Wednesday 16 September 2015

32 Things You May Regret 10 years From Now

Walking over the beach enjoying life to the fullest

Some of us are just existing and not living. Wouldn’t you rather set the world on fire and do something that challenged you, caused you to get up out of bed each morning actually looking forward to the day ahead, do something about that dream you’ve always had, start that business you’ve been talking about for years, or write that book?

We’ve all got something we’d love to do. It would be fantastic to say to your grandchildren, I gave it my best shot, instead of saying ‘I sat in and watched TV a lot and didn’t really do much with my life.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of doing nothing, which actually drains your energy more than doing something; anything.

Here are 32 Things you may regret 10 years from now

1. Caring what other people might think

2. Doing what you thought would please others

3. Staying in that job you’ve hated for so long

4. Not going after a dream

5. Giving up at the last hurdle

6. Settling for second best

7. Putting others before yourself

8. Sitting on your arse watching TV

9. Not paying attention to the people who really do matter

10. Not taking risks to do something you’ve always wanted to do

11. Thinking that it’s all about the money

12. Not getting over your fears in life

13. Staying in a relationship you knew had ended a long time ago

14. Not taking care of your body

15. Not finding enough time to sit and enjoy the journey

16. Not laughing at yourself enough

17. Not opening your mind to new possibilities

18. Always thinking about the past

19. Chasing money instead of seeking happiness

20. Always thinking ‘mañana, mañana’ – you’ve got to make your own tomorrows

21. Accepting only the love you think you deserve, when you should have set your standards higher

22. Not realising that it’s your own thoughts that create your world

23. Thinking that the world owes you a favour

24. Listening to reason ALL the time, sometimes you’ve got to just follow your heart

25. Not being braver

26. Not trusting yourself enough

27. Not realising that something good comes out of every bad situation

28. Knowing that you chose this life and that it’s up to you to manage it the way YOU would like

29. Letting someone else use you as a way to realise their dreams

30. Allowing yourself to follow someone else’s beliefs instead of investigating your beliefs for yourself

31. Not being honest ALL THE TIME with yourself and with others

32. Not letting the small things go, and focus on the things that really matter


What about you, is there anything you would add to this list? leave a comment below with your thoughts


Tuesday 15 September 2015

The Prison of Your Mind



The 3 lessen to learn from this video:

1. Never believe a prediction that doesn't empower you
2. You are not your condition
3. Love Yourself

Monday 14 September 2015

Will I Ever Be Happy? Stop Waiting For The Perfect Moment

It is pretty hard to feel content in a world that is consistently offering you the “next best thing”. I mean, how can your possibly pay attention to the now when you can’t wait for the future to arrive?

Because it will be better, right? It will be bigger, faster, more efficient, more effective, more fulfilling and…perfect, somehow.

But how reliable is relying on the future? And what evidence do we have that it will bring a better life than we have now?

Live in the Moment

The only thing we can be certain of is the now; this moment you’re experiencing as you read this post. And as for the evidence of a better future, well if you’ve yet to experience a moment that truly fulfilled you, even though you have been promised it would a thousand times – by yourself and others, then the likelihood of some distant moment in the future fulfilling your insatiable desires is pretty slim, don’t you think?

The reality is that we spend far too much time mulling over the past and anticipating the future. We look to the future for prosperity and, when it lets us down, we look romantically to the past at the way things once were.

The mind is always trying to take us some place else, to somewhere better, a place we have convinced ourselves will make everything worthwhile, a place where we feel content and fully realise our purpose and place in the world.

But that place doesn’t exist in the future.

In actuality, all that transpires is disappointment. We become increasingly impatient with life as it fails to deliver the perfect picture of happiness advertised to us through a plethora of marketing mediums on a daily basis.

The more we own and achieve the bigger the discontentment grows as the gap becomes impossible to fill. We become unhappier and more stressed, more self-centered and judgemental, more anxious and sleepless, more disenchanted with the world. This impacts negatively on our relationships with others, and on our ability to connect with the true nature of things.

