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.

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3 Tips for Going Off Autopilot & Taking Back Control of Your Life

Today I want to share some ideas for going off of autopilot and instead living your life on purpose. There are definitely times when doing things automatically is beneficial, but if you live in this 'auto-space' all the time, you allow life to happen to you rather than living your life the way you want.

Here are three ideas that you can use to live your life on purpose and by doing so, raise your vibrational energy, attract more positive things to you, get more done and feel much more vibrant, powerful and fulfilled.

Tip #1: Move out of the shadow and into the light. What makes you tick, what are you passionate about, where are you holding back? Tune in to who you really are and let her shine!

This is a huge topic that many books have been written on so let's just focus in on one little point... what are you doing to hold yourself back?

Most of us have been trained to hide a little bit (or a lot) of who we are. Maybe you've been told you laugh too loud or you're too quick to trust other people. Maybe it's been suggested you daydream too much and need to spend more time focusing on getting things done. Labels like; you're lazy, scattered, impulsive, lack self-control... all influence who you are and what you believe about yourself (even positive labels can hold you back!).

You also could be in a job you don't really like, but are there because someone else felt that's the career you should have. It's possible you feel afraid to course correct at this point in your life because you took schooling to get where you are or you've worked so hard to climb the ladder and to change now would seem like such a waste. Or maybe you're afraid if you stop you'll be seen as a quitter or people will think you're not smart enough, strong enough or committed enough to see things through.

Becoming aware of the areas of your life that are within your control and then using this awareness to help you make positive changes in your life is called conscious living. Noticing where you feel stagnant, uninspired or held back and then thinking about what you might do to make things just a little better can be a really great starting place for living this kind of life.

Doing things to please other people, pushing aside your real dreams and desires because you think (or have been told) they are too fanciful, is stopping you from reaching your full potential.

So when you consciously detect something is amiss, don't disregard it or push it aside because it's inconvenient. Instead, notice it, journal about it, explore it fully and see what comes to light.

Commit to finding and revealing the real you - I guarantee you she is wonderful and worth exploring.

Tip #2: Open yourself up to receive - gifts, compliments, love, healing, a helping hand...

This sounds like such a simple thing to do, yet it is not. Most of us have been taught that to need something from someone else makes you weak, immodest or sets you up to owe them and we do not like to be indebted to others. This stops us from being a true team member and collaborating effectively with others, plus it robs us of the pleasure receiving can bring.

If you struggle with receiving you can end up blocking everything you've ever desired from coming your way. Receiving and the pleasure it brings are two key pieces to filling up your tank so it's very important you learn how open up to it.

A simple way to increase your awareness around how well you receive things is to tune in to what you do or say when someone tries to give you something - like a compliment or praise. Really notice your response (even if it's just in your head!).

For example, if you just ran a meeting and I came up to you after to say "I just want to say you did a really awesome job chairing that meeting." How might you respond?

Most people will have patterns or habits that deflect, correct, deny, reciprocate, minimize, reject or question the compliment without even realizing they are doing it.

If you're honest with yourself, you'll likely find receiving a compliment can be quite a challenge. If so, here's what you might want to practice instead.

Feel the compliment, take it in, smile and respond with something like,

"Thank you, it feels great to hear you say that."

"Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"It did go well, didn't it? Thanks for confirming that for me."

Tip #3: Practice forgiving - every situation you encounter in life is meant to help you evolve as a soul. This can be a hard pill to swallow if you've been abused, abandoned, traumatized, tortured or experienced other things in life that feel very personal and hurtful. So I say this with much compassion and love... forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

Forgiveness allows you to take back the energy you are investing in being mad, hurt, ashamed, disgusted or revengeful and to instead surround yourself with the positive energy of compassion and understanding. You see, as long as you refuse to forgive someone - even yourself, you make it impossible for that relationship to evolve.

Refusing to forgive someone else gives them space, rent free, in your head. Refusing to forgive yourself stops you from healing and ever truly loving yourself.

When you feel like you've been wronged or done something wrong... you carry that energy with you in your heart. As a result, you push yourself harder, are less trustful of your own guidance, you create impossible and inflexible standards for yourself AND you lower your vibrational energy.

When you are able to forgive and learn to appreciate how that situation helped you become who you are today, everything changes.

The ability to forgive will help you plug a drain that is stopping you from fully owning your power. I know it feels like you are flexing your power muscles by refusing to forgive, but - as counter-intuitive as it seems - the exact opposite is actually true.

By tuning into where you are disconnected from yourself and holding yourself back, you open the door to all kinds of beautiful discoveries. By opening yourself up to receive those good things, you increase your vibrancy, recharge your battery and become more abundant. By remembering to forgive both yourself and others when things don't go as you might have liked, you are benefitting from the lessons and plugging a drain that could otherwise put you back in your shadow.

The more you practice these three things the easier they will become and before you know it you're living your life in a vibrant and powerful way.

