Hope to start the day

By Zig Ziglar

Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions?

How do I get myself motivated?

How do I keep myself motivated?

How do I get out of discouragement and despair?

How and where do I find hope?

It seems that no matter where I travel in the world, these are common questions. Everyone has faced difficult circumstances in their life. Everyone wants to know how to get up when they get knocked down.

Today I was reading The One Year Daily Insights written by Dad. I discovered a quote of his I did not remember and it gave me incredible hope.

Here it is:

“The God Who made you can make you over.” Zig Ziglar

Now, that is an overflowing bucket full of hope!

Think about the quote for a moment – to believe anything else is telling the Creator that He is not big enough to handle your problems.

If you are not happy with who you are and where you are right now in your life, that is OK. You are not done yet! You can do something right now to improve your life.

And if you are looking for hope, well, you are not on the journey of life alone. The Creator of hope wants to share.

You are Born To Win, so go ahead and Live To Win!

Tom Ziglar

P.S. Quote of the Day: “The God Who made you can make you over.” Zig Ziglar

13:25:00 - By Vincent 0

4 Scientifically Proven Ways for Recovering Self-Esteem after Failure

BY Ilka Emig 

Have you ever failed miserably?

I certainly have. It’s awful isn’t it?

Failure leaves you disappointed, angry, desperate, and hopeless.

It crushes your self-esteem and convinces you that you’ll always be a failure.

You wish you could know how to get your self-esteem back.

Well, we’ve all failed at least once in our lives. Living without failing is simply impossible.

We fail if we don’t reach a goal. We fail if we don’t deliver as required or if we don’t perform as expected. And we fail if we make a mistake.

Some failures are better to hide than others, and that’s why some people seem to never fail. But deep inside, covering things up is hard, isn’t it?

Because one part of you always knows that you have failed and how you feel about it: Your brain!

You just may not realize how much your brain controls your responses to failure.

You also may not realize how much control you have over your brain —and how that can empower you.

You Control the Power to Change your Brain

As we go through life, our brains create new connections that affect our beliefs and emotions, often to the detriment of our self-esteem.

Fortunately, we have the power to change our brains to help rid our minds off the beliefs that don’t serve us.

The science behind this is called neuroplasticity, a fancy word for a simple but fascinating truth: the brain can always change throughout life.

It doesn’t just learn and create new connections; it can also break old connections.

This amazing ability of the brain and the nervous system to re-organize its structure, function and connections is researched more and more.

This knowledge is used to understand how we learn and de-learn as adults. It is also important in the medical field to help people recover after brain injuries or strokes and to understand addictions and mental diseases like depression.

This knowledge is also important if you want to change your brain.

So if you want to recover your self-esteem after failure, the following four ways will reprogram your brain to create beliefs that boost your confidence:

1. Break the connections that steal your self-esteem

It happens to all of us. We make a mistake that causes us to fail.

Now we are desperate, angry, and unbelievably sad. We then obsess over our stupid mistake —the one that kept us from reaching our goal.

This obsession causes our brains to constantly create new connections. With every new connection, our brains learn again and again that we are a failure.

With every new connection, this belief becomes stronger and stronger.

So you must not let it be engraved in your brain that you are a failure. You failed. That is part of life, and it’s perfectly ok. But you are not a failure.

There’s a big difference. Obsessing about it gives too much power to the failure, and you’re just wasting your precious time doing so.

Fortunately, you can make and also break connections in your brain.

If we take the focus from what causes the connection, we can stop new connections. If we don’t think about it for a while, the connection can be broken.

So, be disappointed and angry, stamp your foot, or shed a tear, but then shake it off. You can do that by following some practical tips:

• You can actually shake it off by physically shaking your hands. That might sound a little silly, but it works. The brain reacts to movement.

• If you lean more toward symbols, you could write your mistake on a piece of paper and then burn the paper – or tear it into many small pieces. I have done this before, and it has a wonderfully liberating effect.

• You could also make a list of all of your accomplishments and consciously focus on them. See that you are capable of so much and make your mistake look small and irrelevant.

Stop thinking about failure and your brain stops treating you as a failure.

So forgive yourself, treat yourself compassionately, and you’ll break those bad connections that wound your self-esteem.

