Positive Action

Do you Need an Attitude Adjustment

Do you feel like your life could be happier? A better tomorrow could start with something as simple as your attitude. Our perspectives have a huge effect on our overall level of happiness. They can affect our success as well.

Over time, attitudes become habitual. Because of this, they can take a bit of effort to change, but such work is well worth your time!

Try these techniques to bring greater happiness and success into your life:

1. Start each day by making a mental list of things you’re thankful for. You can do this while you’re lying in bed just before you get up, in the shower, or while driving to work. This simple mental exercise will adjust your focus to the good things that you already have.

2. Love life, not stuff. Do you feel that having more possessions will make you happy? What usually happens is that, after you acquire something, it never seems to mean as much to you as you thought it would. After the newness wears off, you’re back to wanting some more new stuff! So the joy in most new possessions is temporary, at best, and leads to more “wanting.”

* The quality of your life itself is what will bring you the most happiness, not the quantity or quality of your stuff.
* Spend some time each day doing what you love.
* Build meaningful relationships that uplift you.
* Take action to create a life filled with what truly means the most to you.

3. Be patient. Our society has trained us to be in a hurry and expect immediate gratification. However, some of the great things in life take time to bring to fruition.

* Enjoy the process of creating the life you desire. Each day will bring you one step closer. Being impatient tends to push your goals farther away.

4. Believe in yourself. Life is much more pleasant when you have faith in yourself. Remember: You’ve already done things that are much more difficult than just about anything you may still wish to accomplish. So you know you can achieve your future plans.

* Consider learning to walk. How many times does a baby fall before they finally can stand up unassisted, let alone walk? And we keep learning more over time. Even a 10-year old doesn’t walk as well as a 30-year old. It takes many years of practice.

* How many times are you willing to fall down and get back up now? When you believe in yourself and expect success, you’re more likely to succeed. Your upbeat attitude will lead you to seek solutions to your challenges until you reach your goal.

5. Sometimes being smart is sufficient. We often believe that everything worthwhile requires a lot of work. However, many times, approaching challenges by working smart instead of working hard can save a lot of time and grief.

* Sit down and reflect on your situation from the perspective that there’s a simple solution to each challenge. You might be surprised how clever you can be if you make an effort to find an easy but satisfactory solution.

6. There’s no such thing as failure. Each time your plans fall short, analyze where they went wrong, learn from the experience, and continue moving forward.

* When you “fail,” all you’ve really done is discovered an ineffective way of trying to do something. That’s all. The knowledge gained only makes you more capable in the future.

Adjusting your attitude and making the changes permanent will take some work, but this effort pays off. Your attitude affects your perspective, what you notice, and what you fail to notice. So by adjusting your attitude, you can shift your whole reality!

Examine the attitudes you already hold that may be limiting your life and happiness. What perspectives and beliefs would serve you better? Use the above ideas to start the process of adjusting those ineffective attitudes today for a happier tomorrow.

No Family is Perfect

Families are complex and all of us are bound to experience some negative emotions from things that happened as we were growing up.

No family is perfect, and although your parents might have made every effort to ensure you a safe and happy childhood, unanticipated events occur that might have been out of your parents’ control at the time.

As a result, you might have developed feelings of sadness, disappointment, fears, and even hurt about your early years.

You’ve most likely heard the expression about carrying around “old baggage” with you. Baggage is an expression used when referring to unpleasant emotions and feelings we “carry” throughout our lives, unless, of course, we do something to let go of that baggage. Letting go of old family hurts is critical to living the life you deserve.

Following these steps can help free you from the limitations of your baggage:

1. Write a list of what you feel hurt or disappointed about. Your list might be quite lengthy or it might be brief with just one or two items. Whichever the case, recording what you feel hurt about will help clarify what it is that’s bugging you.

2. Go more in depth about each issue you listed. Specific to each item on your list, record how you felt at the time and how you feel now about the situation. The writing process will help you explore your feelings and identify how you truly feel about the past event.

* Upon completing this exercise, you may discover that you aren’t as upset now about an incident as you once were and realize that you can give yourself permission to let it go.

3. Recognize how this baggage is affecting you now. The way you handle many aspects of your life today could be related to things that happened in your past.

