Wednesday 11 May 2011 @ 09:59am
I never reblog but these pictures are simply what we miss out in this world. Amazing post.
Confidence is a characteristic that allows us to take risks in our lives. It is often through risk, we achieve great success in many aspects of our lives. It makes sense, therefore, to try to develop our own self-confidence as best we can in order to be successful and happy. Here are 7 best ways to do just that:
Create a Life Philosophy
The basis of your self-confidence will come from your having developed and followed a life philosophy. This life philosophy can grow out of a great thinker whom you admire, a convergence of ideas you’ve picked up in your education, or something unique to yourself that you’ve developed. The point is that you should have a philosophy that will guide your every action. If you have a solid philosophy on life, and it’s one that you’ve developed smartly, then you’ll always know how to act and think. That’s something you can be confident in.
Be Aware of Yourself
Always strive to be aware of yourself: your body and your mind and your emotional state. Self-awareness will allow you to monitor how you are currently following your life philosophy. If you are always aware of your actions, then you can be confident that they are true to who you are; however, if you lack self-awareness, you might sometimes act in ways that contradict your life philosophy, thus harming your self-confidence.
Keep Good Company
Surround yourself with friends, family members, and a romantic partner who can help you become a better person. Ideally, these people will fit into your life philosophy in some manner, though they need not share that life philosophy directly. By surrounding yourself with good people, you can be confident in your relationships.
Pursue Your Passions
Confidence comes from doing a job that you know you’re good at. Confidence comes from doing a job that you love. Too often people work jobs they hate in order to do the things they love off the clock. Why not try to combine your passions with your job? You’ll have no reason to doubt yourself throughout the day if your job is to pursue your passions.
Understand Failure
In order to be confident in yourself, you must understand and have experienced the nature of failure. For without failure, you cannot understand what it means to succeed. Without knowing the difference between the two, what’s the point of being confident in yourself? Confidence is what helps you succeed, but there’s no need to succeed if you don’t mind failure.
Practice Self-Discipline
Self-discipline will help you become confident in yourself because it will force you to control your impulses. By controlling your impulses you can understand how your subconscious functions. By practicing self-discipline you can develop the confidence in your ability to control the whims and desires that do not necessarily connect with your life philosophy.
Reflect
Finally, you must reflect often on your day, on your weeks and months, on your year, and on your life. Reflect on how you handled a stressful situation. Reflect on your memories. Use reflection to understand how you have made your way through the world so far. Learn from self-reflection, for by learning, you can figure out how to handle yourself in the future, thus giving yourself the confidence to be a better person.
(via Pickthebrain)
Saturday 1 Jan 2011 @ 12:47am
From YES! Magazine
1. Savor Everyday Moments
Pause now and then to smell a rose or watch children at play. Study participants who took time to “savor” ordinary events that they normally hurried through, or to think back on pleasant moments from their day, “showed significant increases in happiness and reductions in depression,” says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky.
2. Avoid Comparisons
While keeping up with the Joneses is part of American culture, comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to happiness and self-esteem. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, focusing on our own personal achievement leads to greater satisfaction, according to Lyubomirsky.
3. Put Money Low on the List
People who put money high on their priority list are more at risk for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, according to researchers Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan. Their findings hold true across nations and cultures. “The more we seek satisfactions in material goods, the less we find them there,” Ryan says. “The satisfaction has a short half-life—it’s very fleeting.” Money-seekers also score lower on tests of vitality and self-actualization.
4. Have Meaningful Goals
“People who strive for something significant, whether it’s learning a new craft or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don’t have strong dreams or aspirations,” say Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener. “As humans, we actually require a sense of meaning to thrive.” Harvard’s resident happiness professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, agrees, “Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable.”
5. Take Initiative at Work
How happy you are at work depends in part on how much initiative you take. Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski says that when we express creativity, help others, suggest improvements, or do additional tasks on the job, we make our work more rewarding and feel more in control.
6. Make Friends, Treasure Family
Happier people tend to have good families, friends, and supportive relationships, say Diener and Biswas-Diener. But it’s not enough to be the life of the party if you’re surrounded by shallow acquaintances. “We don’t just need relationships, we need close ones” that involve understanding and caring.
7. Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
It sounds simple, but it works. “Happy people…see possibilities, opportunities, and success. When they think of the future, they are optimistic, and when they review the past, they tend to savor the high points,” say Diener and Biswas-Diener. Even if you weren’t born looking at the glass as half-full, with practice, a positive outlook can become a habit.
8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It
People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis are healthier, more optimistic, and more likely to make progress toward achieving personal goals, according to author Robert Emmons. Research by Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, revealed that people who write “gratitude letters” to someone who made a difference in their lives score higher on happiness, and lower on depression—and the effect lasts for weeks.
9. Get Out and Exercise
A Duke University study shows that exercise may be just as effective as drugs in treating depression, without all the side effects and expense. Other research shows that in addition to health benefits, regular exercise offers a sense of accomplishment and opportunity for social interaction, releases feel-good endorphins, and boosts self-esteem.
10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!
