Focus on What You Want Instead of What You Hope to Avoid

Focus on What You Want Instead of What You Hope to Avoid

 

When you’re working towards setting a goal, you should focus on the positive side of it rather than the negative part you’re getting rid of by achieving that goal. Focusing on the positive is more inspiring and will help you achieve your goal in a faster, more upbeat manner.                                  

One example of focusing on the positives of your goal is going on vacation with your family. While trying to reach this goal, you might be thinking about the fact that when you finally take them somewhere, they’ll stop complaining about never getting to go on vacation.

Instead of having this mindset, think about how much fun you and your family will have together. Weight loss is another good example - instead of focusing on diseases you might get from being overweight, or things you can’t do because of your weight, focus on how good it’ll feel to be fit and energetic while looking your best.

In your work life, if you want a higher salary, you have to work harder. Instead of setting your goal being focused on not being able to do things such as go on vacations, shop for new clothes, or anything else you’d want to splurge on, focus on how nice it’ll be to be able to do these things.

Set your goals based on things that you want, but make sure they’re not created just so you can stop something else from happening. Don’t set a goal to work harder because someone else wants you to - do it for yourself.

Do these things for what you want in life, because if you work so hard to please someone else, you’ll never have true satisfaction. While you’re setting goals for yourself, whether they have to do with your personal life or your work life, make sure you’re focused on what good things will come out of achieving your goal.

If you decide to do something to avoid something bad, you’re immediately associating your goals with bad things. This will make you more stressed about achieving the things you want and will strip your happiness away if you don’t have immediate results.

If you focus on the positives, you’ll be more inspired to get what you want and you’ll feel more empowered by your mindset rather than if you’re focused on the bad things about yourself that you want to change. Focusing on the negatives will only make you feel worse about yourself, and you won’t feel as motivated by tearing yourself down.

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Stop Saying You’ll Do the Things You Love “Someday”

Stop Saying You’ll Do the Things You Love “Someday”

Everyone loves the idea of traveling or taking time off of work to do things you enjoy. However, there are some people who do nothing but dream and talk about what they’re going to do, but rarely do it.

Most people excuse this by saying that they want to work hard now to enjoy the things they want to do later in life, but it’s important that you do what you want to when you have an opportunity.

Many working parents always say that they’ll take time off to spend time with their children after they’re done with a project. Before you know it, the workload keeps piling up and you’ll always be able to find an excuse for something you need to get done.

Time flies by and next thing you know all of your kids are grown up with families of their own, too busy with their own lives to spend time with you. Every once in awhile, everyone needs to take some time to travel and get away from their home.

Don’t hold off on travelling if you don’t have to, because if you hold off for too long, you may be at an age where you don’t feel up to going to any of the places you’ve always wanted to go to.

Put in as much effort to your relationships, both romantic and platonic, as you are with your work. Maintaining a close knit circle of friends will increase your happiness. However, if you’re putting work before them, they’ll feel like you don’t value their friendship and you and your circle will grow apart.

This also goes for any significant other, as they’ll also want to distance themselves from you if they feel unimportant to you. No matter what’s going on with work, they should also be a priority in your life.

Making sure that you take time to do the things that you want to do in life is important to your overall happiness. Use your vacation days to go after things that you want to do, whether that means dividing up your days to spend them with family and friends, going on a date night with your significant other, or traveling somewhere that you’d enjoy going.

If you work hard to be able to afford the luxuries you want, but never go after obtaining them, then there’s no point to spending so much time working. You can’t take money to the grave, so balance your earnings out with the enjoyment it can provide for you.

Could a New Job Deliver More in Terms of Personal Satisfaction?

Could a New Job Deliver More in Terms of Personal Satisfaction?

Sometimes you follow a career path thinking that it’d be best for you in terms of happiness and income. However, after time, you could realize that your job choice is constricting your ability to be truly happy and stress-free.

The best way to combat this is to try to pursue a new career path. If you are working for a company and you still want to work with them, you could try working in a new department.

Maybe if you’re in a higher position of power, you could find a comparable position to transfer to, doing a completely new job for the company by taking on a new position in a different department. 
 
You may feel that you chose the wrong company to work with completely. If this is the case, try applying to multiple companies that work within the same profession you chose.

While doing this, keep your original job so that you have a financial support system if your job applications don’t get accepted anywhere else. It’s possible that you might be looking back and regretting your occupation choice completely.

The good news is that there’s always time to change your career. You might have to go back to college and get educated in that subject and change your degree. However, while you make your plan to change your career, you need to make sure you stay at your job as a safety net in case things don’t work out.

This way, you’re making sure that you’re maintaining a stable income while following your passion. If you don’t want to go back to school, or work for another company, you could always become an entrepreneur for your chosen topic.

