Tag: self-improvement

 

If you have finally decided to take your life in your own hands and get the maximum of it, you will probably have to get rid of some old habits. Here are some of the most common ones that very often represent an obstacle on your way to success and a richer life in every sense.

Get rid of your limited beliefs.

Depending on the environment where we grew up and on our childhood, we all bear the burden of various preconceptions taken from our parents, at school, from our friends or enemies. It is time to realize that they exist only in our heads and that they have lived there for far too long as parasites. The ideas like, “You cannot have a beautiful, smart and good-hearted woman at the same time”, or “You cannot be that lucky” or simply “You are not smart enough or capable of it”, leave to those ones who imagined them.

Stop dwelling on the past.

You cannot change it. Do not be too harsh about your mistakes, because they made you the person you are today, interested in getting the maximum of your life. All the things that hurt or disappointed you in the past, the mistakes or embarrassments are obstacles that could hinder you from progressing and developing.

Stop resisting changes.

They are natural and necessary. Our brains will desperately try to maintain the existing, although maybe completely terrible situation, recognizing it as a safe zone where survival is possible, which is always better than any uncertainty and change. Be aware of it!

 

Exclude negative self-talk.

Never insult anyone, especially not yourself. My motto is, “If you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing at all”. If you think of yourself badly, if you keep saying to yourself how stupid, incapable, fat, ugly or weak you are, how do you expect others to treat you differently!

Stop blaming others.

No one is guilty of our failures. The others are responsible for their own actions, and we can only react to them adequately. No one can eat or walk; neither breathe, nor feel, instead of us.

Stop complaining.

It provokes either compassion or a mockery. You do not need any of them. Estimate the situation and do your best in such circumstances on your own, without waiting for anyone else to save you.

There is no need to impress other people or to ask for their approval.

Do not strive for somebody else’s goals and dreams, and you will not need their approval and support. Nobody knows you better than you do. The achievement of your own goals is so fulfilling, that will make the others’ opinion completely irrelevant.

You do not need to be always right.

You cannot always succeed. Mistakes are necessary and inevitable. They are our best teachers. However, it is important to try and to be persistent.

There is absolutely no room for laziness or for the lack of motivation.

With no action, there is no reaction, and no positive results. Persistence and consistency are the key to any success.

Stay away from negative people.

In every segment of your life, stay away from spiritless, unexcited and ungrateful people. Criticism without a constructive suggestion in return, should be left to politicians. Well-intentioned advice from less brave people should be left to their limitations. If there is a burning desire in you to achieve something, then you will certainly do it. You should not let yourself be limited by the people who do not want to see you grow and change, usually for their own, very selfish reasons.

Wealth without health means nothing.

Make an exceptional health be the number one priority in your life.

Finally, I will just repeat the famous advice of Robin Sharma. “Do not live the same year 75 times and call it life.”

Leave me your comments below, or via “contact” section. I will be thrilled if I manage to encourage any of you to take the path of change and self-improvement.

This time I wanted to share with you a story that I personally find very inspiring. I know that many of you will ask me afterwards, “Isn’t it sending a totally opposite message of what you have been telling us all the time?” It is not, and it is very important for you to understand that.

You will always hear me saying that we should step out from our comfort zone, and use smartly each second of our lives, that we should be committed to our goals and follow our dreams in spite of everything.

However, it is essential for all of us to stay happy on that path of growth and live with joy every second of our new journey. It is extremely important to have our goals very clear in our heads, made of, fewer material things and more of emotions that we want to face and feel, and to free ourselves from the burden of fear called “What if it goes wrong”, being positively orientated and thus attracting only positive things, which I explained in my previous posts…

 

The Story of Mexican Fisherman

by Timothy Forriss

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. 

“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. 

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. 

“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.

“But… What do you do with the rest of your time?” 

The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard MBA and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management.” 

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” 

To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.”

“But what then, senor?” 

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO, sell your company stock to the public, and become very rich. You would make millions.”

“Millions senor? Then what?”

“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

 

Nice story, isn’t it? However, I wanted to show it to you from another angle.

I was that “fisherman” for so long. I had chosen wisely that kind of life that needed zero effort to give me the maximum pleasure. So what went wrong?

It was not MY dream. I am NOT a fisherman. If you have wings, you should use them to fly, not to hang them on the wall.