* Do you avoid getting too emotionally close to others for fear of being hurt?
* Do you jump in to relationships too quickly – only to find the other person not to be someone you would normally like to spend time with?
* Maybe you allow your anger to wear away at your close, loving relationships.
* Whatever it is, try to connect past incidents with what you’re doing now to express the negative emotions from those events.

4. Know that you’re worth living a life without the old hurt. You deserve to have a life unfettered by wounds from your past.

5. Make a decision to let go. Tell yourself you’ll no longer be affected by something that happened so long ago. You might want to try these ways to help you let go:

* You could write your old hurts on small snippets of paper and put them in balloons. Then, blow up the balloons, take them outdoors, and let them go. As they float away, imagine your pain floating away, too.

* Another way to let go is to write them down on paper and burn the paper. As you watch your writings safely burn in your fireplace or a barbecue grill outdoors, visualize those hurts being burned up and disappearing from your life forever.

6. From your adult viewpoint, you may now understand what happened. Once you clarify the event, consciously tell yourself that you now understand what occurred and why or how it happened. You’ve gained some insight into the issue. Now you can leave it in the past.

7. Commend yourself for your efforts to let go of your emotional baggage. After all, it weighed you down for quite some time. Now you’re free of it. Praise yourself for an important job well done.

You can let go of old family hurts by following these steps. You’ll feel so much better when you release the painful feelings you’ve had for some time. Create the life you so deserve by banishing the past to where it belongs – in the past.

Don’t Be Afraid to Pursue Your Dreams

Have you ever awakened one day and realized that, although your life is going pretty well, there’s just one thing tugging at you? Something inside is telling you that something isn’t quite “right” in your life. Or maybe it feels more like something’s missing.

Perhaps those feelings are trying to let you know you haven’t been pursuing your dreams. For many, dreams about the future started when they were youngsters.

You might’ve grown to admire your uncle who’s a great golfer and wanted to try golfing to emulate him. Or maybe you do golf but there’s that one golf course in Europe that you really want to play.

It could be that your 7th grade English teacher, whom you loved, always told you what a great writer you were. But after high school, you’ve hardly written even a short story. You always thought you’d get back to writing, but just haven’t taken the time or effort.

It’s time to pursue your dreams!

Review these tips about following your bliss. You might realize that – YES! – you can go after your special goals while living your life and “taking care of business.”

1. Ask yourself, “Is there something I’ve wanted to do for a long time?” If so, what is it?

2. Write down your goals for the future. Obtain a spiral notebook and devote it to your dreams.

* Take your Dream Notebook and pen to the park or front porch. Then, ponder your dream. Write everything that comes to mind. Record your dreams on a small bit of paper and affix them to your bathroom mirror.

* Each day, when you see that message to yourself about what you want to do, it will inspire you.

3. Pledge to do just one thing each day or week to chase after your dream goal. Maintain your momentum toward following your bliss.

* Make your dreams a priority in life.
* Avoid allowing anyone or anything to get in the way of pursuing your dreams.
* Who knows what can happen when you “keep your eyes on the prize?”

4. It’s rare to accomplish dreams in a short period of time. Accept that you’ll be following your most cherished wishes for the long haul.

5. Think about ways to divide your path to your dreams into “chunks.” For example, if you’ve always wanted to travel to France to see the Eiffel Tower, you could separate your dreams into sections like:

* Read everything you can about France and the Eiffel Tower.
* Explore the subjects on the web.
* Become an “expert” about the topics of your dreams.
* Even though you might struggle financially to make ends meet, set up a separate bank account for your “dream” trip to Europe and make regular deposits (at least monthly), no matter how small.
* Regardless of what your dreams are, think of a way to move toward them somehow.
* Vow to keep your momentum going so you can achieve your dreams.

6. It’s okay to re-vamp or even totally overhaul your dreams. You can let go of a dream you had for a while if you discover you really aren’t interested in that goal anymore.

* As you grow and mature, it’s not unusual to develop new interests and dreams.
* You can feel comfortable transitioning into a new goal to pursue.
* Give yourself permission to let go of an old dream, alter it, or even add a new goal.

7. Avoid thinking of your dreams as impossible for you to accomplish. Dreams keep you moving forward in life.

* Tell yourself it’s entirely within the realm of your life to pursue and fulfill your dreams.
* You truly deserve to have goals and dreams, no matter what your situation.

Following your bliss will enrich your life in so many ways. Allow yourself the opportunity to fulfill your special goals in life. Pursue your dreams because you’re worth it.