Make altruism and giving part of your life, and be purposeful about it. Researcher Stephen Post says helping a neighbor, volunteering, or donating goods and services results in a “helper’s high,” and you get more health benefits than you would from exercise or quitting smoking. Listening to a friend, passing on your skills, celebrating others’ successes, and forgiveness also contribute to happiness, he says. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn found that those who spend money on others reported much greater happiness than those who spend it on themselves.
(via happythings, gisellemari, moonriverdahling, reachingforrecovery, julie911:)
Friday 31 Dec 2010 @ 11:01pm
1. See What You Want to Be “When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes.” What do you see when you look into your future, because what you see is what you’re going to get. Do you see your future so bright it burns your eyes? If you do, then that’s what you’re going to get. If you see your future as mundane, then that’s exactly what you’ll get as well. What you see is what you get; I suggest you begin to see what you want to be. 2. The Power of Passion “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” Passion comes from doing what you love. When you’re passionate you can work all night long. Passion is power, it the fuel that you need to succeed. Discover your passion and dedicate your life to fulfilling it, no matter how long it takes. 3. Focus on the Good “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” What you focus on expands. If you focus on the good, you will get more of it. If you focus on lack and poverty, you will get more of that as well. Learn to recognize the good in your life and be grateful for it everyday. Soon your focus will change and so will your life. 4. You Must Change “We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” In order to have more, you must become more. Nothing changes in your life until you grow. What are you doing daily to grow, to change? If you’re not changing, you shouldn’t be expecting your life to change. To the degree that you change is to the degree that your life will change. If you keep on doing, what you’ve always been doing, you’re going to keep getting the results you’ve always been getting, to expect otherwise is insane. 5. We All Fall Down “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” Imagine if a small child quit trying to learn how to walk after falling down twenty times. Imagine if he or she said, I guess this walking thing isn’t for me. In life you will fail, you will make mistakes, you may even get discouraged, but you must try again. The only people not failing are the people who are not stretching themselves beyond their current comfort zone. Dare to fail until you succeed. 6. Maximize Your Potential “The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.” Are you maximizing your potential? Are you utilizing 100 percent of your skills, talents and knowledge, or are you settling. The purpose of life is to grow, to become all that you were intended to be. Your purpose is to grow big enough so that you can help others, so the question is, are you maximizing your potential? 7. Think Bigger “What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.” So many people live beneath their capabilities because they are riddled with guilt by the thought of living a lavish life. Your creator intended for you to have the best, and to become your very best. The best was made for you! If not you, then who? By Mr.SelfDevelopment (PicktheBrain) > Very Inspiring article:)). Always the first step to be successful in life “see what you want to be” or set a goal! Oprah Winfrey definitely very influential to everyone, me and YOU.
While we can rely on a spell checker to catch glaring errors, a computer can’t pick up on all careless mistakes, especially if the word could be correct in a different context. Often word misuse is our mistake. The English language is full of homonyms, or words that have different meanings but sound and look similar, which makes it easy to confuse proper usage. For instance, verbally, you might not even notice the difference between “your” and “you’re.” But in print, the error can lead the reader to perceive you as less intelligent than you are. For this reason, it’s important to spell check and proofread your documents, especially for the following common misuses, which are so easy to make, you might even have to check your document a couple times to catch them.
Its versus It’s (and all other apostrophes):
According to a copy editing instructor for California-based copy editing service provider Edicetera, confusing “its” and “it’s” is the most common error in the English language. That one minuscule apostrophe (or lack thereof) drastically changes the meaning of the entire sentence. “It’s” is a contraction of “it is,” whereas “its” refers to possession. Also, watch out for “your” versus “you’re.”
Sales versus Sails
Can you imagine writing on your resume that you “increased sails by 20 percent”?! Unless you’re applying to a job for a sail boat manufacturer, this careless mistake will probably get your resume sailing right into the recycling bin.
Affect versus Effect
There is a lot of confusion around this one but here’s the rule: “Affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun. It’s as simple as that.
Would Have NOT Would of
The subtlety in pronunciation leads to the rampant misuse of this phrase; however “would of” is never correct and may make you appear as if you are not well-read.
Through versus Threw
“He threw the ball through the window.” “Threw” is a verb and “through” is a preposition. And speaking of “through,” be careful to make sure you don’t actually mean “thorough” or vice versa. The slight variation in spelling will not be picked up by a computer, but writing “I am through” when you mean “I am thorough” is quite ironic, don’t you think? The best way to master the subtleties of language? Reading of course! Check out six classics worth revisiting and other great summer reads!
Then versus Than
Six is more than five; after five then comes six. “Than” refers to a comparison, while “then” refers to a subsequent event.
Supposed To NOT Suppose To
“Suppose” is a verb, meaning to think or to ponder. The correct way to express a duty is to write, “I was supposed to…”
Wonder versus Wander
You can wander around while you wonder why “wander” and “wonder” have such different meanings, yet sound oh so similar.
Their versus There versus They’re
OK, once and for all: “Their” is possessive; “there” refers to distance; and “they’re” is a contraction of “they are.”
