 5, 10, or 20 years down the road.  But it’s important to be able to break this down into a simpler task, we should not be defining everything about our lives, we need to learn how to discern between that things that are worth defining, and things that will work themselves out.

Here is a simple list of things I think everyone should sit down and define, and then read through this list every morning before going out to the world so they can keep a fresh perspective on their goals.

What is your idea of success?

Here you should not be struggling over minor details, but rather the main things that are important in your life.  Do you want to have a happy family or is that not your priority?  Do you want to earn $30,000 or $100,000 a year?  How do you want to feel about your body, health.  How do you visualize your social environments, how frequently do you interact with others and to what extent?  These are all the things you should consider and define.  Simply saying, I want a lot of money won’t help here.  You should really think about this, and write it down. Here is an example.

My Idea of Success

I am healthy, financially affluent, spiritually at peace, and have excellent relationships with others.  I am genuinely happy and inspire my family and those around me to be the best they can.  I am free to do as I wish, not limited to any particular job or place.

There are many other things you can define.  I think it’s a good idea to also define what you want your annual income (more importantly, your net worth) be and how you can get that, because most people are worrying about finances and the least you can do to lower that stress is to have a concrete goal.  If you don’t have one, you will most likely find yourself always saying “I want more money,” even if you are now earning twice as much as 10 years ago.

What will you give to others in return for your success?

Will you donate to charity 10% of your income?  Start your own charity foundation?  Teach others how to do things you are good at?  Inspire others to get on with their lives?  Think about good things you can do for society, it can be as ’simple’ as bringing joy to one person’s life each day.  The main thing to keep in mind is, we live in a society, and if we expect to receive good from society, we need to give back to society as well.  Paying taxes won’t cut it, just think about something you can voluntarily do to make the world a better place.   Life will be better for all of us that way.

What things in your life are helping you or holding you back in your path?

Sometimes success will come only after we have made some significant changes in our lives and many of these will involve great sacrifices.  This is the time to think about what are the activities you are doing, or the obligations you have, that are inhibiting your growth, and which ones are helping you get to where you want to be.  This is a difficult step sometimes, particularly if you realize that something you enjoy doing is one of the things that you should stop in order to have the time, money, or energy to do something that will help you build the future you want.

Personally, I am constantly asking myself this question.  What things am I doing that are not contributing to the ideal future I envision?  Are there other things I should do instead?  I’ve made some difficult decisions after thinking about these things for a long time, but at the end of the day I know I’m doing something that is better for me in the long run and that gives me the strength to follow through.

People from all different backgrounds find success on a daily basis, but the great majority of it doesn’t happen until they have a very clear idea of what success means to them  at a personal level.

Have you defined what success means to you yet?  Please leave a comment below with what your idea of success is, it will help others think about their own lives and what they truly want as well.  Thank you. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mezzoblue/3964361671

For the past few days I have been reading lots of information, and watching videos online, about the Raw Food Diet and its benefits.  I have been intrigued by the subject of healthy eating for a little while, but always give up when it comes to having a defined diet because I find it difficult to keep track of everything.  Usually I am bombarded with questions like, how many calories do you ingest?  Are there enough proteins?  What about fat, sugar, etc?

I’ve tried counting calories, not because I want to lose weight but rather because I don’t want to overeat.  I find that to be difficult to keep on a daily basis.  How do I know how many calories are in that apple I ate?  How much sugar is there in the orange?  Questions keep popping on my head every 5 minutes.

All this being said, I saw some very interesting interviews with Raw Foodists, particularly an interview with Restaurant Owner Karyn from Chicago.  If you go to her YouTube channel you can watch it, it’s among her ‘favorites’ list to the right.

She’s 62 years old, and full of energy.  Hasn’t been sick for many years (longer than I’ve been alive) and has so much energy that she has had to train herself to sleep more  since she used to sleep only 3-4 hours after she moved on to eating raw foods because she has so much more energy in her body.  She runs a business (restaurant, studio, etc.) and teaches many people to detox their body and move on with a healthier life.

Saw, what is this whole Raw Food Diet all about?