For example, if you love gardening but don’t know how to make a career out of it, you could make your own website and have your customers pay you to teach them how to garden by selling them digital information courses.

You could also start your own business selling products that you make, like coloring books or crafts on Etsy. There’s no reason to suppress your happiness and stress yourself out by staying at a job that you don’t enjoy.

There are so many options for you to achieve true happiness by following your passion, even if it takes time to go back to school. If you’re feeling stressed, make sure you avoid desperation when choosing a new employment path while keeping a safety net of your current job to maintain your revenue.

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Don’t Shoulder the Burden of Everyone Else’s Problems

Don’t Shoulder the Burden of Everyone Else’s Problems

Sometimes, people get a bit too caught up with everyone else’s issues and can’t focus on their own. It’s very easy – especially if you’re trying to be a nice person – to try to help everyone with everything.

You end up being so focused on being a positive contributor to everyone else’s lives that you can’t stop and solve your own problems or work on your own dreams, which only allows your issues to grow larger and larger until they finally overburden you.

You’re putting yourself in a bad position, as well as making the people around you overly dependent on you. You might not even notice that everything is piling up until you’re already becoming overburdened.

First you might have to work a bit later to help out your boss and coworkers. Maybe someone you know at work needs help with a home project, and they need your help. However, your spouse needs you to get a few things done around the house while they get finished with some other chores.

Your kids might need help on their schoolwork or projects. You might have an old buddy from college coming to town later who wants to meet up again. Before you know it, you’re absolutely swamped.

But that doesn’t mean you have to say no to everyone. You have to learn how to manage your time to include time for yourself, as well as learning how to say no to unnecessary tasks.

If your kid’s project isn’t due for another few weeks, you can put it off for a little bit to spread out the burden. You don’t really need to help your coworker finish their home projects.

Politely, yet firmly, tell them that you can’t help because of other tasks you have to do. If you’re always the person that helps everyone, people will begin to take advantage of that.

If you want to pursue something rewarding for yourself, such as a career change where you’re launching your own online empire, don’t let others stand in the way of that. It takes time, and if you find yourself always using excuses as to why you can’t get it done, find out if those excuses are due to handling other peoples’ tasks.

It’s very important that you set aside time for yourself to think, rejuvenate, and enjoy life. You might pick up a hobby or begin an entrepreneurial business to better yourself. This time is essential for you to live a happy, healthy life.

Otherwise, you’re just stuck helping everyone else live their lives. You can find time to help your friends and family while still dedicating enough time to help yourself. Even then, you should try to help your friends and family become more independent, and learn how to do their home projects and school work with little to no help, because help won’t always be there.

Don’t Just Change Your Beliefs – Change Your Behaviors

Don’t Just Change Your Beliefs – Change Your Behaviors

Everyone has a point in time in which they change their beliefs because they think differently due to some event. Perhaps it was something traumatizing, or something minor, like reading a blog post.

Either way, despite our newfound changes in thinking, we don’t always change out behaviors to match our beliefs. For example, maybe you read how successful entrepreneurs master time management and it sounds great, but you don’t actively do anything to alter your disorganized behavior.

Or you might find a new way of dieting, and start noticing all of the unhealthy things everyone eats. However, you might not actually be eating the healthiest yourself. You might wish that everyone were nicer around you, while still being a bit unpleasant to those around you.

This kind of behavior can hurt your relationships with your friends and family and generate a lot of unwanted stress. When you don’t practice what you preach, you’ll find yourself looked down upon by the people around you as a hypocrite.

People will only accept your beliefs if you accurately reflect them, otherwise you’ll just make your beliefs look bad or you’ll make yourself look bad. You’ll also feel bad emotionally, when you reflect on yourself and realize that you’re not the person that you want to be, or think you are.

It’s difficult, though, to make these changes. When you realize that you’re not behaving as you believe you should be, it can be hard to change your actual behavior. Be sure to spend time every day thinking about what changes you want to make, and then dedicate time to following through with those changes.

It won’t happen immediately – it will take a few weeks for you to get totally used to changing your behavior. In the meantime, ask a friend or family member to help you focus on this change and keep you on track.

If you’re the only one paying attention to it, you’ll find yourself forgetting about the change until you’ve completely forgotten about it. When you start really acting as you believe you should, you’ll find that you’re happier with who you are as a person.

This leads to you finding happiness in life much more quickly, because you’re not discontent with your personality. It will also improve your social life, because when people hear you talking about your beliefs and also accurately reflecting them, they’ll see you as a more trustworthy person, and will show you more respect. Not many people can put their money where their mouth is and actually follow through with everything they say.

Gain Appreciation for What’s Going Right in Your Life

Gain Appreciation for What’s Going Right in Your Life

Sometimes, people see life through a filter of negativity, only focusing on the bad parts. They always think about what’s going wrong in their lives, what gets them riled up, and what they hate.

