5 Powerful Changes You Can Make To Relieve Anxiety, Stop Negative Thoughts and Be Happy

From birth to death, people have always been looking for happiness. We often hear this phrase a lot, "I just want to be happy". Have you ever stopped and thought about what it means to be "happy"? Why no matter how hard you try, happiness comes hard for you, and it seems to come easier for others? What is your personal definition of happiness? How can you tell if you're truly happy?

This post will give you a few tips and tricks to be able to change the way you think, just a little bit, that can result in powerful change in the direction of true happiness!

Let's get to it!

Recovering From Failures

The human race has built itself into what it is today using only 1 tool: failure.

A spin off of the Charles Dickens quote in the opening of his book A Tale of Two Cities goes like this: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, truly the best of times". This means that through all the good times and all the bad times there's always a silver lining, a positive aspect that makes it all worth it.

Successful people have also faced many difficulties and failures in which they've turned into strong positive roots moving forward by learning from them and fully appreciating their roles in making themselves into more knowledgeable and better people for it.

Approval Seeking

You may sometimes be unsure if your decisions are the right ones and are constantly looking for approval from others to mitigate the risk of having a negative outcome.

In the end this behaviour may make you seem less confident in your decisions. Make concise and confident recommendations and delegations with positive expectations in mind. This will not only free your mind of the negative burden of stress and anxiety but it will also, with time and experience, make for more successful decisions and help develop confidence.

You may also be seeking the approval of your peers in school or "the popular kids". This, subconsciously, makes other feel as if you are not comfortable with who you are. You are who you are, and who you are is great. By constantly seeking approval you are suppressing your own personality. Show people who you are and remember not to look for validation from them. If you amuse yourself and make yourself happy then you will also amuse other people and they will like you for who you are.

Always anticipate that people will like you, if you really believe it then it will come true because your mind and body will make the adjustments necessary with that confidence to make it reality.

Outcome Dependency

Outcome dependency is very similar to approval seeking. What you want to try to notice when you are showing signs of outcome dependency and make conscious decisions to free your mind of the outcome, be present, go with the flow and anticipate only positivity.

If by chance your school presentation doesn't go well, you do not get the job, or your decision results poorly then you should be happy because you've just learned so much from that experience which will make you better and stronger next time!

If you are OK with learning from failures, you should have no reason to fear the outcome of a situation.

Comparisons & Jealousy

Notice your thinking patterns. You are not alone, many people often compare themselves with others in this manner, some of us may not even be fully aware that we are comparing ourselves at this, or any, extent.

We want to be prettier, happier, have more money and things; this makes us feel bad about our own self and causes us to resent and repel others, you start to miss out on great opportunities, friendships and life lessons.

Instead of comparing your life with others, compare your life only to YOUR life. Think of yourself as the only person you need to impress and prove something to. Have an inner battle with yourself, challenge yourself to be more and do more. Check in with your own progress from time to time and reward yourself for it.

Giving Positivity

Selfless acts in general make you feel positive about yourself and spread positivity to others, the more positivity we have in this world the easier it is to be happy. Compassion is one of the life's most wonderful feelings and gifts. It will make a big difference in your life and happiness.

Here are some ideas of how you can give positive energy or do some good deeds in this world:

Donate to charity

Help a friend in need

Volunteer for something you're passionate about

Buy a gift or flowers for your mother or grandmother

Allow a fellow driver to merge into your lane

Write a thank you note to someone who won't expect it

Compliment others

Hold the door for others

Say hello to others and smile

Pick up trash from the sidewalk

Help someone who seems to be struggling with something

For you to accept positivity you must firstly disarm the power that negativity has over you. Be aware and be the person you want to become.

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Improving The Quality Of Your Life One Step At A Time

Feel like your life is bankrupt sometimes? Knowing how to improve the quality of your life can't be left for chance or vague notions.

Knowing how others have improved the quality of their lifestyles is what you need. Here are 7 keys to guarantee the quality and substance of your life will get better:

1. You can't deny that all of your life hinges upon the quality of your health. Without good health, you can't maintain the lifestyle you desire, and good health doesn't stay by accident. Paying attention to your health is the starting place for improvement.

2. The way you handle finances has a direct bearing on the condition of every part of your life. Irresponsibility to money causes untold stress in every part of life. Personal money management is a must when it comes to improving your life.

3. The condition of your life is reflected by the friends you keep. You are the people you surround yourself with. Are your friends exemplifying the quality of life you desire? Chose friends wisely for the best life possible.

