BE POSITIVE: A GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE

10 Simple Steps for a Tension Free Life

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress, and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.” – George F. Burns

Stress is a major problem for many people — a hectic, stressful job, a chaotic home life, bills to worry about, and bad habits such as unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking can lead to a mountain of stress.

If your life is full of stress, like mine once was, there are some simple things you can do to get your life to a more manageable level.

Now, your life will probably never be stress-free — I don’t think that’s even desirable, even if it is possible, because stress is something that challenges us and helps us grow. At a reasonable level. But when stress gets too high, it causes us to be unhappy and unhealthy.

It wasn’t that long ago when I was working long hours in a very stressful job, with little time for my family, smoking and eating fatty foods and not exercising. I had a lot of debt and too many bills. I was unhappy and stressed out all the time. I was losing hair … OK, actually that was because of genetics, but still. I was pretty stressed.

So I made some drastic changes. I quit my job. I simplified my life. I quit smoking and started exercising and eating healthier. I began to eliminate my debt. And I learned some habits that, when applied on a daily basis, can really transform the way you live, in a positive way.

How did I do all of this? One thing at a time. I didn’t do a major rehaul of my life. I changed one habit a month, and gradually over the course of a year or two changed a lot of things in my life.

I won’t guarantee that all of these will work for you. They worked for me, but each person is different. Pick and choose the ones that will work best for you, and give them a try. One at a time.

1. One thing at a time. This is the simplest and best way to start reducing your stress, and you can start today. Right now. Focus as much as possible on doing one thing at a time. Clear your desk of distractions. Pick something to work on. Need to write a report? Do only that. Remove distractions such as phones and email notifications while you’re working on that report. If you’re going to do email, do only that. This takes practice, and you’ll get urges to do other things. Just keep practicing and you’ll get better at it.

2. Simplify your schedule. A hectic schedule is a major cause of high stress. Simplify by reducing the number of commitments in your life to just the essential ones. Learn to say no to the rest — and slowly get out of commitments that aren’t beneficial to you. Schedule only a few important things each day, and put space between them. Get out of meetings when they aren’t absolutely essential. Leave room for downtime and fun.

3. Get moving. Do something each day to be active — walk, hike, play a sport, go for a run, do yoga. It doesn’t have to be grueling to reduce stress. Just move. Have fun doing it.

4. Develop one healthy habit this month. Other than getting active, improving your health overall will help with the stress. But do it one habit at a time. Eat fruits and veggies for snacks. Floss every day. Quit smoking. Cook something healthy for dinner. Drink water instead of soda. One habit at a time.

5. Do something calming. What do you enjoy that calms you down? For many people, it can be the “get moving” activity discussed above. But it could also be taking a nap, or a bath, or reading, or having sex (which can also be considered a “get moving” activity if you do it for longer than 5 minutes). Other people are calmed by housework or yard work. Some people like to meditate or take a nature walk. Find your calming activity and try to do it each day.

6. Simplify your finances. Finances can be a drain on your energy and a major stressor. If that’s true with you, figure out ways to simplify things. Automate savings and bill payments and debt payments. Spend less by going shopping (at malls or online) much less. Find ways to have fun that don’t involve spending money.

7. Have a blast! Have fun each day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. I like to play with my kids — they take my mind off everything and are really hilarious. I also like to play sports (again, often with my kids). Board games are fun. Sex, again, can be a fun activity. Whatever you choose, be sure to laugh.

8. Get creative. Throwing yourself into a creative activity is another great way to de-stress and to prevent stress. I like writing, but others like to paint or play music or sketch or make pottery or do interior design or build things.

9. Declutter. This is a favorite of mine. I like to take 20-30 minutes and just go through a room, getting rid of stuff we don’t use or need anymore. I look around at anything that’s cluttering up a room, and get rid of it or find a better place for it. When I’m done, I have a nice, peaceful environment for work, play, and living. Do this a little at a time — it can be one of your “fun activities”.

10. Be early. I will admit that it’s hard to be early when you have to get 6 kids ready (seriously — try it!). But being late can be very stressful. Try to leave earlier by getting ready earlier, or by scheduling more space between events. Things always take longer than normal, so schedule some buffer time: extra time to get ready, to commute, to do errands before you need to be somewhere, to attend a meeting before another scheduled appointment. If you get somewhere early, it’s good to have some reading material.

