Have You Ever Hit a Brick Wall?

Have you ever hit a brick wall, something so solid and immovable that you can't see any way around it, no matter how hard you try? It can cause you to feel a failure, perhaps isolated from others, as despair and frustration set in. Life doesn't always go to plan; in fact sometimes we can feel that we're dealing with a problem so complex and unassailable that there are no options left from which we can salvage a good outcome.

I'm sure many of us have at times had this experience, of insurmountable problems, no way forward and perhaps excessive demands being placed on us, maybe all at the same time.

- Work, relationships, home life, health and friends are all areas that can sometimes seem to be operating in an unhelpful and unsupportive way. There may be conflicting demands or responsibilities that require much of our time, energy and attention Sometimes we may need to acknowledge that our desired plans and choices are not feasible at the present point in time.

- Be strong and admit if something's not working. There's no shame in trying something new; it's often a great learning experience, can introduce you to new people and allow you to explore other options. But recognise if it's time to stop banging your head on that brick wall. Others will usually appreciate your honesty, see you as more human and may even suggest a referral to someone who's in a position to help.

- Appreciate that impediments and immovable objects can sometimes provide a useful interlude for you to stop and audit your plans. Dedicate time to review, evaluate and even revise your commitment to your latest project or course of action. Enforced reflection can be a valuable investment of your time.

- There may be some merit in using your temporary timeout to conduct a survey or canvas staff, clients or colleagues for their views. While you're considering your next step why not ask for their opinions, how they view your business or enquire whether they have suggestions to help you grow or improve what you already offer? Other people see things from a different perspective and their feedback may provide valuable insights which could spur you on to a renewed plan of action.

- Accept that your loss of direction may have caused your associates to temporarily lose confidence in you. Management are often expected to be problem-solvers, with all the answers and so, depending on the closeness of your relationships, it may be disconcerting for your team to see you in such a different light. Explain sufficiently and reassure those who need it.

- If you've hit a brick wall it may be appropriate for you to take yourself away from the situation and seek advice elsewhere, in a more confidential arena. Many business owners appreciate the role that a mentor, coach, confidante or partner can play, someone who's survived setbacks or whose support and input they value and respect. A counsellor may help them rediscover their confidence, focus and self-belief again. Stressful situations can be draining and cause loss of direction as well as mental and emotional debilitation. Sharing the load, talking things through and being heard, understood and supported can make a huge difference.

- Many business owners experience self-doubt or a loss of direction at times. Find a setting where you can exchange ideas and problem-solve. Maybe someone you've met at a conference, network meeting or on a business forum would be happy to provide time to talk through your situation in a safe, confidential setting or you could initiate a discussion on a site where contributors are happy to openly discuss solutions and the lessons learned from their experiences.

- Stepping away for a time to reconnect with the personal areas of life can provide a therapeutic break, a chance to clear your mind and regain a more appropriate perspective. Time spent may enable you to appreciate that you don't have to be perfect or do it all yourself. It may be viable to outsource or hire areas of expertise or begin to align yourself with someone who has complementary skills. Viable solutions often become apparent after a break.

- Do something that lifts your spirits and reminds you why you do what you do. One of my friends test drove a super-car, returning afterwards feeling revitalised and ten feet tall. Others may be motivated after time spent with family or at the spa or golf range. Take a break and step back from your 'wall'. Find something that rewards you and reminds you of your worth. Use that to give a boost to your confidence, with time to recharge and enjoy a distraction.

Being 'resilient' is often thought of as being tough, strong and keeping going no matter what. In fact resilience demands that we stop occasionally, take stock of things, adapt and grow in the light of new challenges and goals. Hitting a brick wall indicates that something is not working as initially anticipated. The companies I work with and the workshops I run, place a high value on training staff and management to be resilient by taking stock of the present moment and learning to adapt to an ever-changing and unpredictable future. We discover that a brick wall or loss of direction can be worked around.

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3 Powerful Tips to Help You Have Your Best Year Ever

Here are 3 powerful steps you can take to free yourself from frustration and to start enjoying the good life so many are enjoying right now:

1) Know "where you are." Have you ever been lost in a residential area and no one was around to ask for directions? Now if you are somewhat familiar with the area, it's easy to just turn around here and there and find your way back. But the worst part about being lost is when we are lost and we haven't a clue where we are.

So, where exactly are you on your journey now? Do you know exactly how much money you owe? And how many assets you have? What are your strengths? And what are your weaknesses? Here's a good exercise to help you know "where you are":

Draw a map of your life and make every square a city. Name each square with an aspect of your life. One city can be your family, friends, knowledge of your field, spirituality, work, charity, financial, etc. Then rate each city from one to ten. Ten means you are doing extremely well, and one means it needs immediate help.

