7 Hard Things You Should Do for Yourself When You Don’t Feel Good Enough

1. Be where you are.
Sadly, only a tiny percentage of the people in this world will actually experience their lives today. So many of us will be stuck on another day, another time and place that troubled us and caused us to spiritually stumble, and thus we will miss out on life as we’re living it. Realize this. Do not allow your spirit to be softened or your happiness to be limited by a time and place you cannot get back to, or a day that does not yet exist.

Remember, no matter what, you can always fight the battles of just today. It’s only when you add the infinite battles of yesterday and tomorrow that life gets overly complicated.

Truth be told, before you know it you’ll be asking, “How did it get so late so soon?” So take time right now to figure yourself out. Take time to realize what you want and need in this moment. Take time to love, to laugh, to cry, to learn, to work, and to move your present self forward.

2. Look deep within.
Remember that there is a place within you that you can go to at any moment. It is calm and full of love. Forget about the noise of the world is reciting to you. Look within. Go there when you are sad. Go there when you are fearful or angry or troubled. Go there when you are alone in your car in hectic traffic, or when you are surrounded by people who intimidate you. And don’t forget to go there when you are happy too.

Remind yourself that you are not your body. You are not your past or future. You are not what others expect of you. The essence of your being is love and it is within you right now. Your spirit is simply waiting for you to remember this.

So, go to that quiet place in the center of you. Let the deep love and serenity swallow you whole. Everything is always okay, even when it’s not. Let go of the mind’s need to remind you of everything outside that weighs you down. You are none of that. You are at peace in this moment. Breathe.

3. Talk it out.
Ever feel totally out of your element? Like you’re due to be discovered for the “fraud” that you are? This is what psychologists call the “impostor syndrome” — where you constantly feel like everyone around you has their act together, but you don’t. And the more others recognize your achievements, the more you feel like a fake. Because as you enhance your knowledge — as you expand the scope of what you know — you’ll inevitably be exposed to more and more of what you don’t know, and thus you may begin to subconsciously discredit what you do know. It’s a bizarre cycle.

Again, “Impostorism” is, for many of us, a natural symptom of gaining expertise. Move up the ranks in life, and you’ll inevitably encounter more talented people to compare yourself negatively against. The cycle never stops, and we all get caught up in it in some way.

The solution is to talk it out with a trusted friend, partner, or coach. Talk about your insecurities more, and let them do the same. Admittedly, it’s a hard conversation to initiate, so in the mean time just remember that everyone feels like an impostor sometimes — it’s not just you.

4. Relax the tension.
One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s feelings of guilt, anger, disappointment, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold and we fight to let go. But we must eventually let GO. There’s no point in stressing over what you can’t change. Stop over-thinking it. Let it be, and allow yourself to grow from the experience.

Perhaps you’re annoyed by someone, frustrated at work, overwhelmed by all your obligations, or just upset by some aspect of your life. And your tight mental grasp of the circumstance creates a tension in your body and unhappiness in your mind. Therefore, Angel and I often recommend this simple strategy to our course students who are struggling to relieve themselves of their stress and tension:

Locate the tension in your body right now.
Notice what you’re resisting and tensing up against — it might be a situation or person you’re dealing with or avoiding.
Relax the tense area of your body — deep breath and a quick stretch often helps.
Face the same situation or person, but with a relaxed body and mind.
Repeat this practice as often as needed. Face the day with less tension and more presence. Change your mode of being from one of struggle and grasping to one of peace and freedom.

5. Give yourself credit.
Your inner light is seen. Your heart is heard. Your spirit is treasured by more people than you imagine. If you knew how many others have been touched in profound ways by you, you would be astounded. If you knew how many people feel so much for you, you would be speechless. You are far more brilliant than you think you are.

Stop discrediting yourself for everything you aren’t, and start giving yourself credit for everything that you are. Behind you is infinite power, before you is endless possibility, around you is boundless opportunity.