The premise behind the Raw Food Diet is simple, when you heat living things above 118˚F most of them lose their enzyme activity.  If you haven’t studied this, enzymes are found in living organism and help them process things faster and using less energy.  Thus, if you eat raw food, your body will be full of enzymes that will help you digest food and not make you tired.  You will then have much more energy to keep yourself running during the day, and will use this same energy to keep your body healthy and prevent you from getting sick!  Your body will be able to do what it’s designed to do, heal itself and restore its cells to optimum health, which will leave you feeling healthier and younger.

A great reason why people do raw diets is because you get rid of lots of toxins.  According to many raw foodists a lot of sickness they and their family had was cured after they became raw foodists.  Eating the right things gave their body the fuel needed to battle the sickness that were normally considered part of the aging process, or even sicknesses they had carried for years.  A mother with arrhythmia, her husband with a bad case of arthritis at age 38, and their daughter with asthma all switched their diets to raw food in a desperate attempt to improve their quality of life.  Today, they are all disease free.

Weight loss is another aspect of the raw food diet.  When your body cleanses its cells through its natural processes, it gets rid of all that extra fat and weight that is making you feel dense and clumsy.

We pay so much attention to how we look, how we portray ourselves, yet we seem to pay little attention to what we put INTO our bodies.  I’m not saying that a raw food diet is for everyone, but I am willing to start making more of my meals raw food meals.  I found a great website, The Best of Raw Food, that has many recipes that are easy to make and delicious, all with raw food.

Raw Food is not painful to eat!

Raw foodists eat lots of fruits, vegetables, and some of them eat raw fish (sashimi) and they eat these things in abundance, they eat all the avocados they feel like!  Some of them have been very creative and have been able to make very interesting a delicious dishes, easily.  If you are interested in the diet, just google ‘raw food recipes‘ and you’ll find a wide variety of delicious dishes that instead of making you feel bad or tired after eating them, will make you glow!

There is a great amount of people who want to be masters in the art of juggling among many things at once.  We do this at work, at home, with friends and relationships.  Then after 6 months we look back and think, “what have I achieved?”  Is it really that great to juggle among so many things?  Think about how well you are doing in each of these areas.

Stop the haze and really make meaning of what you are doing.  Ask yourself, why am I doing this?  Think about the way each thing you do affects all the other parts of your life.  Will helping your friend to move to a new place prevent you from spending time with your children?  Will taking up that extra task at work stop you from going to the gym, or sleeping at least 7 hours that night?  Will going out with that new person you met prevent you from furthering your current friendships?

Everything we decide to do WILL definitely affect the other areas of our lives, and that is OK only if we know how and are satisfied with that.  If we take the extra case at work and can still spend time with our family on Saturday, that’s great.  If that is not the case, and we really feel that we must spend time with family, we shouldn’t try to shove it all in and sacrifice quality of life, or happiness.  We may need to learn to prioritize.

TRY THIS TECHNIQUE I LEARNED

Write down a detailed view of how you see yourself in 20 years (can adjust the number of years from now as you see fit).  Write about how you want to live, where, doing what, etc.  Write about the relationships you want to have, what type of friendships, how strong are your bonds with your family.  Write about all the major things, things that are very important to you.  How you want to see yourself and have others look at you.

Now evaluate the things you are doing in your life and think, is this helping me achieve my goal?  Why am I doing this?  If some of the things you are doing are not congruent with where you want your life to be in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years down the road, maybe you can reassess the feeling of ‘having to do it.’

Let me know what you think and how you feel about this.  I think that once I started thinking about my life this way, it was much easier for me to drop certain things that others wanted me to do but didn’t contribute to my long-term goals, and then picked up other activities that would.

Many of us are afraid of being perceived as a failure because we ‘quit’ doing something.  We wouldn’t want people to think that we just give up on things.  But the fact is, life is meant to be enjoyed, and if you are tying up your days with a lot of things that are not contributing to your goals, or giving you the joy you deserve, there is little good done by keep on doing them.  Each activity deserves it’s special consideration, but this is generally true in my experience

To this blog readers

Today’s entry, “3 Simple Changes That Will Improve Your Days” is published as a guest entry over at The Art of Great Things.  Head over there to read it, and make sure you check out other entries at Jeffrey’s blog.  I have had the privilege of reading this blog since it was in it early stage and I have definitely gained a lot of insight and perspective by reading it.  I’m sure you will love it!