“Loafing needs no explanation and is its own excuse.” – Christopher Morley

How to Stop Being So Lazy: 10 Simple Habits

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”Martin Luther

When I was younger, in my early twenties, I was often lazy. Too often actually.

And so I didn’t:

Get my school work done in a good way and had to cram and stress out a few days before an exam.
Work out or cook healthy food because it felt too hard and I gained 30+ pounds of weight while my fitness levels went down.
Take care of my personal growth and dreams but mostly just let all that slide to “someday” as those things remained daydreams.

10+ years later I still love lazying around and not doing much at all.

But I’ve also learned how to keep that lazy time to a moderate and healthy amount instead of letting it hold me back and stuck in the same place of excuses for years like it used to.

This week I’d like to share 10 simple habits that have helped me to make that change.

To stop being so lazy and get what really matters done by working smarter. While still having room for guilt-free lazy time to spend as I like.

1. Be kind to yourself.

When you feel that you’ve perhaps been too lazy lately it’s common and tempting to beat yourself up about it and to hope that will lead you to start taking action.

Sometimes it does. But I have found that beating yourself up most often just leads to feeling guiltier and like a failure. And so you feel less motivated to get going and you procrastinate because there seems to be little point in even trying.

Instead of getting stuck in that self-esteem sucking place I recommend to gently nudge yourself towards the next tip in this article whenever you feel like you want to beat yourself up.

2. Start with just a small step forward.

The hardest thing is often to simply get started.

So make that as easy as you can to reduce the inner resistance and to actually take action. Start with just taking a small step forward:

Go out running for only 3 minutes.
Do the dishes for 5 minutes.
Write on that report you’ve been procrastinating on for 10 minutes.

I use this habit almost every day in some way. I’m for example creating a new course and my daily aim over the past months has usually been to write 1 page a day. And now that the writing is done the aim as I start my day is often to edit 1 page.

That’s it. But it has never stopped at only 1 page in these months, I have written or edited a whole bunch more each day.

3. Do a small part of what matters most first thing in your day.

To feel like you can enjoy your lazy/rest time fully and without guilt it’s important to actually get what truly matters in the long run done each week.

So start your day with that. But make it easy on yourself by breaking down that task into smaller steps and then focus on just the first one.

Get on it right away to get into an effective and focused mindset.

By doing so you set a good tone for your day. You get that quick 5-10 minute win in first thing and you’ll be a lot more motivated to keep going on that path during the rest of your day.

Instead of starting with busy work like checking emails – this may be vital to do first thing for some but for many it’s probably not – or checking Facebook etc. and then 30 minutes later getting started with today’s work.

4. Cycle fully focused work with small breaks of rest/lazy time.

To lighten up your daily work inject small breaks between doing short but focused burst of work.

Say to yourself: I’ll do 20 minutes of work on this task now and then I can take 5 or 10 minutes of lazy time.

By breaking down your hours like this the work seems less daunting. And you’ll feel energetic and motivated longer and do work of better quality if you allow yourself these pauses of rest and time to lazy around on Facebook, with a game or with just relaxing in the grass or with short walk in the park.

Then, after some time, you may want to work for 40 minutes before you take a 10 minute break. But go easy on yourself at first.

And if you have trouble with sticking to your time-limits then use an app on your phone or a simple egg-timer from your kitchen.

5. Shut down the escape routes temporarily.

Just sitting down at for example your computer and trying to do fully focused work for 5 or 20 minutes may not result in any work of importance getting done.

Not if you don’t remove those things that you usually use to procrastinate.

So ask yourself: where do I usually escape to instead of doing my work?

For me it’s for example often my smart phone and checking Reddit, Twitter or random internet browsing.

So I put my phone in silent mode and I put it at the other end of our home when I work. By setting up that small physical obstacle I avoid the phone trap maybe 95% of the time.

If you:

Have the same issue with gaming then put your controller far away in your home while working.
Escape to Facebook or other websites on your computer then block that for a little while by using for example StayFocusd.
Watch TV then pull out the cords to it. Or remove one of the cords completely and put it at the other end of your home.

6. List the downsides and upsides for renewed motivation.

Asking yourself better questions tend to give better answers.

Two sets of questions that I have sat down and asked myself with closed eyes and that have refueled my motivation many times are:

How will my life look in 5 years if I just continue to stay on the same path as now?
How will life likely become worse for me and maybe even for the people around me?

This is not like beating yourself up but rather a sober examination of where it’s realistic that you’re heading. And it may be uncomfortable but try to see the negative consequences as vividly as you can in your mind to kickstart your motivation to get going for that positive change.