What I just shared with you is like having a balance sheet for your life. Put all your weaknesses on one side and your strengths on the other side. Put your strengths to work and strengthen your weaknesses. You can read more books, go back to school or find a mentor. Perhaps you can learn 50 to 100 power words this year in order to get a verbal advantage. Whatever you do, keep in mind that a better year begins with a better you. The readers of No Condition is Permanent know about this.

2) Do an inventory of friends. That's right. Make a list of who your friends are, and how they relate to the direction your life is going in. When companies want to increase their revenue, they get rid of unnecessary employees or ones that are holding them back. So when you are ready to increase your worth, you need to get rid of unnecessary friends. I am talking about those that only cause you grief and are a pain in the "you know what."

If you want to accomplish great things, you need to surround yourself with great people or people who have accomplished great things. You might say, "well, how do I find these great achievers you are talking about?" If you own a copy of No Condition is Permanent, refer to it for the answer.

You and I know fully well that some so-called friends are not worth the aggravation. They are draining, and they sap the life out of you. Consider this: Small people are always talking about things, but great people talk about ideas and concepts. Do you find yourself mentally stimulated when you are with your friends? If you are not, then you should be.

3) Quit killing time. Have you ever heard people say, "I'm just killing time." If they only realized how precious time really is. I have a wealthy friend who once told me that he can make millions of dollars any time he wants. He can purchase more homes, cars, and other luxuries. But the only thing he can never buy himself is more time.

His point is that he values his time more than his money. Wow! People who have little regard for time always find themselves engaging in activities that have nothing to do with improving their lives or that of those around them. They are routine people. They just do the same old things; they are just going through the daily motions. They love to shoot the breeze and just chill.

Listen, you are entering a new year, and you are not getting any younger. You may have lost so many opportunities. As a reader of my newsletter, you are important to me. I can't stand by and watch you squander your time and procrastinate. That's why I am encouraging you to find out "where you are" and start taking action to change your life. Take my advice. Inventory your friends and stop killing time.

I wish you all the best in this year!

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Letting Go: Is Life Too Short To Hold Onto The Past?

What is clear is that human beings don't live forever; there comes a point in everyone's life when their time will come to an end. When it comes to when this will be, it can depend on a number of different factors.

Due to this, it is often said that life is too short to waste time; each moment needs to be seized. Through taking this approach, one will be making the most of the life that they have been given.

A Waste

If one doesn't experience life in this way, they could feel as though they are missing out. As a result of this, not only could they end up feeling angry; they could also feel guilty.

It is then going to be a challenge for them to standstill, and they might even find it hard to sleep. Their life is not going to be something they have to endure; it is going to be something that they are here to enjoy.

Driven

One is then going to be used to feeling motivated, and this will give them the energy that they need to achieve things. In general, they won't find it hard to get out of bed; they will have the need to get things moving.

This could mean that other people see them as someone who grabs life by the horns, so to speak. And based on how they approach life, it is likely to have a passive effect on how these people experience life.

Relationships

Their intimate relationships could also be infused with this same energy, and they are unlikely to want to have someone in their life who has a different approach. The people they are intimate with are then going to add to what they already bring to the table.

Their upbeat nature could also make it easier for them to move on after a break up; they won't want to go over the experiences they shared. One could believe that they will only be wasting their time if they wallow in the past.

A Rare Occurrence

To experience life in this way could sound like a dream to most people, and this is because they can find it hard to relate to. They might find it hard to remember when they last experienced life in this way.

And while someone might believe that it is possible to experience life in this way, they could say that this is not how life works. As far as they are concerned, life could be something that has to be endured, as opposed to enjoyed.

In The middle

Or, they may say that this is how they experience life at certain times, but that's as far as it goes. It is then not going to matter how short life is, as they will have moments when the amount of time they have on this earth becomes irrelevant.

Yet, regardless of whether one rarely has moments like this or whether they have them from time to time, they will know what it is like to get stuck in the past. When this happens, it won't matter what is going on in the present moment.

Attention

Their point of focus will be on something that took place a few days ago, or it might have even been a number of years ago. This will make it a lot harder for them to make the most of the present moment.

There is the chance that this is something that will only affect them during certain times, or it could practically bring their life to a standstill. Either way, it is going to stop them from being able to move forward in life.

One Area

When it only affects them at certain times, it could be something that stops them from being able to start a new relationship, for instance. This area of their life is then going to be far from fulfilling, and they are likely to experience a lot of pain.

The pain that they experience in this a part of their life could cause them to work even harder in their career. Therefore, although one area of their life will be ignored, another area won't be.