Give yourself credit, for all of it…

You’ve lived
You’ve learned
You’ve come a long way
You’ve survived all your bad days
You’re still growing

6. Give things space.
“If you want to control your animals, give them a larger pasture.” That’s a quote Angel and I heard at a meditation retreat recently in a group discussion focused on the power of changing your attitude about the things you can’t change or don’t need to change.

I see “the animals” and their “larger pasture” as a form of letting go and allowing things to be the way they are — instead of trying to tightly control something, you’re loosening up, giving it more space, a larger pasture. The animals will be happier — they will roam around and do what they naturally do. And yet your needs will be met too — you will have more space to be at peace with the way the animals are.

This same philosophy holds true for many aspects of life — stepping back and allowing certain things to happen means these things will take care of themselves, and your needs will also be met. You will have less stress (and less to do), and more time and energy to work on the things that truly matter  — the things you actually can control — like your self-care, and your attitude about everything.

7. Change your response.
What can we do when someone close to us is being annoying, irritating, rude or just generally difficult? What can we do when their negativity brings us down?

Well, assuming we’re not in any sort of real danger and we don’t need to physically protect ourselves, the best choice is often a simple mindset shift. Rather than trying to change the other person, we change our response to them.

I know that suggestion can be frustrating for some people. Why should we have to make a change when it’s the other person who’s misbehaving?

The key, though, is to understand that with a few simple mindset shifts you can find a lot more peace around just about anyone. But if you try to shift the behavior of others, you’re only going to drive yourself crazy.

(MARCANDANGEL).

Finding Happiness

As we grow older in life, it is less about activities and more about those things that helps us connect to our core, that give us a spring in our steps and that ultimately adds meaning to our existence.

Yesterday, I met a Polish guy in a local restaurant in Stavager, who told me that he had a failed encounter with suicide just the night before. But for his sister who barged into his room at the wee hours of the morning, he would have had an encounter with a substance; the kind that takes you away from this realm. His burden? He has been unhappy for far too long, and this sadness have snowballed into being suicidal. We must have spent about 90 minutes in a conversation, and while I do not pride myself as some sorts of therapist with a curative wand, I lent 'unstraying' ears to him all through and that have partly forced me to write this afterwards. Ultimately, this guy in his early 30s considered himself an anathema of some sorts. He decried on how he wakes up most days tired, crestfallen, beaten and sad. His story was a rude reminder of many I have heard on the streets of Lagos and Portharcourt. Young men and women who continuously live behind a mask, until the glue wears off and can't stay anymore. I might be wrong, but my conclusion is that happiness is not one of those things you go seeking for, because nothing will ever be enough.

It almost borders on beating the point now, but it is worth re-emphasizing that you are responsible for your happiness, and the more you seek this externally, the more elusive it becomes. Things, events, people and circumstances can give us joy, but it is almost certainly fleeting. To find happiness, you must look within, you must create your own happiness and you must cut off people and things that pour sadness on you. When it comes to your happiness, you must be selfish. It is ok to unfollow people in real life. In same vein, you must conjure the strength to curtail habits that takes the gleam out of your face. They say bad habits are spiraling slides that drag you round and round down the narrowing end of a cone that eventually ends up in a dark, tight, confining spot. I know it is not easy, but you have to find a way.

Everyday, we must make choices that gives meaning to our lives. We must be deliberate about shutting out the noises from the busy streets of social media and from the confines of friends and family. These noises can disguise as jokes, advice, insinuations or warnings but they all constitute pressure for many, while for some it leaves them worthless. Take advice but always put your filter on. There are too many life experts in the world today, never mind that most of them have been unable to get their own lives together. Be deliberate about distancing yourself from those things and people that hamper your happiness. Do it for yourself. Do it for this one precious life you have. Recently, I have had to advice a friend to quit her job without the immediate certainty of another. I am not one to give such profound admonition as I generally consider myself to be too circumspect in such matters. However, in the case in question, this lady was no longer living. And to continue in a job that causes her that much pain meant that it was only a matter before something more costly would have given.