To those of you arriving from The Art of Great Things — Welcome!

I’m glad you took your time to come visit and I sure hope you enjoy this blog and stick around for more.  You can read about this blog and myself at the About page.  Through this blog I aim to share my thoughts about things I have learned and share experiences that have allowed me to lived a more fulfilled life.  I tend to focus my blog entries on things I believe will allow you to be more productive, live a healthier life, and most importantly, a happier one.  You can take a look at some of the last few entries to get a feel of this, here are links to a couple.:

Making a Difference in Society
First Steps to Any Success — Stop Lying to Yourself
Most Important Steps to Getting Things Done

Please feel free to browse some more.  The earlier posts on this blog focus more on my experience in Japan this past summer and are more personal experience entries — a bit different from the current focus of the blog.  Take a look at those older entries if you feel adventurous.

I can always be reached by e-mail or through any comment on this blog, so reach out if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments in general.

Smile and have an excellent day, you and those around you deserve it. :)

- Omar

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notsogoodphotography/ / CC BY 2.0

Common reward systems, and society in general, teach us to admire results, not necessarily habits and behavior.  Although this works fairly OK sometimes, pushing everyone to give more and more good results, there is a huge problem behind this system — excellent results can hide a story of many bad decisions and behaviors.

Think about a farm manager that asks his employees to deliver him at the end of the month a certain amount of profit.  He will reward them only if they reach that goal.  The farmers and sales staff decide to just go ahead and reach the goal, and in the process they compromise the quality of the product they are marketing and also the sustainability of the farms.  In their eagerness to achieve the goal, the farmers harvest all they can, even when some of the product is still not ripe or ready for selling, and the marketing staff overworks distributers.  At the end of the month they reach the target revenue, but do so by compromising the revenue for the months to come and also the quality of life of many employees.  Does that sound right?  Not to me.

This is why it is important that we realize that result-based rewards have their place and time, but they are only good if they reward positive behavior.  A scientist that discovers the cure for a letal disease should be rewarded only if the process by which he/she discovered this cure was not harmful or immoral.  This way we are promoting work habits that lead to good results through good methods.

Apply this in your house!  Don’t obsess over your child getting straight A’s in school, but rather teach your child to enjoy learning and how to take pride on his work.  An A+ at school may hide cheating or questionable persuasion, but taking pride in our finished work is something that will drive your child to work more efficiently and produce better work if well taught.

Always recognize small changes in behavior, because these will be key for long term success.

The art of giving rewards lies on picking the right habit to reward, and then coming up with a system that will allow us to do so.  Be creative, learn from other programs, and find a way to do so.  This will make us much better influencers when we use rewards.  At the end of the day, though, try not to reward excessively since it may make it lose value, but do recognize every improvement one way or another.  People need the encouragement of knowing that their progress is being appreciated. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/advocacy_project/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I have one really important tip about unsolicited advice, don’t give it.  Unless you are in a company setting and are managing someone else, or have some sort of responsibility over someone (parent, tutor, teacher), there is no reason why you should be giving any sort of unsolicited advice.

To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn’t know what to do or that he can’t do it on his own.
- John Gray

How many times have you seen someone brighten up and feel better after they receive advice they didn’t think they needed in the first place?  The answer might not be never, but quite closely.  Now think about the number of times you have seen someone get upset because of such ‘helpful advice’ they didn’t want to hear.  I’m sure the number is far greater.

The reason unsolicited advice is so unpopular is because the person it’s directed to is usually not open to receive it, or they’d be asking for it.  In order for your words of wisdom to sink in so someone can learn from them, that person has to be receptive and in the right mood to receive them.  Most parents have learned this the hard way, after realizing that their kids won’t listen even after being punished unless they are in a mindset that allows them to.  When people are taken aback by your criticism, they are most likely going to be thinking “What the heck is this person talking about?  Why are you saying such things?  Do you think you are better than me?” among other things.

So, if you have some advice to give, you need to make sure the other person is open to receive it.  In order to do this there are a few things you should keep in mind.  Before you do so, ask yourself just once again, “why am I so interested in giving this unsolicited advice, and can it be avoided without major problems?”