Feedback

If one was to talk to their friends and/or family about what they are going through, they could tell them that they need to let go of the past. This could be something that they are only too aware of, or it might not have occurred to them before.

Along with this, they could say that they need to do this since life is too short to hold onto what happened. Through being told this, it might not be long until one is able to move on with their life, and to put the past behind them.

A Conscious Choice

Through deciding it was time to move on, one would have gradually been able to let go of the past. It could then be said that one used their will power to change their life, and this can show that one doesn't need to be controlled by their mind.

However, while the above can take place, it doesn't mean that it is always this simple. Instead, one could find that even though they realise life is short, it doesn't mean that they are able to just let go of the past.

Pressure

One could then find that they start to feel bad about themselves, as they should be able to let go. There is then going to be the pain they are experiencing through being caught up in the past, and the pain that is created through not being able to use their will power to move on.

Clearly, one is going through enough as it is without punishing themselves for being in this position. The trouble with the willpower approach is that letting go is not always about the mind; there can be times when it is about what is going on in the body.

Awareness

If it relates to what is taking place in their body, it might be necessary for them to put their willpower to one side. As if they are carrying an emotional build-up that needs to be processed, they will need to face how they feel.

When comes to letting go of what is taking place in their body, they may need to work with a therapist.

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Why Daily Complaining Is Ruining Your Life

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama

Sometimes life just isn’t fair. It’s dark, gloomy, and absent of happiness. What you find is that talking about the unfortunate circumstances then makes you feel better. This complaining helps you feel as though something has been released. You are now relieved.
It’s the complaining that brings on this misery.

We can think that focusing on our problems and wallowing in our complaining will make us feel better, but this is all in our thinking and what you are really doing is only reaffirming the problems that brought you to this place in your mind.

That is just it. What you are complaining about and these problems are only in your mind. Life isn’t bad or good and it rather just is. Nature has no judgement about the things that happen, whether it is the grass growing or dying, it just is.
Just as your life, just is.

People who win never complain. They take life for it gives them and they make what they can out of it. One of the most powerful Tony Robbins’ quotes that I’ve heard is:

“EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON AND A PURPOSE, AND IT SERVES YOU.”

What I remember him saying is that he doesn’t know this to be true, but that he believes it to be true because it empowers him. That is the power of the mind.

These thoughts and things that we focus on have power over our life. We can choose to focus on the negativity and the darkness in life or we can choose to look at the things that empower us.

We can choose to focus on the things that will strengthen us and make the world a better place. You have the choice to control this one thing.


Why Daily Complaining is Ruining Your Life

Of all the things in life the one thing that we can control is our mind. We have the ability to focus on what matters and we can let go of what will hold us back.

This act of daily complaining is ruining your life. It is making you less whole. It is inhibiting you from growing and reaching your potential. Complaining is standing in the way of you and the achievement of your dreams.

The following are the four most important reasons why this daily complaining is preventing you from living the life you want to live:


1. When You Complain You Reaffirm Negativity in your Mind

The mind, like nature, will accept what you give it. If you show it complaining, it will respond to the negativity put out into the universe and the messages that you are affirming about life.

When this happens you train yourself to focus on the dark and unwanted times. Your mind becomes accustomed to negative thinking and this thus brings about your negative experiences.


It is your responsibility to give it positivity. The more positivity you give it, the more it will be able to continually come back to the good things in life. Eventually positivity is the only thing it knows and responds to.

2. You Cancel Out All the Positives

When your focus is on what you are complaining about then you forget about all the good in life. It brings you to a place where all the positives in your life are just absent from your mind.

This leads you to being unaware of good times and happiness that just might mean a great deal to you and your success.

It likely would even make the difference for you when looking back on your life and all the wonderful times you could have had an even fuller awareness of. Shift the focus and bring the attention back to the positives so that you are more aware of them.


3. You Drive Others Away from You

No one likes to be around someone that brings them down. Coming up with things that are wrong in the world or life and complaining about them will only seek to drive people to not want to be around you.

In NLP we call this a process of anchoring where we associate an external behavior such as complaining and negativity with an internal emotion such as having negative feelings about that person who complained when you are around them.

When you are the complainer then it becomes just automatic for them to associate you with those negative feelings they had while you were complaining.

You want to have people associate you with good feelings such as happiness and positivity and they will want to be around you much more.

4. Your Focus on Negativity Only Brings More Negativity

It has been said that what we think about we bring about.

When we think about negative things and bring them into greater awareness through an act such as complaining then we only bring about more of those negative events and circumstances that we were complaining about in the first place.

The much better route to take is to acknowledge your emotions and understand that this isn’t what you wanted, but now you can focus even more intensely on what you do want. This is where you get the opportunity to move forward instead of backward.

