If Only I Had the Courage…

How many times have you thought to yourself “If I only had the courage!”?

The courage to make that change, take that chance, speak my mind, say No to something that doesn’t inspire me, or say Yes to something that does.

“Arrghh, if only…” we tell ourselves as we weigh up the risks, and focus on all that might go wrong. Desperate to avoid nagging feelings of regret, we do our best to rationalize why sticking with the status quo isn’t so bad. While we clutch onto whatever evidence we can find to ease regret and keep doubts at bay. All the while somewhere, deep inside, we wish we’d been braver.

Talk to anyone in the twilight years of their life and they are likely to tell you that when they look back on key decisions in their life, they wish they’d acted with less timidity and greater boldness. Many people—old and not so old alike—have shared with me how looking back on even just the last 10 years they can see how they underestimated themselves too much, played safe too often and, if given the chance to do it over, would have leaned more toward risk and less toward caution.

Which is why I am passionate about challenging people to rethink risk, to expand the vision that they have for their life and to be more courageous—in work, in love and in life. Having witnessed the possibilities that can open up when people decide to stop playing safe, I know that even the most timid souls and risk-averse worriers can act with courage. That is, to take action in the presence of their fears and doubts, not in their absence.

Living With Courage Means Living Wholeheartedly

The word courage comes from the French cor, meaning heart. So at the core of courage is choosing to live wholeheartedly—to bare your heart wide open to the full spectrum of experiences and emotions; to stop letting fear run your life, and to start owning your power to create, achieve, become and contribute all that inspires you.

But how do you move beyond the platitudes and T-shirt slogans about being bold and living fearlessly? How do you actually take that brave audacious leap of faith over a chasm of fear?

You start by asking yourself “For the sake of what?” You see, nothing worthwhile is accomplished with a guarantee of success; risk is a toll, which life exacts en route to any meaningful endeavor. So finding the courage to risk demands being super clear about ‘why’ you are doing it in the first place.

We are wired to focus more on what we have to lose than what we might gain. Therefore, before you can find the courage to risk losing something—whether it be material security, social status, professional pride or admiration—you have to be crystal clear about what it is you want to gain in the process. “For the sake of what?” are you going to lay your reputation, your pride, your status and vulnerability on the line? Only when your desire for something transcends your desire for safety [and comfort] can you rise above the fears hard-wired into you to protect you from such dangers.

Your ‘Why’ is what gives your life a sense of purpose and lies at the intersection of your talents, passions, values and skills. It’s what fuels you and what fills you. It’s the ‘why’ that propelled Anthony Crowley to give up the security, status and trimmings of a job in the advertising industry to pursue his passion in the performing arts. A gifted musician, playwright and artist in his mid-twenties, Anthony decided he didn’t want to look back on life wondering ‘What if?’ While Anthony’s name is not up in lights beside Lloyd-Webber’s [yet], his plays and musicals have been presented and awarded around the world. Not only does Anthony draw enormous satisfaction from his work, but he provides a powerful role model for his children and many others on what it means to live your passion.

Confront Your Fears, Rethink Your Risks

Fear often gets a bad rap, but it serves the vital role of alerting us to potential threats to our safety, protecting us from harm and pain. However, in today’s culture of fear, we can unwittingly find ourselves living in its shadow, unable to distinguish those fears that are genuinely serving us from those that are stifling our actions and limiting our experience of life.

Every day, we are bombarded with reasons why we should feel afraid. Fear of economic recession. Fear of job loss. Fear of losing our savings. Fear of radicalism, fundamentalism, government, racialism, terrorism, isolation, mutant viruses, violence, identity theft, global warming… the list is long.

Marketers prey on our fears, the media prey on our fears while politicians play on our fears. Fear sells products. Fear sells papers. Fear wins votes. Fear makes profit. Fear grows power. And fear fuels fear. That’s why, in a world that is so filled with fear, refusing to be a pawn to fear, to play safe and to think small, becomes an ever more courageous act.

As I shared in my latest book Stop Playing Safe, research psychologists have identified four key mechanisms that undermine our ability to accurately assess risk, and take those ‘smart risks’ needed to create the opportunities, influence, prosperity and success that we want.

Why Do We Play It Safe?

While there are many different psychological processes at play, there are four core ways we are ‘wired’ to play it safe:

1. We overestimate the size of risk

We misjudge the likelihood of losing something we value over gaining something we would like even more. In short, potential losses loom larger than potential gains.

2. We ‘catastrophise’

We exaggerate the potential consequences of what might happen if things don’t work out. Our imagination runs riot and we come up with all these dramatic and drastic worst case nightmare scenarios which, in reality, are extremely unlikely to occur. What would actually happen is that we’d quickly intervene if things started derailing to shore up potential losses.

3. We underestimate our ability to handle risk

This is a core factor for many people who second guess and doubt their ability to handle bigger challenges. My experience working with women is that women are particularly susceptible to this and often doubt themselves and their capabilities far more than they should. It drives them to veer away from opportunities and challenges rather than lean toward them because they doubt their ability to handle them well. As Mark Twain once said, “I have known a great many troubles in my life, most of them never happened.” Such is the power of our imagination!

4. We discount, downplay or deny the cost of inaction

How often have you heard someone justifying why they didn’t take a chance or make a change with something like “Things aren’t that bad” when you know that they are actually pretty miserable with the status quo? My guess is, likely a lot. Too often we tell ourselves lies about the cost of not taking action because we are too afraid to take it. The truth is that when things aren’t going well, they usually only get worse if we do nothing. While there is always a risk to taking action, there is also a risk to inaction. Getting real about the cost of inaction is essential to find the courage to it.

The result of these combined psychological mechanisms is that people often end up being overly cautious; unwilling to take the very risks needed to create more meaningful lives. However, when we shine a light on our fears and become truly present to the cost of inaction [and believe me, there is always a cost!], we loosen the grip that fear has on our psyche, improving our ability to accurately assess risk and discern the smartest path forward, even if not the easiest or most comfortable.

What Would You Do if You Were Being Truly Courageous?

It was six weeks before her wedding day when Anne, a doctor, called me to say she was having major second thoughts about whether to proceed with her wedding. While she admired the man she was going to marry, she’d become increasingly uninspired by the idea of spending her life with him. When I asked her how she felt about ending the relationship and calling off the wedding she insisted, “I can’t break it off—it would kill him. It would kill me too!” Anne’s fear of the fallout from breaking off her engagement was understandable, but—as I pointed out to her—just because it was an incredibly hard thing to do didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.

After much soul searching Anne made the very brave decision to break off her engagement. She didn’t die. Nor did he. While she said it was the hardest thing she ever had to do at the time, what it taught her was that she was more courageous than she thought. That knowledge emboldened her to pursue her dream to join Doctors Without Borders. Nine months after calling off her wedding, she was managing a remote hospital in Darfur that served internally displaced Sudanese refugees. Since then Anne has not only married a man she is inspired to live her life with [and is soon to have their first baby], but has done extraordinary work in supporting the world’s most needy.

So before you read any further, ask yourself this: “What would I do if I were being truly courageous?” Go on, take a minute to close your eyes, breath deeply and sit with the question. As you do, give your imagination permission to soar and then open your heart to wherever it takes you. However large or small, daunting or seemingly insignificant it is, just know that within you lies all the resources you ever need to live your answer. One day, one hour, one act of courage at a time [however small it may seem.]

How to Find Courage in Life

When it comes to fulfilling your potential at work—to making the full contribution you are capable of and being rewarded for it accordingly—there are two core fundamental mindsets that separate those who experience deep career fulfillment and success from those who don’t. The first mindset is based on the premise that the risk is to be avoided; the other that risk is to be embraced as a crucial element of success. I call these mindsets the risk-averse Fear mindset and the risk-ready Courage mindset. One is driven by fear of what could be lost, the other by desire for what can be gained.

While there is no doubt that some people are naturally more comfortable taking risks than others, science has proven that courage is a skill and, like all skills, it can be learned and developed to a level of mastery with consistent effort and commitment. When you choose to develop a courage mindset, your psychological courage muscles are strengthened every time you use them. You sharpen and shape your courage skills every time you intentionally choose to step beyond what is comfortable, put yourself at risk and bravely render yourself vulnerable to something you fear. Courage is ultimately a mindset. So is fear. Read Let’s deal with fear.

The table below lists 10 core attitudes of a courage mindset along with the corresponding attitudes of a fear mindset. Think of a current challenge or opportunity you are facing. As you read through the list of risk-averse mindsets, ask yourself what conversations and actions you could initiate to approach each one with a risk-ready courage mindset. I encourage you to write down your answers as they come into your head… before they leave again!

When you focus on what you don’t want to happen, you psychologically enlarge the holes in your safety net, amplifying timidity into full-blown terror. As I stood on that trapeze platform looking down, the holes in the safety net beneath me seemed to grow larger by the second until my imagination had me falling right through them.

Somehow I convinced myself to focus. I took a few very long, deep and deliberate breaths, then I leaned out from that platform to grasp the trapeze bar. Off I flew letting out one mighty scream along the way.

Having dared to fail countless times in my life, and having succumbed to self-doubt and fear nearly as often, I know all too well that courage is not a one-off decision. You don’t just choose to be courageous and then never have another moment of cowardice or even hesitation. No, becoming more courageous is more about moving in the direction from which courage calls.

Some days you’ll feel like you’ve just hit the ball out of the park—you’ve been bold and assertive, spoken up to your boss about the new role you’d like to take on, volunteered to lead the next sales meeting, signed up for a marathon … you’re on a [courage] roll. Moving in the direction of courage! Then on other days… you’re not. You keep your mouth closed during meetings even though you really don’t agree with what’s being said. You shy away from ruffling anyone’s feathers. You’re operating from fear, moving away from courage. Such is life. It’s about having more courageous days, than fearful ones.

Trust Yourself: You’re Capable of More Than You Think

When I started my second career in coaching [which later evolved into speaking and writing], I had four children under the age of six. I remember being a little overwhelmed at the idea of starting a business with such young children, particularly since I was living in another country at that time with no family support network around me. But I was passionate about pursuing a calling, and I knew that if I did nothing, I would look back with regret. I also believe that we can hardly tell our children to pursue their dreams if we don’t first have the courage to pursue our own.

What I learnt over the ensuing years is that too often we let our fear of “not having what it takes” keep us from taking the actions that would enable us to realize we have everything it takes. That doesn’t mean that we can conquer our own personal Everest in a day, a month or a year. But if we take one step forward toward whatever it is that inspires us, over time, those baby steps lead us to new places, new experiences, new opportunities and a greater realization of just how much we can accomplish if we set our mind to it.

New research has lent credence to the words Lao Tzu wrote 3000 years ago: “People are capable of more than they think.” Whether backpacking around the world on my own at 21 for a year, having a fourth child [a definite leap of faith!], or starting to write my first book Find Your Courage with four children under seven at that time, I’ve learnt that when we doubt ourselves, we limit ourselves. Only when we dare more boldly can we ever harness the potential that resides with us and fully share our unique talents with the world.

Courage Means You Embrace Uncertainty

My dad, a humble farmer with a generous heart, always cautioned me: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” He meant well, his words were guided by his desire to protect me from disappointment, but his advice was not for living a wholehearted life. All change, even change for the better, is uncomfortable because it demands giving up what we know for an uncertain future. That’s why so many people choose to stay in jobs they loathe, in relationships that leave them lonely, and to quote Thoreau, “Living lives of quiet desperation.”

Afraid of uncertainty, people choose the inevitability of things never getting better because they are afraid of the possibility that they may end up worse than they were before. However, as you journey through life, unless you are willing to trade the familiarity of the status quo for the possibility of a better one, you run the greater risk of short changing yourself. When you let your fears drive you to settle for less than what you really want, you sell out on what you could be. All the while dreams retreat, passion wanes, doors close, talent sleeps and life passes passively by. It is the ultimate tragedy.

Exit Your Comfort Zone

When I first left my parents’ small farm at 18 to move to the city for university, I was part terrified, part excited, and completely outside my comfort zone. As I found out then, no worthwhile aspiration can be accomplished from within our comfort zone. Only in giving up the security of the known can we create new opportunity, build capability, and grow influence. As we do, we expand the perimeter of our ‘Courage Zone’, our tolerance for risks and confidence to take on bigger challenges in the future.

There is no doubt that there are real dangers we need to be cautious about. But in our overcautious, competitive and accelerated world, there are also countless opportunities. None of them lie in our comfort zone [none of the really great ones!]. Only those who refuse to cower to fear and are willing to take risk will see and seize those opportunities and reap the rewards they bring. When you dare to do the very thing you are afraid of, you’ll find the universe conspiring for you and presenting opportunities that always [and only] lie on the other side of your comfort zone. So live by design, not default, taking one action every day that moves you outside your comfort zone, however small or insignificant it may seem.

Think Big; Start Small

Of course, it usually takes less than a minute after connecting with an inspiring vision to feel overwhelmed by the size of the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Which is why, however audaciously big your dream, you need to start by breaking it down into smaller shorter-term goals, with doable ‘bite sized’ actions, that you can achieve.

“You don’t have to see the whole stair case. Just the first step.”

— Martin Luther King

Identifying the first few steps is a strategy that has worked for many clients of mine, including Julie Webber, an IT professional, who shared with me that she wanted to advance in her company and take on larger leadership roles, but wasn’t confident in how to go about it. “So what’s the first thing you could do?” I asked her. “I could volunteer for a leadership role in my professional association… They’re always asking but I’ve held back because I was afraid of not being good enough,” she offered up. “And I could say more on conference calls,” she added, “since I usually stay quiet.” Today Julie is blazing all sorts of new trails for herself because she thought big, but started small.

Closer to home I can share with you how I’m also managing overwhelm in pursuing my goal of launching my own online TV show Raw Courage TV. I can assure you that the size of the gap between where I am, sitting in my office, and the vision I have for it five years from now [Oprah, watch out!] is vast. So I’ve begun with small steps:

• Chose the name
• Bought the URL
• Engaged a website designer
• Scripted the first 10 episodes
• Sourced videographers
• Reached out to my hit list of people I’d love to interview
• Set up the social media pages.

It’s a huge undertaking, but as I know that unless I start doing something, even if I’m not quite sure of every step ahead, one year from now I will be better off than if I wait to figure out exactly what’s needed before taking the first one. Likewise, if you find yourself moving into overwhelm, focus on what you want to do the next day, or week. Then next week, do the same thing. Repeat as necessary!

Summary

Action is the most potent antidote to fear. The only way to rise above it is right through the heart of it. Accordingly, living courageously is not the absence of knots in your stomach, a lump in your throat, chattering teeth or sweaty palms. It is feeling your fears to the core, and then standing tall, breathing deep, and stepping forward in their very presence. Only then can you come to know that you never needed to feel afraid to begin with. As Anais Nin once wrote, “Life shrinks or expands in proportions to one’s courage.”

Be brave, you can do more than you think!

A version of this article was first published in the May 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing. Updated on 6^th June 2023

The post How to Find Courage in Life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Introduction: A great life is made up of…

1. Embrace the real you: Cultivate a healthy self-concept
2. Prioritize and nourish fulfilling relationships
3. Choose a satisfying career
4. Fuel your life with whole foods and optimal nutrition
5. Get moving and find exercises you enjoy
6. Explore your world through travel and connecting with others
7. Live your life with purpose
8. Cultivate emotional resilience
9. Spirituality: Make room for the divine

Introduction: A great life is made up of…

Normally, when we think of building blocks of life, we think of DNA and microbiology, of the evolution of life from unicellular microorganisms to complex creatures such as human beings. But for humans, life is a lot more than just physical existence. We are multidimensional beings and our wellbeing doesn’t just depend on getting food, water and air. To live a life of meaning and joy, we need a lot more—we need good health, fulfilling relationships, satisfaction at work and a purpose in life, among other things. Doing well in only one or two areas of life at the cost of others never works.

Here are nine basic building blocks of wellbeing that constitute a great life. Without these in place, your life is likely to wobble and be at a risk of crashing any time. The best part about these building blocks is that they are easy to understand and integrate into your life. What you need is a commitment to live your best life with consistent effort until it becomes your natural way of being. So let’s get going!

The building blocks to create a great life

1. Embrace the real you: Cultivate a healthy self-concept

Regardless of where you’re at, your timing is perfect. No matter how old you are, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made, no matter how much time you’ve wasted in unfruitful thoughts, activities, relationships or jobs, you are meant to be here, right now.

One day, you’ll see how all those “wrong turns” and difficult experiences in your life have worked together to create the perfect you and your perfect life. Right now, you are perfectly designed to live and serve the world in a way that only you can.

This isn’t about creating a self-indulgent “me, me, me” kind of life. Rather, it’s about finally having the courage to recognize the person who you really are, and to make your most important life choices based on that. Your most authentic life and your biggest contribution to society come from the wonderful tapestry made up of all the parts of you—your flaws, your mistakes, your dreams, your talents, your experiences and your natural likes and dislikes. You are completely unique on this planet and in history, and you are here for a reason. Until you start being the real you, in all areas of your life, you can’t possibly experience the fullness of the life that most certainly is waiting for you.

Before depression and desperation forced me to leap and embark on this wonderful adventure that is my life today, my days used to feel like a life sentence. 15 years ago, I was a depressed, anxious, burned out Emergency Medicine resident who panicked under pressure and felt faint at the sight of large amounts of blood.

One night, I reached the point where I no longer wanted to keep living. Thankfully a miraculously timed phone call from a concerned medical colleague saved me from the brink. She told me to take a stress leave, to consider quitting the residency program, and to think about who I really was and what I might want to do with my life. That phone call set me on a whole new path.

Today, I am a wellness and lifestyle expert who speaks internationally and coaches people around the world. I also work with international media and blog for Psychology Today. In the midst of it all, I became a professional flamenco dancer. There’s a lot more to my story [you can read about it in my book, Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier More Passionate You] but the bottom line is that once I realized who I really was and started making choices from that place, my life bloomed and transformed completely. Your life can, too.

Luckily I don’t always believe what people tell me, otherwise during my season of depression, I might have accepted the “reality” that I was a biologically depressed person who would have to stay on anti-depressants for most of her life. Today, I can’t remember when I popped my last “happy pill”. From the moment that I reconnected with who I really was, and gave myself permission to be my true self, I began making choices that were right for me, instead of listening to what other people thought would be best. And that was when everything began to turn around, and the darkness turned to light. Where once people used to feel sorry for me, today they tell me that they envy my fulfillment and freedom.

If no one else was watching and potentially judging or criticizing you, who would you be? What different choices would you make? What is the truth that is in your heart? These questions aren’t frivolous. They are vitally important in shining the light on the true beauty that is the one, the only, you.

2. Prioritize and nourish fulfilling relationships

I frequently talk about relationships as being one of the most important contributors to your health and happiness. And it’s not just your closest relationships—the number of social contacts you have in your daily life [including the bank teller and your neighbor down the street] are directly associated with your wellbeing.

I’m an introvert and could happily spend long stretches of time working and hanging out at home, without interacting with anyone other than my husband and our dog. Though I love people and deeply appreciate my friends, I don’t have a strong drive to regularly reach out to others. I’m terrible when it comes to calling people, and can easily let long intervals of time pass by without connecting. This hasn’t got anything to do with whether or not I like them, I’m just not very socially oriented. That said, I’m increasingly aware that given the health and happiness benefits of time with other people, it’s in my best interest to override my anti-social tendencies and spend more time with others.

Last week at church, the sermon highlighted three elements that are required to create a better relationship with the divine. While listening to it, I realized it was sensible advice about creating a better relationship not only with the divine, but with anyone who is important to you. Here are the three points, with my take on them:

Three elements to create a better relationship

1. Notice and act on your desire to connect with others

Whenever you think of someone, or spend time with someone, and feel a desire to spend more time with them in the future, make note of it. You might meet someone new who you really like, or hear a song on the radio that’s your uncle’s favorite, or run into an old friend on the street. In that moment, you may be struck by how much you enjoy that person’s company and feel a desire to see them again soon. What do you do when that happens? Like me, do you file it away in your mind, forget and then after five years pass them by and ask yourself, “Has it really been five years since I last saw Jenny?”

When you feel that desire to spend more time with someone, act on it. Make a date for lunch, even if the next possible opportunity is a couple of months or a year away. Pick up the phone and call them when you think of them, just to say hello. Send a quick Facebook or WhatsApp message to let them know you were thinking of them.