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Six Stress-Busters That Will Ease Your Stress At Work

Does your heart beat faster at work and you have trouble sleeping at night? Those are just a couple of symptoms for work-induced stress. Other indications of being stressed at work include headaches, tense muscles, upset stomach, feeling fatigued all the time, and even experiencing chest pains.

Workers often take those symptoms for granted. But these danger signs can be more serious than you think. Deadly serious in fact.

What worries you the most about work and life?

Harvard and Stanford researchers last October found that workplace tension could take from six months to three years off your life. The study cut across many kinds of jobs and income levels. A couple of big worries held by all of the groups surveyed were the fear of losing a job and health insurance.

"If we're living in a constant state off fight or flight," says wellness coach Emily Soares Proctor in a printed report, "the stress response happens over and over again, chronically upsetting your entire system and creating the environment for exhaustion and disease."

While you might question one of the survey's "findings"-that workplace stress can take months or years off your life-both Proctor and the Harvard survey agree on one thing: you must take action by taking steps to reduce workplace stress.

It's normal to experience some stress at work. But too much of it lowers your productivity along with your physical and emotional well-being. As mentioned previously, you need to deal with it. "Managing stress is the key to reversing these outcomes," concludes the Harvard/Stanford survey.

Can workplace stress be managed and ameliorated?

Of course it can. But you need to take the responsibility by blowing off steam in healthy ways by using stress-busters (SBs) that work for you.

Before listing some of the SBs, let's take a look at self-induced stress from drinking, drugging, or smoking. Those symptoms are the easiest to cure. That's because all you need to do is stop doing what's causing the symptoms. If you're having trouble quitting something, join a self-help group like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

Six powerful stress-busters that allow you to blow off steam in healthy ways

SB #1: EXERCISE. It's a powerful stress reliever and makes you feel better. Find an exercise-like walking, swimming, cycling, or working out at a gym-that acts as a stress buster that works for you. You can even do some simple stretching exercises at your desk. It's well known that exercise helps you deal with stress.

SB #2. Listen to music-the kind that soothes you.

SB #3. TAKE A NAP or meditate. I've discovered twenty minutes of meditating during the day provides more energy and makes me feel more refreshed than napping.

SB #4. READ A BOOK that interests you. When I was a college freshman, I found a paperback novel lying around the dorm and found that reading a few pages between periods of study and at odd moments during the day relaxed my mind. I still read for relaxation.

SB#5. TALK TO SOMEONE you trust or see a mental health practitioner.

SB#6. BE WILLING TO QUIT YOUR JOB and start searching for another. Even if you don't quit, a willingness to do so will ease your tension. Why? Because you committed to doing something about it and believe that relief is in sight.

The reversal of stress symptoms

I've already mentioned that you-not your boss-are responsible for reversing your symptoms. Your employer doesn't give a hang about your job satisfaction or the trajectory of your career. Whether your workplace stress is created by conditions surrounding your work-like a crazy boss-or self induced by how you think, live, and manage your work environment, you are responsible for fixing it.

Don't give up this responsibility.

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Patience, Understanding And Tolerance

Nothing is free and it all comes from somewhere and something. Everything worthwhile takes patience, understanding and tolerance to build. Without those qualities, you or anyone are like the playful grasshopper that cannot build an ant hill, and you just jump around impatiently. Without understanding, combined with that impatience, you end up freezing in the cold with total "I want to have fun in the present" intolerance just like the grasshopper in the old fable about the ant and the grasshopper.

I am not saying be overly cautious and save your whole life for the afterlife, but I am saying that you should make prudent choices that include patience, understanding and tolerance with them and in them. In short: Be rationally flexible and all else will be added to your life ultimately.

Let me go into what I mean by that word "ultimately": I mean the sum total of all your rational actions in existence and consciousness that are for total and completely beneficial to you, not those actions that feed you today and fill your immediate needs now and only now.

Now, that I have told you what I meant by "ultimately", you can breathe a sigh of relief that I am not telling you to save your whole life and future better existence for a "rainy day" and I am not telling you to take a "rain check" on what is currently going on, however undesirable or not ideal it seems.

So, do not lend me your minds, use your mind to make a better now and later out of the past, meaning learn from the past but do not live in it. Take from this article what is valuable and use it in your own life well. I am not an authority, I am not perfect or even great. I simply observe and write down "what is up" with it all realistically. That is it.

Listen, like anyone, I want to be wonderful, great, perfect and all of that at times when I miss the mark, like anyone. But, those times I miss the mark are valuable because I learn to be better and actually end up better. That is tolerance. As for patience and understanding, that is why I put them before the tolerance in the title, because you must have those first to get to tolerance. Indeed, life is as good as we make it through those three things. For, faking it until we make it never works, and it is real cheating anyway. Being real all the way through is where it is at and is "the real easy way" anyway. When you cheat, even if you succeed, what you skipped comes back to haunt you anyway. So, why not be real through genuine patience, understanding and tolerance anyway. The best way is the real way.