Tips for Giving Unsolicited Advice [When Absolutely Necessary]

1) If you’re going to criticize, make sure you do so gently, in a way that the other person can save themselves.  You don’t want them to be cornered and feel suffocated, let them feel good about themselves.

2) Don’t just jump in and give your opinion, let the other person talk about the topic and fully listen to them.  One of the main reasons people don’t listen to someone’s advice is because they don’t feel they have been heard and understood before getting the criticism.  If you don’t stop and listen openly & patiently, don’t give advice.

3) Ask questions that put the other person in an agreeable tone, saying “yes yes.” Master influencers know that someone who has been agreeing with you during a conversation, no matter if it’s in topics unrelated to the issue at hand, will find it easier to agree with you when you switch topics to your subject of interest during the conversation.

4) Try to make the person think that the final idea the arrive at is their idea, even if you lead them there.  For example, you can ask leading questions to a friend that make him/her realize they need to be more prompt to meetings, such as “I have been arriving 5 minutes to some of my meetings, and I’m planning to do something to fix that, do you have any tips?”  to which they may respond “you know, I’ve been arriving 10 minutes late to my appointments, I should do something too!”  Eventually you may suggest that you both set alarms or use a daily agenda, but finally allow the other person to have the satisfaction to think that they decided all by themselves to use that agenda.

5)  Think about the person and personalize the feedback.  The same exact words can have devastating results in one person, but great results when told to another.  Make sure you are delivering your message in the way that will make the best impact in this individual.  Choose the appropriate time and setting, and method, to deliver your feedback.  This is probably the hardest step of all.  No matter what you do, don’t give this feedback when you are in an emotional state, keep your head cool.

These simple tips about unsolicited advice may make it better if you really have to give the feedback, but don’t overuse them.  The best way to get the most out of a conflict, is to avoid it altogether, so use that as your rule of thumb.  If conflict is necessary to fix someone’s habits that are affecting others, then give feedback in a delicate, considering manner that will help the person be willing to change.  At the end of the day, no one changes because YOU want them to change, they change because THEY want to change.  Give them a reason to want to change, and no reason for them not to want to change.

Do you want to make a great impact in society?  Shake things up in a way that everyone can talk about and admire?  Sort of like Mother Teresa, or Oprah?  (Side note: Why do I keep mentioning Oprah?  I need to chill on the Oprah love.)  The point is, many of us want to be one of the people who make a great impact in society, you know, someone with lots of INFLUENCE?

I have good news for you.  You can be one of the people who make a big impact in society by doing the right things, counseling the right people, or simply being who you are.  It requires awareness and good intentions… you need to realize that every little action you take, escalates and affects many more people than you believe.  In fact, you are affecting (or influencing) many people daily in a good or bad way just by living your day, even if you don’t notice how big of an effect your behavior has in others.

Little things matter!

I remember a news article I read my freshman year in college, winter 2006, about a female customer at Starbucks’ drive-through who decided to wish happy holidays to the next customer by paying for his/her coffee.  It was a simple gesture that escalated into more than 3 hours (reaching over 140 customers) of people making the same gesture for someone else.  You can call it the Christmas spirit, but just see it as a manifestation of how much reach a simple, individual action can have.  Did you watch the movie “Pay it Forward?”  Imagine if that were applied to the real world. (Read image caption)

From the movie "Pay It Forward." A child explains a project that will change the world. Help someone in a small way and instead of getting pay for it, ask the person to 'pay it forward' by helping 3 other people, and asking those 3 to do the same.

Why am I telling you this?  The reason I want to communicate this is because for far too long I have been hearing people talking about how much they wished they could make a difference in the world.  We all want to be that individual hero that everyone goes to or recognizes.  But the truth is, we are ALL influencing hundreds, if not thousands of people by each small action we take.

Think about what you’ve done so far in your day.  Each smile you may have given to someone else this morning most likely translated into a few extra smiles, which in turn caused many more.  Even if your smile didn’t translate into a thousand smiles, it most likely caused a reaction in someone and lightened their day, or at least made them evaluate how they were going through their days.  Small gestures such as these may not be overlooked.  We need to think of the power that these little gestures have, and work so that more and more people join in the fun of giving smiles to others.