4. Gratitude is the unsung hero of all great people living dynamic and enhanced lives. Gratitude includes a thank you, but goes much deeper. Thankfulness for what you have is an attitude that when practiced brings life beyond your wildest expectations.

5. Simplicity is the opposite of confusion and drama. Make your life as simple as possible by deleting everything in it that you don't truly love. Take a look around your home, and decide what you truly need, and use. Discard everything else so that your life has room to expand and improve.

6. Give, give, give. Don't be tricked into thinking that giving what you have no use for will expand the quality of your life. To watch the quality of your life explode start looking around for someone in need of what you have already. Give your money, your possessions, and your time. When you give what you use and need it will come back many times over.

7. Last and not least is a plan to learn how to improve the quality of your life. Set aside an hour each week to do nothing more than think and read about methods for making your life better. This will make you conscious of what needs changing and how to change.

Getting the most out of anything always requires giving all you have, and life is no different. Make your life a long and rewarding adventure when you live it with a conscious intention to make it great.

Plus - You Can Now Join Our FREE Mastering Success Facebook Community at www.masteringsuccess.group

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5 Barriers That You Need to Cross to Achieve Success in 2017

It is a fact that success is achieved with a lot of hard work, struggle and persistence. However, one important factor that is usually ignored is mental strength. Some people are generally good when it comes to emotional stability or mental strength, however, others can work on it to make it better.

Mental and emotional strength can be developed with proper focus on it. However, to work on the development of emotional strength, it is important to analyze how you are spending your time. This will help you explore things that you need to quit doing and things that you need to work on.
Here are 5 barriers that you put into your own path:

1. Jealousy

When an individual decides to analyze and focus on other people’s blessings, this is where jealousy acts as a barrier to an individual’s own success. If you want to achieve success and mental peace, then it is very important to focus on things that you possess rather than things you don’t own. Moreover, somebody else’s luck cannot take anything away from you. Jealousy is an illusion and a barrier to success.


“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” – Fulton J. Sheen

2. Seeking perfectionism

It is observed that individuals delay things as they seek perfectionism. It is important to understand that perfectionism is actually underestimating yourself that you are not good enough. Perfectionism acts as a barrier to success. It leads an individual to depression and anxiety. It is important to overcome this barrier in order to gain success in 2017.

3. Comparing yourself to others

A true waste of time, effort and resources is comparing yourself to others. Successful people would never do it as they know that they are one of a kind. So if you really want to compare anything, it must be what you have achieved and what you are willing to achieve. Overcome this obstacle to achieve success in 2017.

4. Blaming others

It is a common attribute where an individual takes all the credit for the achievements and success. However, when things don’t work out then it gets easier for an individual to blame others. Blaming others for your failures is actually the biggest obstacle to success. You need to stop blaming others and starting focusing on solving the problems if you are really looking forward to achieve success in 2017.


“Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.” – Joseph Campbell

5. Doubting yourself

Commonly, people doubt themselves on various occasions or instances. Where there is a doubt, there is no way. Hence, whenever a doubt comes in your mind, then it is time to remember all the things you have achieved. To overcome doubting yourself, it is important to remember the distance you have covered to be where you are today. Stop doubting yourself because it holds you back from moving forward.

Crossing these 5 barriers will help you gain mental and emotional strength. With enhanced and improved mental strength, you are going to be more powerful at work. This will definitely help you to overcome a lot of your weaknesses. In fact, it can be all that you require to achieve success in 2017.

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6 Signs It’s Time to Change Your Life

Is it time to make some changes in your life? It just might be. Life is too short to not live it to the fullest.

Here are some signs it’s time to change your life.

1. Every week, you cannot wait for Friday.

Fridays are fun, but one thing I’ve discovered in my quest to find and do work I absolutely love is that almost every day can be really fun. If you’re saving all your living for the weekends, it’s time to truly think about your lifestyle and consider making some changes. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to have plans you look forward to on the weekends, but what if you could have that excited Friday feeling most, if not all, days of the week? It takes a lot of self-discovery and work, but it’s truly possible to live a life you love—even on Mondays.



2. You live for your vacations.


Vacations are great, but what’s even better is building a life you don’t need to take a vacation from. As Seth Godin said, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Vacations are fun and exciting, but even better is building a life where you have the potential to do what lights you up many weeks of the year, not just your two allotted vacation weeks.