Focus is one of the most important intangibles to your success in life. It is the key that most people are missing when their focus is on things that are not leading to their goals and dreams. This complaining drives your attention away from success.

The greatest successes in life have nothing to complain about.

Some might say that it is because of where they are now, but I say that they are where they are at now because they first made the shift to focus on what is important and what will lead them to their goals rather than complaining.

This change happens in the mind first.

To be successful you have to know that the journey is all on you. In the long run you will achieve your goals not just because of other people and circumstances, but because of you and your determination.

This means that other people are not the cause of your problems. Only you are. This gives you the power to take control over your life.

This ability comes from within.

The key is attuning your focus to what matters and where you want to go. What is it that you want and how can you be grateful for what you have now?

When you find life for what’s good, then that is when life will take your breath away and when you come to realize your greatest successes.


Summary

While you may think that these outside circumstances are causing the failure in life, it is actually your mind, the attention you bring to these events, and the complaining you do about such events that are bringing you to ruin.

When you can come to the realizations that everything that happens in your life can empower you and that you have control of where your life is headed, then you can take the power back for your life. This will empower you.

This negativity that comes from complaining will only reaffirm all the negative thoughts you have in your mind. It will take your attention away from anything positive.

Complaining will drive others out of your life and will only bring about more negativity into your life. The key is to reaffirm your life with positive thoughts and actions. Bring gratitude to your life instead of complaining.
How can you find yourself when you are about to complain and transform your thoughts and words into gratitude? Leave a comment below.

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Why Daily Complaining Is Ruining Your Life

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama

Sometimes life just isn’t fair. It’s dark, gloomy, and absent of happiness. What you find is that talking about the unfortunate circumstances then makes you feel better. This complaining helps you feel as though something has been released. You are now relieved.
It’s the complaining that brings on this misery.

We can think that focusing on our problems and wallowing in our complaining will make us feel better, but this is all in our thinking and what you are really doing is only reaffirming the problems that brought you to this place in your mind.

That is just it. What you are complaining about and these problems are only in your mind. Life isn’t bad or good and it rather just is. Nature has no judgement about the things that happen, whether it is the grass growing or dying, it just is.
Just as your life, just is.

People who win never complain. They take life for it gives them and they make what they can out of it. One of the most powerful Tony Robbins’ quotes that I’ve heard is:

“EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON AND A PURPOSE, AND IT SERVES YOU.”

What I remember him saying is that he doesn’t know this to be true, but that he believes it to be true because it empowers him. That is the power of the mind.

These thoughts and things that we focus on have power over our life. We can choose to focus on the negativity and the darkness in life or we can choose to look at the things that empower us.

We can choose to focus on the things that will strengthen us and make the world a better place. You have the choice to control this one thing.


Why Daily Complaining is Ruining Your Life
Of all the things in life the one thing that we can control is our mind. We have the ability to focus on what matters and we can let go of what will hold us back.

This act of daily complaining is ruining your life. It is making you less whole. It is inhibiting you from growing and reaching your potential. Complaining is standing in the way of you and the achievement of your dreams.

The following are the four most important reasons why this daily complaining is preventing you from living the life you want to live:


1. When You Complain You Reaffirm Negativity in your Mind

The mind, like nature, will accept what you give it. If you show it complaining, it will respond to the negativity put out into the universe and the messages that you are affirming about life.

When this happens you train yourself to focus on the dark and unwanted times. Your mind becomes accustomed to negative thinking and this thus brings about your negative experiences.


It is your responsibility to give it positivity. The more positivity you give it, the more it will be able to continually come back to the good things in life. Eventually positivity is the only thing it knows and responds to.


2. You Cancel Out All the Positives

When your focus is on what you are complaining about then you forget about all the good in life. It brings you to a place where all the positives in your life are just absent from your mind.

This leads you to being unaware of good times and happiness that just might mean a great deal to you and your success.

It likely would even make the difference for you when looking back on your life and all the wonderful times you could have had an even fuller awareness of. Shift the focus and bring the attention back to the positives so that you are more aware of them.

3. You Drive Others Away from You

No one likes to be around someone that brings them down. Coming up with things that are wrong in the world or life and complaining about them will only seek to drive people to not want to be around you.

In NLP we call this a process of anchoring where we associate an external behavior such as complaining and negativity with an internal emotion such as having negative feelings about that person who complained when you are around them.

When you are the complainer then it becomes just automatic for them to associate you with those negative feelings they had while you were complaining.

You want to have people associate you with good feelings such as happiness and positivity and they will want to be around you much more.

4. Your Focus on Negativity Only Brings More Negativity

It has been said that what we think about we bring about.