They say if you live very long enough you will discover that you truly don't need as much friends as you think you do to have a smashing life. Add to the fact that many of what many people call friends today are barely worthy of the name. Yet, some people somehow hinge their happiness on the opinions of these people.

Ultimately, and I know this will irk some but I write from my own experience. The only one in whom you can find true happiness, is God. To forge a relationship with him and nurture that relationship is where you will find peace. He will teach you priorities, he will show you what is important always and he will counsel you to never sweat the small stuff. This is not a role any human can adequately play in your life. In the final analysis, never forget that your happiness is your responsibility! Don't delegate it.

10 Little Habits that Wreck Thousands of Lives One Day at a Time

1. Change nothing and expect different results.

There’s a saying that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Take this to heart. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Period.

Oftentimes the only difference between a successful person and a person who makes little progress is not one’s superior abilities, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take calculated risks, and to take steady steps forward. In other words, some people sit and wait for the magic beans to arrive while the rest of us just get up and get to work.

2. Keep waiting and waiting and waiting for the right time.

Remind yourself of how often we waste our time waiting for the ideal path to appear. Then remind yourself of how often it never appears. Seriously, we forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting.

So think of today as the beginning—the conception of a new life. The next nine months are all yours. You can do with them as you please. Make them count. Because a new person is born in nine months. The only question is: Who do you want that person to be? Now is the right time to decide. And no, you shouldn’t feel more confident before you take the next step. Taking the next step is what builds your confidence and fuels your inner and outer growth.

3. Expect good things to come easy.

A goal is a point of achievement that requires effort and sacrifice. There are no esteemed ventures worth participating in that don’t require some level of effort and sacrifice. Trust me, decades from now when you’re resting on your deathbed, you will not remember the days that were easy, you will cherish the moments when you rose above your difficulties and conquered challenges of magnitude. You will dream of the strength you found within yourself that allowed you to achieve what once seemed impossible.

So don’t do what’s easy, do what you’re capable of. Astound yourself with your own abilities. And as you struggle forward, remember, it is far better to be exhausted from lots of effort and learning than to be tired of doing nothing. Effort is never wasted, even when it leads to disappointing results. For it always makes you stronger and more experienced in the long run.

4. Refuse to accept necessary risks.

Living is about learning as you go. Living is risky business. Every decision, every interaction, every step, every time you get out of bed in the morning, you take a small risk. To truly live is to know you’re getting up and taking that risk, and to trust yourself to take it. To not get out of bed, clutching to illusions of safety, is to die slowly without ever having truly lived. This isn’t drama—it’s real life.

Think about it. If you ignore your instincts and let shallow feelings of uncertainty stop you, you will never know anything for sure, and in many ways this un-knowing will be worse than finding out your instincts were wrong. Because if you were wrong, you could make adjustments and carry on with your life, without looking back and wondering what might have been.

5. Make the rejections of yesterday the focal point of today.

Be okay with walking away when the time comes. Rejection teaches us how to reject what’s not right for our well-being. It won’t be easy, but some chapters in our lives have to close without closure. There’s no point in losing yourself by trying to fix what’s meant to stay broken.

All too often we let the rejections of our past dictate every move we make thereafter. We literally do not know ourselves to be any better than what some opinionated person or narrow circumstance once told us was true. Of course, this old rejection doesn’t mean we aren’t good enough; it means the other person or circumstance failed to align with what we have to offer. It means we have more time to improve our thing—to build upon our ideas, to perfect our craft, and indulge deeper in to the work that moves us. And that’s exactly what you need to do, starting now.

6. Refuse to take responsibility.

You aren’t responsible for everything that happened to you, but you need to be responsible for undoing the thinking and behavioral patterns these outcomes created. Blaming the past for a limiting mindset today doesn’t fix it. Change your response to what you remember, and step forward again with grace.

A combination of your decisions and external factors for which you had no control brought you to where you are in the world today. Negatively blaming someone else, or some other past circumstance, will change nothing. Positively taking full responsibility for your situation and your path forward can change everything. Leave the unchangeable past behind you as you diligently give yourself to the present moment. In this moment is every possibility you seek. Take responsibility for it, and bring these possibilities to life.