2. Create goals that guarantee success

People often fail because they set unrealistic goals, and, also they often plan and execute wrong while trying to reach their goals.

By wanting too much too fast, we set ourselves up for failure.

By impatiently pushing towards a goal, we lose our focus on what needs to be done and fail.

In the end, all we do is program our brains to believe we are incapable of succeeding.

If this is why you’ve failed, you can recover your self-esteem by learning to set small achievable goals, give yourself more time, and plan better.

You can also track your goals and reward yourself every time you have reached one of your smaller goals.

Don’t be foolish and think only reaching a final major goal can be called success.

What we see as a big success is always the sum of many small steps and successes. So, don’t forget that every time you reach a goal you do experience success.

How to measure success – should be part of your initial planning.

And experiencing success is even more crucial and important than you might think; because your brain is again involved in this experience.

The smaller the goals, the more likely you are to succeed. And while you experience success, your brain shows high measurable brain activity.

It results in increased motivation, self-esteem, and happiness, which only increase your likelihood of succeeding again in the future. Success is what you need to go on.

Don’t expect to be a billionaire in half a year, to perform as a musician at the Sydney Opera after a few years of practice, or to lose half your body weight in a month, though.

Set yourself up for success with achievable goals.

3. Ensure you’re prepared, and try again

On your way to success after failure, don’t forget an embarrassingly simple strategy that appears to be a little bit out of fashion these days.

That strategy is to practice, practice, and practice. By practicing, we gain knowledge of how something works and the confidence with everything we do.

While you may have failed you can build your self-esteem by trying again and this time making sure you are prepared.

For important information to travel from short-term memory to long-term memory, we must repeat things at least three to five times.

Doing something only once is not enough to have it stick; unless it is mind-blowing.For the best results, repeat it as much as possible as often as possible.

Repetition tells the brain first of all that this must be important and that it is better to keep it in the long-term memory.

Repetition is also increasing the connections in the brain up to the point where a behavior or activity happens almost automatically.

Have you ever been to a conference and listened to a presentation?

Some of the presenters look totally surprised at every new slide on the screen. They lack easiness, and they have to read every slide. They are usually the people that have not practiced.

The information presented is not engraved in their long-term memory, and they look insecure.

The self-confident and entertaining presenters have practiced many times; probably with a timer next to them.

The information they present is engraved in their long-term memories and is available to them anytime. They are confident, and they represent self-esteem.

The same goes for playing an instrument, presenting results to the boss, studying for an exam, doing sports, or learning a language.

So, what you do with practicing after a failure is getting prepared to try again.

It is important to get up and not to give up after a failure. But this time try it differently by being better and more prepared.

So, get busy practicing so that you can enjoy some true self-esteem.

4. Teach your brain the truth about fear

When we fail, we often develop a lot of fear. This fear stops us from taking action and messes with our goals. It prevents us from wanting to try again. It sabotages our self-esteem.

Since fear is also important for our survival, we can’t just get rid of it.

Imagine you are standing in front of a poisonous snake. You need your instincts and all the adrenaline that fear powers into you, to run and survive.

What we don’t want is the fear that stops us, and the fear that feeds more fear and blocks our self-esteem.

Fear is complicated. Fear does not happen in one area of the brain. There exists acomplex system of different brain areas all working together.

So if you’ve failed at something and then developed a lot of fears that are shattering your self-esteem, you must teach your brain that the threats it’s feeling are not real.

Here are some tips on how to manage and control your fears:

Analyze your options

It is essential to evaluate and analyze different options. Don’t think you are stuck with only one option. Look into all the options you can think of, even if they seem odd or scary.

Then rank them according to the risks they present.Finally, chose the option you want to try with confidence and consideration.

Familiarize yourself with what you fear

Regain your self-esteem by slowly getting familiar with the situation or the thing you fear. Expose yourself to a situation, observe it, and get familiar with it.

Doing so gives you control over fear, and your brain learns that no threat, but rather something familiar is present.

Talk about it

We often hide, and are embarrassed about our fear and our lost self-esteem. Sharing and speaking it out loud makes a huge difference.

This little boost of our self-esteem can reduce our fear. While we talk about it, we usually experience that a person we talk to is empathetic with us.