When we think about negative things and bring them into greater awareness through an act such as complaining then we only bring about more of those negative events and circumstances that we were complaining about in the first place.

The much better route to take is to acknowledge your emotions and understand that this isn’t what you wanted, but now you can focus even more intensely on what you do want. This is where you get the opportunity to move forward instead of backward.

Focus is one of the most important intangibles to your success in life. It is the key that most people are missing when their focus is on things that are not leading to their goals and dreams. This complaining drives your attention away from success.

The greatest successes in life have nothing to complain about.

Some might say that it is because of where they are now, but I say that they are where they are at now because they first made the shift to focus on what is important and what will lead them to their goals rather than complaining.

This change happens in the mind first.

To be successful you have to know that the journey is all on you. In the long run you will achieve your goals not just because of other people and circumstances, but because of you and your determination.

This means that other people are not the cause of your problems. Only you are. This gives you the power to take control over your life.

This ability comes from within.

The key is attuning your focus to what matters and where you want to go. What is it that you want and how can you be grateful for what you have now?

When you find life for what’s good, then that is when life will take your breath away and when you come to realize your greatest successes.


Summary

While you may think that these outside circumstances are causing the failure in life, it is actually your mind, the attention you bring to these events, and the complaining you do about such events that are bringing you to ruin.

When you can come to the realizations that everything that happens in your life can empower you and that you have control of where your life is headed, then you can take the power back for your life. This will empower you.

This negativity that comes from complaining will only reaffirm all the negative thoughts you have in your mind. It will take your attention away from anything positive.

Complaining will drive others out of your life and will only bring about more negativity into your life. The key is to reaffirm your life with positive thoughts and actions. Bring gratitude to your life instead of complaining.
How can you find yourself when you are about to complain and transform your thoughts and words into gratitude? Leave a comment below.

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How to Stop Isolating Yourself From Other People

For the first fifteen years of my life, I had no problems in my social life.

I was never very outgoing, but I always had friends around and felt confident in my social group. I never felt alone or incapable of interacting with others. I took my social prowess for granted; I didn’t know it was possible to lose the ease with which I connected with others.

Unfortunately, things took a very unexpected turn a few months ago. I lost two friendships in my life and took the blow very hard. As a result of feeling friendless due to unfortunate circumstances, I took the blame onto myself and started to see myself as an unlovable, unworthy person who didn’t have friends through a fault of my own.

Soon after losing my friends, I started avoiding social interaction altogether. I sat alone at lunch with my computer, pretending to do homework to avoid having to find a new group of kids to sit with. I no longer looked for social opportunities, but still felt surprised when I wasn’t invited to hang out with people, which only exacerbated the problem.

More and more, I started losing motivation and enjoyment in things related to my social and academic life. In short, I became depressed, and effectively isolated myself from everyone around me.

How to Stop Isolating Yourself From Other People

Isolation is a vicious cycle: we isolate ourselves because we don’t want to be hurt by others who might find us unlovable, but we are hurt even more when we find ourselves alone.

Shutting people out isn’t only a mental decision; our actions, body language, and tone of voice reflect our attitude to others. We are left alone, to our constant relief and sorrow: we aren’t being hurt, but we aren’t being loved or accepted either.

We soon learn that being alone is worse than interacting with others, even when there is a risk of being hurt or abandoned.

As social animals, we can’t live our lives in shadow, hiding from interaction.Loneliness is unsustainable and destructive. I learned this after about a month of isolating myself.

Recognizing that isolation is unhealthy is important, but it certainly doesn’t win the battle against depression on its own. The real struggle in fighting depression and isolation is figuring out how to combat it.

This, of course, is easier said than done- once you’ve isolated yourself, you’ve dug a hole, and getting back out is much harder than getting into it.

Here are a few ways in which I overcame my tendency to push others away, and how you too can stop isolating yourself from other people.


1. Identify the root cause of your isolation and determine why you view yourself as unworthy/incapable of interaction.
What is it about being social that scares you?

Did you lose a friend or get in a traumatic argument that made you believe you will only be hurt or abandoned if you get close to people? Consider the thoughts that run through your head as you interact with someone.


Do you tell yourself that you are unlovable? Do you feel that you will bore, upset, or annoy the other person? Do you convince yourself that you will be hurt or abandoned because you always are or now deserve it?

When I pushed others away, it was because I constantly told myself that no one would like me.

I was convinced that I would be abandoned by anyone I tried to talk to because no one would want to hold a conversation with me. It was frankly ridiculous; in the past, I had been well-liked and approached for advice and light conversation by many people.

It took a long time, but I finally gained the awareness of these thought patterns and was able to shut them down. I addressed each thought and learned to dismiss them as they entered my head as false.