7. Close your mind to new ideas and perspectives.

Even as you grow wiser and wiser with age you must remind yourself that an understanding is never absolutely final. What’s currently right could easily be wrong later. Thus, the most destructive illusion is a settled point of view. So, remember that success in life does not depend on always being right. To make real progress you must let go of the assumption that you already have all the answers.

Bottom line: Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop investing in yourself. Study. Read. Devour books. Engage with people, including those who think differently. Ask questions. Listen closely. And don’t just grow in knowledge. Be a person who gives back. Use what you’re learning to make a difference.

8. Let a few negative people fill your mind with garbage.

Your mind is your private sanctuary; do not allow the negative beliefs of others to occupy it. Your skin is your barrier; do not allow others to get under it. Take good care of your personal boundaries and what you allow yourself to absorb from others.

Of course, there will inevitably be a few people in your life who will be critical of you regardless of what you do or how well you do it. If you say you want to be a dancer, they will discredit your rhythm. If you say you want to build a new business, they will give you a dozen reasons why it might not work. They somehow assume you don’t have what it takes, but they are dead wrong. Let that sink in.

It’s a lot easier to be negative than positive—a lot easier to be critical than correct. When you’re embarking on a new venture, instead of listening to the few critics that will try to discredit you, spend time talking to one of the thousands of people in this world who are willing to support your efforts and acknowledge your potential, respectfully. And go ahead and leave us a comment on this post if you think you can’t find one.

9. Hold tight to something that’s not real.

One of the most important moments in life is the moment you finally find the courage to let go of what can’t be changed. Because, when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself—to grow beyond the unchangable. And that changes everything.

Seriously, remind yourself right now that not everything is meant to be. You have to seriously sit down with yourself and come to grips with the fact that you were wrong about it all along. It was just an illusion that never really was what you thought it was. It’s one of the most difficult realizations to accept, to realize that you feel a sense of loss, even though you never really had what you thought you had in the first place. The key is knowing this, learning from it, letting go, and taking the next step. 

10. Maintain rigid expectations every step of the way.

Simple things become complicated when you expect too much. Expectation truly is the root of all heartache. Don’t let it get the best of you. Every difficult life situation can be an excuse for hopelessness or an opportunity for personal growth, depending on what you choose to do with it. So start by choosing to let go of the ideas and expectations that aren’t serving you.

(MARCANDANGEL).

Excellence is an attitude...Be excellent!

It was Aristotle who once said that 'Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.' Nothing can be truer.

Everyday, we have a choice to make. Either to go about our daily jobs barely doing enough to get by, or choosing to go over and beyond with a better touch of quality. The thing with excellence is that it becomes an habit over time. However, we must first be intentional about choosing to be excellent. Sometimes, choosing to be excellent will earn you enemies among friends, foes among peers and haters among colleagues. There are many that will simply hate your gut because you refuse to deliver insipid work. Your pursuit of excellence is a crass reminder of their inadequacies and this will only fuel their disdain for you. You know what? That is fine. Keep churning out quality.

In the final analysis, excellence is displayed in the little things, the small acts, the often insignificant details. And sooner than later, the one who is excellent will be noticed, and the reward for being noticed for great work will come along. In the quest for excellence it is not an eye service game, it has to be something you have in your wheelhouse. Perhaps, the greatest gain of being excellent is that it improves the quality of your life. People will want to drag you to their average level often times. Your task is to refuse to accede to such soulless level. Be and remain excellent, save in the thought that next to excellence is the appreciation of it and that excellence always sells. Excellence is a choice, and you must make that choice over and over again until “doing your best” is all you know.

I will end with the stinging words of the amazing Steve Jobs - “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” 

20 Powerful Affirmations We Should Repeat to Ourselves This Year

1. “The biggest and most complex obstacle I will ever have to overcome is my mind. If I can overcome that, I can overcome anything.”

2. “I cannot control exactly what happens in life, but I can control how I respond to it all. In my response is my greatest power.”