If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say, “Things will be better when I….,”  “I’ll be happier when I…”

When what?

  • When you move house again?
  • When you get a higher-paying job?
  • When the kids go off to college?
  • When you finally take that holiday?
  • When you get a bigger car?
  • When you achieve what your parents expected of you?
  • When you meet Mr/Mrs right?
  • When you retire with that pension you’ve been slaving to accumulate?

This perpetual cycle of desiring to get to some moment other than the one that’s in our presence is causing us mental suffering. We live in the realm of our imagination, a delusion reliant on the prospect that happiness is just one more purchase, one more action or goal away.

But what if we just stop for a moment? What if we could find absolute contentment in just being here right now?

I assure you that if you let go of the grasping for just a moment, you’ll see just how perfect this moment is and how wonderfully complete you feel.

Because no matter what is going on in your life right now and how you perceive it, this is how it was meant to be in this moment.

Every moment is part of the interdependent transience of life. Mother Nature doesn’t use a clock. There is no time, only a sequence of perfect moments that form our existence. And they can be nothing more than moments, because one only ever exists at any given time.

And if you need any more motivation to free yourself from the cage of contemplation over what the future might bring, remember that one day there will not be another moment to ponder. The cold, hard reality is that you’ll die before that perfect moment you envision ever arrives.

Every moment we wish away, ignore or dismiss as not good enough, we never get back. Conversely, every moment is ours to seize and appreciate, to love ourselves, others and this amazing world.

Don’t ignore the potential for unconditional joy and fulfilment that can be found in your life right this moment. The way you engage with this moment will have a direct effect on the next, subsequently affecting the level of opportunity and prosperity that opens up in your life.

So today, bring your mind home. Stop longing for something better to happen, to have more than you own or to be someone else, somewhere else.

There is no perfect moment to come. There will never be a more perfect moment that this one. Because this moment is absolutely as it is supposed to be.

There is no “I’ll be happy when…” moment that will fill that longing for self-actualisation deep in the pit of your stomach. And you know this to be true because every time you get to that new product, have that new partner, reach that new goal, it isn’t long before you the emptiness creeps up on you again to let you know that you still don’t have that sense of achievement and contentment you were seeking. And so you set a new target, and the cycle continues….

Your happiness doesn’t reside in the future, and it hasn’t passed you by, either. It’s right here. Step into this most beautiful moment and connect with your existence. Life is happening right now. Don’t miss out.

Source

Thursday 10 September 2015

5 reasons why people don't follow their dream

I remember countless conversations with people telling me they have always wanted to start a business, or they have a true passion for a particular field, but in most cases it remained an idea at the back of their head, or better yet, a fantasy, something they never believed could become a reality. There are several reasons why most people don’t pursue their dreams.

Don't Dream your Life...Live Your dreams-Quote


1. Change – People fear the unknown. As Les Brown said, “for a lot of people, a known hell is better than an unknown paradise”. People don’t like to step out of their comfort zone. They complain about the routine but don’t want to change the routine. The idea of starting something new, something different, scares them.

2. Confidence – It takes self-confidence to decide to pursue a dream. People either think they are not capable of pursuing their dream or think they don’t deserve to live their dream. Most people don’t believe in themselves enough to trust that they can do whatever it is they really put their mind into.

3. Society – Believe it or not, society has a huge impact on how we live our lives. Society determines the major we should study in university, the career we should pick, the kind of neighbourhood and house we should live in, even the type of car we should drive. It takes a lot to ignore the path to success society has defined for us and follow our own path instead.

4. Family and friends – Similar to society, family and friends also interfere with our lives. Some people don’t follow their dream simply because they worry about family and friends’ reaction. People also rely on the support of family and friends and often get discouraged when that support is not there.

5. Fear of failure – Fear of failure is a big one! Even though a lot of successful entrepreneurs failed many times before they actually hit the jackpot, some people don’t want to get started just because they are afraid to fail.