2. Spend “real” time together

Speaking of Facebook, I heard someone comment the other day that even though it’s so easy to “keep in touch” with people these days through social media comments, emails or text messages, it’s not the same as real time. Don’t let your regular brief contact with someone online replace face-to-face or voice-to-voice time.

3. Make a special effort that demonstrates your commitment and caring nature

Relationships don’t develop automatically and don’t deepen on their own—they take effort. Be conscious of this in your relationships and think about what efforts you can make to deepen your connection with people who matter to you. What kind of effort would be most significant to each individual? Some people don’t care about birthdays [or actually hate being reminded they’re a year older now], while others feel slighted if they don’t get a phone call or an e-card. Pay close attention to what other people value, and make the effort to connect with them on that level.

Make time for people in your life, especially the ones that you love the most and the ones that make you laugh the most. If a hermit like me can do it, you certainly can. In fact, last night after a long day of work and flamenco dance rehearsals, I dragged myself all the way back into town to go to a friend’s birthday party because I knew that her birthday was important to her. A group of us had dinner, ate heaps of rich flour-less chocolate cake, and then went out dancing. I had the time of my life. In retrospect it’s quite funny that I thought I was making the effort just to please my friend. When we’re good to our friends and family, we’re really taking care of ourselves.

To summarize, focus on helping and loving people, while still taking good care of yourself, and you will thrive.

3. Choose a satisfying career

You can only go so far on talent alone. If you’re good at something, it gets noticed and valued by others, and it certainly opens doors. It can generate much-needed income, which can be very important. Yet when it comes to truly fulfilling your potential and knowing the joy of doing what you were meant to do, the only thing that will give you that experience is what you love.

I’m nowhere near being a truly great flamenco dancer, yet I have been paid surprisingly well to perform [more than I earn per hour as a doctor] on multiple occasions. Apparently there’s something unique I bring to performing, the value of which has everything to do with deep passion and much less to do with technique.

My dance performances are among the most cherished moments of life—the “I could die happy now that I’ve done this” moments. I feel the same way about having published a book.

According to my patients, I’m a pretty good doctor, and they often tell me that they wish I would practise full-time so I could be their family physician. I’m grateful for my education, the knowledge base and the ability to earn income practising medicine, but it would break my heart if it was the only vocation I was limited to. I’m quite sure I’d get depressed again.

No, what makes my heart sing is this: writing, public speaking, media work, dancing, and even just posting educational or inspirational Facebook posts and Tweets that help improve the lives of my online community.

I fully appreciate that you can’t always do what you want. Economic realities are what they are, and it would be foolish for many people to abandon the job that pays the bills in order to pursue their passion. Then again, there are plenty of people who have done just that, and have fared very well.

If you know what your passion is, and have gotten “stuck” in a job or career on the basis of merit versus passion, you might want to do what I did and transition gradually. For years I was a full-time doctor by day and a salsa and flamenco dancer by night, I look back on that season of change with so much fondness.

If you’re honest with yourself about what you really love doing, you owe it to yourself to pursue it in some form. When even a tiny part of your life is spent doing something you love, you would be amazed how bearable it makes everything else in your life that you “have to” do, at least for the time being.

How would you earn your income, if anything were possible? You would likely be amazed by what might actually be possible for you. Life can be so full of delicious surprises, if you’d only just step out and give it a chance.

4. Fuel your life with whole foods and optimal nutrition

How do you feel about the foods that you usually eat? Could you be making better choices? Would you like to learn how to choose foods that will help you achieve your ideal weight, have more energy, or slow down the aging progress? I’m pretty sure I can guess your answer!

I’ve been studying nutrition for over 20 years—I have a university degree in Dietetics, and I wrote a monthly nutrition column for Canada’s doctors and health care professionals for eight years. Even though I’ve got these credentials and the related knowledge, I still face many of the same dietary challenges that you do. Some days [many days] I still have a hard time getting in the “recommended daily amounts” of fruits, vegetables and high-quality protein. I have to remind myself regularly to eat something healthy, rather than simply pop a handful of cookies that I prefer [sometimes I do let myself indulge in the cookies]. So I can only imagine how challenging it might be for you to eat well.

I’m pretty sure that if I stopped almost anyone on the street and asked them to list a few examples of healthy foods, they’d be able to. I find it hard to believe that anyone honestly thinks that a giant cheeseburger and fries is a healthy, balanced food choice.

You probably already know that regular consumption of unhealthy foods can increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, and even cancer. I’m not going to dwell on that here because you’ve heard all that before, and if you’re like most people, that knowledge alone hasn’t done much to change your eating habits.

What finally “cured” me of those habits was observing the huge effect that certain foods had on how I looked and felt. I promise you, you’ll be amazed at the effect that simple changes in your diet can have on your face, and the rate that you age in the mirror.

I must warn you that there’s a major side effect of this way of eating: The food choices that make you more beautiful and give you more energy also happen to be the foods that protect your body from illness and biological aging. Certain foods such as sugar, processed foods and white flour increase inflammation, disease and aging in our body cells and in our skin, while other foods such as colorful fruits and vegetables reduce inflammation and may even reverse some of the damage.

If you regularly eat balanced quantities of whole foods that provide good quality protein [such as fish, legumes or free range eggs] and healthy fats [for example from olive oil, fish oil or avocado] in combination with healthy high fiber sources of carbohydrates, you’ll naturally feel fuller and it’ll take longer for you to feel hungry again after eating. You’ll also avoid those blood sugar crashes that can leave you feeling tired and hungry after eating a high-carbohydrate meal or snack.

When you choose healthy whole foods your mind and body feel wonderfully alert and full of energy. I don’t notice it so much day-to-day, but I sure notice it whenever I abandon my healthy way of eating and spend a day, or several days, indulging in delicious but unhealthy foods. Believe me, you’ll notice it too.

5. Get moving and find exercises you enjoy

If you are reading this article, you probably know the importance of physical activity. Nevertheless, it bears repeating that exercising is vital to your wellbeing. If you get enough sleep, eat healthy food throughout the day and fit in a walk or a workout whenever you can, you’ll dramatically increase your ability to cope with stress and will improve your capacity to perform under pressure. You’ll be less likely to burn out, you’ll enjoy better moods and be less irritable, and you’ll also be much less likely to fall sick.

You don’t need to join a gym or hire a personal trainer in order to start getting more exercise. Ever since I was a teenager, going for walks has been my primary way of ensuring that I stay in shape and maintain my weight. Walking is easy on your joints and body, and is great for relieving stress. Best of all, it’s free! Dancing is another great way to get exercise without even noticing that you’re working out. Check out the classes offered by your local community center, or search online for classes in your area. Trust me—you’re never too old and it’s never too late to start dancing!

Find something you like to do and it won’t feel like exercise. I couldn’t keep a commitment to the gym if I tried, but I walk my dog twice a day in the hills around my home and I love to flamenco dance, so I take twice-weekly classes and rehearse and perform regularly. Love going on a long chatty walk with your favorite friend? Make a regular date to do so. Love Latin music? Try Zumba. Get so stressed at work that you feel like hitting your boss? Try a kickboxing class.

No matter what you decide to do to get moving, aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week [for example, brisk walking], as that seems to be the magic number for optimal health and prevention of disease. Remember, exercise boosts levels of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, and has been shown to be as effective as antidepressants.

6. Explore your world through travel and connecting with others

When I was given that stress leave from residency 15 years ago, I didn’t know what I really wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the courage to leave my residency, but I knew this: I was going to buy a ticket to Cuba. Why Cuba? I can’t explain it, other than I simply knew it. I didn’t even know anyone who had gone there. But now, for some reason, I knew that it was time to go. And I had to go alone.

Whenever you get a clear impulse to do or try something different, or to travel to a distant destination, especially when the idea seems to “come out of nowhere”, it’s usually something that will turn out to be important to your life path. That is, if you’re able to find the courage and faith to do it. The more crazy or improbable an idea seems, the greater its potential power to transform your life—in the very best of ways. Of course, the more unusual the idea, the more terrified and doubtful you’ll feel as you consider it.

When I got to Cuba and watched the other happy tourists gathered around the pool, I felt as if I’d suddenly woken up. I’d spent the last six years around medical students, residents and doctors, and had somehow gotten the idea that it was normal to work around the clock, sleep in hospital greens, and focus my life on textbooks, facts and diseases.

In Cuba, I was surrounded by people celebrating with their friends and families, who told me stories of other vacation adventures and the fun things they did at home. These people worked to live, they didn’t live to work. And some of them even liked what they did!

It was on that trip to Cuba, watching a group of salsa dancers perform in an evening show that I remembered that as a little girl I had dreamed of being a dancer. I went home, resigned from my residency, signed up for salsa dance classes and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sometimes you need to step out of your day-to-day routine and experience a different way of life in order to discover what needs to change in your life. If you can’t afford the time or money to take a vacation far away, take a mini-vacation to a nearby area where you haven’t been before. Expose yourself to new environments and people, break your daily routine—that is the key.

7. Live your life with purpose

In those early days of life change, I remember reading books that talked about “finding your purpose”, and feeling so frustrated that I hadn’t found mine yet. I was convinced that I would never discover any kind of joyful, meaningful purpose to my life. I also remember reading books about happiness, and doubting that I would ever find that, either. During those early years when I read so many different inspirational books and longed for a different kind of life, I didn’t realize that my life had already begun to turn around. In my studies and experiences since, I’ve observed that many people hope for a single lucky day when everything permanently changes for the better. It might be the moment that they finally discover their life’s true calling, or meet their ideal mate, or finally get that big break. In reality, it’s rarely that simple. What I’ve discovered in my own journey is that changing your life from miserable—or just plain mundane—to marvelous requires a continually progressive, multi-layered process.

Purpose of life is unique to all; a phenomenon that’s so individualistic that I believe only you can actually know it or figure it out, though others may certainly help provide input and guidance.

I want to encourage you to release and let go of any pressures you might be feeling around the topic. Connecting with and living your purpose is a beautiful journey that typically unfolds in mysterious and surprising ways. It’s not something to be forced, or something to actively worry about “having to” find. I like to think of it as a treasure hunt, a perfectly paced adventure with your eyes and heart wide open.

All you have to do is decide to be open to this area of your life and be willing to take whatever steps or inspiration calls to you. I’m convinced that if you do that, you can’t go wrong, and you won’t “miss it”. Be curious. Enjoy the process. Marvel at life and its richness as you go along.

“Seek, and you shall find,” as the proverb goes.

Your purpose doesn’t have to be something really “big” either. The value of your impact on others and on the world has nothing to do with its scale.

In order for our world to function, we need people living and contributing at all kinds of different levels. If we could each find and inhabit the sphere we’re supposed to be in, and contribute what we were made to contribute, what a beautiful world it would be.

My true career or vocation is directly tied to my purpose, though the way you make your living does not necessarily have to do anything with why you are here. What is so you that you would just have to do it, no matter what?

Be careful of going in a direction just because others think you should. That said, it’s a good idea to pay attention to the way others compliment you. Is there anything that you’re particularly good at? Is there anything people ask you to do professionally, or do more of?

What is the one thing you want to experience, or do, or accomplish, before you die, so that on your last day on earth you feel satisfied and have no regrets in that area?

8. Cultivate emotional resilience

Life is dynamic. Circumstances change, we change, the people around us change, and you constantly have to readjust to keep it all chugging along harmoniously. I’ve learned the hard way, and not just once, that emotional and life balance isn’t something you just create one day, and then forget about.

To live in a balanced, mentally healthy place, we need to consciously commit to it every day. Just like you stick to a healthy eating plan or an exercise program, emotional wellbeing is something that you decide that you’re going to create, every day, in order to reap its many benefits. It becomes part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth.

Your life may be so out of control and busy that you don’t know where to start. Or perhaps you fear that you’re so far gone, you’ll never get yourself and your life back. As they say in the 12-step programs, life is about “progress, not perfection”. Any time you discover that you’ve fallen off the balance wagon, whether it’s for a day or for the last few years, you can renew your commitment and start afresh, today.

As soon as life gets crowded, most people push sleep, good nutrition and exercise out of the way, to make room for what we think is “more important”. We’ve got it backwards! We should see these good health basics as the foundation of our day, the non-negotiable framework of balance in our lives, rather than considering them as disposable options.

To survive the ups and downs of life and maintain good mental health, you need plenty of rest. You need to spend time regularly with people that you love. Be generous, help other people. Actively practise gratitude every day, and have a regular “gratitude practice” if at all possible. Gratitude is directly correlated to improved wellbeing and improved mental health in humans.

Watch your thoughts carefully. We all have a negative, critical voice inside us that lies to us, telling us we aren’t worthy of love, aren’t worthy of our hopes and dreams or aren’t good enough. Tell yourself the truth. You aren’t perfect—no one is—but there are good things about you. Focus on what is good and true, and express these qualities more and more in your life. And remember that God always loves you, no matter how imperfect you are.

9. Spirituality: Make room for the divine

If I’m going to teach you what I know about creating a happier, healthier life, I’ve got to talk about spirituality and the divine. I myself am a practising Christian, but if the word “God” makes you uncomfortable, substitute whatever word or term feels right for you [e.g. “universe”, “higher power”, “creator” etc.].

In my book, Live a Life You Love, I referred an article called “The Psychological and Physical Benefits of Spiritual/Religious Practices” by sociologist Dr Ellen Idler. Idler describes some of the surprisingly versatile ways that different people undertake spiritual and religious practices. Her list of examples includes: meditating, singing with a choir, going on a weekend retreat, taking the sacraments, listening to inspired speakers like Dr Martin Luther King Jr, dancing at a wedding, lighting Hanukkah candles, saying prayers and contemplating a sunset view.

People who associate with a religious or spiritual group enjoy tightly knit social circles, which naturally provide many different kinds of support and help them deal with stress. When you walk into a spiritual meeting, people will embrace you with smiles and a warm handshake, and will be thrilled to see you return. Given today’s climate of social isolation and obsession with electronic communication, this kind of unconditional human contact and interaction is needed more now than perhaps at any other time in human history. Also, more than ever, we all need to relax.

Most religious or spiritual practices are both relaxing and health-promoting in nature. Sitting quietly in prayer, taking in the magnificence of a spring garden, or listening to a beautiful choir may be the only time you really stop and sit still in your entire busy week. Taking a few minutes to sit in silence in the morning, to pray and meditate on the things that are most important to you, can be an anchor of peace and stillness that grounds your entire day.

What brings you closer to God?

What practices or activities resonate with or inspire you?

What could you start doing today that would bring you more in touch with this element of life?

Parting words

I hope that as a result of reading this you’ve begun to see meaning, hope and opportunity in your most difficult challenges, and that you’ll simultaneously awaken the talents, dreams and life that uniquely belong to you. It’s my dream that you’ll learn to see and live life in a whole new way, a way that will make life feel better than it ever has before, no matter what’s going on around you. Here’s to your very best life, and may you be blessed with long lasting wellbeing.

The post The building blocks for creating a great life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a ‘new world’, so they organised a school. They adopted a training curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. All the animals were required to excel in all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. But he got only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practise. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he became only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in the school, so nobody worried about that… except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because he had so much remedial work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing but failed flying, so he was held back and forced to repeat the year and made to focus exclusively on flying.

The eagle was a problem child. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there. So he was disciplined severely.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of the school completely because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum.

The story above is an adaptation from George Reavis’ The Animal School, written in 1940. It is one of my favourite little pieces of writing when it comes to the topic of an individual’s natural talents and abilities, because it highlights—in a sarcastically comical way—a significant problem faced by far too many individuals today. That problem is that we try to ignore our own genius and seek to change what we truly are… to fit someone else’s mould.

Why finding our genius is difficult?

The moral of the above story is that each of us, like the animals, has our own unique genius. Unfortunately there is no shortage of people in our lives telling us how to change ourselves, to improve ourselves, to be something different. Ours is a world of archaic belief systems dedicated to having us all conform to pre-prescribed expectations—of what others think we should fix in order to improve ourselves. The problem with thinking that you need to fix yourself is that it requires the presupposition that you are broken and that’s a horrible place to work from.

Now don’t get me wrong. Self-improvement is a fine thing, and yearning to constantly become a better person is an honourable endeavour. It’s how we go about improving ourselves that I have an issue with.

Like the fish trying to learn to fly, many of us spend our lives attempting to be something we are not. Normally, because someone else thinks we should. Teachers, parents, friends, employers, as well intended as they may be, cajole and harangue us to be more organised, less pedantic, more emotional, less emotional, more outgoing, more reserved and so on.
It’s not a problem with wanting to improve ourselves—it becomes a problem when we want to change that which we are at our core.

Authentic improvement

Improving ourselves would imply that we want to stay true to our own natural genius [i.e., the natural talents and gifts we possess], just get better at applying those talents. Improving ourselves is analogous to the duck wanting to be a better duck. This is a wonderful thing to do, and research shows us that this is what the best performers to do.

Changing ourselves, on the other hand, is about being inauthentic and trying to become more like someone else [i.e., the duck wishing it were a squirrel]. This isn’t a wonderful thing to do and something that the same research shows is more commonly the route chosen by those who do not perform nearly as well, and report much lower levels of satisfaction.

What if you could see your genius?

One of the main reasons we take our genius for granted and seek instead to become something else is because our genius is mostly invisible. If only our unique individual talents were as visually obvious as the physical traits of the animals in the above fable. If they were, perhaps others and even ourselves, might understand that we already have significant traits and abilities that don’t need to be modified.

Each of us has a unique brain, which houses an even more unique mind. Yes, we’re all human and the same basic anatomical and biological guidelines apply equally to all of us. But that’s where the similarities end. The configuration of the 100 billion brains cells that constitute our neural networks, our memories, experiences, emotions and a host of other aspects—make each and everyone of us amazingly unique.

Learning and natural talent

Part of this uniqueness is the natural talents and abilities that we each possess, based on our neural networks. For some, the ability to solve complex problems is like second nature. For others, such problem solving is incredibly difficult. Someone else may have a natural ability to be creative, or think conceptually, or be extroverted, introverted, detail-oriented, decisive, empathetic… and a host of other attributes that just come naturally.

This isn’t to say that we can’t learn more about any specific talent, but learning and knowledge constitute only a fraction of the recipe that makes for superior ability. Anyone can learn advanced techniques for problem solving but if that knowledge isn’t added to a natural ability to think conceptually, performance will always be somewhat limited. Yes, I can learn how to speak publicly and be more outgoing, but if my genius is not for being the most extroverted person in the world, no amount of learning is going to change that. If I attempt to force myself, the research shows that I will most likely perform adequately in this effort at best, and feel very stressed and dissatisfied in the end anyway.

Qualities that geniuses have

My company conducted a seven-year scientific research study of 197,000 people across 23 countries, examining their natural cognitive traits and abilities and comparing those to their level of performance and overall satisfaction in life. What we found surprised even me.

The most successful and satisfied people [in any industry, at any level] were those who had achieved two distinct things:

1. Self-awareness

The most successful and satisfied people had the highest level of self-awareness for what their natural gifts and abilities were. They knew very well that they were, for example, naturally outgoing gregarious folks who were comfortable leading a group discussion, or naturally good complex problem solvers who saw issues with clarity that many could not. Conversely, the data revealed a significant negative correlation between this self-awareness and the bottom performers [who were also the least satisfied]. Those who were less successful and felt worse about where they were in life had much lower levels of self-awareness and struggled to clearly define what they were and were not naturally good at doing.

2. Authenticity

Knowing your natural genius is only half of the equation. Authenticity simply means, ‘being true to who you are’ and letting that self-knowledge guide what you do and how you do it. For example, let’s say that based on the way your mind works you’re not good at paying a lot of attention to a ton of detail, but you insist on trying to develop a superior level of talent in this area. That would be inauthentic, and as much as the conventional wisdom on self-improvement in society would argue that you should focus more of your time getting better there, that’s not what the most satisfied people do.

The lesson we took from this research was that we all have natural talents and abilities, based on how our minds are wired and how we think [i.e., our genius]. Those who become very familiar with their genius, and then stay true to it, outperform those who don’t and are much more satisfied in life and feel much better about themselves.

Why don’t we all recognise our genius?

Like I said before, for the most part, it’s because it is invisible. Unlike our physical attributes, our mental talents are hard to see and quantify. Being somewhat invisible, we tend to ignore them, since they are out of sight they are out of mind.

Our culture plays a significant role in understanding why so many people fail to appreciate their own unique genius as well. For most of modern society our value was more for our physical talent than our mental. In the agrarian and industrial ages, most people’s primary value was for the physical work they did, and only a small percentage of the population was valued more for their mental output. In that reality, if someone needed to improve, they did so by changing the way they physically worked.