This is not a change that can happen overnight, but simply becoming aware of each thought can make the difference between healing and a further spiral into depression.

2. Try to reconnect with an old friend or someone you haven’t spoken to since before you began to shut others out.

Once you identify the cause of your isolation and address it, you can reconnect with people again.

I’m a rather reserved person by nature, and meeting new people is a stressful activity for me.

I wanted to talk to people who weren’t aware of my depressed attitude during my depression, but forming entirely new friendships was out of the question in my emotional state.

Instead, I approached people who I’d talked to often in the past, and didn’t feel stressed saying hello to.

At the same time, these people were close to me long enough ago that they weren’t aware of my emotional state and didn’t try to leave me alone because I’d given them signals.

As a high school-er, I picked a few kids from my classes the previous year. You can pick old coworkers, neighbors, or even college friends to reconnect with. Even if the process is digital, it’s a great first step in learning how to reopen yourself to relationships and interactions in a safe, non-stressful environment.

It may even be better if the person you choose lives far away- you don’t have to worry about being quiet or unapproachable, because if you are, you don’t have to see that person on a daily basis.


3. Talk to a trusted person about your isolation.

This step was extremely difficult for me, because I thought of my depression as shameful and a place of weakness. I thought that being honest about my problem was the surest way for me to be abandoned.

Eventually my one remaining friend confronted me about my sadness and antisocial behavior, and I told her how I had been feeling. I explained how losing my other friends had affected me and how I began thinking poorly of myself.

I told her that I knew it was stupid and ridiculous, but it was hard to change the way I perceived interactions and myself.

My friend was gentle with me, but told me that I really was delusional and my belief that I was unlovable was completely a figment of my imagination. Hearing this from someone close to me was perhaps the most powerful thing in helping me heal.

Find someone you trust and feel close to and let them know how you’re feeling.

If they truly do care about you (and someone does, I promise!) they will tell you that you are wrong about yourself. It’s important to tell yourself that you’re being ridiculous, but hearing it from someone else can have a much greater and more healing effect.

After all, if another person is convincing you that you are worthy of their attention, they must be telling the truth to be talking to you at all.

Once again, learning to reconnect with people after depression and antisocial behavior isn’t easy. It takes time, tears, and a lot of self-reflection. The process may seem tedious, but there is no short cut to healing for any illness, especially mental ones.

Keep your head up, trust yourself to have positive relationships, and remember: if you are human, you deserve love.

This is a fact. Things will get better before you know it.

Are you trying to stop isolating yourself from others? Has this article helped you?

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4 Reasons You Fear Success

As humans, we naturally have fears. Whether it's a fear of spiders or of snakes or any number of things. However, people can also have a fear of success.

How? You may ask. Simple:

1. People are afraid of change. As much as people may complain about their lives or their daily routine, they're also comfortable with it. There's a certain level of certainty that they have. And although there may be bumps in the road or obstacles ahead, they're fairly certain that they can overcome them and continue on with their routine.

When you enter success into the equation, suddenly their life is on a different path. There's an unknown variable and people aren't exactly sure what to do, considering what they see is new and different. They're putting themselves out there to new pressures and demands. The good news though, is if you can handle the tough times, you'll be that much happier and more thankful for the good times.

2. Criticism. For those who finally decide to make the change in their life, whether it's starting a blog, a new job, or a new hobby, there's going to be criticism. When you've done the same thing as everyone else for any length of time, people begin to expect it from you. So when you change that routine, naturally, there's going to be some backlash.

People don't expect you to change. But their expectations do not need to be your reality.Here's a tip: Misery loves company. Those who are miserable with their routine find comfort in knowing that they're not the only ones who are miserable.

When you decide to go after your dream, nothing can stop you! All the criticism in the world won't mean a thing if you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of who you see!

3. Unworthy. Whether it's a Steve Jobs, Zig Ziglar, Anthony Robbins or any other successful person, we tend to put these people up on pedestals. We may not feel worthy of their level of success. We see them as tremendous human beings. Which, for what they've done, they are! They've found a way to maximize their potential. But that doesn't mean that you can't as well!

Do you think that every successful person started out with the mindset that they were going to be who they became? No! Everyone has had doubts in their life. Whether it's the direction they're going or perhaps, their own feelings of self-worth. However, you have the power to change that. The only person who has control over your life and how you feel is you. Believe me, each and every one of you are worthy!

4. I'm good where I'm at. Are you? I mean, seriously? If you're truly happy with where you are in your life, then why are you reading this right now? Why settle for good, when you can be GREAT!

I want to challenge you to be the absolute best YOU that you can be, because there's no one else like you! You truly are a one and only. Don't let the fear of success stop you from becoming who you want to be!