Then ask yourself:

How will my life look in 1 year if I get started, stick with it and keep going with this change?
How will life improve not only for me but for the people that I love if I stick with it?

7. Unclutter your life.

When your life’s too cluttered and overwhelming then you may shut down and procrastinate by lying lazily on the couch and just watching the TV or your smart phone.

When that’s the case then start uncluttering both your work hours and your private time. Two questions that have helped me to do that and to find what is most important are:

What would I work on if I only had 2 hours for work today?
If I had just 1 hour of free time today then how would I spend it?

Use these to get out of an old rut, to question your normal day a bit and to find your top priorities.

Then see what you can eliminate, minimize or perhaps delegate of the things that are not contained in your answers.

8. Be OK with stumbling from time to time.

The fear of failure can hold you back in a state of doing easier things and in what you may see as being lazy.

But everyone that go for what they truly want and outside of their comfort zone stumbles and fails from time to time. That’s just a part of a life well lived (even if we don’t hear about people’s setbacks as often as their successes).

See a setback as a learning experience and as a way to be more constructive and kinder to yourself.

You can do that by asking yourself these two questions after you’ve stumbled:

What is 1 thing I can learn from this situation?
How would my best friend/parent support me and help me in this situation? (Then talk to yourself and do things like she or he would).

9. Let the enthusiasm, energy and motivation of others in.

Whatever you let into your mind and life will influence you. If the people you hang out the most with are generally a bit lazy about work or school then it’s easy to just adapt to that mood and way of thinking and go with it.

But if you spend more time with motivated people in real life and via books, the internet, podcasts and audio books then that will start to influence your thinking and mood too.

So think about what you let into your mind on a daily and weekly basis and if you want make a few changes to that.

10. Truly appreciate and enjoy your lazy time.

Time spent on just lazying around helps me to relax and recharge and it makes me happy.

But if I do it too much then it does become less healthy for me. It:

Starts to frustrate me because I’m not moving forward towards what I want.
Creates stress instead of relaxing me because I’m not getting what’s important done and that could have negative consequences quite soon.

Still, at a moderate amount spending some time on being lazy is truly beneficial for me.

And I’ve found that when you think a little about how you want to spend your lazy time – no matter if it’s a 10 minute break or a lazy Sunday – and use that time on something you really enjoy like reading a book you love rather than aimlessly watching TV-shows you’re just OK with then that time does not only brings more happiness and fulfillment.

I’ve also learned that when I spend my lazy time in this more conscious way I’m more motivated and energized to go back to work again later on.

So I make sure to appreciate and fully enjoy the lazy time I have and create for myself because I know that it will benefit me in several important ways.

68 Inspiring Relationship Quotes

At the heart of life lie the relationships we have with other people.

With family, co-workers and friends close by and far away at the other side of the world.

And how you let these relationships flow and grow has huge impact on the happiness both in your life and in the lives of the people you care about.

So this week I’d like to look back into the past and share some of the best advice from the wise people who have walked this earth.

This is 68 of the most thought-provoking, touching, inspiring and helpful quotes on relationships.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
– Anais Nin
“A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself — to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.”
– Leo F. Buscaglia
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
– Walter Winchell
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
– Carl Jung
“Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”
– William James
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
– Donald Miller
“If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“No road is long with good company.”
— Turkish Proverb
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Carl W. Buechner
“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.”
— Joseph F. Newton Men
“Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”
— Swedish Proverb
“You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”
— Epicurus
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”
— Audrey Hepburn
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
— Dale Carnegie
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind.
Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts. Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind. Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts.
For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior. Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.”
— Wayne Dyer
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”
— Henry Winkler
“A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence; which costs us nothing.”
— John Tillotson
“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”
— Andre Breton
“Relationships-of all kinds-are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is.
The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled.
A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.”
— Kaleel Jamison
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”
— Honore de Balzac
“Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.”
— Miles Franklin
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one”
— C.S. Lewis
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
— Thomas Merton
“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.”
— Victor Hugo
“Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words ‘for ever.’ But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don’t like doing it.”
— Marian Keyes
“We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.”
— Joyce Meyer
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
— James Baldwin
“Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.”
— Leo Buscaglia
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.”
— Anthony Robbins
“The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.”
— Dale Carnegie
“We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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“It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.”
— Norman Vincent Peale
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
— Oprah Winfrey
“What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.”
— Leo Buscaglia
“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”
— Mark Twain
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
— Frederick Buechner
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
— Gilbert K. Chesterton
“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”
— David Tyson Gentry
“When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising.
This can go on and on–series polygamy–until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment.
Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”
— Tom Robbins
“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.”
— Joseph Addison
“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
— Tennessee Williams
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
— Carl Jung
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”
— Dale Carnegie
“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”
— Henry James
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
— Catherine Ponder
“Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.”
— Alain de Botton
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
— Mahatma Gandhi.
“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.”
– William Arthur Ward
“What is uttered from the heart alone, will win the hearts of others to your own.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
– George Burns
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
– Confucius
“Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
– Albert Camus
“Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is a very old human need.”
– Margaret Mead
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness. “
– Leo F. Buscaglia
“There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west –
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.”
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”
– Donna Roberts
“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”
— Wayne Dyer
“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
– Paul Boose
“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.”
– Winnie the Pooh
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust

What is your favorite quote on relationships? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below.

How to Build Self-Confidence

As you look around at your fellow human beings, you will find it hard to ignore the fact that very few people are happy, fulfilled and leading purposeful lives. Most of them seem unable to cope with their problems and the circumstances of daily living. The majority, settling for the average, have resigned themselves to “just getting by.” Resignation to mediocrity has become a way of life. As a result, feelings of inadequacy cause them, quite humanly, to blame society, people, circumstances, and surrounding conditions for their failures and disappointments. The idea that people and things control their lives is so thoroughly ingrained in their thinking that they normally will not respond to logical arguments that prove otherwise. William James, the eminent philosopher and psychologist, once observed that, “The greatest discovery of our age has been that we, by changing the inner aspects of our thinking, can change the outer aspects of our lives.” Wrapped up in this brief statement is the dynamic truth that we are not victims, but co-creators in the building of our lives and the world around us. Or, as another sage puts it, “We aren’t what we think we are, but what we think, we are!”

THE SHEEP STATE OF MIND

A lesson that has taken us far too long to learn is that the opposite of bravery is not cowardliness, but conformity. You may have spent valuable, irreplaceable years trying to fit into the parade only to learn, too late, that you will never fit it. What makes us follow each other like sheep? It is because we are trying to conform to the majority.

It’s time to break out of this sheep state of mind and stop punishing ourselves because we are different from our family, friends or anyone else for that matter. Much of our suffering can be eliminated if we refuse to let our life be marred by conformity. To think that our life is controlled in any way by another individual, group, or society imposes a condition of mental slavery which makes us a prisoner by our own decree. Our thoughts become the blueprint, which attract from our subconscious mind all the elements that go into fulfilling our concepts, whether they are positive or negative. What we have in our life right now is the outward manifestation of what has been going on in our mind. We have literally attracted everything that has come into our life, good or bad, happy or sad, success or failure. This includes all facets of our experience including business, marriage, health or personal affairs. Think about it! Your surroundings, your environment, your world all outwardly picture what you think about inwardly. By discovering why you are the way you are, you also find the key to being what you want to be.

You can read my previous article on How to build self-confidence.

THE POWER TO CHANGE

Shakespeare said, “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

Does this describe you? Do you concentrate on your limitations, your failures, your blundering way of doing things, seldom stopping to think of what you might be? The problem is that you have been conditioned since childhood by false concepts, values and beliefs that have prevented you from realizing how truly capable and unique you are. By virtue of your role as co-creator of your life, you have the power to change any of its aspects. Every great teacher has come to the same conclusion: you cannot look to someone outside yourself to solve your problems. As the Master Teacher reminded us so often, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” It is not in some distant land, and it is not up in the sky. Buddha came to the same realization when he said, “Be a lamp unto your own feet and do not seek outside yourself.” Self-healing powers are within. Health, happiness, abundance and peace of mind are natural states of being once you break the bonds of negative thinking.

Unless you perceive your own true worth as a person, you cannot come close to achieving total self-confidence. Only to the degree that you can truly acknowledge your own unique importance will you be able to free yourself from self-imposed limitations.

Yes, I said self-imposed! Our parents, our family, our boss or society didn’t do it to us. We do it to ourselves by allowing others to control our life.

Unless you get rid of your guilt feelings and cease belittling yourself for your imagined inadequacies, you will be one of those who continue the fruitless struggle to attain total self-confidence and personal freedom. In order to be truly free, compassionate, warm and loving, you must first begin by understanding and loving yourself. You have been told to, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” but until you have a full appreciation of who and what you are, it defrauds both you and your neighbor!