Farther versus Further
While both words refer to distance, grammarians distinguish “farther” as physical distance and “further” as metaphorical distance. You can dive further into a project, for instance, or you can dive farther into the ocean.
We know we missed many common careless errors. What mistakes do you see most often?
(source)
Thursday 22 Jul 2010 @ 07:29am“Happiness is a habit – cultivate it.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
1. Appreciate Life
Be thankful that you woke up alive each morning. Develop a childlike sense of wonder towards life. Focus on the beauty of every living thing. Make the most of each day. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
2. Choose Friends Wisely
Surround yourself with happy, positive people who share your values and goals. Friends that have the same ethics as you will encourage you to achieve your dreams. They help you to feel good about yourself. They are there to lend a helping hand when needed.
3. Be Considerate
Accept others for who they are as well as where they are in life. Respect them for who they are. Touch them with a kind and generous spirit. Help when you are able, without trying to change the other person. Try to brighten the day of everyone you come into contact with.
4. Learn Continuously
Keep up to date with the latest news regarding your career and hobbies. Try new and daring things that has sparked your interest – such as dancing, skiing, surfing or sky-diving.
5. Creative Problem Solving
Don’t wallow in self-pity. As soon as you face a challenge get busy finding a solution. Don’t let the set backs affect your mood, instead see each new obstacle you face as an opportunity to make a positive change. Learn to trust your gut instincts – it’s almost always right.
6. Do What They Love
Some statistics show that 80% of people dislike their jobs! No wonder there’s so many unhappy people running around. We spend a great deal of our life working. Choose a career that you enjoy – the extra money of a job you detest isn’t worth it. Make time to enjoy your hobbies and pursue special interests.
7. Enjoy Life
Take the time to see the beauty around you. There’s more to life than work. Take time to smell the roses, watch a sunset or sunrise with a loved one, take a walk along the seashore, hike in the woods etc. Learn to live in the present moment and cherish it. Don’t live in the past or the future.
8. Laugh
Don’t take yourself – or life to seriously. You can find humor in just about any situation. Laugh at yourself – no one’s perfect. When appropriate laugh and make light of the circumstances. (Naturally there are times that you should be serious as it would be improper to laugh.)
9. Forgive
Holding a grudge will hurt no one but you. Forgive others for your own peace of mind. When you make a mistake – own up to it – learn from it – and FORGIVE yourself.
10. Gratitude
Develop an attitude of gratitude. Count your blessings; All of them – even the things that seem trivial. Be grateful for your home, your work and most importantly your family and friends. Take the time to tell them that you are happy they are in your life.
11. Invest in Relationships
Always make sure your loved ones know you love them even in times of conflict. Nurture and grow your relationships with your family and friends by making the time to spend with them. Don’t break your promises to them. Be supportive.
12. Keep Their Word
Honesty is the best policy. Every action and decision you make should be based on honesty. Be honest with yourself and with your loved ones.
13. Meditate
Meditation gives your very active brain a rest. When it’s rested you will have more energy and function at a higher level. Types of meditation include yoga, hypnosis, relaxation tapes, affirmations, visualization or just sitting in complete silence. Find something you enjoy and make the time to practice daily.
14. Mind Their Own Business
Concentrate on creating your life the way you want it. Take care of you and your family. Don’t get overly concerned with what other people are doing or saying. Don’t get caught up with gossip or name calling. Don’t judge. Everyone has a right to live their own life the way they want to – including you.
15. Optimism
See the glass as half full. Find the positive side of any given situation. It’s there – even though it may be hard to find. Know that everything happens for a reason, even though you may never know what the reason is. Steer clear of negative thoughts. If a negative thought creeps in – replace it with a positive thought.
16. Love Unconditionally
Accept others for who they are. You don’t put limitations on your love. Even though you may not always like the actions of your loved ones – you continue to love them.
17. Persistence
Never give up. Face each new challenge with the attitude that it will bring you one step closer to your goal. You will never fail, as long as you never give up. Focus on what you want, learn the required skills, make a plan to succeed and take action. We are always happiest while pursuing something of value to us.
18. Be Proactive
Accept what can not be changed. Happy people don’t waste energy on circumstances beyond their control. Accept your limitations as a human being. Determine how you can take control by creating the outcome you desire – rather than waiting to respond.
19. Self Care
Take care of your mind, body and health. Get regular medical check ups. Eat healthy and work out. Get plenty of rest. Drink lots of water. Exercise your mind by continually energizing it with interesting and exciting challenges.
20. Self Confidence
Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. After all no one likes a phony. Determine who you are in the inside – your own personal likes and dislikes. Be confident in who you are. Do the best you can and don’t second guess yourself.
21. Take Responsibility
Happy people know and understand that they are 100% responsible for their life. They take responsibility for their moods, attitude, thoughts, feelings, actions and words. They are the first to admit when they’ve made a mistake.
Begin today by taking responsibility for your happiness. Work on developing these habits as you own. The more you incorporate the above habits into your daily lifestyle – the happier you will be.
Most of all: BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.
by Cindy Holbrook (pickthebrain)
Sunday 18 Jul 2010 @ 11:08am