Many people like to indulge these thoughts and complain about these things to their friends and coworkers, either in person or over social media. If they’re working on their online business, the focus isn’t on accomplishments, but on what they failed to achieve instead.

This is even more prevalent in people who have it rough. It’s much easier to be upset about the bad things happening to you than to be grateful for the good. To be truly happy, you have to be able to appreciate the things that are going right.

Focusing too much on the negative aspects of your life negatively affects you and the people around you. You’ll be in a perpetual state of gloom if gloom is all you ever know. You can’t effectively work towards your goals if you’re stuck in negativity.

You can’t even begin to fix what’s going wrong in your life if you focus too much on it – you won’t even know where to begin if it’s all you know. Instead, dedicate your time and energy toward appreciating the positive aspects of your life.

We should all take more time to appreciate the things in our lives that are going right. Think about what you have that others would be desperate for, whether it be a house, a car, a job, or even a family.

Even just living in a first world country is a great benefit. So instead of focusing on how much you hate your boss and wish you could leave it to pursue an online business, think about how wonderful it is to have a source of income as you work on your entrepreneurial dream, because many people aren’t so fortunate.

When you focus more on the things that are going right in your life, you make it much easier to work towards your goals. When you appreciate the things that are going right, it gives you greater drive to accomplish your goals, because you know the feeling of success and want to feel more of it.

When you focus too much on the negative, you don’t get that drive to change your life for the better. Even your friends and family will feel the effects of your positivity – by seeing your upbeat attitude, they’ll be inspired to follow in your footsteps.

By doing this, you can feel more accomplished by having contributed positively to their lives. Learn to take time to appreciate what’s right, and you’ll find that you’ll have more positive experiences.

Being in Charge of Your Life Doesn’t Mean Closing the Door on Vulnerability

Being in Charge of Your Life Doesn’t Mean Closing the Door on Vulnerability

When people begin to take control of their own lives, it’s very easy for them to over-do it with their newfound lease on life. You might start thinking that you have to be fully in charge all the time, because any signs of weakness might cause you to falter.

This can backfire on you if you’re an online marketer who needs the input of others to succeed. You might shut out other people’s advice and try to handle everything on your own, attempting to be completely rock solid.

While you can’t be flimsy and be used like a doormat, you can’t go to the other extreme and be completely hard, either. You have to find a reasonable middle ground. Closing off everyone and everything and trying to be completely invulnerable is one of the worst things you can do when trying to help yourself.

By doing this, you’ll drive away your friends and those who are genuinely trying to help you succeed by giving you good advice. You’ll find yourself less confident and sometimes depressed because you’re trying too hard to not be vulnerable.

By closing off access to your friends and peers, you’ll cut off potential opportunities for networking and success. You simply can’t be successful or happy at the extreme ends of vulnerability.

There’s a middle ground between flimsy and rock solid when it comes to being vulnerable. You have to learn to be firm, yet flexible enough to be able to adapt when you need to.

Show just enough vulnerability to make you seem much more genuine and relatable. People will take you much more seriously and respect you more if you acknowledge your weaknesses, but don’t dwell on them too much.

This is the sign of a true leader, and will lead you down the path to success by opening up new opportunities. It can be difficult to find the appropriate balance between vulnerability and strength, and it may also vary from person to person.

If you’re going through a really bad time in life, you’ll find it might be better for you to be more strong than vulnerable, until you reach a point in life where you’re comfortable enough to relax a bit.

Once you’re in a spot where you feel safer, you can be a bit more vulnerable and accept help more often. However, you should never, under any circumstance, be completely closed off or completely vulnerable. Find the balance that works best for you, and stick with it.

Choose Your Reaction to What Life Sends Your Way

Choose Your Reaction to What Life Sends Your Way

Most of the time, when a major or even minor event is thrown our way, we simply react to it. There’s not a lot of thought process behind it – it’s just something that we do naturally.

However, by thinking about how you want to react rationally, you can better control your life. There are very few instances in which a kneejerk reaction is a good thing. When a difficult situation arises, stop and think about what the appropriate reaction is, and how you should react.

You can control your response to anything if you just take some time to think it over. When you choose how you want to react to a situation, you hold all of the power in that moment.

If someone does something with the intention of upsetting you or making you angry, like a customer who rants to you that your product is horrible and they want a refund sixty seconds after buying it, being able to respond to it calmly takes away their power.

Your life will no longer be dictated by the things happening around you. Nothing can make you feel a way that you don’t want to. Nobody can control your emotions but you. By taking the reins, you can live a happier, more satisfying life by being able to look on the bright side of things.

Immediate reactions are usually irrational, and irrational actions can get you in a lot of trouble. For example, you might be getting tailgated on the highway. You automatically get upset, and you start to see that car behind you as an enemy, and you try to get them away from you or get back at them.