Today, however, we’re living in what Dr. Peter Drucker called the Knowledge Worker’s economy. The world has flipped wherein 80 per cent of most developed countries’ GDP is generated from service and intellectual output, not physical. But, we spent so much time being conditioned to ‘change ourselves’ to improve that we carry that approach over. The result: when we try to improve ourselves today, we try to change our minds instead of changing our bodies. And this simply doesn’t work.

Our neural networks are pretty much fixed. Sure, they change slowly over years in time, but it’s simply no more possible to change the way our minds are wired than it is to change the physical attributes of the duck.

The bigger question is why should we?

Each of us can be a genius at something

The trick is in learning what! Instead of ignoring our genius and desiring to be something or someone else, the research proved that the most satisfied people revel in their genius. They don’t desire to be something else. They not only embrace what they excel at but, and more importantly, also what they are not good at. Instead of focussing on their weaknesses and seeking to change that which they are, they hold their weaknesses up like a badge and proudly proclaim, “I suck at that—and that’s OK!”

Just ask yourself: do you know anyone who is great at everything? If you consider even the most successful people you may know, they all suck at something. Einstein needed help with the actual mathematical formulas required to prove his theoretical hypothesis. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, while geniuses in creativity and business, lacked people skills. Study the greatest figures from history and you will always find a long list of genius abilities, balanced by an equally strong list of things they weren’t any good at as well.

It’s not perfection that drives success

We need to let go of our penchant for idealising the perfect person, and ignoring our natural gifts in favour of focussing mostly on fixing what’s wrong with us. No one is perfect and perfection is not what drove all of the successful people we could name.

What drove such success was a focus on maximising existing talents and minimising dependence on non-talents. This is what the research discovered. Every one of the most successful people studied could easily list a library of things they knew they stunk at doing. Here’s a summary:

Self-awareness

The first key to their success, mind you, was that they knew this about themselves. They had a very high sense of self-awareness.

Focus only on strengths

The second key to their success was that they accepted this about themselves. Instead of investing all of their time wishing they were something else, they acknowledged that they couldn’t be great at everything, and focused all of their efforts on figuring out how to utilise the wonderful talents they did possess.

Self-acceptance

Lastly, it seems that in so doing, they achieved a very high level of satisfaction—not so much in life performance as much as in being satisfied with who they were. Their learning to accept the fact that each of us would have to suck at something in order to excel somewhere else, delivered to them a sense of self-acceptance that brought with it peace, comfort and personal satisfaction that they were okay just the way they were.

Your genius is inbuilt

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith was one of those hyper-successful people studied in the research. Marshall personally coaches many of the Fortune 500 CEOs, and is considered one of the top 50 business thought leaders of our decade. He summed the entire concept up in a very succinct manner when he said, “There are a lot of things I suck at. I just make sure I don’t have to do them to be successful.”

Part of Marshall’s genius is complex thinking, and taking complex concepts and distilling them down to a very easily understood level. This makes him a great teacher and executive coach. Not everyone can see the simple truth in vastly complicated piles of data like Marshall. Conversely, Marshall admits that he has a weakness when it comes to being empathetic. It is not that he isn’t a caring person, but it’s just not one of his genius talents. Instead of trying to become much better at connecting with people on an emotional level, Marshall uses this weakness to his advantage by allowing it to help him have blunt but truthful discussions with the CEOs he coaches. For someone with an overabundance of empathy, sitting down and telling someone that they aren’t very good at something, is part of the problem at work, or that their employees don’t like them, could be a very hard thing to do. Marshall turns a potential weakness into strength by being able to have those discussions that need to take place in an unemotional way—rationally, logically and effectively.

Michael Lorelli was another genius performer we studied in the research. As a former President of PepsiCo and Pizza Hut, Michael recalls a time where he spent a lot of energy trying to fix himself and ignoring his own genius. The opposite of Marshall, Michael does not have a natural gift for complex problem solving, methodical strategic thinking or systematic structured thinking. Michael is a gunslinger. His genius is for being hyper-practical, rapid decision-making and thinking on his feet. Early on in his career, he tried to become that strategic, detail-oriented, careful planner. After years of wasted effort, little results and a lot of frustration, he eventually learned to leave his weaknesses behind and focus instead on maximising what he was naturally good at [i.e., his genius]. He delegates the details and minutia of the plan to those around him, and openly admits [almost proudly] that he sucks in a wide variety of areas. This shift to being strength-driven allowed him to not only achieve the success he did, but do so while being much more satisfied and less stressed.

These are but a few examples of the people we studied and they all shared the same common belief—that it was useless to try and fix themselves, impossible to have no weaknesses, and okay to be flawed. Instead of fighting that reality, they spent all of their time figuring out what they were good at and how to make their success dependent on that instead. It was once said, “Stop trying to put in what God left out and instead work with what he put in.” If you can truly achieve this mindset, you will be surprised how good it feels, and how much more successful you will be.

So how can you learn what your genius is for?

There are several things that you need to do in order to not only identify your own genius, but also be able to maximise it:

» Ask yourself who’s in charge

One of the more common reasons we find people not living in their genius is because they have a dependence on the world to tell them who to be, where to go, what to do. The geniuses we studied don’t do this—at all. They assume full responsibility for their own place in life, and refuse to outsource their best to anyone else. A commonly held belief among these geniuses was, “You get what you accept.” In other words, if you’re not happy with your life, don’t accept it. They don’t blame circumstances, nor do they let them dictate their happiness and success. Victims are people who allow circumstance to define them. Victors are those who define themselves, regardless of circumstance.

» Develop your Self-Awareness

Once you decide to take charge of your own destiny it’s time to take inventory of what you are—and what you are not—good at. There are a couple of good ways to do this.

Self-examination

Simply stopping to think about what you love to do is actually a great way to start defining your genius. One of the signs that you’re naturally great at something is that you love to do it. When we use our natural cognitive talents it seems somewhat effortless. It literally just ‘comes naturally’. The duck didn’t have to go to school to learn to swim, and doesn’t likely give it any thought when he does it. Likewise, identifying your genius can be as simple as writing down a list of all the things you love to do, and do naturally well.

Outside examination

Asking those around you what they think you’re great at is the next way to add to that list of talents you started. Talk to those who know you the best in a variety of roles [e.g. friends, co-workers, family]. Their somewhat more objective opinions can help you expand the list, often adding things to it you missed out on, and sometimes even cancelling out the things you thought you were good at.

Validated examination

Consider taking one of the countless psychometric profiles on the Internet today. A scientifically validated assessment can be a surprisingly accurate way to define your natural talents, preferences, strengths and weaknesses. Whichever one you choose, be sure to select one that lists not only your strengths, but weaknesses too! Knowing what you are not as good at is just as important as knowing what you are great at. I would recommend one of the following to start:
– The Genius profile [www.whatsyourgenius.com]
– Myers Briggs Type Indicator [www.humanmetrics.com]

» Accept Yourself

Now, here comes perhaps one of the more difficult things to do in this whole process. Before you can truly achieve the levels of performance and satisfaction that the geniuses in our study did, you have to accept yourself. This means embracing your list of weaknesses, not staring at it wondering how you can fix those things and get that side of your list down to zero. Sincerely accepting yourself in this manner means being fine with the things on your list and no longer coming from the perspective that you are broken. The animals in the opener weren’t broken, were they? Why don’t you deserve the same level of self-acceptance? My prediction is that once you become comfortable with this, you will find a certain joy in proclaiming to the world, “I SUCK at this.”

» Become authentic

Once you have a good list of strengths and weaknesses, your final task is to become more authentic. Start by comparing your list of strengths and weaknesses to your current roles in life. You want to ask yourself the following two questions:

• How much does my current role leverage and make use of these strengths?
• How much does my current role depend on my weaknesses?

Authenticity means being true to who you are…being real. Filling a role in a way that finds much of your success dependent on your weaknesses is being inauthentic. Instead of trying to fix your weaknesses, you just need to figure out how to make your success no longer depend on you being great at those things you suck at. Get it?

Hopefully your fit between your genius and current role isn’t too far off. Seek to maximise your dependence on your strengths and minimise dependence on weaknesses. Instead of fixing yourself, fix your job.

Granted, sometimes you can’t do much about it, but the cold harsh truth is that if you’re in a terribly inauthentic role you will never be able to fix yourself and become a great fit! Ultimate success and satisfaction in life will only come when you find a role that is a natural fit for your genius. The geniuses out there are those who refused to accept dissatisfaction and settle for anything less than the self-respect they demanded. Instead of modifying themselves to fit a bad job, they left those jobs that weren’t a great fit.

Being a genius isn’t about being super intelligent. It’s about learning to love all your warts and flaws. It is about embracing all that is wrong with you and finding all that is right with you. When you do this, you too can bring out your genius.

The post How to tap into your inner genius appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

That’s why this article won’t coddle you; it’ll challenge you with some unsettling truth-telling that’s designed to help you transform your attitudes, relationships, habits, and choices. Those changes will help you experience the optimism advantage. But for optimism to work, you have to do the work to think and act differently!

1. Optimists accept that life is difficult

The first truth in the great game of life is worth memorising—life is difficult! So get over it. No sweet-talking politician, fairy godmother, or genie is coming to sprinkle stardust or grant three wishes. Embracing optimism is about embracing self-reliance, personal responsibility, and the work of changing your thought patterns and your actions. It doesn’t mean that you’re denying reality; it’s simply about positively coping with that reality to succeed in the face of life’s challenges.

If you think optimism means adopting a Pollyanna mindset where everything turns out right, then you’ve got the wrong idea. That’s simply self-help hype! Optimism isn’t the same as empty positivity. True optimists have earned their positive attitude from a proven track record of overcoming real obstacles. They did it the old-fashioned way; they earned confidence one obstacle, one challenge, and one victory at a time!

» Life is a self-help project, but you’re not working on it alone

Developing maturity at any age is all about realising that life is essentially a self-help project. Now, that’s a good thing, because it’s your life. How you define success, nurture your own education and career, respond to your problems, and make your choices allows you to shape your life the way you want it lived. That’s both a life-affirming opportunity and a personal responsibility, but, as you realise, it also comes with your share of frustrating challenges. As an optimist, you’d want it no other way.

But optimists are not alone, and neither are you. Contacts in your local community, family, professional network, and fellow members of your faith community can help you make your way on life’s journey. Although all of these people can support you, it’s up to you to develop and tap those resources. Optimists don’t merely settle for the relationships that find them. To claim your own optimism advantage, you need to realise who matters, who never did, who shouldn’t any more, who still does, and who you want to add to your team. The bottom line is simple: Seek out relationships that encourage and support the person you want to be. Self-reliance doesn’t require you to discount or dismiss the importance of others. It’s simply about building healthy relationships that work for both parties. If you give value, you usually get value.

» Choose learned optimism over learned helplessness

Modern-day living has a way of reinforcing how little you control and making it far too easy to become a victim. Victims feel that they can’t do anything to make a difference in what happens to them. Since they have no confidence in their own ability to cope with adversity and earn their own success, they avoid seemingly useless constructive actions, preferring instead to wait for fate to deal its hand. Both their headaches and their happiness come from what happens to them, instead of as a result of their own actions. Victims look for ways to blame those who contribute to their pain.

Optimists are the opposite of victims. With positive attitudes built on a personal track record of overcoming adversity, they believe in their own ability to achieve their goals and overcome whatever obstacles hinder them. When dealt a poor hand, they look for ways to play it well. They take pride in their achievements and look forward to life’s challenges.

The choice is yours. You can trade your victim thinking and learned helplessness for the optimistic attitudes and actions that will help you develop your own resilience, persistence, resourcefulness, and results.

» Star in your own positive soap opera

Unfortunately, claiming your own optimism advantage takes more than the mere decision to do so. It requires a long history of changing how you think and act. This isn’t a movie that’s all wrapped up in a fancy bow in two hours. This is a soap opera, and you’re the only star who counts. Your challenge is to make your life’s soap opera as positive as possible. You’ll want to fill your cast with people who will encourage and support you, and steer clear of those who belittle and doubt you. [Read 10 ways to honour yourself]

Like any soap opera, there’ll be challenges, setbacks, victories, defeats, laughter, tears, joy, grief, record profits, and sizable losses. Your job is to keep making progress in claiming the life you want to live, one day at a time, one choice at a time.

Stop being your own worst enemy and start becoming your own best advocate. Take the time to learn how to trade your negative thoughts and unproductive worries for the positive attitudes and constructive actions that will help you produce winning results.

Find perspective and get on with life

Faced with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, award-winning actor and author of Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox had to find a way to accept this painful reality and continue to make the best of his life. When commenting on his optimistic attitude in an ABC special, Michael said, “The answer had very little to do with protection and everything to do with perspective. The only unavailable choice was whether or not to have Parkinson’s. Everything else was up to me. I could concentrate on the loss or just get on with life and maybe see if the holes started filling in for themselves.” Michael’s optimistic journey from adversity to a renewed appreciation for life can be applied to your life as well. As bad as his disease can be, Fox found a way to make it a gift. Taken with the right perspective, even adversity can be a blessing that opens unseen doors and a new appreciation for life. When we are confronted by death, disease, or an accident, the value of a day takes on an entirely new meaning. [Read Finding joy and meaning in everyday life and work]

2. Optimists control what they can, and accept and use what they can’t

Cultivating optimistic attitudes and actions is our focus here, but one of its guiding truths comes from what has been affectionately called the Serenity Prayer, a simple but powerful statement that was written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”
Whether you believe in God or not, you can appreciate the value and depth of this statement and the sentiments it promotes. As an optimist in training, you must learn how to accept and maximise your reaction to both the blessings and the adversity that come your way and take responsibility for managing your own motivation, attitudes, and actions in a way that makes a difference to the quality of your life.

» Deal with the hand you’re dealt

Life deals you both bad and good hands. You—and countless others—struggle with the tough times and can easily take for granted life’s many blessings. As an optimist, you’ll learn to play both well.

After all, the bad hands are the ones that tend to get your attention. Everybody has and will continue to experience bad days—an unwelcome diagnosis, a stock market fall, a terminated job, a lost loved one, a game you should have won, personal rejections, customers who go to a competitor, and natural disasters you couldn’t have planned for. You hope for more, but you aren’t thrown by less because we are all in this together.

» Why do bad things happen to good people?

Years ago, a cancer survivor shared with a friend his struggle with the question ‘‘Why me?’’ After a moment’s silence, his friend asked, ‘‘Did you ever think to ask yourself ‘Why not me?’’’ It had never occurred to him to even ask that question.

That question unleashed a liberating insight. He realised that life is neither fair nor unfair; it’s simply life. Bad things can happen to anyone. ‘‘Why me?’’ assumes I should be exempt from the pain everyone else feels. ‘‘Why not me?’’ is humbling and appropriate. It introduces us to the reality that life’s challenges happen to everyone.

Difficult days are facts of life, but learning to deal well with those difficult times can help you become stronger.

» Your choice: victim or resilient survivor

No matter what life deals you, refuse to label yourself a victim! Depending on what has happened to you, you might find it tempting to label yourself as a victim. But allowing yourself to embrace that label can strip you of the will and the positive attitude you need to overcome the adversities you will continue to encounter. Optimists, by definition, refuse to let what happened to them define or limit their lives.

3. Optimists know the importance of good health

As an optimist, you want a body built to last and a quality of life worth living. By taking care of yourself and being responsible for your health habits, you’re more likely to live longer, feel better, and reduce your medical costs. There is also evidence that some health habits have a strong impact on your attitude. Most reputable health organisations have a consistent list of recommendations: get adequate sleep, limit alcohol consumption, and stop smoking.

» Optimists want a body ready for action

On average, people are living longer these days. If you’re like most, it isn’t just the number of years you live that matters to you; it’s the quality of those years. You want to be active for as long as possible, which means that you need a body ready for action. The less healthy you are, the fewer choices you have.

You don’t have to eat perfectly to make a difference in your health and your attitude; the same is true in terms of exercise. I’ve seen myself run, and I’m not going to win any Olympic medals in track. While some individuals have bodies built for athletic excellence and professional-level competition, most of us have a body that, when healthy, can give us the vitality, strength, and mobility we need to live the life we want.

So whether you like your body or not, there is no replacement. Take care of your body, or it just may not take care of you!

4. Optimists embrace action

Optimists cultivate a bias for action. You can’t change what has happened to you, but you can embrace the action imperative and do what you can to invent a better future—starting immediately. Optimism is all about making a move to turn your worries and concerns into constructive action.

The tragedy of life is not how soon it ends, but how long you wait to begin it. To become more optimistic, spend a lot less time ruminating about what has already happened and a lot more time choosing, moving, trying, tasting, experiencing, serving, enjoying . . . living.

» You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky credited one of his early coaches for making him aware of an important truth. After pulling him aside after a difficult loss, the coach said, “You out-skated everyone out there on the ice, but you didn’t take a shot on net. Miss some tomorrow night! You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.’’ Gretzky took the advice and, of course, went on to be the most prolific scorer in National Hockey League history.

Mistakes and failures are the price you pay for achieving any success. Most success stories involve failures, perseverance, resourcefulness—and, above all, action. True optimists both lose and win more frequently. Failures don’t keep them down for long; they bounce back quickly to get right back in the game. You’ve doubtlessly had your share of failures and setbacks, but that’s the price you pay to lead a life worth living.

Life is all about one day at a time. So today, invest your worry time in constructive action and feel the pride and optimism that purposeful action generates.

5. Optimists dispute catastrophic thoughts

Okay, so you can shape your own circumstance and make your own luck up to a point, but there’s no denying that bad luck does exist. We’ve all had our share of unpleasant days; we’ve all suffered and experienced major disappointments. We’ve had to deal with the pain of loss as well as the random misery that nature can unleash.

Good employees sometimes lose their jobs through no fault of their own, and even the best sales professionals lose their share of sales from time to time. Hurricanes level some homes while leaving others only feet away completely intact. Illness and accidents can take lives seemingly years too early.

The glass sometimes is more than half empty. In the short run, everything doesn’t always happen for the best. But no matter how bad the hand you’re dealt in life, you can still strive to make the best of what happens. Optimists have learned to master the mental and emotional inner dialogue that allows you to do just that. Jeffrey Lawrence Benjamin, author of How to Get What You Want Now, said it well: “The most important things ever said are the things you’ve said to yourself.” However, what you say to yourself in the face of adversity is not always constructive.

» Win the argument with your negative beliefs to change your attitude and your actions

Business philosopher Jim Rohn put it well when he said, “You have to stand guard at the door of your mind.” Essentially, that means being ready to argue with some of your negative beliefs. If your critical thinking habits aren’t helping you get where you want to go, there’s no time like the present to take them on. Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism, suggests four ways to make your self-arguments convincing: evidence, alternatives, implications, and usefulness. I’ll add a fifth—faith.

» Evidence—Only the Facts!

Optimists find a centring strength in playing detective. Though many readers are probably too young to have heard of Dragnet’s Joe Friday, this early television character had one simple statement that defined his approach to solving every crime. When he’d take out his trusty notepad to take down information, he’d caution: “Just the facts, ma’am!”

Play your version of Joe Friday in looking at your own beliefs. A patient receiving test results from a biopsy who hears the word ‘cancer’ may react immediately with a frightening belief—‘‘My God, I’m going to die of cancer!’’ Doctors must not only treat the disease but also fight the inaccurate beliefs that can work against the patient’s chances of recovery.

Taking a diagnosis like this well doesn’t mean silence or blind acceptance of fate. Whether at that moment or at the next follow-up visit, the optimist detective is there with pen and paper in hand, armed with important questions to assess the difficulty of the challenge they face: At what stage did we catch the cancer? How aggressive is it? What is the survival rate? What treatments are best in light of my particular situation?

Optimists are realists. An optimistic approach to something devastating—like a cancer diagnosis—does not mean that every patient will beat the disease. But the mere act of engaging in fact-checking can help you tremendously. You change your focus from ruminating and emotional paralysis to a more productive way of viewing the problem—one that may soon translate into more constructive feelings and actions.

» Alternatives—Seek less self-destructive explanations

Optimists are ready to accept non-personal causes that can explain a disappointing result. It is important to accept responsibility when it is appropriate. But instead of always assuming that something is your fault, be ready to entertain a more favourable explanation. For example, after receiving his first territory, a sales representative was eager to make inroads on some new accounts to impress his boss. After being encouraged to send a proposal to a potentially big customer, he told his boss that he anticipated an order later in the week.