If you have a dream and really want to pursue it, you can certainly overcome all of these obstacles and have the opportunity to live you dream. So, why not start today?

Source

Wednesday 9 September 2015

The Body-Mind Connection

Most people are aware of the mind-body connection—how your mental processes can affect your physical state. If you feel frightened, your heart races. Being embarrassed can cause you to blush. When you think of something happy, you are likely to smile. Meditating may even lower your blood pressure. But what about the reverse—a body-mind connection? Can altering your physical state in some way affect your mental state?

Accumulating research is revealing that body position, postures, gestures and facial expressions can indeed influence how you think, feel and even behave. For example, if you wrinkle your nose, an odor may smell more unpleasant. Raise your eyebrows and you may be more surprised by something you read. How you physically lean may, oddly enough, affect your perception of size: Lean left and you’re likely to think the Eiffel Tower is shorter than when you lean right. And though it may not have worked for Lady Macbeth, recent studies have found that handwashing can have a psychologically cleansing effect, lessening feelings of guilt and remorse.

Power poses and confidence
Much of the research on the body-mind connection (called embodied cognition by researchers) has focused on various expansive (or “power”) poses, which involve open positions, with arms and elbows away from the body and chin raised—as opposed to closed postures where the legs or arms are crossed, the head is down and the body slumped or slouched over. For example, in a small study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2010, people who sat or stood in expansive poses for just one minute not only felt more powerful and in charge, they also had an increase in testosterone and a decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. “By simply changing physical posture, an individual prepares his or her mental and physiological systems to endure difficult and stressful situations,” the paper concluded.

In another study that year in the same journal, people who assumed open body positions (the ankle of one leg resting on the thigh of the other leg, and an arm resting on the back of a chair) were more likely to take action (pick a card) during a blackjack game and reported a higher sense of power than those in constricted positions (legs together, shoulders dropped, hands under thighs).

Just sitting up straight, a simple power pose, may increase self-confidence, according to a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology in 2009. Participants wrote down their strengths and weaknesses and described themselves in a variety of ways, including whether they were good candidates for a job. Those who did the task while sitting up straight, chest out (“confident” posture) rated themselves higher and had more confidence in their self-attitudes than those who sat slumped, with face looking down at knees (“doubtful” posture). That is, “fake it till you make it.”



Power poses may also help lessen pain, suggested a study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2012. People who assumed expansive yoga poses (standing with legs apart and arms raised) had higher tolerance to discomfort and pain than those in submissive (kneeling) or neutral poses (standing with hands at sides). The researchers concluded that even if you don’t have control over your circumstances, you can behave as if you did by assuming a dominant pose, which, in turn, may decrease sensitivity to pain.

Words to the wise: Research on the body-mind connection, though still in its infancy, suggests that you may benefit by paying attention to how you hold your body. If you act as though you feel powerful and self-confident, you may achieve that actual feeling due to changes in body biochemistry. A few caveats: Being aware of the phenomenon may lessen the effect. And even if you achieve the effect, it may not persist over time.

Keep in mind, too, that body postures have a cultural element, as was illustrated by a 2013 study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that included Americans and East Asians. Though some expansive positions (like hands-spread-on-desk pose) increased feelings of power in both groups, the “feet-on-desk” power pose did not have this effect in East Asians because their cultural norms value modesty, restraint and humility. Nor would this pose be viewed well in Arab cultures, which consider it an insult to show the bottoms of shoes.

Source

Tuesday 8 September 2015

The Puzzle of Motivation

Again a great TED talk by Dan Pink a career analyst who shows facts that there is not a clear correlation between high rewards for employees and results. In many cases the intrinsic motivation is much more important than incentives offered.  

Realizing that intrinsic rewards can give us the motivation needed to succeed at any level should be the most important reason for each of us to go and find what they are! We all need to know what our true life values are to be successful in any area of life, whether it's in business, health or relationships. 

Enjoy this great video and use your intrinsic motivation!