3. When you stop and think about it, you’re really not focusing your life on your priorities.
Write down your 3 top priorities. Then write down the 3 things you focus most of your life on. Are you spending your time living your top priorities? Consistently spending time doing what matters most to you is one of the keys to feeling fulfilled in your life. If you’re not focusing your life on what’s important to you, it’s time to make some changes.

4. You have no idea what lights you up, and you don’t have the space in your life to discover it.


If you haven’t found your passion in your current life, you’re not going to find it if you continue to do your same routine, over and over, year after year. In order to discover what lights you up, start by creating the space in your life to seek it. Give yourself time to figure out who you are, what your strengths are, and what picques your interest. Experiment with learning new things, spending time with inspiring people, and doing more of what excites you and less of the things that suck your energy.

5. You’re frequently jealous.


If you find yourself frequently feeling jealous of someone, there are 3 changes to consider making:
Make a point to focus on your path instead of his or her journey. Sometimes this involves taking a break from social media.
Get inspired from the person you’re jealous of, and work toward a similar goal in your life.
Decide what the other person has is not something you are willing to put in the effort to achieve, so you’ll cheer him or her on but choose to not be jealous.

When you are feeling jealous, consider why you want what the other person has, and what your motives are. Living a life on your terms, focused on your priorities, passions, and strengths, will provide you with much more fulfilment than trying to be somebody else.

6. You can’t remember the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone.

According to Neale Donald Walsch, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Your life can become even more amazing if you stretch beyond your comfort zone. If you’re not sure where to start, try the tips in this article about small ways to step out of your comfort zone.

Life is too short to spend your years not living to your full potential. If you decide you’re ready to change your life, I encourage you to start taking small action steps toward the life you want to live. Keep moving forward.

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Kobe Bryant’s Powerful Letter to His 17 Year Old Self

The All-Star basketball legend Kobe Bryant shares his letter to his 17-year old self.

Kobe’s letter is below:

Dear 17-year-old self,

When your Laker dream comes true tomorrow, you need to figure out a way to invest in the future of your family and friends. This sounds simple, and you may think it’s a no-brainer, but take some time to think on it further.

I said INVEST.

I did not say GIVE.

Let me explain.

Purely giving material things to your siblings and friends may appear to be the right decision. You love them, and they were always there for you growing up, so it’s only right that they should share in your success and all that comes with it. So you buy them a car, a big house, pay all of their bills. You want them to live a beautiful, comfortable life, right?

But the day will come when you realize that as much as you believed you were doing the right thing, you were actually holding them back.

You will come to understand that you were taking care of them because it made YOU feel good, it made YOU happy to see them smiling and without a care in the world — and that was extremely selfish of you. While you were feeling satisfied with yourself, you were slowly eating away at their own dreams and ambitions. You were adding material things to their lives, but subtracting the most precious gifts of all: independence and growth.

Understand that you are about to be the leader of the family, and this involves making tough choices, even if your siblings and friends do not understand them at the time.

Invest in their future, don’t just give.

Use your success, wealth and influence to put them in the best position to realize their own dreams and find their true purpose. Put them through school, set them up with job interviews and help them become leaders in their own right. Hold them to the same level of hard work and dedication that it took for you to get to where you are now, and where you will eventually go.

I’m writing you now so that you can begin this process immediately, and so that you don’t have to deal with the hurt and struggle of weaning them off of the addiction that you facilitated. That addiction only leads to anger, resentment and jealousy from everybody involved, including yourself.

As time goes on, you will see them grow independently and have their own ambitions and their own lives, and your relationship with all of them will be much better as a result.

There’s plenty more I could write to you, but at 17, I know you don’t have the attention span to sit through 2,000 words.

The next time I write to you, I may touch on the challenges of mixing blood with business. The most important advice I can give to you is to make sure your parents remain PARENTS and not managers.

Before you sign that first contract, figure out the right budget for your parents — one that will allow them to live beautifully while also growing your business and setting people up for long-term success. That way, your children’s kids and their kids will be able to invest in their own futures when the time comes.

Your life is about to change, and things are about to come at you very fast. But just let this sink in a bit when you lay down at night after another nine-hour training day.

Trust me, setting things up right from the beginning will avoid a ton of tears and heartache, some of which remains to this day.

Much love,

Kobe

KOBE BRYANT / LOS ANGELES LAKERS

Article Originally appeared on: The Players Tribune

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