3. “I have to accept whatever comes my way, and the only important thing is that I meet it with the best I have to give.”

4. “I will stop focusing on how stressed I am and remember how blessed I am. Complaining won’t change my reality, but a positive attitude will.”

5. “Being positive does not mean ignoring the negative. Being positive means overcoming the negative. There is a big difference between the two.”

6. “I will not get caught up in what could’ve been or should’ve been. I will look instead at the power and possibility of what is, right now.”

7. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. It’s about not letting my fear decide my future.”

8. “I will get back up. Again, and again. The faster I recover from setbacks, the faster I’ll get to where I’m going in life.”

9. “My next step in the right direction does not have to be a big one.”

10. “Patience is a genuine expression of confidence, acceptance, serenity, and faith in my own ability. It’s a sign of strength. I will practice it.”

11. “When I find that I don’t have time for what matters, I will stop doing things that don’t.”

12. “I can always feel the genuine, positive power that flows from my decision to rise above the petty drama and distractions that don’t really matter anyway.”

13. “Instead of getting angry, I will find the lesson. In place of envy, I will feel admiration. In place of worry, I will take positive action. In place of doubt, I will have faith.”

14. “The longer I remain peaceful, the stronger I become. Peace on the inside leads to real, meaningful progress on the outside.”

15. “There’s nothing selfish about self-care and self-love. I can’t give what I don’t have. When I enrich my own life, I’ll be life-giving to others too.”

16. “If the grass looks greener on the other side, it’s just life’s way of reminding me to water the grass I’m standing on.”

17. “From now on I will be too busy watering my own grass to notice if yours is greener.”

18. “I will focus on making myself better, not on thinking I am better.”

19. “I will practice gratitude, even in the midst of frustration and despair, so I can better see the positive possibilities around me.”

20. “Happiness does not start when ‘this, that or the other’ thing is resolved. Happiness is what happens now, when I make the best of what I have.”

(MARCANDANGEL).

Harvard Business Review - My New Coworker Is a Nightmare … and I Helped Her Get the Job

Dear HBR:

I successfully referred a friend’s friend to be my peer on my team. We’re under the same manager. She was very appreciative of the referral and was very friendly when I trained her on the job. However, shortly after I finished training her, she turned around and tried to compete with me, and became very aggressive and sneaky. Here’s an example. My manager asked her to work on something I had trained her on. When my manager checked in on the status, she said she was working on a project for the new big boss, so she didn’t have time to do the work. None of us knew about this other project, but we couldn’t stop her for obvious reasons. In the end, my manager reallocated her work back to me.

Another time when I was on vacation she took over my seat. I have a nice window seat. It’s next to my manager and the big boss. When I returned, all her stuff was scattered around my desk, including her dirty shoes. I feel this is very disrespectful. She’s very good at talking and sucking up. I feel even my manager is a bit scared of her. He plans to retire next year so I doubt he’s going to do anything. What should I do?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is a tough situation that your new coworker put you in. When you refer someone to work at your company, not only are you putting your reputation on the line but you’re hoping that you’ll gain an ally at work.

But you are also not alone. Research from Chris Porath and Christine Pearson shows that 98% of people have experienced incivility at work. And there are real costs to being on the receiving end of this type of behavior. A team of researchers looked at how people get away with rudeness. They write, “People who experience workplace rudeness…report lower engagement, suffer more mental and physical health problems, and are more likely to burn out and quit their jobs. Which begs the question: Why do we tolerate this behavior at work? The results from the study show that people get away with being rude when they have a tight relationship with the boss or are high performers.

So what might you do now? One of my first instincts in any conflict situation is to try to think about it from the other person’s perspective. Annie McKee, the author of How to Be Happy at Work, says you need to have cognitive empathy (the ability to understand another person’s perspective) to “unearth your curiosity” when someone is bothering you at work. Ask yourself: What’s motivating your peer to behave this way? Is she really just obnoxious? Is she trying to impress other people? Is she trying to get away with not working? What could be going on here?