If you have talents, they are not there for some strange reason. You have to find that reason and follow your star. Otherwise, you will live somebody else’s dream, not yours. It is absolutely fine, if your dream is to spend time with your friends and family drinking and dancing in a small village hidden from the world. However, if deep inside, you know that you are meant to be somewhere else, go for it. Follow your own dreams, and dream as big as you can.

I got to the point where, continuing living the idealistic life of mine meant starting dying slowly. I had neglected all my talents for so long, but they finally imposed, and stood for their rights.

Be happy and grateful for everything you already have, but at the same time find the courage to choose the unknown and steep path called progress, and to take the responsibility for your own lives.

What do you have to say? Leave me your comments below!

If you want to learn how to transform your passion into a successful online business, contact me via email.

 

The more time I spend on the Internet communicating with people and talking to my closest friends, the bigger is my need to write a few lines about a terrible phenomenon that is deeply rooted in our society, called indecision, indifference and lethargy.

We all face problems and ours are always both the biggest and the most terrifying. There are people who, when they encounter a problem, do their best to solve it, and those ones who will keep complaining about it, no matter how much advice they get, without even considering the possibility to apply some.

Is it possible that our fear of change is so big that we stay immobile and prefer keeping the existing, obviously poor state, to taking a risk and getting, maybe, something worse? Life is not a gamble. In most cases, it is the product of our decisions and our choices.

Why are we so averse to accepting the responsibility for our own lives?

I will give you just a couple of examples.

I know many women who remain in catastrophic marriages and relationships just because of mere material security, or because of their children, thus giving them immediately the perfect model to avoid in their lives. In the worst cases, they choose to stay together to have company for parties, restaurants or holidays.

If they dare to leave their bad relationships or marriages, they usually do it only hoping to find better partners who will provide them with more satisfying lives. Do we really estimate our abilities so poorly? How about trying to build the life of our dreams on our own, that will consequently, bring the right people to us.

Let me give you an easier example. Many of my friends are struggling to lose weight. I often hear them saying that I am a lucky girl, the same for years, that I cannot gain weight. Oh yes, I certainly can.

The only difference is that I prefer being slim to a donut or to a glass of wine or beer. Such an explanation immediately brings negative comments that I am a slave to life, instead of enjoying it. On the contrary, I always take the maximum of it. I enjoy eating out. I adore chocolates and sweets, but from time to time and moderately. To be able to enjoy my favorite sweets whenever I want, I exclude buying those, always available ones, in the supermarkets. It also saves a lot of money! I will have dinner at a beautiful restaurant once or twice a week, but all the other meals during that week will be light and controlled.

I often hear many of my young students complaining about their look. They say that they prefer sitting in front of a computer or TV in the evenings or at weekends to going out with friends and exposing themselves to possible unpleasant comments about their overweight. They feel embarrassed, but they take another bite of a pizza anyway. I try to explain, that the age they have, with all its privileges comes once in a lifetime and that they have to take full advantage of it. Sacrificing now something that will be at their disposal all their lives, will enable them to enjoy something else that belongs just to that specific period of life. It is now that they should receive so many compliments every day, they will remember for the rest of their lives, and meet more new people than ever again later.

Then I tell them to ask themselves if that tasty burger or chocolate are worth losing a compliment or a smile of a handsome young man or a beautiful girl or staying at home. If their answer is yes, it is perfectly fine, because it is then their choice. We all have our own priorities. If instead, we do something and feel the need to justify our behavior, then we talk about our weaknesses. We should enjoy our passions but should also be aware of our weaknesses and try to defeat them.

The same goes for the job. I know so many people that simply hate Mondays! They do their 9 to 5 jobs waiting for the weekend, or even worse, for their retirement. That is when they will compensate everything they missed in their youth. I seriously doubt it. Aging still carries its limitations.

I also know some unemployed people, and whenever I start talking to them about numerous possibilities of working online nowadays, they immediately find at least three times as many excuses not to do such a thing. Then I am ready to hear again – “It is easy for you. You do not have a preaching boss who gets on your nerves. You go on holiday whenever you want, you travel wherever you want.” They are actually right. Now they are. But I know very well that it took a lot of courage for me as a young girl, to take on the responsibility for my decisions and to start my own business, choosing it among  seemingly more favorable opportunities offered to me at the time, and to keep growing it later, even as a single parent.

Can you then imagine the reaction to this new initiative of mine? At the moment when my work finally allows me to live not too luxurious, but rather comfortable and carefree life, I decide to embark on a completely unfamiliar field of digital marketing and online business. It takes a lot of self-control to spend evenings and weekends when everybody else relax or have fun, working on self-development and learning something completely different and new. At the same time I am fully aware that we will not be able to resist to this trend much longer and that we need to jump in as soon as possible.