Surprisingly, the other one does not see us as low as we think of ourselves. This reality helps us to change our perspective and boosts our self-esteem too.

Ask for help

Maybe you are scared your work, and your abilities are not good enough. Consider getting help from an expert.

For example, a blog post that went through an editor will allow you to hit that submit button with more confidence. Or taking a few lessons before an audition will allow you to show up with earned self-esteem and reassurance.

Final Thoughts

Now we know that our brains control our responses to failure.

We also know that we have control over our brains and how we can use that to be empowered. Isn’t that amazing?

Failure is not the end of the world. What is important is to get up and go on.

For this, we need to recover our self-esteem first, so that insecurities, fears, and wrong beliefs won’t stop us again.

It is also important that we learn from our failures so that we don’t repeat previous mistakes. It is important to sit and see what went wrong.

We might do that alone or even with some help from outside.

Then we have to re-set our goals and re-evaluate our strategies. As we have learned in this post, we can do that using our precious tool of understanding our brains.

We can stop thinking about mistakes, and we can shake them off. We can set ourselves up for success and find motivation, self-esteem, and happiness.

We can practice to keep information in our long-term memories and gain confidence. Being prepared with knowledge we can get ourselves together and try again.

And finally, we can understand and control our fear to overcome it.

Over To You –

What are your experiences with regaining your self-esteem after a failure? Do you see failure and success differently after understanding your brain better? Let me know in the comments below.

SOURCE

13:30:00 - By Vincent 0

Letting Go: How It Helps You

BY Donna Merrill 

Letting go does not mean giving up! In fact, it helps you gain peace of mind and move forward.

Today I’ve a special guest – please welcome Donna, who’s an intuitive life coach and personal development expert. Let’s read all that she has to share with us today – over to her.

Letting go of anything is so difficult for some people. It can be a hurtful family member or just a piece of furniture.

When we refuse to let go, what happens? We remain stagnant.

Our life is so cluttered with the old, often useless and dysfunctional stuff that we have no room for new things to come in.

I know how difficult it is when a loved one passes on. We mourn our loss and go through a ritual such as burying or cremating the person. Each culture has its own way of facing the “ending”.

We give ourselves time to mourn and then let go. I don’t want to sound morbid by using this example, but it is the ultimate experience of letting go.

Death is something everyone learns to handle because it is an inevitable part of the natural life cycle.

But what happens to people when they become entrenched in a specific lifestyle, or a particular journey and they just can’t adjust to any alteration or modification?

Why People are Afraid of Letting Go

People may stay at a job they don’t like because of fear of what is beyond their potential. Some stay there for years and do not allow themselves to grow and enjoy the things they may love to do.

I notice that when people refuse to let go of things that just don’t work for them any longer, their happiness and sense of self worth start to melt away. They cannot enjoy their spouse, their family, etc.

They may get angry or play victim to the very circumstances that they foster. In any case, they won’t allow themselves to try to extend themselves even for a job interview, let alone starting their own business.

And, often enough, if they do step out of their comfort zone and things don’t work out, they quickly play the blame game to make things somebody else’s fault.

Letting Go of Things in Your Life

I know a woman who is quite a hoarder. Now, this is a physical and transparent form of refusing to let go.

This person cannot let go of her furniture because it reminds her of her past. Her garage is full of surplus furniture and she always complained about it, and begged me to help her get rid of it. But first, I extended myself by visiting her to take pictures of everything, from furniture down to the silverware.

I made a photo album for her so she could keep those memories without cluttering her home. Little by little, she started to give away something here and there. But she didn’t let go of these things without anxiety.

So each time she gave something away, I suggested that she look at the picture we took. After two years, her house has nothing but the essentials in it. Now she is even ready to move to a new place.

Unsurprisingly, this woman’s willingness to let go of her furniture has opened her to letting go of some negative relationships in her life. As she has done so, she’s been able to replace them some good and positive relationships that she had previously avoided.

This is one simple way to illustrate how letting go of things go in our lives enables us to grow, and to move on to new adventures and possibilities.

Letting Go and Starting Your Business

When it comes to our wonderful world of business on the internet, I find that lots of folks are fearful of letting go of menial jobs that are going nowhere in order to start their own business.