The new rep was disappointed and frustrated when the purchaser called and said that they had decided to go with a different vendor. He thought he had handled the call well and deserved the business; he was quick to talk to his boss about the decision. His boss said with a knowing smile, “He does that with every new rep. His brother-in-law is the other vendor. He just uses your proposal to show his boss that he’s open to a competitive bid. As long as he’s married, he isn’t giving us the business. Don’t take every sale personally. It’s often not your fault.” That’s good advice in facing any adversity.

» Implications—Realistic likely consequences

Don’t make any disaster or misfortune worse than it is. Instead of assuming the worst consequences, take a realistic look at the most likely consequences to your setback. Former football coach Don Shula had years of experience behind him when he told his young players, “Keep your perspective. Success is not forever, and failure isn’t fatal.” That’s not just good advice for football, but in the game of life as well.

» Usefulness—Will worry work?

Worry can exact a price that is sometimes worse than adversity itself. Research has shown that merely worrying about an event can be more detrimental to one’s health than actually enduring the event itself. In fact, two University of Michigan studies followed more than 3,000 employed participants for more than two years.

Those who were chronically insecure about losing their jobs reported worse overall health and were more depressed than those who actually lost their jobs. Persistent worry takes its toll on your health and attitude.

If your negative belief is still stubbornly resisting all efforts to minimize its significance and impact, you might need to ask practical questions: Will wasting any more time mulling over this situation produce any long-term value? Will prolonged problem solving get you closer to where you ultimately want to go? If not, it’s time to be practical. It’s time to let it go. Sometimes your goals have changed, and overcoming the problem isn’t even relevant anymore. In short, some problems and disasters are worth leaving in the rear view mirror and moving on.

» Faith—Search for God’s open door

Any discussion on attitude and beliefs would be incomplete without addressing the role that faith plays in coping with adversity for so many people. Self-reliance is a powerful value and an empowering strategy, but it has its limits. You may find support in a shared faith community and comfort by having faith in God’s providence.

The paradoxical advice most often attributed to St. Ignatius provides a powerful insight: “Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as if it depends upon you.” This statement highlights the importance of accepting God’s will while simultaneously working to live out that will. You do what you can and trust that God will do the rest. Faith like this can lead to inner peace and constructive action.

6. Optimists give thanks and express gratitude

We live much of our lives on autopilot. While adversity often gets our attention, the many daily blessings and gifts we experience go by without notice. We seldom take time to even consider the electricity that powers homes and businesses, but when the power is out, we’re quickly reminded of how important it is to our lives. Whether it is love or lights, it is absence that makes the heart grow fonder.

In short, it’s easy to complain about the difficulties and adversity that we face, but far too few of us learn the importance of giving thanks for the many happy accidents and blessings that we experience daily, on and off the job. Those who do are more optimistic and happy. Roman orator and politician Cicero said centuries ago: ‘‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues, but the parent of all the others.’’

» Avoid pits people and the complain game

Do you know any Pits People? Those are the people with whom every conversation involves some kind of complaining. They simply cannot see the positive aspect of anything—their personal lives, their professional lives, or society overall. “The economy is the pits; this company is the pits. In fact, you’re the pits!” After 30 minutes with a Pits Person, everyone’s morale is sagging.

So don’t get stuck playing the Complain Game; you simply cannot do that and expect to be more optimistic. Start some new habits. Try responding in a more thankful or upbeat way during daily conversations. People will ask you, “How’s it going?” Simply answer, “I’m just blessed out!” [Read So what are you complaining about today?]

Some negative comments are necessary in business and in life, because hidden problems can become big problems. Let these negative people know that your goal is not to eliminate appropriate criticism; you’d just like them to consider adjusting their doses. After all, constant complaining isn’t welcomed on or off the job. Request that they try interjecting a few more compliments about what’s working well, so that others know they are part of the team. We listen to people who can tell the truth about what’s working and what isn’t.

7. Optimists catch themselves being effective

Constructive self-criticism is an important part of life, but so is self-support. Mistakes help you learn what not to do. Acknowledging your successes allows you to reinforce what’s already working. So instead of repeatedly focusing on what’s going wrong, take the optimistic approach and concentrate more intently on your own positives. Take time every day to examine what you’ve done that has contributed to your achievements— both on and off the job. After all, a big part of maintaining a healthy, optimistic perspective in challenging times is managing your own motivation. This requires that you catch yourself being effective. You’ve learned the importance of nurturing gratitude for the happy accidents that happen—those things that you don’t control but can and should appreciate. It is all the more important to appreciate what you do control—the actions that you initiate.

» When you cannot get a compliment any other way, give yourself one

Mark Twain had some excellent advice: “An occasional compliment is necessary to keep up one’s self-respect. . . . When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.” Twain’s words encourage us once again to treat ourselves as we treat people we care about. You shouldn’t take yourself for granted anymore than you would undervalue an associate, friend, or loved one. And while this is easy to state, very few people actually live it. To build a strong and realistic self-confidence, you must develop a habit of recognising your own commendable actions on a daily basis.

This isn’t about feeding a big ego; it’s about becoming aware of your strengths as well as your mistakes. You may be winning and truly not know it—unless you’re keeping score of your own effectiveness.

Unfortunately, it’s far too easy to take yourself for granted. The reason is simply that you’re around yourself all the time. Your own skills and accomplishments are like the pictures you hang on the wall. You enjoy them for a time, but after two weeks of walking by them, you don’t even see them anymore. They become part of your gray zone of unobserved treasures—those things you possess but no longer experience or appreciate. You see them when you move or when new guests point them out when they visit. That’s actually why you have guests—they show you your home! Don’t hide your achievements in that gray zone of hidden treasures. Cultivate your confidence by scheduling time to appreciate yourself in your daily routine.

8. Optimists use humour as an ever-present stress breaker

Humour provides the counterbalance to life’s more sombre moments. It’s your inner upper, your mental recess, your ever-present safety valve, and one of the most effective stress breaks you will ever find.

After one couple managed to escape a raging California fire with nothing but their lives, the husband confided to a reporter, “We’ll be fine. We’ve lost our home, but we’ve got the clothes on our back. We‘ve had to start over before, and we can do it again.”
The reporter was confused as the man’s wife began to laugh and even more perplexed as the husband joined in. The wife—aware that the reporter was unsure of how to proceed in the live, on-scene broadcast—said to the camera, “My husband is right. We had to leave so fast, all we do have is the clothes on our back. Neither one of us have underwear!”

Even the cameraman had trouble keeping the image steady as the crew burst into laughter. Everyone watching was left with the sense that this couple was going to survive their personal catastrophe just fine. In fact, the woman’s humorous comment turned a typical disaster news report into much-needed humour therapy for all those facing the loss of their own property. The reporter ended the coverage with the line, “Looks like I’m the only one here with underwear. Back to you in the studio!” Who would bet against this optimistic couple’s ability to bounce back quickly from their loss? [Read Humour: The key to a long and happy marriage]

Author and professor Norman Cousins observed the following during his own struggle with cancer: “Laughter interrupts the panic cycle of an illness.” While it may not be a cure for cancer, there is some clinical evidence that laughter mobilizes the human body’s defences and reduces pain.

» Take your life and work seriously, but yourself lightly

The safest target for your humour will always be yourself. If you can learn to laugh at your errors, the world will laugh with you—not at you. Only the self-confident can admit their mistakes. Laughing at your own errors will help you let go of mistakes and rebound quicker to get back into the game, and that’s what optimism is all about. We all like to be with people who are comfortable in their own skin—pimples, warts, receding hairlines, and all.

It’s usually a good rule of thumb to take your work and life seriously but yourself—and your problems—a bit more lightly. Just remember, if you laugh at yourself before others do, you win. [Read The spirit of laughter]

» Keep your optimism laced with laughter

Many of your best memories are laced with laughter, so promise yourself that you’ll have more fun in your life and you will become more optimistic. Keep an air of playfulness in everything you do, and take time to laugh and smile daily. After all, when God created Adam and Eve and they ate that apple, he took back the apartment with a view, gave them a baby, and made them work. Then—to keep the whole thing from falling apart—he granted them a sense of humour as a ready sidekick to help them survive.

Final words of advice

Change rarely comes in the form of instant gratification. However, if you’re like most people, you want success yesterday. Television has exposed most of us to more than a million incredibly unrealistic 30- to 60-second solutions. These ads teach us to expect immediate rewards and results, but life teaches us that real solutions take work, persistence, and time.

Be patient but persistent. You don’t know which day and which step will put your goals within reach. Imagine that you’re making the blows to break through a stone wall to reach your goals. Social reformer Jacob Riis described a century ago what it takes to make change work: ‘‘When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.’’

Adapted from The Optimism Advantage: 50 simple truths to transform your attitudes and actions into results by Terry Paulson, PhD, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Used with permission.

The post Optimism vs Positivity: 8 powerful truths about why optimism really works appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

• A small story
• The law of attraction: is it a hoax?
• The reason why law of attraction is so appealing
• The flaw lies in the packaging
• Demystifying the law of attraction: how does it actually work?
• The law of attraction paradigm that actually works
• Mastering the law of attraction: The missing link
  • Acceptance is the key
• Opening up to opportunities
• You are always free to choose your attitude
• Summing up
• BONUS CONTENT: Using the Law of Attraction for weight loss

“The law of floatation was not discovered by the contemplation of the sinking of things.”
—Thomas Troward

A small story

Jack Jones was a frustrated man who had come to accept struggle as part and parcel of life. He believed that no matter what his goals, he must work hard and do everything possible to get there. But life had been difficult and success seemed to elude him in all areas. The more he tried, the more impossible it seemed. He was a chain smoker and had received warnings from his doctor to quit or else… but somehow he was unable to let go of this harmful habit. He had been struggling with his weight and his relationship with his wife was stressful. Over the past few years, his work too had left him feeling unfulfilled and unsuccessful. He was angry at his body, unhappy with his marriage and frustrated with his work; and yet all his attempts to change his life yielded no result. He wondered why his sincere efforts and resolve were not working.

Then one day, a friend introduced him to the law of attraction [LoA]. Jack suddenly found his answers. It seemed that LoA was the panacea he was waiting for—he was hooked. Over the next few months, Jack read every book he could on the subject. He attended workshops and seminars and was even beginning to see some positive results—which, unfortunately, didn’t last. A year later, Jack Jones was still struggling, feeling hopeless about his life, more frustrated than ever, and angry that LoA had failed him.

The law of attraction: is it a hoax?

“Thoughts become things,” said Mike Dooley, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant, in the 2006 hit docufilm The Secret. Such clever phrases, sprinkled throughout the film, played a big part in making law of attraction one of the biggest trends in the last decade or so. Millions excitedly jumped onto the bandwagon, only to be disappointed when they realised that it doesn’t work—at least not for them. Many [like Jack in the story above] excitedly embraced the law of attraction only to throw up their hands in disgust, and return to their old work-hard-to-make-money mindset. Because they could not produce consistent results with LoA, they felt that it was unreliable. There were those who, after their initial enthusiasm waned, allowed their rationalisation to take over and ended up attributing their successes to sheer coincidence. Then there were people who reported losing their sense of balance trying to control their incessant thoughts; these poor souls began to correlate everything that happened in their life with LoA in their attempts to ensure that they don’t inadvertently attract what they don’t want.

So is law of attraction a hoax? Is it a cunning ploy used by smart people to sell dreams to the vast majority of gullible people who are struggling to make their lives work?

In my experience, law of attraction is not a hoax; it is a sound concept that works for you always, but only if you really understand how it works. This article is my attempt to de-mystify law of attraction, so that it becomes accessible to everyone—including the sceptics. But before we understand how it works, let’s try and figure out what made the idea so alluring and how the ‘marketing’ of law of attraction took away from its real power.

The reason why law of attraction is so appealing

The law of attraction is a New Thought belief based on the notion that like attracts like. Positive thoughts attract positive situations and people; likewise, negative thoughts bring undesirable situations and people. In other words, our thoughts create our reality.

The fact that our thoughts are responsible for our life situation is an idea that resonates with most people. It makes them feel empowered and in control of their life. With LoA, their needs, wants and desires can easily fructify—all they have to do is visualise the outcome they desire, think repeatedly about it, and maintain a joyous emotional disposition at all times.

For many people, the appeal of LoA has been in its miraculous quality. The Secret and many other subsequent films, books and articles have packaged it in a way that lead you to believe that all you need is to ‘think’ what you want and then wait for it to materialise. Simply visualise the outcome you desire, impress it upon your subconscious and the Universe makes it happen. LoA has even been likened to a genie that fulfils your every demand. And who can resist the idea of his own personal genie?

The flaw lies in the packaging

I think the biggest flaw that most law of attraction “experts” have been making is marketing it as a magic wand to attract goodies into our lives. Such an approach both mystifies and trivialises the phenomenon.

The underlying premise of the law of attraction is that everything is made up of energy including our thoughts; hence, our thoughts manifest our reality. Proponents of LoA use this logic to explain how the law works. Many of them try to lend it further credibility by throwing science into their explanations for good measure. For example, some mention legitimate quantum physics concepts like the observer effect.^[1]

Demystifying the law of attraction: how does it actually work?

In its bare bones, the law states that whatever we focus upon expands. When we give our full attention to something—anything—its influence on our lives grows. As an example, if you have two saplings, and choose to water only one of them, guess which one will grow to become a fruit-bearing tree? Thoughts too are like saplings—those that you nourish are the only ones that flourish.

Seen from this perspective, Mike Dooley is right; thoughts do become things. In her classic book The Game of Life, Florence Scovel Shinn gives an example of this: A poor man was walking along a road when he met a traveller, who stopped him and said: “My good friend, I see you are poor. Take this gold nugget, sell it, and you will be rich all your days.” The man was overjoyed at his good fortune, and took the nugget home. He immediately found work and became so prosperous that he did not sell the nugget. Years passed, and he became a very rich man. One day he met a poor man on the road. He stopped him and said: “My good friend, I will give you this gold nugget, which, if you sell, will make you rich for life.” The mendicant took the nugget, had it valued, and found it was only brass. So we see, the first man became rich through feeling rich, thinking the nugget was gold.

“Every man has within himself a gold nugget; it is his consciousness of gold, of opulence, which brings riches into his life,” Shinn concludes.

The law of attraction paradigm that actually works

At its core, the law of attraction—which is always working whether we realise it or not—is really about how we react to our life situation. I like to think of it as a mindset, an attitude of always being for a solution instead of against your problem. Whether it is a self-defeating habit you wish to conquer, bring happiness into your relationships, get rid of debt or achieve professional success, your life will be more fulfilling if you cultivate an attitude of always being for what you want, instead of being against what you don’t want.

What’s the difference, you ask. The difference is that when we’re against something, we try to fight that instead of working towards what we desire. It is like trying to remove darkness—no matter how hard you try, you will not succeed. The only sensible option is to accept the reality of darkness, and then think of how you can light a candle.

You may think that we’re only indulging in some form of mental acrobatics and may doubt the efficacy of this subtle shift. You may even feel tempted to equate this with mere positive thinking. But ‘being for’ is more than that. Before I explain the difference, I must tell you about the missing piece, without which LoA is incomplete and ineffective.

Mastering the law of attraction: The missing link

Let’s do an experiment. Close your eyes for about 30 seconds. During this time, don’t think of a white bear. You can think of anything else except a white bear. Open your eyes only after 30 seconds.

What happened? It’s a good bet that no matter how hard you tried, you saw a white bear in your mind’s eye. This phenomenon is known as the ironic process theory in psychology whereby deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts make them more likely to surface in one’s thoughts.^[2]

That’s the problem of being against something. It’s impossible to not think of what is. How can you be against reality—it’s compelling and forceful. But there’s something that can help you deal with this. This is the big piece of the LoA puzzle that most of its proponents seem to have missed. It’s called acceptance, and it enables you to take the law from theory to practice. Without acceptance, you cannot turn your attention away from what you don’t want to what you want, which—as the law states—is necessary in order to manifest your desires.

Let me explain this with the help of a simple example:

Let’s say I’m experiencing poverty; what I want is, of course, wealth. So, LoA states that I should stop thinking poverty-oriented thoughts and instead dwell on abundance. To do so, I start visualising wealth in different ways. I wake up in the morning and deliberately put my attention on attracting lots of money. I make affirmation cards, carry them in my wallet and read them often. I even create a vision board with beautiful pictures of the stuff that I am dreaming about. I express gratitude for the blessings in my life. In short, I do my best to imagine abundance. However, the fact is that till abundance actually begins manifesting for me, I will keep coming back to the present reality of my poverty. I can blank it out for a while, or if I am a really good daydreamer, even for extended periods of time. But no matter how much I escape to my fantasy world, sooner or later I will wake up from my dream world and notice that I am poor—and my attention will return to thoughts of poverty—something that I am against. So I am back to square one.

The fact is, it’s nearly impossible to take your focus off the present—after all, it’s right there, staring at you. That is why, no matter how hard we try, we still end up thinking about what we don’t want, and continue to resist and resent it.

Acceptance is the key

This is where acceptance comes in. You see, our only power is in the now. Regardless of how challenging our present, if we resist it, we give up our power. But when we accept our present reality, we make peace with it. In other words, we no longer argue with it, or resist it. But that doesn’t mean we start liking or wanting it. No, it simply means we stop being against it.

In the above example, if I make peace with reality i.e. my poverty, I stop resisting it. So now, though I still prefer abundance, noticing my poverty no longer produces unhappiness in me in the present. This means, I can daydream and visualise all I want and when I come back, I can face my present reality without any feelings of frustration. Acceptance has removed the sting from my poverty. Now I don’t use it as an excuse for resentment and anger. The energy I was using in opposing what is becomes available to me, and I begin doing whatever I can to attract abundance.

In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle explains such acceptance with the help of an analogy. He says, “If you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn’t say: ‘Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.’ You don’t need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognise fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labelling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the ‘isness’ of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the mud. Such action I call positive action. It is far more effective than negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or frustration.”

To reiterate, acceptance is not a prescription for inaction. If anything, it frees up your energy and brings much greater clarity in the present that you no longer resist. From this non-resistant space you can manifest whatever you want.

Opening up to opportunities

Once you’ve made peace with your problem, ideas and opportunities begin to show up, or should we say, you begin to notice them. When we’re not spending our time cursing our luck and resisting our current circumstances, our intuitive abilities are at peak, guiding us to do whatever is necessary.

Many great scientists, artists, and businessmen have credited their intuition for solving many of their problems. These include Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton—they received their insights when they were relaxed. Many of them have shared how a solution came to them when they weren’t even thinking about the problem.

When we are against our problem, which is the reality, we too inadvertently become part of the problem. And nothing great can be achieved by being against reality—it’s futile. Is it any wonder then that we miss the opportunities that we could’ve noticed had we been looking for solutions?

Here’s how Mother Teresa demonstrated the ‘for not against’ paradigm. When an activist group asked her if she would join them in their march against the Vietnam War, Mother Teresa replied: “No, I won’t march against the war with you. But if you have a march for peace, I’ll be there.” Mother Teresa knew that being against anything means becoming part of the problem; she preferred to be part of the solution.

If you want to become more effective in attaining your goals, cultivate an attitude that Mother Teresa advocated and practised. It means the next time you find yourself ‘pitched’ against, say, illiteracy, accept the present situation as it is, and then shift your focus in favour of literacy. You will find that instead of blaming the society or the government or the education policy, you will look for ways to spread literacy in your own way—maybe you will sponsor a child’s education, volunteer to teach part-time or even donate money to charitable schools run by selfless NGOs.

You are always free to choose your attitude

Although apocryphal, the following story elucidates how accepting your circumstances, instead of being against them, frees you up to manifest your dreams.

A middle-aged man named Bill Fross lived in Chicago with his family. Bill was a drunkard, swindler, petty thief and wife-beater, who had been in and out of jail more times than he could remember. His wife died while giving birth to his twin sons, Peter and James. As the boys grew up, they suffered many terrible beatings and great poverty as their father’s alcoholism spiralled out of control.

They observed, with their impressionable eyes and minds, as their dad wasted his life, and finally died in prison during one of his numerous trips there, while the boys were in their teens.

Thirty years later, Peter was just like his dad—a drunkard, swindler, petty thief, and wife-beater, who served time in jail. James, on the other hand, became a respected US senator, happy husband and proud father of three. Peter and James grew up in the same domestic environment but their worlds couldn’t be further apart.