There is so much potential for improvement in our daily lives by just taking small steps.  Make an effort to improve someone else’s life each day, if we all do this, the world will soon become a better place to live in.

“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which have become permanent”
Marcel Proust

Make your face features pleasant to the world by continuously smiling, and you will be positively impacting society in a far greater way than you can imagine.

Try a little exercise.  Count the number of smiles you give and receive in a day.  Then try to double the number of smiles you give each week (and make sure they are more than the ones you receive).  See how your life changes, and then  come back and share your experience.

In my opinion and observation, just about ~99% of our limitations are made up.  They are a straight up lie.  That’s right, lies.  And who lied to you to limit your potential?  You did.  Remember when you were growing up and went to a language class, hated it, and after that said “I’m just not good at languages?”  That day, you lied to yourself.  Then you may have gotten a C- on a high school essay and said, “I am not a good writer.”  You lied to yourself, yet again.  One day you heard about a stubborn person and the sound of it resounded with you and you started saying, “I am stubborn.”  You may have liked the freedom of THINKING that people would just put up with whatever you said or did since you labeled yourself as stubborn.  Oh, we are a funny bunch, aren’t we?

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

There are many other examples of self-limiting comments.  How many of you have heard people say things like: I just can’t lose those extra pounds, I’m always late, I always get sick, I’m just kind of moody sometimes.  We go on telling everyone just how much we know about ourselves, and we say these things with a commanding tone that may fool others to believe these are inherent characteristics of who we are.  Scary stuff.

We are quite obnoxious about this, too.  Someone may be talking about the new diet they are trying and right then we go on about how diets don’t work for us and the 1000 reasons why you will never be on one again.  You tell the other person in detail just how much pain you went through when you couldn’t eat that piece of candy during your trip to Disney with your family, etc.  Guess what?  Other people probably don’t care, or at least not as much as you think they do.  And even if they did, this diet is giving them amazing results.  Just keep your mouth shut for a bit, resist the urge to give unsolicited advice, and listen with an open mind.  Maybe this diet would work for you, too!  Take your time to stop limiting yourself and others.

“If we are speaking, we are not listening or learning anything to add to our sum of knowledge.”
- Ken Fracaro

These limiting thoughts we have, I’m not good at this or that, reflect a defeated attitude.  We give up and say, that’s who I am, just take it or leave it.  Where is your DRIVE to push yourself?  Where is your drive to improve?  If we are not willing to put in work and effort, we will not learn.  Active learning only takes place when you challenge yourself to improve, and get out of your comfort zone.

Transform these negative thoughts!

If you have any thoughts similar to the ones mentioned above, you may want to learn to transform your thoughts in order to lead a happier life.  Let’s try it -

Next time you think “I don’t have any talent to dance,”  replace the thought with, “Let me Google ways to learn how to dance, maybe I can watch a YouTube video that can teach me some moves.”

Instead of saying, “I can’t lose the extra pounds, this is how my body is,”  take a step back and say, “If I want to lose weight, I need to stop doing what I have tried and learn new ways.”  Unless you have seen a doctor about your health and nutrition, and have effectively worked with a good personal trainer, there is no reason for you to say ‘this is who I am.’  We suddenly become genetics experts, and say “I got bad genes.”  Genetics may play a role, who knows, but most of the people who fail do so because they want to justify things, rather than work hard to change habits.

NO ONE will get ahead of the game by blaming others people or blaming things out of their control, only when we focus on the things we DO have control over, we succeed.

Don’t surrender when you are not happy about something, work to improve it.  Accept that you are who you are today because of the thoughts and decisions from your past, and know you can start today to forge a better tomorrow.

The English language is sometimes misleading.  People feel cold and they say “I am cold”, but cold has nothing to do with who they are, it’s just something they are feeling now.  Likewise, people are mislead by the way they describe ‘feeling angry,’ they say “I am angry” enough times that anger becomes a part of who they are, and they constantly feel angry or upset.  Be aware of what you say you are. You are not bad at something, you just have not yet gained the skills you desire to obtain and will work for.

Let’s approach life in a more positive note, looking always forward to improving ourselves rather than allowing defeat to take over.  This way life will be happier for us and everyone surrounding us.