So, what can we do with the person who can’t let go of dead-end jobs and careers, even though they are fully capable of doing better?

“Create a back door!” I usually suggest. Go on working as usual, but create time to work on your own business. Nothing happens overnight.

Start your new venture part time, utilizing spare evening or weekend hours. There are many successful people who are doing business part time via the Internet.

That phrase “create a back door” is comforting to those who find it difficult to let go all at once. All one has to do is be diligent, persistent and a business will bloom.

Time is not necessarily of the essence here. “Letting go” is.

Starting an online business part time affords a comfort zone to many people that I’ve consulted with.

They can rely on the job that keeps them financially and emotionally comfortable, while taking daring little chances for a few hours a day.

It’s really not uncommon that before they know it, they are able to totally let go of the go-nowhere job and mentality, and apply themselves fully to doing what makes them happy.

Letting Go of People in Your Life

Letting go of people that are toxic is a biggie, too!

I must have heard a hundred stories about people that won’t let go of a toxic or worse,abusive relationship.

I feel this is the worst form of refusing to let go, especially if there are children involved in the situation.

It is often not an easy thing to let go of a partner because of financial situations, or worse, the syndrome whereby one spouse believes that they cannot survive without the other, even if it puts them (and others) in harm’s way.

Now, if there are children involved in this situation, they are being abused, too. Yes! If daddy is putting down mommy or even worse, displaying violence, the children will suffer, too. To me that is criminal.

But hey, I’m not Queen of the world. I just know this from my own personal experience!

When the abused spouse lets go of the abusive partner (and sometimes it is best to get help before one does it), they end up gaining strength. Why? Because it takes so much strength to deal with that situation, when it is over, the victim who couldn’t let go – turns into the victor who did.

Conclusion

So you see – letting go is often required in order for you to move forward in your life, and in your business.

We all need to let go of some things in our lives in order to grow. The above examples may be pretty extreme, but try applying it to even small things in your life.

Are you holding on to something that you just cannot shake? Do you dream of anything at all that you aren’t doing right now?

What are you waiting for? Let go of ANYTHING that is holding you back and realize that you never stuck in time, you are always evolving. Growth and development never end!

Over To You –

Do you believe in letting go? What can you let go of to make room for growth and improvement in your life? Share in the comments.

SOURCE

13:33:00 - By Vincent 0

Presentation tip to make you a star

Presentation? Do This

Tell the people in the room what you expect from them.

There are at least 3 common reasons why you give a presentation:

1. To educate in order for people to make a decision

2. To prompt action or implementation

3. To educate for the sake of knowledge

You need to tell them at the beginning what you're doing and what they have to do. Without giving them a "mental assignment," people don't have a context in which to process the information. If they don't know what's expected of them, human nature  leads the audience into a passive mode. The burden of the presentation is entirely on you.

Do this:

1. "At the end of the meeting we'll decide on the best supply chain software for our organization. You'll  be expected to offer your rationale for the risks and benefits of each. So I expect that we'll have a lot of questions and discussion during the next hour."

2. "I'm going to lay out the steps of the product launch. Each of you will play a role in its execution. At the end of the meeting I'll ask for a commitment to a timetable from each of the managers here. As I lay out the information, be sure to speak up and discuss the pros and cons from your perspective. The deadline for the launch is 60 days from now."

3. "We've discovered a possible new opportunity as a result of R&D. My purpose is to show you what led to this so that you can understand what is evolving with the technology."

Make your audience mentally active

• Tell them at the beginning what their role is and how to play it. 

• They'll appreciate the direction.

• You'll get more participation.

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge 8, compliment people

Comfort zone challenge 8, compliment people

14:18:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge nr 5, a high five with people in the street

Comfort zone challenge nr 5, high five, five people!

14:06:00 - By Vincent 0

Exposing Fear Of Change

By Mark Connelly

Fear of change is subtle. It operates under the radar convincing you that it's there to protect you and keep you safe.

In reality, fear of change is one of the most common reasons for resistance to change because it stops you taking any action at all.

Earlier this year I met with a client who was losing her job after working in the same business (a bank) for 30 years. She was terrified by the prospect of being forced to think beyond what she had known for 30 years. It made it hard for her to think clearly.


A coaching client has many brilliant ideas for his future but is frustrated because he can't get started with any of his plans.