That is my choice. The freedom that this knowledge gives is invaluable. Instead of living peacefully, I consciously embark on a new challenge that brings no risk, but requires devotion and consistency. Every day I am a witness of my personal improvement and it gives me great satisfaction.

If I could give every one of you just a little bit of my passion and desire to move you forward to a better life and to your dreams coming true, I would do it. Still, I am afraid you will have to find it by yourselves. Always bear in mind that “fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

The New Year is approaching and we all tend to analyze the previous year and to promise ourselves different wonders and impeccable behavior. Unfortunately, this mood usually lasts just for the first few days and then we all return to our usual habits and weaknesses. Then why are we so excited? Why do we blindly repeat this every year? Simply because the feeling, while visualizing them, is so good. Still, all it takes to accomplish them is to keep fantasizing and to stay positive.

I become aware of how positive thoughts are important to our lives a long time ago, in my early twenties. Today, you can find such studies everywhere, but at that time, I even risked looking weird, especially if I started talking about it enthusiastically. I also learned some techniques of relaxation, of passing from alpha to beta and delta states of consciousness, of treating with my own hands. I can assure you that each of these techniques worked perfectly for the first few months. If you come to a bus stop and want a bus, it comes right away. If you want to park your car, a free parking space is immediately in front of you. If you want to get your favorite questions at the exam? No problem.

Then you see John, a friend from the group who managed to lose 20 kilos using these techniques, or Mary who found a new job after a long time. However, as time passes, you slowly start forgetting the techniques and you spend less time visualizing your goals, for a simple reason that you actually do not know what you really want.

Finally, you start doubting that they had ever had an effect.

I remember that the only important thing for me then was to be slim, and I achieved it almost immediately, but I explained to myself that it would have happened anyway, with or without visualization. It might have. From this point of view, I find particularly interesting how my mind used to play with the visualization of my ideal partner. In fact, I always got exactly what I had asked for. However, as a rule, I would also discover an infinitely negative characteristic in them that I could not foresee. Much later, I learned to add this positive affirmation, while visualizing my ideal partner: “He always surprises me only in a positive way!”

It is interesting that, along with all my skepticism, and the absence of practicing, these techniques functioned perfectly in some critical moments.

I remember a situation when I went to clean the snow off the car in front my building, when my mother suddenly started shouting out of the window and calling me to go back immediately. She was in the house with my six-year old son and my father. Instead of imagining all possible versions of the catastrophe in my head, I forced myself to repeat one single sentence: “Everything is fine”, blocking in that way all the negative thoughts. Indeed, when I arrived, everything was fine. More precisely, my son had fainted while waiting in a warm jacket for me to call him to get downstairs, but when I arrived, he was completely fine.

I also remember when I had lost the car keys on a 300 meter long sandy beach in the morning, and found them six hours later, as soon as I applied the technique. Would I have found them without it? Maybe. Would everything have been fine at home even without those focused thoughts? Maybe. Still, I doubt.

Such examples are numerous. It was not difficult to draw a conclusion about what made some of them successful. It is not enough only to visualize your goals, no matter how well you do it, making them stronger by adding sounds, colors or scents. It also requires implementing deep, sincere emotions and unconditional faith.

Why am I telling you all this?

I have been working as a professor of languages for whole my life. I have hundreds of students whose way of learning in general changed drastically after my classes. I am loved and respected and the lists of new students, still waiting for me to teach them, are very long. However, at one point, I realized that working 9 hours a day is too much. Although I travel with my son 3 or 4 times a year, and dance very often, those are the only things I do for myself. Someone would say it is more than enough. However, I think our life is too short and we have to use every second of it wisely, loading it with new memories, feelings and knowledge.

I started thinking of filming my lectures and uploading them on YouTube, but also of other opportunities that online businesses offer, of digital marketing and of using my Instagram and Facebook accounts for it. I liked the idea of freedom to travel and work at the same time wherever and whenever I wanted.

Just then, accidentally or not, among so many offers to develop a successful online business, an offer came to me, and thanks to it, you are reading this today.

Everything matched.

Now only the sky is the limit. I wish this New Year brought you such awareness. Our brain is a magnet. If you think positively, positive things will come to you. If you think about problems all the time, they will always be at your disposal.

Always remain positive and optimistic! Dream big, smile often, be grateful for everything you already have and enjoy every step of your journey!