Wishing you Great Success!

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How to Keep Going When You Feel Like Giving Up

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going,” – Beverly Sills

Have you ever been in so much pain that you just felt like giving up?

I have. A few months ago, while competing in a trail run, I ended up completely lost. A group of us had missed a trail marker and gone down the wrong path for a whole extra mile.

The race was only four miles.

Before taking the wrong turn, I had been in first place. It was demoralizing to have worked so hard only to find out that I was going in the wrong direction. I was scared that I would lose the race I had trained so hard for.

Despite the fear, I knew I had to accept my mistake and turn around. I started running as fast as I could in the opposite direction. The rest of my group kept going, hoping that they would find the trail again soon.

Even though I was tired, I knew why I was there. A friend of mine was recovering from a traumatic brain injury. I was racing to win money for his rehabilitation.

One by one, I passed people, praying that I had enough time left to gain ground.

Ultimately, I ended up making up for my lost time and winning the race. If I hadn’t been able to stay in the moment and ignore the sunk cost of my mistake, it would have been impossible to come back from behind.

Sometimes life is uncomfortable. But even worse than feeling uncomfortable is feeling nothing. Flatlining.

Coincidentally, the things that make us most uncomfortable in life are also usually the most worth it.

From this experience I’ve learned a few things about how to keep going when you feel like giving up.



Why Persevere?
The majority of entrepreneurs fail not because they don’t have enough talent, skill, or good ideas. They fail because they stop too early.

Most bloggers burn out before they ever see the dramatic spike in traffic that they would need to build an audience.

It’s hard to go against the grain. To take your own path. And it’s even harder to continue down that path until it leads somewhere you want to go.

But there is a power in being deliberate. In making a decision to do something and committing to it completely. In seeing that path through no matter what.

Here are three ways to make it out of the woods:

1. Admit You Are Human

We often feel like quitting because we are afraid to fail. We want to go out on our own terms, so we compound our doubt with disappointment in ourselves.

This is a stupid strategy, and it only makes things worse.

The first step when you feel fear is acceptance. Accept that you have human emotions. It’s okay to feel things.

Instead of trying to push aside the pain, re-frame it. If you are feeling this way, it means that others are feeling it too. Some of them will quit. If you can keep going, you will be that much closer to doing what no one has done before.

Make a list of times that you felt discomfort and kept going. Use the list as a reminder that you have been here before. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Which brings me to my next point…

2. Remember Your “Why”

We sometimes consider giving up because we’re not seeing external results quickly enough. We are impatient for instant gratification. The truth is, things that matter take time.

When you start to question your path, remember why you started down it in the first place.

Most people don’t have very compelling reasons. They are doing it for money, fame, or respect. These rewards are all extrinsic. In other words, they are all external reasons for doing something and they can actually decrease motivation.

There are three main problems with focusing on extrinsic rewards:

They are out of your control
They are fleeting
They create stress
When you begin focusing on intrinsic reasons (e.g. love of your craft, the ability to help people, personal growth and challenge), it is much easier to keep going. You don’t have to wait to get these rewards.

If you need help finding your “why”, download my True North Toolkit. It will help ground you in your strengths, passions, and the problems that you can solve for the world.

3. Stay Present

The third most common reason that we quit is overwhelm.

We look at how far ahead successful people are. We look back at all the time and effort we’ve invested and worry that it could all be for nothing. We look at our massive to-do list and wonder how we will ever get it all done.

Stop.

Be where you are now. Be grateful for everything exactly the way that it is. Later, you will look back on the hard times and smile, knowing this was the good stuff.

Now, go back to the basics and take small, actionable steps.

Ask yourself: What could I do right now that would excite me and build forward momentum?

Then go.

The best path is usually not the path of least resistance. Take it anyway.

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4 Steps That Will Turn Your Problems into a Guide For Success

It’s way too easy to get caught up in your problems. It starts out with something small, a tiny hint that you’re not entirely happy with how things have turned out. It’s a loose thread on the shoulder of your sweater. The more you pick at it, the longer it seems to become. One problem leads to another, the issues start to pile up, until it feels like you’re in over your head. Before you know it, you’ve picked at that little thread so much your whole sweater has fallen to pieces and you’re standing in the middle of a pile of yarn.

When you’re in a bad place, or you feel you’ve been dealt a bad hand, it’s only natural to start looking for reasons. And when we find out what the problem is, our natural instinct is to start digging deeper and deeper into that problem, only focusing on the negatives, until we convince ourselves that the whole situation is hopeless and entirely out of our control.


But that doesn’t need to be the case!