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7 Counter-Intuitive Life Lessons That You Need to Know

The process of maturity allows us to look life as it really is.

The truth and nothing but.

Through that process, we learn that common sense really isn’t so common. We learn that no, you probably won’t be the greatest basketball/football/baseball player ever. We even learn that our parents are humans and they make mistakes just like us.

7 Counter-Intuitive Life Lessons That You Need to Know

As they say the truth sets you free. Here are 7 counter-intuitive life lessons that you need to know.


1. Fame. Money. Looks. Has nothing to do with confidence.

If it did we’d all be all be in trouble. Confidence isn’t a privilege and it’s never guaranteed. Winning the lottery and becoming a millionaire the next day isn’t going to make you any more confident than you are now.

Some might say I’m wrong, that winning the lottery will indeed make them more confident. Okay. What about when you lose all the money?

Tying your confidence levels to the a dollar amount, looks that can fade, or likes on social media isn’t healthy. Those are wells that can run empty at any time. True confidence is based internally, on things nobody can take from you.


2. It’s not worth trying to get people who don’t like you to like you.

It’s too much time and effort that might not even lead to any payoff.

Not to mention the mental and emotional stress and chasing somebody who doesn’t like you. With the time and energy you spend on trying to get people who don’t like you to like you, you can get at least 3 other people to like you.

Be positive, be kind, and leave it at that.


3. It’s better to be really good at two things than the best at one thing.

Neil Degrasse Tyson, for example. Fluent in the field of advanced astrophysics, but not quite at the top. Yet he has had considerable success in spite of it. All due to the fact that he has the ability to break down such a complicated topic and make it entertaining to the average person.

Derek Halpern of Social Triggers. Great marketer and a fantastic public speaker. His main discipline was in digital marketing, but he branched off into public speaking. This allowed him to grow his brand into the multi-million dollar business it is today.


This is because once you get to a certain level, your growth starts to level out. It becomes harder and harder to get to that next level. So differentiate yourself. Develop another skill.


4. The less you need something, the more it’ll present itself to you.

Startups with strong sales without any venture capital will have venture capitalists throwing money at them.

The prospect with recruiters hounding them for an interview will only continue to see that number of recruiters grow. When you don’t need your chap-stick, you see it all over the place. When you need it, however, it’s nowhere to be found.

People who need rarely get what they want.

5. It’s better to be selfish now so you can be selfless later.

“…FIRST TAKE THE PLANK OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE, AND THEN YOU WILL SEE CLEARLY TO REMOVE THE SPECK FROM YOUR BROTHER’S EYE.” – MATTHEW 7:5

On air-planes they instruct parents, in case of an emergency, to first put on oxygen masks on themselves before attending to their children.

This is for the children’s benefit.

If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of others?

There’s only so much you can do as a broke college student. You might be able to go to South America and help build a house or a school for underprivileged children, but it’s far more effective for you to selfish first.

Once you’ve established your reputation and your wealth, you can do far more for those underprivileged children than you ever could have had you neglected your “selfish” goals.


6. The day you accept the fact everything will end is the day you stop taking everything for granted.

Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius pondered their own mortality frequently. They were attuned to the limited amount of the time they and everybody and everything else had on this earth. This evolved into a deep appreciation for the each breathe gifted to them.

Worrying or complaining about circumstances fades into the backdrop of inevitable mortality. So smile as you tackle on your challenges.


7. Help people that can’t help you today.

Guy Kawasaki used to give stories to journalists coming from small time newspapers and magazines when he was with Apple. He could’ve easily gone to the big dogs such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.

Instead he built those relationships up so when those journalists did work at The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, he had an inside contact.

Those contacts came in handy when Apple wasn’t doing so well, and journalists weren’t waiting hand and foot for a story.

Not everybody you help will be kind enough to repay the favor. So do it because you’re a good person and don’t expect much out of it. Only then will you be pleasantly surprised.


Conclusion

Some of these truths present themselves to us too late in life and we could’ve avoided a mistake or two had we been aware of them. I made the mistake many years ago of basing my confidence on silly things such as clothes and looks.

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe you can also relate how you’re in a much better spot now now that you’ve learned to base your confidence on what can’t be taken away from you.

There are going to be many more truths that’ll reveal themselves to you later on in life.

To recap here are 7 of those:
Fame. Money. Looks. Has nothing to do with confidence.
It’s not worth trying to get people who don’t like you to like you
It’s better to be really good at two things than the best at one thing
The less you need something, the more it’ll present itself to you
It’s better to be selfish now so you can be selfless later
The day you accept the fact everything will end is the day you stop taking everything for granted
Help people that can’t help you today

Oh, and one more. Santa Claus isn’t real.
What are some counter-intuitive life lesson you’ve learned? I would love to hear from you.

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