A psychologist who observed contrasting lives of the twins became curious: why would two kids, who were born on the same day, to the same parents, and growing up in the same set of circumstances, end up so differently? His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to get to the root of the matter by interviewing the two brothers separately—without one knowing the other would be interviewed.

He first approached Peter in prison and asked him why he ended up the way he did. Peter, not surprisingly, replied, “With a father like mine, what else did you expect?” The psychologist then travelled to Washington DC and asked the same question to Senator James, who, not having the slightest hint that his brother had been interviewed, said, “With a father like mine, what else did you expect?”

One son used his father as an excuse to fail in life, and the other son used the same father as a reason to succeed. Different interpretations of the same circumstances made all the difference. Unlike Peter, James chose to be for life, and not against the difficult circumstances he was born and brought up in.

In the classic book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl recounts the extremely torturous treatment he and his fellow inmates suffered at the hands of the Nazis, as prisoners in the concentration camps. An Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, Frankl spent his time as a hostage studying human behaviour and concluded thus: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Adversities often become stepping stones for people who refuse to be victims of their circumstances. Blaming other people or situation/events for your miseries and misfortunes usually keeps you from transcending them. If you wish to bring about a positive change, stop thinking about what’s wrong or missing from your life. Accept your present life situation wholeheartedly and then think about what you want—without resistance to what is, you’ll find yourself acting in ways that bring your desires to you.

Summing up

The ‘be for, not against’ paradigm is not some unverifiable mumbo-jumbo; instead, it is rooted in sound logic. Therefore, even if you don’t believe in the supernatural quality of the popular idea of LoA, it will still work for you. The key, as we have learned, is to accept our problems with grace. May I suggest that you consider replacing the word ‘attraction’ with ‘acceptance’ in the phrase, and then see the difference? When you think of LoA as the Law of Acceptance, it will gently remind to make peace with your present reality—with all its problems and challenges. And once you accept you present reality, there will be nothing to resist—and you will be free to manifest your heart’s desire. The best part is that your journey from here to there will be joyous and fulfilling.

Bonus Content: Using the Law of Attraction for weight loss

Weight loss is a goal that drives millions of people around the world to sign up to gyms, health clubs and fitness programmes. Overweight individuals hate the surplus flab enveloping what they reckon to be their ‘lean and beautiful body’. They try everything—exercise routines, crash diet plans, gadgets and as-shown-on-TV quick-fixes that promise them the moon—but, what they get is miracles that don’t work. That slim and sexy figure stays illusive. Worse, even if they succeed in losing weight, most are unable to maintain it. According to studies, 85 to 90 per cent people regain any weight they’ve lost within three to five years.

Have you ever wondered why weight loss is such a difficult proposition for most people? Think about it, and you will realise that almost all weight-loss candidates are exclusively against their excess weight, instead of being in favour of a healthy, fitter self. In the process of trying to lose weight, they are dwelling constantly on what they don’t want [excess fat], and this is exactly what they get.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to interview [Read here] singer-composer Adnan Sami. This was soon after he had lost a massive amount of weight—130 kg to be precise—in a span of one year. Before he started on his weight loss programme, he was morbidly obese and was given a few months to live by his doctors. During our conversation Adnan confessed to me that even after the doctor’s ultimatum he kept “hogging”—he believed there was no way out for him. Thanks largely to his father’s counsel, Adnan switched from being against his obesity to becoming for his life, lost enormous amounts of weight and, most importantly, survived to tell the tale.

Overweight individuals would do well to apply the Law of Attraction paradigm—by thinking and acting towards their healthier and fitter selves instead of being against their excess weight. Here is how it works: stop being against your current weight—make peace with the reality of it, then resolve to work towards being fitter and healthier with love and joy. When you demonstrate love instead of hatred for your body, you act in loving ways. Love provides you with all the energy you need. It also automatically motivates you to give up nutritionally empty foods, laziness, procrastination, and all the self-defeating habits that come in your way of becoming fitter and slimmer.

^{[1] The observer effect that states that the act of observing affects what is being observed↩}

^{[2] It seems that many of us are drawn into what seems a simple task, to stop a thought, when we want to stop thinking of something because it is frightening, disgusting, odd, inconvenient, or just annoying. And when we succumb to that initial impulse to stop, the snowballing begins. We try and fail, and try again, and find that the thought is ever more insistent for all our trying. Many studies reveal that suppression may be the starting point for obsession, rather than the other way around. As a result, we end up thinking all too often about the doubts, worries, fears, and alarms that we have tried to erase from mind.
— Daniel M Wegner, author of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts:Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control.↩}

The post Mastering the Law of Attraction: The Missing Link appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

And it occurred to me that if all the countless available stress “remedies”—books, videos, drugs, audio tapes, aroma therapy, vibrating chairs, relaxation techniques, programs, devices—are so effective, how come everyone is still stressed out?

The answer is simple. While these methods may help to ease your stress—that is, treat its symptoms—most of them do little or nothing to eliminate the causes, to reverse the stressful habits, attitudes and mindsets you’ve developed over the course of your life.

The solutions mentioned here will give you the tools, motivation and attitude changes you need to root out stress at its very source… on the multiple battlefronts of your life.

It’s time to stop the insanity and take back control of your life. Starting today. Starting now.

30 tools to help you take back control of your life

1. Do one thing at a time

Do it mindfully. Do it well. Enjoy the satisfaction. Then go on to the next thing. That’s the way to take back control of your life — one thing at a time. Multitasking might work for computers, but humans have yet to get the hang of it. A growing body of evidence affirms that trying to accomplish several things at once takes up more time overall than doing them sequentially. It consumes an excessive amount of mental energy, too, so you fatigue more quickly. The lack of focus also leads to careless mistakes, shoddy work and unreliable performance. Worst of all, having to do things over. This is no way to live. Give what you’re doing your undivided attention. Take the time to get it right. You’ll be more productive, and less stressed, in the long run. Why make yourself crazy?

2. Throw something out every day

You’ve got too much stuff in your house. Office. Garage. Attic. Useless clutter that’s weighing you down, getting in the way, obscuring the things you really need. Just looking at the stuff is stressful, to the point where physical clutter soon becomes mental clutter. The problem is getting rid of it. It’s a huge job, so you keep putting it off. But the more you put it off, the more clutter you accumulate… making it an even more humongous task to face. Here’s how to break the cycle. Every day, find one thing you don’t need and toss it. Or give it away. Or sell it at a consignment shop. Be realistic. If you’re not going to use it, lose it. Over time, the clutter will begin to vanish and space and order will magically appear in your home… and your life. Stick with this. It really works. Why make yourself crazy?

3. Cut down on competitive stress

Today, we compete for everything: the space around us, to be first to own a new product, to get our kids signed up for programs, to get our viewpoints across, to be faster, smarter, richer, sexier. Our days are filled with stressful competitions. And most are absolutely unnecessary. Because they’re driven by insecurity, fear of being left behind, an ingrained need to always have more or better than the next guy. If you wish to take back control of your life, try to get above all that. If you want to compete, vie to be the one who stays calm and in control, who isn’t easily sucked in by material things, who avoids being caught up in the daily grab-bag that robs people of health and peace of mind. Compete for that and see how pointless all those other competitions become. And how misguided those who partake in them begin to appear. Why make yourself crazy?

4. It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react

In any given day, you’ll have progress and setbacks, triumphs and failures. That you can bet on. But as good a day as some people have, they’ll manage to find something to fret about. [“It’s just luck, it won’t last, I’m destined for misery.”] And as bad a day as others have, they’ll see the good in it. [“So what? I’m still alive, still kicking and nothing’s going to stop me”] will win over your day? And the next day? And the next? You have control over that: to enjoy your accomplishments without diminishing them; to accept your failures as opportunities to learn. You have the power to make every day a positive outcome. Because it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it. Why make yourself crazy?

5. Eliminate meaningless deadlines

Our lives have become one long game of beat the clock. Crammed with arbitrary and unrealistic time constraints imposed by ourselves and others that serve only to make us more pressured, anxious and stressed out. For no worthwhile reason. Avoid the trap of assigning time frames to everything you do, especially if you have little idea how long it will take. But, you say, I need a deadline or I simply won’t get around to doing it. If that’s the case, it’s not a deadline you need, it’s a goal. Make your goal one of completing a project in a careful, professional, satisfying manner. In other words, as long as it takes to do it right. Or maybe your goal is to make the project more fun and interesting, or to develop a new and more expedient way of doing it. In any case, save your nerves and your energy for the few real deadlines we face… Why make yourself crazy?

6. Leave a cushion of time between events

Scheduling appointments, meetings, projects, luncheons, and events too closely together is a guaranteed stress fest. It leaves you vulnerable to even the slightest delays, which will occur. You’ll always have one eye on the clock and thus be distracted, rushed and prone to miss things and make mistakes. Be smart. Don’t stack up your events like planes on a runway. Life never works out that efficiently. Spread your schedule out. Always leave sufficient in-between time to allow for any unexpected bumps and delays. It will not go to waste. You’ll be glad to have those breaks to answer phone calls and email messages, take care of incidental things, and prepare yourself for your next event. That extra cushion of time will leave you less frazzled, and more productive, in the long run. Why make yourself crazy?

7. Have backups of essential items in place

So that you never run out of critical oft-used household staples like laundry detergent, milk, deodorant, toothpaste, batteries, or bathroom tissue… employ the buy-two-replace-one method. For example, buy two bottles of mouthwash. That way you’ll have an immediate replacement when the first one is used up, which will give you ample time to buy another before you run out of the second. In order to take back control of your life, make a list of those items it would be more than a little stressful to have to go without—there really shouldn’t be many—and see to it you’ve got both the item and its backup on hand. Why make yourself crazy?

8. Don’t get hung up on product features

The more bells and whistles a product has, the more there is to learn and remember, the more complicated it is to use and the more expensive it is to buy. Save yourself the waste and aggravation of overbuying your need. Get a unit that serves your main purpose simply and economically, with maybe one or two extras you’ll definitely use. Loading up on the latest gimmickery will cost you in more ways than one. There’s nothing more annoying than having to reread instructions every time you use something. Why make yourself crazy?

9. Entrust responsibility to responsible people

There are those who always have a convenient excuse for not getting it right, showing up late or botching the job entirely. And there are those who consistently, effectively and unequivocally come through for you. This isn’t luck. It’s responsibility. Not something you’re born with. Something you do. Responsibility takes effort. Concern. Pride. And perseverance. Whom do you want to entrust your children, your home, your finances, and your other important responsibilities to? Lose the whiners and stick with the winners. Why make yourself crazy?

10. Always view yourself as ahead, not behind

This small change in perspective can alter your approach to everything. When you perpetually see yourself behind schedule, never caught up, forever lacking in something… your emphasis is always on need. And that puts unrelenting, unhealthy pressure on you. But view yourself as ahead of the game [and most of us truly are] and the pressure almost immediately eases, and your needs diminish, because you’re grateful for what you already have. You can move forward confidently from a position of strength, rather than struggle from one of weakness. It’s all in the way you look at it. Why make yourself crazy?

11. Don’t over-volunteer

Resist volunteering for more than you can handle, more than your free time allows. Volunteering is great, but heavy involvement can steal important time from your family and relationships. [And it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to avoid more important obligations.] If the work becomes too demanding, simply say no. Nobody else is going to look out for you better than yourself. If we all “volunteered” to spend more time with kids, visit our parents, make loving homes, and carve out special time for ourselves, there wouldn’t be a need for so much volunteering in the first place. Why make yourself crazy?

12. Accept that people think differently than you do

You could spend your entire life trying to win over people to your point of view. The simple truth is, you won’t. At least, not everyone. Even if you present the most logical, rational, airtight arguments, some people will never see it your way. Maybe they’re proud, stubborn, stupid, or in some people will never see it your way. Maybe they’re proud, stubborn, stupid, or in some instances—did you ever stop to think?—right. If you wish to take back control of your life, don’t waste your time trying to convert the diehards. Instead, work with them, live with them, respect their differences, and be thankful the world isn’t full of people exactly like you. Why make yourself crazy?

13. Don’t say it. Do it

Boasting about the wonderful things you’re going to do for yourself and others can actually be your undoing. For one, now you’re expected to do them. Secondly, if you don’t do them you appear weak, unreliable and irresponsible. If you really want to impress people, don’t reveal what you intend to do… but simply do it. They’ll be surprised and pleased with your accomplishment, and even more moved by your modestly. And if for some reason you can’t get it done, no one will be the wiser. Why make yourself crazy?

14.  Always be equipped for an emergency

This is an important step when you wish to take back control of your life. You only need to do this once. In your car, keep a first-aid kit, jumper cables, flares, flashlight, blankets, and a fire extinguisher. Home: a first-aid kit, fire extinguishers, flashlights, candles, and a portable radio. Sports bag: first-aid kit and instant cold packs. Take the time. Make the investment. Do it today. Even if you never use them, the peace of mind alone is worth the effort and expense. Why make yourself crazy?

15. Don’t look at your crazed schedule in its entirety

It’ll freak you out…like looking over the edge of a steep cliff. You’ll swear you’ll never live through it. And stress yourself big time fretting over it. Calm down. Focus only on what you need to accomplish over the next day or so. Deal with each event as it comes. You’ll find that things have a way of sorting themselves out, refreshing breaks do sometimes open up, and other options will present themselves. Your kitchen calendar [or electronic scheduler] can look far more frightening than it really is. One thing at a time. Why make yourself crazy?

16. Be a slug one day a week

Especially if you’re a jackrabbit the other six. Sleep late. Languish in bed with the newspapers. Don’t answer the phone. Go out for brunch. It’s okay. It’s not a crime. In fact, considering how you normally abuse yourself, it’s downright virtuous. Even better, designate a day the whole family can be slugs. No shuttling the kids around frantically. No social calendar to be slave to. One way to take back control of your life is to just let things happen… lazily and naturally. It will leave you more energized and better prepared to tackle the week ahead. Why make yourself crazy?

17. Don’t let routine tasks become urgent ones

Don’t wait until: you’re out of underwear before you do your laundry; the fridge is empty before you go shopping; the cell phone dies before you recharge it. That routine task will quickly become a critical one at a time when you can least afford to deal with it. And saddle you with exasperating stress when none should exist. Keep tabs on what might soon need attention and take care of it before it rears up and bites up. Why make yourself crazy?

18. Be on time

Lateness can signal a lack of respect for those you keep waiting. At least, that’s how they might view it. However acceptable you think lateness has become, you can bet it still grates on those whose time is compromised. Aside from that, constantly running late is a stress factory. It’ll fry your nerves, make you prone to errors and accidents, weaken your immune system, age you prematurely. Get hooked on the relaxed, liberating feeling of being ahead of schedule. All it takes is planning, practice and empathy for others. Everyone wins when you’re on time. Why make yourself crazy?

19. Make the “I’m running late” phone call

When it’s fairly certain you’re not going to arrive on time, make the call. Let others know in advance you’ll be delayed. It accomplishes several things. You’ll experience an immediate unburdening of stress and a sense of relief. You won’t be keeping people hanging, fuming and wondering where you are. Your alert will allow them to alter their plans accordingly. And by the time you arrive, they will have appreciated your courtesy, adjusted to the situation and be more agreeable with you. So don’t just arrive way overdue and try to minimize it with a trite “Sorry I’m late.” Call ahead and let them know you’re delayed. Why make yourself crazy?

20. Don’t expect gratitude

You may get it, but don’t expect it. Accept that a lot of your good efforts will go unacknowledged. [And your kids will never fully appreciate you until they have children of their own!] Today, people mostly take notice when things go wrong… and take the rest for granted. So rather than repeatedly setting yourself up for disappointment, don’t expect accolades. Do it because it’s right, because it pleases you, because your reward should derive from the fruit of your labours, not the arbitrary whim of disinterested recipients. And when that infrequent expression of thanks does come your way, it will be that much sweeter. Why make yourself crazy?

21. Tell people what you expect of them

How else are they going to know what you want? And how to deliver it? When you’re the boss, the customer, the parent, the teacher… you can’t be vague or timid. You have to be clear, firm and decisive. Don’t be shy about giving orders or afraid you’ll ruffle some feathers. And you have every right, indeed obligation, to give it. You can save yourself and others a lot of frustration when you simply take command and let them know what you expect. Why make yourself crazy?

22. Don’t answer your morning emails right away

Read them, but don’t answer them—unless there’s an immediate fire to put out. They’ll sap your time and the mental energy needed for more important tasks. Save them for later when you need a break. Responding will be easier then, too, since your subconscious will be working on them all the while. [Notice how you instantly know what to say when you revisit them.] Personal messages and jokes can be especially insidious and take a big chunk out of your day. They’re like electronic water coolers. And try not to interrupt your workflow every time a new message arrives. Wait till you’ve got a bunch. The objective here: fewer distractions, more focus, less stress. Why make yourself crazy?

23. Leave yourself an extra day at the end of your vacation

Enjoy a day of transition at home to unpack, read your mail, do your laundry, reconnect with others, catch up on things, or simply relax… before heading back to work. Thrusting yourself right into your busy routine without a breather is asking for the same stress you were trying to escape in the first place. That extra day of reentry and re-acclimation can make a huge difference. Take it. Why make yourself crazy?

24. Don’t be so thin-skinned

Why let an off-the-cuff remark or minor criticism rankle you to the degree it leaves you tense, angry and unable to focus on much else? Develop a hide thick enough so that verbal slights bounce right off and get only the minimal attention they deserve. [Sometimes we misconstrue what was said, too.] Overblown reactions create unnecessary stress and negative energy. To what purpose? You can bet the off-putting remark isn’t bothering the person who delivered it! To take back control of your life, don your emotional flak-jacket and accept that you can’t always please everyone. Why make yourself crazy?

25. Lose that jarring morning alarm

If your alarm clock shocks you out of bed each day with a sudden, loud, jangling noise, you could be doing yourself harm—starting the day with a burst of unwanted stress hormones. Try one of those new wake-up clocks that lift you gently out of sleep with natural sounds like ocean surf, birds, rainfall, or babbling brooks. Some even have pleasant chime sequences that gradually increase in volume. Or wake up to an unobtrusive radio station. Set a melodious rather than dissonant note for the day. Why make yourself crazy?

26. Improve your posture

Try not to slouch. Because when you slouch—for example, slunk low in your office chair, hunched over while walking, or ensconced deeply in the cushions of your couch—it impedes the flow of blood, makes breathing more difficult, contributes to a feeling of stressful incapacity that makes it harder to hoist yourself to a task. Snap to it. Sit up straight. Profit from the energy and alertness of a good healthy posture. Why make yourself crazy?

27. Seek professional help for major stress problems

The stress we deal with here is the everyday stress, the retail stress that we more or less bring on ourselves and thus have the power to eliminate ourselves. But sometimes there are major stressful events in our lives we don’t have control over—an illness, death of a loved one, marriage breakup, loss of a job, depression, abusive relationship—that require the help of a professional therapist. In such cases, don’t put off seeking assistance, or believe that casual stress remedies are going to do the trick. There are people out there who can make an extraordinary difference in helping you get through a difficult time. Seek their counsel; they will help you take back control of your life. Why make yourself crazy?

28. Don’t talk so fast

Have you noticed how much faster the pace of normal conversation is becoming? How we rush our words, leaving no openings, anxious to complete a thought before someone else rushes in? Often having to scold our listeners with “let me finish”? It’s a sign of our hurried times. And as much as fast talking is driven by stress, it can cause stress, too. Rapid speech is highly contagious. It’s less effective, hard to follow and easily misconstrued. No matter how fast the other guy is blathering on, slow down, speak deliberately… replace speed with firmness and clarity. You’ll stay more calm and communicate more forcefully. Why make yourself crazy?

29. Set up a stress relief fund

Put aside some money, and stock it away somewhere in your house where it will be available at a moment’s notice. This is not vacation money, not typical fun money and should not be used capriciously. But when things really start cranking up and you’re all but fried…break into your emergency stress fund. Go out and do something totally unplanned and indulgent. Whether it’s a favourite restaurant, store, nightclub, sporting event, whatever… is up to you. But when things are getting too insane, declare yourself a disaster area and send in some aid. Why make yourself crazy?

30. Alternate mental and physical activities

If you work at a desk all day, don’t sit in front of TV all night. Do something active. If your job is physical, or involves being on your feet or running around, relax and exercise your mind [like reading a book] during the off hours. If our work involves both mental and physical aspects, try alternating the two throughout the day. What this does is add balance and vitality to your life. It’s more energizing, stress-reducing and healthier overall. It’s easy to get stuck in a single monotonous mode—like moving from chair to chair all day—and suppress your other self. It’s essential to exercise both your mind and body. Why make yourself crazy?