In the process of trying to respond with anger, you could be distracted by their presence and crash – or cause an even worse altercation. Instead, think about simple solutions to solving the problem at hand.

This applies to everyday life, as well. If someone says something derogatory towards you, don’t just try to fight them, just find a way to escape the situation safely, and know that you were the better person in that instance.

In some situations, the immediate reaction that you have is appropriate, such as the loss of someone close to you. You don’t have to make a situation like that positive. For the emotions that follow, such as grief, choose how you’ll handle having these feelings.

Talk it out with a grief counselor rather than just putting it on the back burner. It’s important to recognize situations in which hasty reactions are acceptable, and situations in which well thought out, controlled responses are preferable.

Are You Squandering Your Energy on Things That Don’t Matter?

Are You Squandering Your Energy on Things That Don’t Matter?

When you get too caught up in the things you don’t like, it’s easy to lose sight of your goals and the path to achieving them. Once you begin to indulge in your anger, you quickly begin to feel worse each day by continuing to fuel all the wrong emotions.

If you wake up in the morning only thinking about the things you don’t like and how angry or disheartened that makes you, then you’ll live the rest of your life in a negative mindset, which is bad for your mental and physical health.

Staying in a constant state of anger or sadness is bad for your health in many ways. You might find yourself experiencing more frequent headaches, fatigue, stomach problems, and other physically harmful feelings.

These are all side effects of stress, which is always present with negative emotions. Mentally, you’ll find yourself being more irritable and upset, which can affect your loved ones.

Most importantly, you won’t be focused on the goals you want to work towards. You won’t ever feel that sense of satisfaction that you crave if all of your days are spent being upset.

If you go to bed and wake up worried that you’re not good enough to be a niche leader online, then it detracts from the happiness you could be feeling from achieving the goals you tackled that day. That confidence will lend to more success the following day, whereas anxiety will cause it to stall.

If you’re a 9-5 worker, instead of waking up thinking about how you’re going to dread seeing that one coworker of yours, think about how happy you are to have a stable job. Focus on the things that you love and the things that you need to do.

Complaining about your coworkers every day isn’t going to help you accomplish your goals. It’s absolutely useless, and it only causes you issues, not them. Instead of complaining about everything that’s wrong, focus your efforts on fixing the things that are wrong that you can fix, and spend some time focusing on the things that you enjoy or are pleased with.

When you start to spend your time and energy working towards things that you want and things that you enjoy, you’ll lose that feeling of stress. You’ll wake up feeling energized and excited to start your day rather than dreading another useless day of getting nothing done.

Get on a good sleep schedule if you’re not already on one so that you can spend more time doing the things that you love. You’ll find that your mind is more at ease and you feel much healthier.

You’ll gain a sense of satisfaction just knowing that you’re taking control of your own path, that you’re living life how you want to live it rather than letting someone (or something) else turn you into an unproductive mess.

Become the Best Version of Yourself By Weeding Out Bad Traits

Become the Best Version of Yourself By Weeding Out Bad Traits

We all have a few traits in our personalities that could be changed or improved to make us better people – and better marketers who are able to serve our audience. You have to recognize what traits you would like to work on before you can begin improving yourself, of course.

Think about what traits you have that you would find annoying coming from other people. Ask your friends and coworkers what they think your worst trait is. You might find that you’re doing things that annoy people around you without even realizing it.

You might have had this trait for years without noticing because nobody ever pointed it out. These traits might range from being too loud in public to being excessively rude. You have to be sure that you’re open to criticism when you start down the path to fixing your quirks.

Don’t be afraid to learn that you’re not perfect – everyone has their negative traits – and being brave enough to seek help in fixing yours is a very honorable thing. Be open to seeking out the help of a counselor to help you along your path of change.

If you can’t handle criticism well, then you won’t be able to get anywhere when people tell you what they think you could improve on. Perhaps not being able to take criticism would be a good place to start in this instance.

To effectively get rid of your negative traits, you have to have it on your mind constantly. It helps if you ask your friends or coworkers to point out when you’re exhibiting those traits again.

If you never noticed them before, it’s not likely that you’ll notice after just realizing that it was an issue. Make fixing that trait your number one priority by setting reminders on your phone or on your computer, so it won’t slip your mind.

You can also leave yourself notes. Whatever it takes, just make sure you remember to stop exemplifying those negative traits. The primary benefit to weeding out your negative traits is that you’ll be more sociable.

People will want to hang out and be friends with you more or network with you for business reasons. By extension, this makes it extremely beneficial for your mental and emotional health.

You’ll be much happier when the people around you are happier. You’ll rest easier at night knowing that you made an improvement for the better, which will also make you more confident in yourself. You’ll be more successful all around, which will lead to a greater sense of satisfaction.