About a year ago, that’s how I felt about my life, too. Although I had a lot going for me, I was drastically unhappy with where my life seemed to be going. At the time, I was working a government job in rural Japan. It was a job that I hated, that left me sitting at my desk for hours on end, and didn’t give me the freedom to use my time constructively. I felt as though I wasn’t really able to contribute at all.

It was hard to see a solution. I had spent so much energy just getting this job in the first place, to find that I now hated it made me feel like I was trapped. It seemed like I was going to be stuck there forever.



Yet now I live in Kyoto, in a two storey house with a personal office. I wake up every day motivated and exited. I work at a start-up I created with my friends, I recently published my first novel, and I’m earning income that’s comparable to what I was earning before. Most importantly, I’m happy.

Even though it might sound counter-intuitive, I didn’t arrive here by moving past my problems. I got here by getting deeper involved with them, and using them to guide me towards the life I wanted to live.

Intuitively, people don’t like dealing with problems, and that’s entirely understandable: Our problems are never pleasant. They’re usually things that we want to get farther away from.

And yet the truth is that if we do the opposite, we have a much greater chance of finding happiness. All it requires is a little self honesty.

It’s not easy to do, but if you are willing to approach your problems using the following steps, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your life starts to change.



1. Take ownership of your problems

When we’re talking about problems that relate to our own lives, it’s common to project externally. Especially when it’s a problem where we are in some way to blame. Rather than take responsibility, we tend to attach the problem to an external force. Our job, the government, bad luck.

The problem with doing this is that those are all things that we can’t do anything about.

When I was working my old job, I spent a lot of time grumbling about the Japanese way of doing things. Because it was so different from my last government job in Australia, I managed to convince myself that’s why I was unhappy. In reality, the real problem had nothing to do with that at all. When I reflected on exactly why I wasn’t enjoying my day to day work life, I realised it was because I wasn’t finding enough challenges. That was on me. If I wanted to, I could have changed how I approached my work to make it more challenging, but instead I blamed it on something else.

2. Understand the real problem.

A lot of them time people get distracted by what looks like it hurts, even though the real pain is coming from somewhere else. In life, we tend to pay more attention to how we are affected by our problems rather than what’s causing them in the first place.

However, if you’re only ever fixing the side effects, you’ll never deal with the real issue, and those side effects will, sooner or later, show up again.

In my case, I realised that it wasn’t so much that I wasn’t finding enough challenges, so much as I just wasn’t really interested in the field to begin with. I’m sure I could have done any number of things to make the job more challenging, but it wouldn’t have addressed the issue that I didn’t have an interest in the type of work I was doing.

3. Take stock of what you can change

There are exactly two types of problems: those you can fix, and those you can’t. And it’s natural that the ones that you can’t do anything about are usually the big ones. Unfortunately, it also often feels like those are the real problems, and the little ones are things we can ignore.

And so we frustrate ourselves by focusing only on the big problems we can’t immediately change.

But just because a problem is unsolvable now doesn’t mean that it won’t be unsolvable in the future.

In fact, it’s very often the case that by focusing on the problems you can solve, the problems that used to seem too big to approach will either become more manageable, or stop being problems altogether.

When I decided I didn’t like the field I was in, I realised I needed to find a new job. But just trying to approach that on its own was way too much. So rather than trying to approach the issue as one big hurdle, I started looking at what I could do.

In my case, the one thing I could start doing immediately was save money. I knew that sooner or later if I wanted to get into a new career I’d have to leave my job, which meant there would probably be a time where there was no money coming in at all. To get myself past that, I started putting money away.

The more money I had saved up, the smaller the problem of quitting my job seemed to become, until it was almost trivial.

4. Start small, and gradually get larger

When you feel like you’re in a rut, showing yourself that you can make a change is more important than the change itself. When people start to actively take steps to overcome their problems, often they’ve been in a position of disempowerment for so long they feel like doing anything at all is impossible.

When I started saving money, it was only a little at a time. Barely a trickle, barely enough to hurt. But it was something. And it was empowering knowing that I was actually taking steps towards getting control of my life. That sense of empowerment allowed me to start saving larger chunks of money at a time. It helped me to feel more aware of, and in control of my finances, and that allowed me to feel confident enough to tackle problems which originally had just seemed like just way too hard.

Let your problems guide you

When I first started looking critically at my own life, all I could see were barriers between me and being happy. If I had just left it at that, then I might never have left that place. But because I chose to engage critically and honestly with my problems, it showed me exactly which steps I needed to take in order to achieve success.

If you want to push your life in the direction it was meant to go, the most important thing you can do is never mistake your problems as the cause for your unhappiness. You’re only ever really unhappy when you have problems and you don’t do anything about them.

Instead of the road blocks between you and where you want to go, think of your problems as the sign posts that exist in your life to start showing you the way forward.

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