The post 30 tools to help you take back control of your life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

We see that these character traits represent our more primitive, primordial side—that side of our nature whose main purpose was to ensure our physical survival in earlier times. At the same time, we need to understand that some of these same character traits serve a useful purpose and can be the basis for good today. Here are the 10 characteristics:

The 10 primordial human traits

We are all ambitious. We want to advance—be more, do more, have more and better, whether wealth, fame, or respect.

We are all opportunistic. We tend to take advantage of situations to further our own self-interest.

We are all stubborn. We are obstinate; we refuse to listen or comply, preferring to stick with the status quo.

We are all ignorant. We don’t know all there is to know about any one thing in particular or about most things in general, and never will. Hence, each of us lives our life in a huge void of uncertainty. We don’t know who we are, why we’re here, where we came from, or where we’re going. It’s no wonder, then, that we live according to something we are not.

We are all greedy. We have an excessive, even compulsive, desire to have or acquire; we want more than we need or deserve.

We are all lazy. We have a tendency to put in the least effort to get the most results.

We are all fearful. We have a preoccupation, a concern, a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or agitation, sometimes even terror, relating to danger, evil, or pain, whether imaginary or real.

We are all selfish. We put our own interests first, well ahead of others, to an extent that is neither fair nor right nor moral.

We are all vain. We have and project an excessively high regard for ourselves: our ideas, our opinions, our abilities, our appearance, our possessions, and so on.

We are all vengeful. We want to return an injury for an injury by inflicting punishment and pain on others for what they have done to us.

If you are offended by this list, as some might be, just ask yourself: “Have I ever exhibited this particular quality at least once in my life? Have I ever been ambitious, opportunistic, stubborn, ignorant, greedy, lazy, tearful, selfish, vain, or vengeful at least once?” I already know your answer. Now we both know that each of these qualities is in you [indeed, in varying degrees in everyone], whether you want to admit it or not.

Beyond selfish motives

So how could some of these characteristics serve us and be the basis for good? How could they add to the collective wellness and benefit humankind? Well, you could he ambitious, opportunistic. and stubborn, and use these same characteristics to help others live healthier, longer, and more productive lives. Think of all the medical researchers who have spent years—sometimes their entire careers—to come up with clues for debilitating diseases such as diabetes, tuberculosis, and leprosy. Or inventors—where would our society be today without modern telecommunications and transportation equipment and systems? Whether modern agricultural practices, new medical devices, or new materials, all were developed to serve a very real need (although in some cases, simple greed may have been a motivating factor as well). And characteristics such as ambition, opportunism. and stubbornness will continue to drive people to use their ingenuity, creativity, and innate intelligence to better the human condition.

When other, totally selfish motives are at play, however, you need to ask the question “Why?” Why have you exhibited many or all of these traits at one time or another in your life, albeit some more frequently and more passionately than others? Specifically, what is your personal pain story—your justification or rationalization for acting this way?

May I introduce to you—the ego! The ego’s power and influence over the way you think has been at work since the beginning of human history. Simply stated, it owns you, or at least it thinks it does. And most of us would have to readily agree because we haven’t seriously considered the possibility of something else as the driving force in our life.

For example, you think, feel, and do each day without really understanding the force or forces that are directing all of this; in many cases, you do whatever you do instinctively and just hope for the best. The ego represents an elaborate belief system that is in your genetic makeup, your DNA, that first and foremost has said to you and is still saying today, “Survive! Look out for number one! Nothing is more important than your personal safety, comfort, and welfare!” And survive both you and I did. But how much longer our species will survive in the way it is currently going about it is perhaps the more pressing question.

The ego’s rationale

To know you must survive implies you must be at risk. If you think you are at risk, you come to believe you must compete. [Sure, it’s a struggle, but what choice do you have?] In order to compete, you must be prepared to fight or flee. If you fight, you might lose; if you flee, you might be caught. Fear, then, is one of the main driving forces behind a lot of what you think, feel, and do.

After telling you to survive, the ego then directs you to move up the ladder to the next level and instructs you to:

• seek safety, security, and freedom from fear;
• seek acceptance, friendship, and love by associating and fraternizing with others;
• seek recognition, status, and self-respect; and finally
• prove to yourself and others that you are unique, capable, and worthy of high achievement.

Having gotten you this far, the ego tells you with great fanfare that you have finally “made” it; you are now on top of the world! And it takes full credit for getting you there! This scenario loosely describes Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human wants and needs as first postulated in his book Motivation and Personality (1954).

Beyond self-actualization

The ego in you is always focused on building up the ego for the ego’s sake (i.e., selfish concern for me) and is totally incapable of considering more altruistic pursuits (i.e., unselfish compassion for others). Its primary goals are twofold: self-aggrandizement and survival. This must be kept top of mind when considering how the ego works. In other words, it is enemy number one (in the sense that it wants to control and direct all your thoughts, feelings, and actions) and must be recognized as such.

Maslow’s ideas are usually depicted as part of a large pyramid with live distinct levels: Physiological needs are at the very bottom, rising to safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs, and ending with self-actualization needs at the top. Maslow’s theory in this regard is central to helping us understand our basic desires and motives for wanting more in our life. In this regard, the key question we must always ask is: “What is my real motivation for wanting more?” Is it simple self-interest (selfishness) or society’s general welfare (selflessness)? Or can the former also lead to the latter? Hmmm. What do you think as it applies to what you are trying to accomplish in your life?

Later in life, Maslow postulated that his pyramid shouldn’t stop at self-actualization needs at the very top, that in fact there is another key factor he had unwittingly left out. This he called transcendence, meaning the spiritual level that transcends the purely physical world. Maslow’s transcendence level recognizes our natural desire to act morally and ethically with compassion, humility, empathy, kindness, tolerance, benevolence, and generosity. Without taking into account this spiritual or trans-egoic side to our nature, he felt we are simply living as instinct-driven animals or pre-programmed machines.

How the belief in separation arose

An important factor that initially gave credibility and power to the ego, and continues to do so today, is that you were born as a single entity. You discovered that you came in a certain “package” or container, so to speak: a body with finite walls that were made of soft, delicate skin. You arrived in this body very much separate from everything and everyone else. Quite quickly—in fact instantly—you also found yourself all alone. This, at a time when you were the youngest, weakest and most vulnerable, is a very scary realization indeed!

But it gets even worse. Your actual physicality—your physical form—allows you to use only physical sensors to perceive what you see as only a physical world. Now, as you look out and observe all that is going on around you, your separateness is confirmed: Yes, you are separate; yes, you are alone; yes, you are at risk; yes, you must compete; yes, you must fight; and yes, there is good reason to be afraid. (Yes, those train tracks do come together somewhere off in the distance!) We are all wired—7 billion-plus people—to think this way; we are all driven instinctively to want more and more out of life, and eventually get to the so-called “top.” Knowing this, should it be any surprise that there are so many problems in the world?

The ego evolved as a necessary survival mechanism for individual human beings during the long and arduous course of human history. And it did its job very well, at least for those of us who are here today. The irony is that now it has become more of a death wish. As such, we must find ways to overcome or transcend it, not just tame it or try to control it, as it now clearly threatens both our individual and collective selves.

As we humans develop more and more efficient and innovative ways of killing each other [i.e., IEDs, cluster bombs, and unmanned, missile carrying aerial drones], and more and more invasive ways of degrading, indeed raping, the planet [i.e., open-pit mining, clear-cutting forests, and bottom-trawling the ocean floor], there is an urgency today that has never been greater in history. Whether we are able to change our ways. to rise above our destructive nature, only time will tell. Many think it is already too late.

Our true nature

We have previously described the 10 character traits that are a product of the ego, or are at least closely connected to it. In contrast, consider other traits that are beyond the ego, in fact unknown to the ego, examples of what we will call supreme virtue. They are prime examples of our true Nature. It may be that we don’t see them on display in the world as often as we would like but when we do, we usually take special notice of them. [Here, the late Nelson Mandela comes to mind.] These traits or qualities go by such names as honor, respect, compassion, empathy, humility, honesty, truthfulness, virtue, courage, industriousness, justice, righteousness, fairness, generosity, service, responsibility, forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love.

This list is by no means complete but it’s a good beginning. Let’s see what each of them means.

10 traits of supreme virtue

1. Honor: A keen sense of right and wrong; adherence to actions and principles that are considered right.
2. Respect: To feel or show honor or esteem for others; consider or treat others with deference or courtesy.
3. Compassion: To feel sorrow or deep sympathy for the troubles or suffering of others, with an urge to help.
4. Empathy: The projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better; intellectual identification of oneself with another.
5. Humility: The state or quality of being humble of mind or spirit; absence of pride or self-assertion.
6. Honesty: Refraining from lying, cheating, or stealing; being truthful, trustworthy, and upright.
7. Truthfulness: Sincerity, genuineness, honesty; the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality.
8. Virtue: General moral excellence; right action, and thinking; goodness of character.
9. Courage: The ability to face anything recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful; quality of being fearless or brave.
10. Industriousness: The putting forth of earnest, steady effort; hardworking; diligent.

We now see how you can live authentically, meaning in a genuine and real way as opposed to a false and hypocritical way. You need only manifest the divine essence that is within you. To live authentically is to live in agreement with fact or actuality, in a manner that is consistent with who and what you are. When you are authentic, and only when you are authentic, can you be useful to a higher cause; in other words, play this game called life with much more insight, much more skill, and much more passion. This involves love: love of self, love of others, and love for all things, both animate and inanimate.

The only alternative is to stay trapped into trying to prove to the world that you are a “somebody,” indeed a special somebody. The irony is that you don’t even know who this somebody is that you are pretending to be. It’s like every day is Halloween and you don a different costume that you think best suits the occasion: “Hey, do you like me like this? No? Then how about this? Or this? Or this? Please, like some version or variation of me!”

Hypocrite means:

1. an actor, one who plays a part;
2. a pretender; an imposter;
3. a person who pretends to be what he is not;
4. one who pretends to be better than he really is or pious, virtuous, etc., without really being so.

Are you living a lie?

When you live thinking you are a human being having an occasional spiritual experience, (for example, adopting virtuous behavior only when it suits you and the circumstances), you have to ask yourself, “Am I really what I pretend to be?” In other words, is being spiritual only a part-time job?” At a deep, subconscious level, you know you are not; you are living falsely, dishonestly, and inconsistently. In fact, you are living a lie.

Yes, a lie that you have been led to believe by authority figures, caretakers and well-wishers of all kinds who constantly told you to do this but do not do that; believe this but do not believe that; act like this but do not act like that; go to this church but do not go to that church; enjoy doing this but do not enjoy doing that, etc. And you have never seriously questioned all of their dictates. These people, after all, were much older and wiser than you, and supposedly had your best interests in mind; shouldn’t they know?

All professional actors live a lie when they perform on a stage and take on the persona of someone they are not. And it is an extremely difficult and stressful undertaking, to which most would readily attest. Now consider spending all of your waking moment pretending you are someone you know you are not. This results in a serious case of cognitive dissonance: You are aware there is a disconnect. You say to yourself, “I don’t like this game; I’m not very good at playing this game; I don’t want to continue playing this game.” You show your displeasure by resorting to the usual primitive behaviors that result from disappointment, frustration, and anger: you lash out, you criticize, and you complain. Yes, you demonstrate all the usual mean-mindedness, even invectiveness, that is indicative of the fact that you are not happy.

Happiness isn’t a by-product

Everyday happiness is defined as having, showing, or causing a feeling of great pleasure, contentment, joy, or gratification. And for many, to be happy is the primary purpose of life. But real, authentic happiness is not fleeting, nor is it something that can be had indirectly. Rather it is the result of a deep knowing that comes from being and doing what is in accordance with who and what you are. It’s when you are in a state of continuous validation of your very essence, living as your true Self.

In other words, authentic happiness is not a by-product of something else. You cannot buy it, steal it, eat it, drink it, or touch it as an entity in its own right as many thieves, con artists, fast food addicts, alcoholics, drug addicts, and sex addicts would have you believe. It can be had only directly, with no strings attached. Happiness is an energy and a force, and not a result of anything physical in the world. You can never hope to put your hands around it, caress it and say, “Wow! Look: I finally have this thing called happiness.”

Here is a keen observation by popular American singer and comedian Margaret Young (1891–1969): “Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the exact reverse: You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.”

Consider these words by Lama Surya Das in his book Awakening the Buddha Within (1997) about how to move beyond your first impulse, the ego: “As you walk the inner path of awakening, recognize that it is most definitely a heroic journey. You must be prepared to make sacrifices, and yes, you must be prepared to change. Just as a caterpillar must shed its familiar cocoon in order to become a butterfly and fly, you must be willing to change and shed the hard armor of self-centered egotism. As compelling as the inner journey is, it can be difficult because it brings you face to face with reality. It brings you face-to-face with who you really are.”

The post How ego thwarts your authentic happiness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Let me make this point as clear as possible: This article is called How to Ruin Your Financial Life for a reason: If you follow the rules in it, you will ruin your financial life. If you do the opposite, sunny days lie ahead.

Without further ado, here are the rules. I’m positive that I’ve probably missed some ways in which you can ruin your financial life—maybe even some important ones—but let’s just get on with it. My motto, borrowed from the genius editor Jim Bellows, applies here in spades: “Begin at once, and do the best you can.”

20 Financial Pitfalls to Avoid (or How to Ruin Your Financial Life)

1. Forget about tomorrow

That’s right. It’s always today. Tomorrow will never come at all, so don’t make any plans for the future. Making plans is a lot of work, and thinking about the future is frightening. It’s a lot easier to just think about today.

Plans for the future involve calculations and variables and may require some form of self-discipline—yuck. Plus, there’s so much uncertainty about the future that sometimes you don’t really feel good when you think about it. So why think about it at all? It’s just a way to get prematurely gray. Instead, think about what fun you can have now, and how much enjoyment and spending you can cram into one day.

2. Know with certainty that there will never be any rainy days in your life

There’s a lot of talk among old people about saving for a rainy day. There could be a recession, or a new inflation or deflation, or a real-estate collapse, they’ll say. You could lose your job. It happened to them after all. That’s why, they’ll tell you, you need to put aside money for a “rainy day.”

The only problem with this admonition is that it doesn’t apply to you. There will be no rainy days in your life. And if you plan for them, then you will have penalized yourself by saving money, and not splurging on that vacation or new car you wanted.

Just go on with your life knowing that all is fundamentally well, and that the bad things that happened to other people in other eras will simply never happen to you. It’s that basic. You don’t need to make any plans for economic security because your life will never have any downs, only ups.

3. Don’t bother to learn anything at all about investing

Life is short—far too short to spend your free time reading some dusty old tome on investing your money. Who does that kind of thing anyway? Nerds and worrywarts, and goofy guys with Coke-bottle glasses and pens in their pockets. You’re far too cool to even think of poring over books with charts and graphs and explanations of why stocks are sometimes better than bonds, and bonds are sometimes better than stocks. Who needs that kind of stuff?

4. Don’t balance your checkbook or keep track of what you spend

Why should you? The bank will send you a little form if you’re overdrawn, won’t they? In the meantime, you’ll want to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of being hemmed in by lots of numbers and columns of figures, and instead, just do what’s fun and easy.

After all, you’re not a machine.You can’t be programmed to function like a human calculator. You need to be your own sweet, carefree self. Besides, if you keep track of how much you spend, it might depress you.

So please don’t do it.

5. Forget to pay your taxes

Why does the government need the money anyway? They already have trillions. And they have legions of employees and office buildings, and lots of aircraft carriers and submarines. They do not need your few measly pennies. They don’t care about you.
If the tax guys somehow track you down, demanding the money you owe them, then borrow a line from the immortal Steve Martin and say, “Hey, I forgot.” What can they do? It’s not like you’re an ax murderer. You simply “forgot” [wink, wink] to pay your taxes. If you have your taxes deducted from your pay check, take the maximum number of deductions you can. Then, when it comes close to April 15, just don’t file your income taxes at all, period. That way you get to keep all of that extra money that wasn’t withheld from your pay check. It’ll take years, maybe decades for the tax guys to catch up with you. And when they do, at most they’ll just smack your hand and give you a big frown.

An added bonus: If you do get involved with litigating against the government over back taxes, you’ll be amazed by how little tax lawyers charge. These attorneys will practically give away their services to you, and the fees and expenses can be comically low.

Try it. You’ll see. The tax guys really just want to be loved, same as you and me.

6. Truly believe that you’re only as valuable as what you own

Look, this is between you and me, right? It’s not as if anyone can read your mind and know what you’re thinking. So, just between us, even though you’re overweight, have a lousy job, and are miserable in your relationship, you know how to make yourself feel empowered, don’t you? You know how to build your self-esteem. You know that the way to feel like a superhero is to buy the right things so you can feel great about yourself.

You may have heard that happiness is an inside job. Baloney! Happiness comes from getting and spending. Happiness comes from piling up boxes and boxes of things you’ll never use. Tommy Hilfiger, Von Dutch, Kate Spade, Armani, Gucci, Hermès, Mercedes-Benz, Ritz Carlton—brands and labels are what matter, not self-esteem and a hard day’s work or having loyal friends.

You’re a nobody—in your own eyes and in the eyes of others—unless you buy and own every cool product and service out there…and don’t you forget it.

7. Repeat after me: “I am not responsible for my financial wellbeing”

Well, why should you take on that responsibility? That would involve [again] a good deal of self-restraint, self-discipline, and abstinence when it comes to buying everything you’ve always wanted. If you were responsible for your own finances, then you’d have to sit down with a calculator and a pad of paper and figure out what you could no longer afford. And that means that you might have to deny yourself on occasion.

Well, that’s just plain wrong and shouldn’t happen!

It’s never your fault what happens to you, and you shouldn’t have to discipline yourself—not now or ever. What kind of life would that be? A “fun” life? A life like you see in Vogue or Esquire? I don’t think so, do you?

Responsibility about money is for nerds and geeks. You’re a hippie, a free spirit, not an accountant. So do whatever you feel like doing, and let someone else worry about it.

8. If getting your finances together seems too difficult at any given time, turn everything over to a financial/ business manager who will have total control over your money

My advice is to find some trustworthy person who claims to be well versed in money management, go to her office with your check book and a power of attorney, and turn everything over to her. In this world, you can only trust a few select people with your money, but you’ll unerringly find the right one. A suggestion? Go for the one who charges the most. Don’t be happy with anyone who charges you less than 5 percent. Maybe even pay a few percentage points more for quality service.

Then, just send all your bills to her and have her pay them, let her withdraw money from your accounts for investments, and generally allow her to do everything but the heavy lifting. And don’t feel lazy for doing it. Many busy, important people like you have better things to do than worry about stuffy old money matters.

You may have heard those horror stories about financial managers who looted their clients mainly because these folks were too lazy to pay any attention to their financial statements. Pay no attention to any of this at all. It will never happen to you. There will never be a day of reckoning for trusting your future to someone whose interests might totally differ from yours and who might have the ethics of a snake.

9. Don’t think about retirement—it’s a l-o-o-n-n-g way off

The truth is [and you really need to remember this], that you’re young and vibrant no matter how old you might happen to be right now. You might be 20 or you might be 40 or you might be 60, but you’re still light years away from retirement. In fact, it’s so far down the road that you can’t even see it. And you know what? You never will be able to see it!

First, you won’t ever get old. Second, you won’t ever have to worry about money. And third, someone else will always take care of you. It’s all too boring to even think about it, so don’t. Plus, it’s really fun to be old and not have any money. It gives you the opportunity for fantasy and invention and trying new things…like poverty.

Retirement? Yawn. It just takes care of itself.

But what if someone has talked you into worrying about money? What if some fool has made you believe that you should invest in stocks or bonds? But let me give you a few words of advice if you’ve actually started to begin some kind of investment plan. This is important, so listen up…

10. Choose a broker based on his [or her] good looks, fashion sense, and gift of gab

That’s the way to choose a stockbroker! If your broker’s a looker, is nattily attired, and is in the finance business, he’s obviously made a ton of money for himself…and probably for his clients, too. That means he’ll make a lot of money for you as well, and then you’ll also find yourself hobnobbing at The Polo Club and The Yacht Club and those other places where he hangs out.

The world of finance is a tricky, complex world, so what you want is someone who’s smooth-talking and confident. Your broker has to be able to convince you that he can do great things with your money by putting it in junk bonds and other areas too arcane for you to know about personally.