You may not have the answers to these questions so you should consider gathering more information and figure out whether others in the office perceive this woman in the same way that you do. People may be having a similar reaction and not telling you because they know you referred her.

If you find out that she is actually well respected, don’t try to convince everyone that she’s a jerk. Instead, try to understand why others may be working well with her when you aren’t. Is there something about the dynamic between you two that’s causing problems? Is there something you can do to shift your behavior? Maybe you need to stand up for yourself more, to be stronger and firmer.

For example, you could casually — and without emotion — move her stuff back to her desk and say, “It looks like you left your things on my desk.” Or if she expects you to take on her work, you can say, “No actually I need you to do that. It’s part of your job, not mine.” It may feel uncomfortable to be this direct at first but it’s important to establish boundaries, especially with someone who’s not respecting yours. Assuming positive intent can help here so you don’t further the conflict. Maybe she left her stuff on your desk by accident? Maybe she didn’t know that project was part of her job? In this article about peer accountability, Joseph Grenny found that the health of a team can be measured by “the average lag time between identifying and discussing problems. The shorter the lag time, the faster problems get solved and the more the resolution enhances relationships. The longer the lag, the more room there is for mistrust, dysfunction, and more tangible costs to mount.”

Therefore, you might consider having a direct conversation with her to try to clear the air. Caroline Webb, author of How to Have a Good Day, shares five steps in this article on how to raise difficult issues with a tough teammate. In step two, she encourages people to share “true facts” — “the things you know for sure, stripped of emotion, interpretation, or generalization.” When you talk to your coworker, be specific about what’s happened and how it’s made your job harder. And then ask her how she sees the situation.

That said, given what you shared in your letter, I suspect that that conversation might not go well. Then you have to decide whether to escalate it to your boss. It’s always better if you can solve the issue yourself without your manager stepping in. But there are some people who care a lot about hierarchy and will only change their behavior when encouraged to do so from someone senior. This might be what your peer needs. If you do go to your boss, be ready to list everything you tried to solve the situation yourself. And have a proposal for what you’d like them to do. Do you think it would be best if they talked directly to the person? It sounds like you feel like your boss may be hesitant to get involved but given that they are leaving, they might have a lot of leeway to actually do something and ruffle a few feathers because they’re on their way out the door.

If you find that the conversations with your peer, and with your boss, don’t change the situation, you’ll need to protect yourself and change your mindset. Otherwise, this is likely to eat you up inside and ruin your work experience. Consultant Abby Curnow-Chavez, in her article about dealing with a toxic coworker, says, “Own what you can, let go of what you can’t influence, and make a change if you have to.” Hopefully this doesn’t mean leaving your job, but try to establish boundaries so that you don’t have to work with her, even sit next to her. In this article, Greg McKeown shares a useful framework for how to set emotional boundaries without becoming walled off. And don’t stoop to her level — behave in a way that’s aligned with your values.

And have some self-compassion. Remember: it’s much easier to try to change your reaction to someone, than to change them.

10 Uncomfortable Things You Need to Start Doing for Yourself in 2020

1. Challenge your understandings and certainties. – Warren Buffett once said, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” This is a tragedy, this kind of thinking. Don’t do it to yourself. Don’t just look for data that confirms what you already know. Be willing to be wrong in 2020. Be willing to learn in 2020. Be mindful, humble and teachable every step of the way. There’s always room for a new idea, a new perspective . . . a new beginning. Life changes every second, and so can you. Find ways to provide a healthy challenge to your current understandings of life, and you will discover and experience far more of life’s magic in the year ahead.

2. Build up your confidence and your progress, one day at a time. — Start each day of 2020 with the truth: It’s not too late. You aren’t behind. You’re where you need to be. Every day and step is necessary. Don’t judge yourself for how long your journey is taking. We all need our own time to travel our own distance. Give yourself credit, and then take the next step. The present moment is always the beginning of anything you want. Yet too often we waste our time waiting for the ideal path to appear. But it never does because we forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting. And no, you shouldn’t feel more confident before you take the next step. Taking the next step is what builds your confidence and ultimately moves your life forward.