FULFILLING YOUR NEEDS FIRST

One of the principal requisites for change and a self-confident personality is to satisfy your own needs first. On the surface this may appear selfish, but let’s remind ourselves that only when we have done our best to make the most of ourselves can we be of greatest service to our families, friends, coworkers, communities, etc.

Many people use the philosophy of service to others first as an escape from taking responsibility for changing their own lives. They say that their husband or wife must come first; their boyfriend or girlfriend; their church, family or the world must come first. This is nothing but self-deception. An example of this kind of behavior is the person who buries himself sacrificially in a commendable project with missionary zeal when, in truth, he can’t face and eliminate his own problems.

You can’t change the world, but you can change yourself. The only way the human situation will improve is for each individual to take charge of his or her life. The time has come for you to stop everything else and give total priority to your needs first. This is the only way you will ever be free. Physical slavery is a punishable crime but, far worse, is mental slavery for the punishment is, as Descartes put it so well, “A life of quiet desperation.”

COME ABOARD! IT’S TAKING-OFF TIME!

You are about to start on an adventure that will reward you for the rest of your life. You are going to learn new ways to break the bonds of limitation that have been holding you back.

If you find yourself in a situation where you seem to be going nowhere, feel inadequate and unable to face life with enthusiasm and confidence, this book is for you. If you are disgusted with mediocrity, disappointed by past results and not content to just drift through life, these pages offer you an alternative. If you will allow yourself to be open and receptive to new concepts, values and beliefs, you will discover why you should and how you can systematically reorganize your thought processes to awaken THE NEW YOU.

Once you master these principles, you will have more happiness, more love, more freedom, more money and more self-confidence than you ever thought possible. Nothing is more rewarding in life than releasing your unlimited potential and leading a creative, purposeful life. It makes no difference that who you are, what you do or what your life situation is, YOU can achieve total self-confidence. And the approach is not nearly as difficult as you might think!

21 DAYS CAN MAKE A DIFFERNCE

Let’s slip backstage for a moment and steal a glimpse at a simple but very effective learning technique. It’s called THE 21-DAY HABIT.

It has been determined that it takes approximately twenty-one days to break an old, destructive habit or form a new, positive habit. It will take you at least that long too fully absorb the material in this book. Make no mistake. You will understand it immediately, but intellectual understanding alone is not enough to make the necessary changes. The real thrill comes when, at last, you KNOW it.

You must go from initial understanding to knowing. In order to know something, it must become a part of your thinking, feeling, actions and reactions. And this takes time. So don’t make the mistake of just reading the book once and saying, “I know it!” You won’t “know it” until it has been absorbed into your consciousness and becomes a new habit pattern.

Put everything aside for a while and apply your full concentration to what you are reading. The hours spent in changing your negative, self-defeating habit patterns to positive, constructive ones will be a small investment compared to the rewards of a lifetime of accomplishment and freedom.

If at times I speak forcefully it is to cut through the heavy layers of mental resistance and reach a place within you where you already “know”. Where truth is recognized and heard. When this happens, there will be a feeling of heightened aliveness as something within you says, “Yes, I do know this is true.”

You can read my previous article on How to build self-confidence.

To obtain the best results, read this book through once and familiarize yourself with the entire scope of the material. Then return to the specific chapters that are most meaningful to you. Let the principles sink deeply into your consciousness and, most importantly, ACT upon them without delay. Now, if you are ready, let’s get going!

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READ,
BE INSPIRED,
CHANGE YOUR LIFE,
OVERCOME YOUR FEARS;
BREAK YOUR HABITS
BE SUCCESSFUL AND HAPPY
BUILD YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.

So let’s just move on to some of my favorite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Change yourself.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change.

Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, laziness, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.

2. You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to overthink, freak out, worry of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

3. Forgive and let it go.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

Move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.

5. Take care of this moment.

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

6. Everyone is human.

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel self-doubt and like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.

7. Persist.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

Find what you really like to do. Then it will be easier to stay positive and you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal.

This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days.

Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.

8. See the good in people and help them.

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

Nowadays it’s easier than ever to help people out and to start such a spiral. You can do via social media, a podcast, a channel on Youtube or you can start a blog like I did.

Another tip is to strengthen your social skills. By doing you can become a more influential person and make the upward spiral I mentioned even stronger.

Move on to the next tip for more on that.

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

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

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.

10. Continue to grow and evolve.

“Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically

But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realize within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.