But please don’t make the mistake of asking your broker [or potential broker]—just what kind of education he has. Similarly, it would be rude and tasteless to ask him to give you references from satisfied clients. All you need to see is that he’s wearing an Armani suit, a Rolex, and Gucci shoes—and then you can breathe a sigh of relief because you know that your hard-earned money will be in good hands.

11. Convince yourself that you can beat the market without knowing anything about it

What, after all, does someone like you even have to know about the market? The nerds and geeks may have graduate degrees. Some money managers may have decades of experience. Some pundits like Warren Buffett may have an abundance of both. But you have your innate gambler’s luck and feel—the only cards you’ll ever need. You can tell just by the way you get out of bed in the morning in which direction the market is headed. You don’t need a system or education or information gleaned from late hours of study—you have that feeling in your fingertips. Call it instinct, call it luck, or call it by its rightful name: genius. You can forecast the market by just the feeling in your bones.

Economics? Marketing? Research on business cycles or specific industries? Nonsense! Just by hearing a company’s name you can tell if it’s a winner or a loser.

Don’t be a slave to some musty old library or some ponderous old computer. Just plunk down your money right this minute based on pure intuition.

This is definitely the way to play the market, and your way is the best way.

12. Don’t keep records

No record keeping for you! That’s for librarians and bookkeepers and hermits. And anyway, since you’re never going to have a financial plan and are never going to need money for retirement, why would you need to keep records?

When that time comes when the tax guys ask for your records for the last five years, just tell them that you’re not a clerk and you don’t have no wicked records, man! They’ll understand.

Plus, if your broker makes a mistake and you don’t have the records to prove she’s wrong, so what? The tax guys will just take your word for it. Just have another cocktail and another buffalo chicken wing and soon you won’t even remember that it’s almost tax time—oh, but that’s right, you don’t pay taxes. Ah, life is good!

13. Don’t worry about buying stocks when there’s a bubble going on—you’ll always know when to sell out just before the bubble bursts

There are a lot of old-fashioned measurements that tell old fogeys when stocks are cheap and when they’re expensive by historic measurements. These are ways to calculate the ratio of the stock’s price with respect to its earnings and dividends. When these get really, really high—when stocks are flying—those measurements are really high, too, and some curmudgeons call those times “bubbles” and tell you to stay away from buying stocks then.

What nonsense that is! When stocks are high-flyin’, that’s when it’s most fun to be in the stock market! How much fun is it to invest when stocks barely move at all, or at most, a few percent a year? It’s BO-RING.

So, why listen to the old creeps who tell you to beware when the stock market is at those levels? Why even pay a moment’s attention? If, in fact, the bubble is bound to burst, you’ll know about it and get out in plenty of time.

Uh, how will you know? Well, hasn’t Warren Buffett said that in a bubble, everyone says they’ll leave the party at midnight, only there are no clocks in the room? Yes, but so what? You don’t invest based on clocks and old fuddy-duddy rules. You invest by the intuitive feelings in your fingertips, and those feelings will also tell you when—exactly when—to sell, take your profits, and go hand out at Cap d’ Antibes.

14. Make sure you never hold your financial adviser or broker accountable—you want him to be your friend

There are measurements that come out regularly in Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, and many other fine financial publications about how well the stock market has done in the past six months, the past year, or the past five years. They track broad market indexes like the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones 30 Industrials.

Please don’t make your financial adviser’s life difficult by comparing his picks and suggestions with this broad gauge. You only need to know that he’s your pal, that he takes your calls promptly, and basically, that’s it. If he’s a friend to you, talks to you, reassures you, and maybe occasionally takes you to lunch and picks up the tab, you know he’s your kind of guy. Don’t make him feel bad if other measurements are going up faster than your investments. He’s a nice family man with a good personality. That’s enough.

15. Start a business with inadequate capital—in a difficult field and in a difficult location—and expect to prosper

This essay could just as well be called “Open a Restaurant,” which is surely one of the best ways on earth to lose a ton of money, your spouse, and your peace of mind. But don’t let that thought worry you. No, forget what I just wrote. I was just kidding.

But, seriously, why don’t you open a restaurant in an area where millions of other people have started eateries that went out of business. Go ahead. It’ll be fine. Where everyone else—even people with experience—went down the tubes, you’ll succeed just because of your innate charisma.

So, start a restaurant—or any business where the failure rate is 90 percent or more—and you’ll be amazed to see how easy and fun it is and how much money you make. You won’t need to worry about burning through all your cash in a few months and being overwhelmed by debt. Nope, not you—‘cause you won’t make the same mistakes others made. You know better.

16. If taking charge of your financial life seems overwhelming now, just put it off for a few more years

There’s this old myth that says you should get movin’ right now on accomplishing your goals, because the more time you have to work on them, the more likely you are to attain them. And then there’s some old saw about how a journey is more likely to get finished if you start early in the morning.

What a load of bull! Didn’t the idiots who came up with those maxims realize how much fun it is to sleep late?

It takes a lot of mental effort to take charge of your finances. If it seems a bit burdensome right now, just wait a while until it seems like it would be less of a bother. Only when you’re really and truly up to it should you get yourself in gear to make plans for your financial future. Don’t worry about the time that passed while you were getting yourself organized. I’m sure it was good for something—if only for sleeping late, you movie star, you!

17. Believe that you can get rich quick—that you can get something for nothing

There are such things as free lunches! This one is so obvious that I don’t think I need to say much about it. It’s simply a statement of truth that a smart guy or gal like you was born knowing.

Basically, real riches appear overnight just by luck or chance or a bolt of inspiration. You don’t need to trade experience or labor or investments for wealth. If you’re on the right track, you’ll reap the financial rewards overnight…money will rain down on your house in torrents. Let me explain this a little further…

18. Know without a doubt that you don’t have to work hard—you only need to find an angle

Hard work gets you nowhere slowly. It’s for those without imagination. But you are different. You have that creative spark. You have that special magic that’s going to make you wake up one morning at 4 A.M., shout out, “Eureka!” and have the brainstorm that will bring you staggering wealth.

So don’t bother to work hard. Just take a lot of naps and wait for that flash of lightning to explode in your brain. The world is waiting breathlessly for you to come down from the mountaintop with your two tablets and your inspiration that will make the Ten Commandments seem comically insignificant.

Go for it. You just need that one clever angle.

19. Feel confident that you can borrow your way out of any problem

You know how I’ve been telling you over and over that you don’t need to save money? Well, some of you [who haven’t been listening very well] may have had a sneaking little thought enter your minds: What if I suddenly need money? How will I handle it if I don’t have any money saved up?

Good question, and it has a good answer: You borrow the money when you need it by getting a cash advance on your credit cards. Or go to a finance company and get a signature loan. And here’s a sneaky little tip: There are also special friends out there who will want to lend you money. Don’t even think about being too embarrassed to ask for a loan—or worrying about your buddies’ discomfort over being asked. Just ask for it—in fact, even demand it! What are friends for? They’ve probably been boring and practical enough to save, so what’s the point of saving if not to do nice things for other people? So, go for it.

And here’s another word of advice: When you get that borrowed money, don’t repay it. Think about it for a moment. How are you any better if you borrow a thousand bucks and then a few weeks later repay a thousand bucks? You’re in exactly the same position you were before. But if you borrow the thousand and then don’t repay it, or only repay a little of it, you’ve made a profit! It’s like it was a gift. So, borrow, allow your pals to feel good about helping you out, and then go on your merry way.

20. Don’t bother to provide for your spouse or your children

Don’t bother sacrificing one single thing for your kids or your spouse so that they’ll be better off or well provided for when you die. What will it mean to you? You’ll be dead anyway. Why should you have to sacrifice a trip or a new boat to buy insurance for your family? It’s all about you, you, you, anyway, and once you’re gone, the world ends, too. What possible concern could it be of yours that your spouse or kids might have to scrimp and save when you’re gone? They’re only your flesh and blood.

What about setting up accounts for your kids so they can pay for college or make a down payment on a home? No way. There are scholarships. There are student loans and jobs. Or they can go without college. It might do them good to go out and work right after high school. Why coddle them with money when you could have so much more fun coddling yourself?

So basically, just devote your life to thinking about your own wants and needs, and let the chips fall where they may.

Well, all right then. If you’ve read this far, it’s just possible that you have some idea what you’re doing wrong. Let me assure you that if you just keep on doing what you’re doing, things will only get worse. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

The post 20 Financial Pitfalls to Avoid appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

In this incredibly competitive society of ours, how many of us truly feel good about ourselves? It seems such a fleeting thing—feeling good—especially as we need to feel special and above average to feel worthy. Anything less seems like a failure. I remember once as a freshman in college, after spending hours getting ready for a big party, I complained to my boyfriend that my hair, makeup, and outfit were woefully inadequate. He tried to reassure me by saying, “Don’t worry, you look fine.”

“Fine? Oh great, I always wanted to look fine…”

The desire to feel special is understandable. The problem is that, by definition, it’s impossible for everyone to be above average at the same time. Although there are some ways in which we excel, there is always someone smarter, prettier, more successful. How do we cope with this? Not very well. To see ourselves positively, we tend to inflate our own egos and put others down so that we can feel good in comparison. But this strategy comes at a price—it holds us back from reaching our full potential in life.

Distorting Mirrors

If I have to feel better than you to feel good about myself, then how clearly am I really going to see you, or myself for that matter? Let’s say I had a stressful day at work and am grumpy and irritable with my husband when he gets home later that evening [purely hypothetical, of course]. If I’m highly invested in having a positive self-image and don’t want to risk viewing myself in a negative light, I’m going to slant my interpretation of what transpires to make sure that any friction between us is seen as my husband’s fault, not my own.

“Good, you’re home. Did you pick up the groceries?”

“I just walked though the door, how about ‘Nice to see you, dear, how was your day?’ ”

“Well, if you weren’t so forgetful, maybe I wouldn’t have to always hound you.”

“As a matter of fact, I did pick up the groceries.”

“Oh . . . Well, um . . . It’s the exception that proves the rule. I wish you weren’t so unreliable.”

Not exactly a recipe for happiness.

Why is it so hard to admit when we step out of line, are rude, or act impatient? Because our ego feels so much better when we project our flaws and shortcomings on to someone else. It’s your fault, not mine. Just think about all the arguments and fights that grow out of this simple dynamic. Each person blames the other for saying or doing something wrong, justifying their own actions as if their life depended on it, while both know, in their heart of hearts, that it takes two to tango. How much time do we waste like this? Wouldn’t it be so much better if we could just confess and play fair?

But change is easier said than done. It’s almost impossible to notice those aspects of ourselves that cause problems relating to others, or that keep us from reaching our full potential, if we can’t see ourselves clearly. How can we grow if we don’t acknowledge our own weaknesses? We might temporarily feel better about ourselves by ignoring our flaws, or by believing our issues and difficulties are somebody else’s fault, but in the long run we only harm ourselves by getting stuck in endless cycles of stagnation and conflict.

The Costs of Self-Judgement

Continually feeding our need for positive self-evaluation is a bit like stuffing ourselves with candy. We get a brief sugar high, then a crash. And right after the crash comes a pendulum swing to despair as we realize that, however much we’d like to, we can’t always blame our problems on someone else. We can’t always feel special and above average. The result is often devastating. We look in the mirror and don’t like what we see [both literally and figuratively], and the shame starts to set in. Most of us are incredibly hard on ourselves when we finally admit some flaw or shortcoming. I’m not good enough. I’m worthless. It’s not surprising that we hide the truth from ourselves when honesty is met with such harsh condemnation.

In areas where it is hard to fool ourselves—when comparing our weight to those of magazine models, for instance, or our bank accounts to those of the rich and successful—we cause ourselves incredible amounts of emotional pain. We lose faith in ourselves, start doubting our potential, and become hopeless. Of course, this sorry state just yields more self-condemnation for being such a do-nothing loser, and down, down we go. Even if we do manage to get our act together, the goalposts for what counts as “good enough” always seem to remain frustratingly out of reach. We must be smart and fit and fashionable and interesting and successful and sexy. Oh, and spiritual, too. And no matter how well we do, someone else always seems to be doing it better. The result of this line of thinking is sobering: millions of people need to take pharmaceuticals every day just to cope with daily life. Insecurity, anxiety, and depression are incredibly common in our society, and much of this is due to self-judgements and beating ourselves up when we feel we aren’t winning in the game of life.

Self-Criticism Never Works

So what’s the answer? To stop judging and evaluating ourselves altogether. To stop trying to label ourselves as “good” or “bad” and simply accept ourselves with an open heart. To treat ourselves with the same kindness, caring, and compassion we would show to a good friend, or even a stranger for that matter. Sadly, however, there’s almost no one whom we treat as badly as ourselves.

When I first came across the idea of self-compassion, it changed my life almost immediately. It was during my last year in the Human Development doctoral program at the University of California at Berkeley, as I was putting the finishing touches on my dissertation. I was going through a really difficult time following the breakup of my first marriage, and I was full of shame and self-loathing. I thought signing up for meditation classes at a local Buddhist center might help. I had been interested in Eastern spirituality from the time I was a small child, having been raised by an open-minded mother just outside of Los Angeles. But I had never taken meditation seriously. I had also never examined Buddhist philosophy, as my exposure to Eastern thought had been more along California New Age lines. As part of my exploration, I read Sharon Salzberg’s classic book Lovingkindness and was never the same again.

I had known that Buddhists talk a lot about the importance of compassion, but I had never considered that having compassion for yourself might be as important as having compassion for others. From the Buddhist point of view, you have to care about yourself before you can really care about other people. If you are continually judging and criticizing yourself while trying to be kind to others, you are drawing artificial boundaries and distinctions that only lead to feelings of separation and isolation. This is the opposite of oneness, interconnection, and universal love—the ultimate goal of most spiritual paths, no matter which tradition.

I remember talking to my new fiancé, Rupert, who joined me for the weekly Buddhist group meetings, and shaking my head in amazement. “You mean you’re actually allowed to be nice to yourself, to have compassion for yourself when you mess up or are going through a really hard time? I don’t know… If I’m too self-compassionate, won’t I just be lazy and selfish?”

It took me a while to get my head around it. But I slowly came to realize that self-criticism, despite being socially sanctioned, was not at all helpful, and in fact only made things worse.

I wasn’t making myself a better person by beating myself up all the time. Instead, I was causing myself to feel inadequate and insecure, then taking out my frustration on the people closest to me. More than that, I wasn’t owning up to many things because I was so afraid of the self-hate that would follow if I admitted the truth.

What Rupert and I both came to learn was that instead of relying on our relationship to meet all our needs for love, acceptance, and security, we could actually provide some of these feelings for ourselves. And this would mean that we had even more in our hearts to give to each other. We were both so moved by the concept of self-compassion that in our marriage ceremony later that year, each of us ended our vows by saying “Most of all, I promise to help you have compassion for yourself, so that you can thrive and be happy.”

After getting my PhD, I did two years of postdoctoral training with a leading self-esteem researcher. I wanted to know more about how people determine their sense of self-worth. I quickly learned that the field of psychology was falling out of love with self-esteem as the ultimate marker of positive mental health. Although thousands of articles had been written on the importance of self-esteem, researchers were now starting to point out all the traps that people can fall into when they try to get and keep a sense of high self-esteem: narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice, discrimination, and so on. I realized that self-compassion was the perfect alternative to the relentless pursuit of self-esteem. Why? Because it offers the same protection against harsh self-criticism as self-esteem, but without the need to see ourselves as perfect or as better than others. In other words, self-compassion provides the same benefits as high self-esteem without its drawbacks.

When I got a job as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, I decided that as soon as I got settled I would conduct research on self-compassion. Although no one had yet defined self-compassion from an academic perspective—let alone done any research on it—I knew that this would be my life’s work.

So what is self-compassion? What does it mean exactly? I usually find that the best way to describe self-compassion is to start with a more familiar experience—compassion for others. After all, compassion is the same whether we direct it to ourselves or to other people.

Compassion for Others

Imagine you’re stuck in traffic on the way to work, and a homeless man tries to get you to pay him a buck for washing your car windows. “He’s so pushy!” you think to yourself, “He’ll make me miss the flight and be late. He probably just wants the money for booze or drugs anyway. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll just leave me alone.” But he doesn’t ignore you, and you sit there hating him while he washes your window, feeling guilty if you don’t toss him some money and resentful if you do. Then one day, you’re struck as if by lightning. There you are in the same commuter traffic, at the same light, at the same time, and there’s the homeless man, with his bucket and squeegee as usual. Yet for some unknown reason, today you see him differently. You see him as a person rather than just a mere annoyance. You notice his suffering. How does he survive? Most people just shoo him away. He’s out here in the traffic and fumes all day and certainly isn’t earning much. At least he’s trying to offer something in return for the cash. It must be really tough to have people be so irritated with you all the time. I wonder what his story is? How did he end up on the streets? The moment you see the man as an actual human being who is suffering, your heart connects with him. Instead of ignoring him, you find—to your amazement—that you’re taking a moment to think about how difficult his life is. You are moved by his pain and feel the urge to help him in some way. Importantly, if what you feel is true compassion rather than mere pity, you say to yourself, “There, but for the grace of God, go I. If I’d been born in different circumstances, or maybe had just been unlucky, I might also be struggling to survive like that. We’re all vulnerable.”

Of course, that might be the moment when you harden your heart completely—your own fear of ending up on the street causing you to dehumanize this horrid heap of rags and beard. Many people do. But it doesn’t make them happy; it doesn’t help them deal with the stresses of their work, their spouse, or their child when they get home. It doesn’t help them face their own fears. If anything, this hardening of the heart, which involves feeling better than the homeless man, just makes the whole thing a little bit worse.

But let’s say you don’t close up. Let’s say you really do experience compassion for the homeless man’s misfortune. How does it feel? Actually, it feels pretty good. It’s wonderful when your heart opens—you immediately feel more connected, alive, present.

Now, let’s say the man wasn’t trying to wash windows in return for some cash. Maybe he was just begging for money to buy alcohol or drugs—should you still feel compassion for him? Yes. You don’t have to invite him home. You don’t even have to give him a buck. You may decide to give him a kind smile or a sandwich rather than money if you feel that’s the more responsible thing to do. But yes, he is still worthy of compassion—all of us are.

Compassion is not only relevant to those who are blameless victims, but also to those whose suffering stems from failures, personal weakness, or bad decisions—you know, the kind you and I make every day. Compassion, then, involves the recognition and clear seeing of suffering. It also involves feelings of kindness for people who are suffering, so that the desire to help—to ameliorate suffering—emerges. Finally, compassion involves recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.

Compassion for Ourselves

Self-compassion, by definition, involves the same qualities. First, it requires that we stop to recognize our own suffering. We can’t be moved by our own pain if we don’t even acknowledge that it exists in the first place. Of course, sometimes the fact that we’re in pain is blindingly obvious and we can think of nothing else. More often than you might think, however, we don’t recognize when we are suffering. Much of western culture has a strong “stiff-upper-lip” tradition. We are taught that we shouldn’t complain, that we should just carry on [to be read in a clipped British accent while giving a smart salute]. If we’re in a difficult or stressful situation, we rarely take the time to step back and recognise how hard it is for us in the moment.

And when our pain comes from self-judgement—if you’re angry at yourself for mistreating someone, or for making some stupid remark at a party—it’s even harder to see these as moments of suffering. Like the time I asked a friend I hadn’t seen in a while, eyeing the bump of her belly, “Are we expecting?” “Er, no,” she answered, “I’ve just put on some weight lately.” “Oh . . .” I said as my face turned beet red. We typically don’t recognise such moments as a type of pain that is worthy of a compassionate response. After all, I messed up, doesn’t that mean I should be punished? Well, do you punish your friends or your family when they mess up? Okay, maybe sometimes a little, but do you feel good about it?

Everybody makes mistakes at one time or another, it’s a fact of life. And if you think about it, why should you expect anything different? Where is that written contract you signed before birth promising that you’d be perfect, that you’d never fail, and that your life would go absolutely the way you want it to? Uh, excuse me. There must be some error. I signed up for the “everything will go swimmingly until the day I die” plan. Can I speak to the management, please? It’s absurd, and yet most of us act as if something has gone terribly awry when we fall down or life takes an unwanted or unexpected turn.

One of the downsides of living in a culture that stresses the ethic of independence and individual achievement is that if we don’t continually reach our ideal goals, we feel that we only have ourselves to blame. And if we’re at fault, that means we don’t deserve compassion, right? The truth is, everyone is worthy of compassion. The very fact that we are conscious human beings experiencing life on the planet means that we are intrinsically valuable and deserving of care. According to the Dalai Lama, “Human beings by nature want happiness and do not want suffering. With that feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering, and everyone has the basic right to do this… Basically, from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same.”