3. Track how you invest your energy and make productive shifts. – To attract better outcomes in life, you have to become better on the inside. Again, you can’t do the same things and expect change. You can’t blame someone else. Take full responsibility for the next step. Start transforming your mindset. Start upgrading your habits. Your life is 90% your choice! Seriously, don’t settle! Don’t exchange what you want most for what’s easiest at the moment. Study your agendas and routines closely. Figure out where your time goes, and remove needless distractions. It’s time to focus on what really matters.

4. Work diligently and consistently on meaningful goals. – When you focus your heart and mind upon a purpose, and commit yourself to fulfill that purpose through small daily steps, positive energy floods into your life. Sadly, many of us miss the mark. A few years ago when the Guardian asked a hospice nurse, Bronnie Ware, about The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, one of the most common regrets she noticed was that people regretted not being true to their goals. In fact, she said that most of the people she cared for admitted to not honoring even half of the goals that were meaningful to them, and so they ended up dying with regrets. Let this be your wake-up call! Good health brings a level of freedom and opportunity very few of us realize until we no longer have it. As they say, there are seven days in the week and “someday” isn’t one of them.

5. Do the hard things. – Lose the expectation that everything in life should be easier. There are rarely shortcuts to any place worth going. Enjoy the challenge of your achievements. See the value in your efforts and be patient with yourself. And realize that patience is not just about waiting, it’s the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard on your important goals. It’s knowing deep down that doing the hard things is worth it. Why? Because those are the things that ultimately define you. Those are the things that make the difference between existing and living—between knowing the path and walking the path—between a life of mediocrity and a life filled with progress and fulfillment.

6. Study your mistakes closely and learn from them. – Disappointments and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to the places you want to go. Again, don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart. When things go wrong, learn what you can and then push the heartbreak aside by refocusing your energy on the present step. Remember that life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. We must fail in order to know, and hurt in order to grow. Good things often fall apart so better things can fall together in their place. And what’s better already is the more informed step you’re able to take right now.

7. Choose a positive and effective response. – Happiness doesn’t start with a relationship, a vacation, a job or money. It starts with you. If you want life to be happier, you need to be mindful of your present response. It’s how you deal with stress in each little moment that determines how well you achieve happiness in the end.

8. Directly confront the thoughts that worry you. – A tiny part of your life is decided by completely uncontrollable circumstances, while the vast majority of your life is decided by how you respond to them. Whenever our Getting Back to Happy course students and Think Better, Live Better conference attendees come to us feeling down about a life situation they can’t control, we typically start by reinforcing the hard truth: sometimes changing your situation isn’t possible—or simply not possible soon enough. But you CAN always choose a mindset that moves you forward. And doing so will help you change things from the inside out, and ultimately allow you to grow beyond the struggles you can’t control at any given moment. Here’s a powerful question that will support you with an attitude adjustment when you need it most: Who would you be, and what else would you see, if you removed the thought that’s worrying you?

9. Learn to be more present again. – Don’t avoid eye contact. Don’t hide behind gadgets. Smile often. Ask about people’s stories. Listen. You can’t connect with anyone, including yourself, unless you are undistracted and present. And you can’t be either of the two when you’re Facebooking, Instagramming or Snapchatting your life away on your smartphone. You just can’t! If you are constantly attached to your smartphone and only listening with your ears as your eyes check for the next social update, you are ripping yourself off of actually experiencing real relationships and real life. The same is true for texting too. Yes, someday you will be slapped with the reality of a missed MEMORY being far more unsettling than a missed TEXT!

10. Be strict about making time for the right people. – At some point, when it comes to relationships, you’ll just want to be around the few people who make you smile for all the right reasons. So be intentional about spending more quality time with those who help you love yourself more. And remember that nothing you can give them will ever be more appreciated than your sincere, focused attention—your full presence. Truly being with them, and listening without a clock and without anticipation of the next event, is the highest form of compliment.

(MARCANDANGEL).