by miami | Oct 18, 2007
Creating happiness in your life can depend a lot on your confidence level. Your confidence level is directly tied to your feelings and the way you think.
Here are a few ideas to help you develop confidence (followed by happiness and success)
1. Remember a time when you felt calm and relaxed and do you best to relive that time in your mind.
2. Remember a very positive experience you have had in your life. It would help if you wrote it down and posted it where you could see it.
3. When were you super successful at something? Write it down and remember the feeling.
4. What positive trait do you have or one that others have said you have?
5. Remember a time when you felt strong and confident. Write it down.
6. Imagine yourself saying something positive to someone or actually doing something nice for someone. (Of course you could always go and do it!)
7. Think of something you could do for self improvement today. Now go and do it!
Action is the key. Remembering, writing it down and doing it!
Also…
My friend and fellow personal development coach David Ferrers has developed a program called "Magic Hats" he is releasing for free.
This program is focused on helping you create confidence in creating your life.
Learn more by going to http://www.magic-hats.com or clicking here.
Don’t worry – be happy!
by miami | Oct 11, 2007
An article I wrote about the power of vision has been posted here on
the www.empoweringmessages.com website.
Vision continues to be the most powerful tool available to us and the
one we have to work hardest to use.
Get help finding vision in my book available here.
I am working on an online version soon to be released.
Of course if you register for the newsletter you get a great
mini book on how to define values, vision and sucess.
Don’t worry, Be happy!
Miami
by miami | Sep 23, 2007
The following is a quote from a great book How Good Do We Have To Be? by Harold S. Kushner:
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“When we do something wrong, because we are human and our choices are so complicated and temptation so strong, we do not lose our humanity. However, we do lose our integrity, our sense of wholeness, of being the same person all the time. We create a situation where part of us, our good self, is at war with another part of us, our weak and selfish side. We lose the focus, the singleness of purpose, that enables us to do the things that matter to us. That is when we need the religious gift of atonement and forgiveness (making our split selves at one). But should we ever conclude that there is no point in trying to be good enough, that is when we lose everything. Being human can never mean being perfect, but it should always mean struggling to be as good as we can and never letting our failures be a reason for giving up the struggle.”
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Isn’t this an interesting thought? All of us are imperfect. We all will make mistakes, commit errors, hurt others, and fail. This is inevitable and part of our individual paths to knowledge, wisdom and growth.
The question is – what do we do with these failures? Where do they go inside us?
We all know people who carry around guilt and use it as a weapon. We know people who attempt to blame everyone else for self-made challenges.
A valuable lesson to learn is the trick of looking closely at things that go wrong for the gifts they bring. Sometimes these gifts are well hidden and we must dig deep to find them. Then allow yourself the freedom to release the wrongness in whatever way works for you. Ask forgiveness from yourself, others who are affected and from God, the Universe or whatever you might call the source of all our power. This forgiveness allows us to carry on without the burdens that are so heavy to carry and add up so quickly to create an overwhelming load.
This applies to wrongs done to others as well as to ourselves. We, as humans, are not perfect and do not want to be. Life is however, perfect as it is!
And never stop trying! We all know and have heard many times there are only two ways to live. You are either dying or growing. There is no standing still in life. Your choice!
So then – How good do we have to be? What do you think?
by miami | Aug 30, 2007
Speaking of work and the reasons for it brought a flood of comments. Obviously this is something many of us think about a lot.
Part of the coaching strategies I always employ and fervently believe in is holding a very clearly defined personal vision of the future. Once a vision is known it is relatively easy to track backwards to the present and fill in the steps required to realize the desired ending. These steps become the daily, weekly and monthly goals to achieve.
Once goals are in place it becomes easy to set measurements of some kind in order to have a certain comfort level one is in control of a life. (If there is such a thing!) However, most of us are a bit fearful of measurements. The biggest reason is fear of failure.
We see measurements as an indication of failing to meet goals instead of the real reason for measurement which is simply an indication of direction. Are we doing better or worse than expected? Are there obvious changes needed to be made in the general plan to effect more consistent or more rapid movement? Are we even going down the right path?
In my opinion, many people (quite possibly a huge majority), will not take these steps as outlined simply because it means doing things differently. It means moving out of a comfort zone where change is uncomfortable – alarmingly so.
This brings to mind two quotes I have heard in the last several weeks that have reverberated in my mind over and over:
Newt Gingrich said in a speech a few weeks ago “Comfortable failure is preferable to the fear of real change.”
Then there is this common saying: “Life begins at where our comfort zone ends.”
So what is your vision? Are you on a path to realize it? Does your work life (obviously the majority of your waking time) accurately reflect this?
I hope so!
by miami | Aug 23, 2007
I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about why we work and it’s relationship to happiness. Yes I know it is to get money – and for a very special few there is that satisfaction of working just because they absolutely love what they are doing.
However we are talking about the mainstream and I will leave it to you to decide where you fit.
The people I coach and consult seem to be working for money. Always more money to live a better lifestyle, to send kids to great schools, to live in good houses in good neighborhoods (with good schools), have a decent car, health insurance, and save for the future.
To accomplish all that, many people work way more than 40 hours a week, and a lot commute to work taking up another hour or two a day.
That leaves the nights for kids, spouses or partners, and relaxing to get ready for the same tomorrow. Weekends are spent for the most part catching up at the house, or the cabin, or the car(s), attending kids events, and possibly even a getaway.
And, lest we forget, the one or two weeks vacation out of every 52.
How many are saving for the future? Few, if polls are to believed at all.
I guess my point is this. What is the point?
It seems to me we are losing the kids as there is not enough time left for them. The kids are being raised by teachers, who are overwhelmed and underpaid.
Not many people are saving enough for a ‘retirement’ no matter how hard they struggle.
Values and morals are plummenting as evidenced by TV, music and video. Violence is common and almost accepted as the norm.
And millions of people tune into ‘reality’ shows because they do not have a reality of their own.
All of this I see daily although our family has not had programmed TV in our house in 15 years, nor do we get newspapers or magazines (except National Geographic), our two children have been homeschooled from the very beginning, and we live on a horse farm where labor and participation by all is mandatory.
Which brings me back to happiness. What is it and how do you define it – for you?
Does your work help create happiness in your life? Or take it away? How do you define happiness?
I would love to know. Please leave your comments here.
Until next time.
Don’t worry, be happy!
Miami
by miami | Aug 2, 2007
One of the challenges I have found in entrepreneurs (which includes me) is the ability to let go. We tend to want to do everything ourselves.
Either we think it is the only way to get it done correctly, or that we can do it quicker, better, or cheaper.
That is crazy. We are just control freaks!
What we do best in create a vision of the future and inspire others how to get it.
If we spend the majority of our time doing all the things we should be letting others do, we are not clarifying and communicating vision. And on top of that we are holding others back from realizing their potential.
Either way it hurts someone. You or them.
Let go of something today. Find someone else who can do it and pay them. It might be uncomfortable at first, and more work as you have to show them how you want it done, but in the end you have given someone else a job, and freed yourself up to do more of what you do best.
You do know what that is don’t you?
I’m working on another product I think you will find fascinating. Several years ago I was taught a phenomenal way of communicating by simply looking at someone.