We don’t have to earn the right to compassion; it is our birthright. We are human, and our ability to think and feel, combined with our desire to be happy rather than to suffer, warrants compassion for its own sake. Many people are resistant to the idea of self-compassion, however. Isn’t it really just a form of self-pity? Or a dressed-up word for self-indulgence? These assumptions are false and run directly counter to the actual meaning of self-compassion. Self-compassion involves wanting health and wellbeing for oneself and leads to proactive behavior to better one’s situation, rather than passivity. And self-compassion doesn’t mean that I think my problems are more important than yours—it just means I think that my problems are also important and worthy of being attended to. Rather than condemning yourself for your mistakes and failures, therefore, you can use the experience of suffering to soften your heart. You can let go of those unrealistic expectations of perfection that make you so dissatisfied, and open the door to real and lasting satisfaction. All by giving yourself the compassion you need in the moment.

The research that my colleagues and I have conducted over the past decade shows that self-compassion is a powerful way to achieve emotional wellbeing and contentment in our lives. By giving ourselves unconditional kindness and comfort while embracing the human experience, difficult as it is, we avoid destructive patterns of fear, negativity, and isolation. At the same time, self-compassion fosters positive mind-states such as happiness and optimism. The nurturing quality of self-compassion allows us to flourish, to appreciate the beauty and richness of life, even in hard times. When we soothe our agitated minds with self-compassion, we’re better able to notice what’s right as well as what’s wrong, so that we can orient ourselves toward that which gives us joy.

Self-compassion provides an island of calm, a refuge from the stormy seas of endless positive and negative self-judgement, so that we can finally stop asking, “Am I as good as they are? Am I good enough?” Right here at our fingertips we have the means to provide ourselves with the warm, supportive care we deeply yearn for. By tapping into our inner wellsprings of kindness, acknowledging the shared nature of our imperfect human condition, we can start to feel more secure, accepted, and alive.

In many ways self-compassion is like magic, because it has the power to transform suffering into joy. In her book Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart, Tara Bennett-Goleman uses the metaphor of alchemy to symbolize the spiritual and emotional transformation that’s possible when we embrace our pain with caring concern. When we give ourselves compassion, the tight knot of negative self-judgement starts to dissolve, replaced by a feeling of peaceful, connected acceptance—a sparkling diamond that emerges from the coal.

If you feel that you lack sufficient self-compassion, check in with yourself—are you criticizing yourself for this, too? If so, stop right there. Try to feel compassion for how difficult it is to be an imperfect human being in this extremely competitive society of ours. Our culture does not emphasize self-compassion, quite the opposite. We’re told that no matter how hard we try, our best just isn’t good enough. It’s time for something different. We can all benefit by learning to be more self-compassionate, and now is the perfect time to start.

You can determine your precise level of self-compassion using the self-compassion scale I developed for my research. Go to my website—www.self-compassion.org—and click on the “How Self-Compassionate Are You?” link. After filling out a series of questions, your level of self-compassion will be calculated for you. You may want to record your score and take the test again after reading my book, to determine if you’ve increased your level of self-compassion with practice. You can’t always have high self-esteem and your life will continue to be flawed and imperfect—but self-compassion will always be there, waiting for you, a safe haven. In good times and bad, whether you’re on top of the world or at the bottom of the heap, self-compassion will keep you going, helping you move to a better place. It does take work to break the self-criticizing habits of a lifetime, but at the end of the day, you are only being asked to relax, allow life to be as it is, and open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.

The post The High Cost of Beating Yourself Up Habitually appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

In this article »

• Introduction: How My Shyness Held Me Back
• How Social Anxiety Affects Your Life
• Why Do You Feel Shy
• 3 Easy Steps to Conquer Your Social Anxiety or Shyness
  1. Face your fears
  2. Plan ways to track your progress
  3. Action is the key to overcoming shyness
• You Can Conquer Your Social Anxiety!
• Conclusion: How My Life Changed After I Overcame My Shyness

Introduction: How My Shyness Held Me Back

Here’s a real story. Several years ago, I was heading home from work—a 30-mile commute by train. On the same platform, probably waiting for the same train, were a young woman and her sick son. The boy was maybe three years old, about the same age as my own sons then. His bald head and frightfully thin frame suggested that he likely had cancer. Even the effort of raising a bottle of water to his lips caused his hand to tremble. He paused drinking to vomit into a plastic bag. This young child was suffering like I have never suffered in my life. His mother was caring, but firm. She held his head firmly when he vomited to avoid a resulting mess.

My heart sank. I felt bad for them—mother and child both suffering so greatly there on that platform. I wanted so much to talk to the mother, to offer her an encouraging word or a friendly chat to distract her temporarily. I wanted to tell the boy that I had two sons his age and that I thought they could become good friends but… I didn’t. My own shyness prevented me from lifting another’s spirits. I was unable to approach people I didn’t know; I was unable to embrace the vulnerability required to reach out.

I actively talked myself out of trying to offer what I could to them: If you walked up to them, what would you say? That you are sorry for them? Words are cheap. And what have you to offer? Money? You are not rich. Time? You are a nine to five slave. Encouragement? Can you cure the boy?

I didn’t speak to them that day; didn’t express my compassion for them. My social anxiety overcame my desire to reach out to a fellow human being.

How Social Anxiety Affects Your Life

Social anxiety is crippling for a human being, because we are social animals. The ability to interact with others [or the lack of it] affects every area of our lives. Take success for example. It is said that “your network is your net worth.” But if you are shy, it’s difficult for you to build a network of contacts in the first place. You may even be good at cultivating your relationships—I was decent in this respect—but you cannot grow your network. Your road to success is closed before you even take the first step.

Success is not so important, you may think. Our definition of success is skewed toward financial and tangible benefits, one-time achievements and rewards. Attaining one success milestone after another can nonetheless leave you miserable and frustrated. You need to enjoy the process of becoming successful and not just aim for the milestones.

However, happiness doesn’t come from financial status. The truth is, scientists only have a vague idea where it comes from, but they have found a single reliable predictor of happiness: relationships. The quality and, to some degree, the quantity of your relationships are the reasons for your happiness [or lack of it]. Thus, if you are a shy person, you are disadvantaged from the beginning. You cannot start relationships and you have trouble sustaining them.

With this discovery, the correlation between social anxiety and depression is more understandable. If you are unable to create relationships, you are doomed to living an unhappy life.

Social Anxiety is a curse that looms over your whole life. It eats into your happiness, your success and everything in between. You need to defend yourself against it. You need to make overcoming shyness and social anxiety among your top priorities.

Why Do You Feel Shy

The etymology of the word “shyness” is interesting because it suggests that its root is fear. The word “shy” originated from the Proto-Germanic skeukh(w)az, which means “afraid”. Many languages followed suit: the late Old English sceoh—”timid, easily startled,” the German scheuchen—”to scare away,” the Old French eschiver—”to shun,” and the Italian schivare—”to avoid.”

To overcome shyness, you have to face your fears. But shyness and the fears that give rise to it vary from one person to another. For example, I’m not afraid of public speaking. I’ve spoken to groups of various sizes, ranging from a few to a few hundred people, and I was never as intimidated as when speaking to a single stranger. I avoided people I didn’t know. When I was forced to interact, for example, asking a shop clerk about something, it wasn’t so bad. But I wasn’t able to start a conversation with a stranger on my own, especially with attractive women. I was paralysed by fear, I had butterflies in my stomach and I always talked myself out of starting a conversation.

I could give speeches all day long, but I don’t suppose it would have improved my one-on-one social skills significantly. Social anxiety, introversion and shyness can each display with different intensities and in varying forms.

You’ll need to understand and overcome your own combination.

3 Easy Steps to Conquer Your Social Anxiety or Shyness

1. Face your fears

Have you ever tried to start a conversation while having a lump in your throat? I have. It’s harder than any physical work.

Of course, in the beginning, the fear is overwhelming; you are simply unable to act against it. Your own body betrays you—your knees go weak; your hands shake; your voice trembles; your stomach becomes uneasy; a lump forms in your throat; you flush and sweat. You may suffer some of those symptoms or all of them at once.

When I was writing my book From Shy to Hi, I recall reading those clinical definitions of shyness that described physical sensations. Those definitions incited the same sensations in me. If you are anything like me, even the thought of facing your fear might trigger the same reactions in your body. But, you have no other choice than to act in spite of your fear. There is simply no other alternative.

Inaction = failure

One of the pillars of my philosophy is a firm belief that inaction is the only foolproof method to fail. If I don’t do anything, I won’t accomplish anything. If I give up, the results will never come. How could they if there is no power to generate them in the first place?

My other core belief is that even the smallest action always brings results and even the smallest results are better than nothing. Thus, giving up is irrational. Yes, the effects I see may be disappointing, but if I give up and do nothing, there will be no results at all!

With these beliefs and attitudes, giving up is not a viable option. It’s not even an appropriate idea to play with. Such thinking is idle and useless. A better use of my time would be to work out ways to improve my actions or figure out what hinders my progress. If you won’t act against your fear, you will be sentenced to an existence shadowed by shyness.

There is a school of thought that preaches acceptance of yourself and your shyness, but I don’t buy it. It’s OK to feel comfortable in your own skin, but the negative effects of shyness I’ve listed are real. Self-acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t attempt to change what hurts you. And change you must, if you wish to live a full life.

Related » Let’s get your fear out of the way

» Keep your reasons for overcoming social anxiety in mind

I have found that change is less painful than sticking with the status quo. In the short term, the pain of being a bit unhappy or a bit less successful is not very severe and you probably become used to it. But it compounds and the years of shyness become more agonising than several months of facing your fears.

For me, I felt strangled in my shy shell. I truly wanted to help more people, but I couldn’t reach out to them. When I couldn’t overcome my fear and help others, I didn’t feel fully human. The idea of improving my prospects was just a bonus. Most of all, I wanted to love people like they deserve.

Overcoming your fear will not be even half as scary as you imagine. Find your own reason and review it in your mind at least once a day. Keep the reward in front of your mind’s eye. This will be the reason you’ll go past your comfort zone. I assure you that soon you will feel at ease outside of it as well.

Make no mistake, the change will be difficult. Facing your fear will be painful. However, the pain will reduce the second and third time you act against it. And your fear will keep shrinking with time. Besides, as the popular acronym says, fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real. When you face it, you will discover how insubstantial your trepidation was.

Once I felt sheer terror at the thought of speaking to a stranger. When I faced my fear, I discovered—surprise, surprise—they didn’t bite my face off! They didn’t scream at me and weren’t hostile to me. It had all been in my imagination. The worst thing I got from a stranger was indifference.

2. Plan ways to track your progress

How will you face your fear? It depends on you. It depends on what your particular challenge is. Are you shy of people of the opposite gender? Are you afraid of public speaking? Are you unable to approach a stranger as I was?

The good news is, you know what your problem is and you have a solution, too. It’s within you. Ask and you shall receive. The moment I asked myself what can I do about my shyness, the answer was clear: I needed to speak to strangers.

You may be clueless as to the exact path to take, but you know your heart’s desire. Once you know what troubles you and what to do about it, you know the destination. The specific path may be a matter of trial and error, but as long as you know where you are going and you take action, reaching the destination is just a matter of time.

At first when I decided to talk to strangers, I gritted my teeth, mobilised my willpower, and sought occasions to talk to new people every day. I fell flat on my face because I started too ambitiously for my timid, reserved personality. I was in no position to talk to strangers. The thought of approaching someone and opening my mouth paralysed me. Each time I tried, my heart pounded, my hands shook and butterflies had a party in my stomach.

Even thinking about those early experiences causes my body to become tense. Talking to a stranger seemed to be the toughest, most impossible act in the universe.

» I confronted my problem by habit-tracking

I used a sheet of paper with the list of my habits-in-construction, ticking them off when I succeeded, or writing a minus sign when I failed. I tasked myself with talking to strangers every day.

Going through my notes after a few weeks, I realised that I had a lot more minuses in the “talk to strangers” category than in all other habits put together. I realised, there might be something wrong with my approach in that discipline. I examined my attempts and results, and decided I was not ready to talk to strangers yet. Trying it was draining my energy and undermining my self-confidence rather than driving growth.

I had to change my approach.

With this mental feedback, I could redesign my discipline. I painstakingly planned it from scratch. I’m a firm believer in consistency and continuity, so talking to strangers remained on my list of daily actions.

But this time, I started small.

Because conversations were too ambitious for me, I committed to just making eye contact with a stranger and smiling at him or her. I was so socially awkward that even this was challenging and I still found myself collecting a few minuses on my tracking sheet. However, I didn’t want to stop at smiling, so I set three levels of difficulty.

• Level 1: The relatively passive activity of making eye contact and smiling.
• Level 2: Chime in on an existing conversation.
• Level 3: The hard level: Start a conversation with a stranger.

I gave a lot of time and attention to details like these to help revive and support my determination.

» Tracking your progress in detail can bring fast results!

My experience is that the more detailed you make your tracking, the faster you will achieve results. When I was satisfied to register smiling at a stranger once a day, I didn’t pay much attention to this discipline for the rest of the day. When I decided to track every single instance of performing a habit that I was currently developing, my results were fast and furious.

Of course, more detailed tracking is also more taxing. You need to channel more of your energy for every single action you take, and you also sacrifice the time it takes for those actions. It may be only a second or two at a time, but if you measure the number of smiles [in this case], it compounds very fast.

Again, you are in control of the process. You get to decide whether or not to track in greater detail. You know how much you need to be accountable and how soon you desire to be free from the shackles of shyness. It’s your call.

3. Action is the key to overcoming social anxiety

I’ve theorised a lot, but what will really liberate you is action. Your action. To obtain different results, you need different action. No affirmations, incantations or visualisations will move you forward one inch without action. They may prepare the groundwork, but they won’t substitute for action.

Take a look at this chart.

Your personal philosophy is—has always been—constantly shaped by your input. The information you give most attention to is your results and they stem from your actions. Which action you decide to take and how much heart you put into it will depend on your beliefs which, in turn, are formed by your personal philosophy.

It’s a cycle. Results are all but impossible without action, because personal philosophy and beliefs are hard to change for most people. We are not used to tampering with our heads and altering our thoughts. It’s not something they teach at school, is it? Taking action, however, is accessible and instantaneous. This you have control over and can execute at a moment’s notice.

For the record: I don’t believe in progress if it’s not translated into daily discipline. If you don’t practise every day that which you want to improve, you set yourself up to fail. Daily practice is the base on which you can build and from which you can grow. Keeping that in mind, your actions should be as big as you can sustain.

When I began my quest to overcoming social anxiety, speaking to a stranger was beyond my capabilities, therefore I couldn’t sustain that discipline. Mustering all my courage, willpower and energy I was able to start a conversation with a stranger about once in two weeks.

» Don’t try too much at once

Deciding to perform an unsustainable discipline is a recipe for disaster. You will fail and you will beat yourself up for your failure. Instead of focusing on what you should be doing, you will focus on chastising yourself.

Once you design your discipline and at least try to do it every day, tracking comes into play. In my case, tracking helped me realise that I wasn’t able to sustain such a “big” habit as talking to strangers every day. Thus, I decided to make eye contact and smile at strangers because that was within the realm of my capabilities.

The more often you show up the better. Your discipline should be done at least once a day. This is the approach I prescribe to everyone for everything, the approach that will build a habit for you.

When you do something every day and you actually take notice of that activity, you feel like you invested a lot into it. You will not want to lose that “investment”. This mind trick will help you to resist the temptation to quit.

Take three minutes right now and answer the questions below off the top of your head:

• What am I afraid in social interactions?
• How does that make me feel?
• How would I like to feel instead?
• What I need to do, who do I need to become, to feel that?
• What daily action can I take to make it true?
• What’s the tiniest action I can do every day to move me closer to that goal?

Quick answers are usually as good as the well-thought-out ones and, in any case, it’s not like they are set in stone. You can change your course later on. But those “here and now” answers have given you some substance to act upon.

You’ve discovered the tiniest action that will start your journey from shyness to confidence. Perform it ASAP, preferably right away.

» Beginning is always the hardest part of the process

But you’ll start, won’t you? You want to have it done.

Initially, your actions may be altogether internal. If you are afraid of public speaking, visualise yourself on stage confidently speaking to a big crowd. If you are afraid of talking to strangers, notice people around you and perform imaginary chats with them in your head.

Your subconscious cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality, so you will gain confidence through those visualisations. You can’t rely solely on them however, because it is action that gives a true boost to your confidence.

Every time I looked someone in the eyes, every time I smiled at a stranger, I found arguments with which to counter my internal critic: “See? I can do that! I’m not hopeless! I can actually do something to improve!”

You Can Conquer Your Social Anxiety!

Overcoming social anxiety doesn’t need polished first liners, wonderfully white teeth or a body language that emanates confidence. It takes minuscule habits practised every day with consistency. Your habits determine who you are. If you always look down to avoid interactions, try raising your head a few times a day when you are in uncomfortable social situation.

It doesn’t take more than that. I assure you, it’s worth it to become more confident. It will affect your whole life, every single aspect of it. The habits you make will grow in strength with time and you will be able to start bolder actions.

Here are a few things I’ve been able to change in my life since I challenged myself to make new habits and track my results:

• I made new friendships, both online and offline,
• I improved my professional skills by passing a few exams and got a new job [with 35% higher salary].
• I learned how to network online and I am in contact with entrepreneurs who have six-, seven- and eight-figure businesses.
• I made at least a dozen strangers happy by praising them spontaneously.
• I lost excess weight and have kept my body trim and fit for the last three years.
• I beat around 100 personal fitness records.
• I became an author; I published 12 books and sold over 17,000 copies of them.
• Hundreds of thousands of people read my stuff online.
• Thanks to my publishing side business and increased salary I bought the first house for my family and I have been able to pay off the mortgage two times faster than the bank’s plan had set up.
• My influence caused a ripple effect—at least a few of my readers published their own first book.

All of these things are awesome. I feel more in control of my own life, enjoy it more and contribute more to the lives of others.

But do you know what’s best? I love people more. It’s not just a fuzzy feeling inside my chest any more. Nowadays I can take action: smile at someone, make eye contact and wink, praise spontaneously or offer my help. I’m no longer constricted by my shyness.

This is real. I no longer live in a shell.

Also read » Overcome hesitation in 4 easy steps

Conclusion: How My Life Changed After I Overcame My Social Anxiety

In February 2012, the millionaire Brendon Burchard launched a product called “Expert Academy”. He put some free videos on the web to promote the launch. Bernard threw a challenge in his video: make a video talking about five life lessons. He would give away five tickets to his event and pay for the winners’ plane tickets. I decided to try. It would be the first video I’d ever made. I wrote the script while commuting on the train. One of the points to cover was: “Take action.”

As I worked on the script, I noticed an old lady sitting next to me deep in prayer. I thought: “I pray every day, we have something in common. I will ask her about her prayers.” At this point, my shy nature reacted with panic: “Oh, no! That would be rude! It will be disaster! Don’t do it!”

And I didn’t.

After several minutes, I wrote the words “Take action!” in the script. This time I felt compelled to speak to the old lady. I did, and found out that she had two very ill grandchildren, one had heart problems and the other, autism. I learned that their parents struggle financially. I decided to take action, and I’ve been helping them financially since that time.

The old lady’s son-in-law is an atheist; he more or less makes fun of her Christian beliefs. The fact that some stranger is donating money for his son, solely because the stranger saw his mother-in-law praying, is incomprehensible to him. It’s totally contrary to his worldview, where everybody cares only for themselves. He hasn’t converted to Christianity or anything, but this gesture caused a rupture in his belief system. Maybe, with time, it will transform into something greater.

That year, I got Christmas wishes from the family. The lady I talked to, the grandmother of those ill kids, prays for me every day. And I get tears in my eyes every time I think about it [even now, as I write this].

That was the first time my chat with a stranger affected my life and the lives of others, but it wasn’t the last. That conversation happened when I really did not feel ready to talk to strangers. It was a great struggle. But the rewards that blossomed from it—being able to help others, knowing that I am making a difference—were well worth the struggle.

Now I love more. So will you. Take action, affect your personal philosophy and set of beliefs. Become someone liberated from the curse of shyness and social anxiety. Love more.

The post How to Conquer Social Anxiety and Shyness: A Practical Guide appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.