In both of these cases fear of change holds them back.

It cannot be seen and convinces people to strongly deny that it's there at all.

Fear of change works hard to convince you that change is bad for you. I often hear its attempts to convince people that they will not cope with change.

This page is an attempt to expose fear of change and give you insight into how it may work in your life, or in the lives of people or groups at work.

In most cases it is the reason for any resistance to change you experience.

Effects of Fear of Change

In most cases fear of change stops us from taking action. It often works with anxiety, self-doubt and guilt to help it to do this.

Anxiety: Some stress can be good because it gets us to do something. But there are times when feeling anxious about something new can really limit us.

This often happens if we are not certain about the future.

High levels of anxiety are often brought about by:

• rumors about change,
• self doubt,
• not knowing what to expect,
• not feeling our concerns are heard

     ...and this can be crippling.

When you notice and address these issues people feel less anxious.

Often a good reality check can be very helpful too. Take time to find out if the rumors you've heard are true as this can make you feel less anxious as well.

Anxiety and Fear of Change work together

Feeling anxious can stop us trying something new and makes us resist change by stirring up fears of what is not known.

In such cases we'll choose to stick with what we know rather than face an uncertain future.

There are a number of common fears that can be mistaken for resistance to change. Be aware of them and deal with the actual fear rather than calling all fears 'resistance'.

Here are some examples of fears that look like resistance:

Fear of the unknown

Not knowing what to expect occurs when we don't have enough information about the change and we're expected to take a 'leap of faith'. This can result in a lot of anxious feelings.

Fear of failure

This fear works closely with the need for perfection and makes us worry about not getting things right. It makes sense that the best way to avoid the pain of failing is not to do anything at all.

Yet failure is the only way to succeed.

Think of the number of failed light bulb's before Edison found the one that worked. Successful people often have a list of failed attempts behind them. It's the way we learn.

John Maxwell calls it 'Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success'. If you worry about failure this book might help you think differently about trying something new.

Fear of success

Marianne Williamson has written that "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?"

It's as if we don't believe we deserve success.

Concern about success can lead to feeling anxious. We have beliefs about what successful people are like and we fear that we might become like them if we are successful. We believe that we might lose friends or exploit others, for example.

To reduce this fear of change we need to know our values and remain true to them.

Fear of loss

Loss is often a part of change. Change can mean that we lose friends, our salary, or even our parking space! Other losses are not as obvious such as the the loss of known routines or the things that define who we are (like a job title, or a position).

Fear of upsetting others

Life coaches are taught to explore the impact of change on other people close to their client. This is because change can have a ripple effect on others.

Of course, the change can be positive. But the fear of upsetting others can really limit what we do. I've known clients who have refused promotions rather than deal with ill feelings from others.

Fear of leaving a comfort zone

Like it or not we are creatures of habit. We like our routines and don't like to be faced with the unknown.

Comfort zones may be safe but we can't grow or experience anything new, as one of the characters in 'Who Moved My Cheese?' discovered (I love the lessons about change in this book and tell everyone about it).

Self-doubt

Self-doubt expresses itself in phrases like "I'm...not good enough", "...not clever enough", "...not qualified enough", or "I'm stupid".

Not only do we start believing this about ourselves but we fear that others might see this too. Resisting change helps us to avoid dealing with self doubt.

Putting ourselves down in this way stems from a lack of confidence and a fear of change that stops us taking any action. It literally stops us getting ahead in life.

Building self-esteem and self-confidence can counter the effects of anxiety and get rid of fear of change.

Guilt

People that put others' needs ahead of their own are likely to feel guilt if they feel the change they need to make will affect others.

You'll hear guilt in action in the words people use. They use the words "should", "must", and "have to" often. So they'll say, "I really should do xyz", or "I have to attend the meeting". Maybe you do this?

There's a lovely story Stephen Covey tells in his 7 Habits CD set about a student excusing himself from a lecture. When Covey asked why he couldn't attend the lecture the student answered "it's because I have toattend tennis practice" (or some similar reason).

Stephen Covey asked him what would happen if he didn't go to tennis practice and the student said he'd be dropped from the team. "So youchoose to go to tennis training rather than attend my lecture", observed Covey.

Stephen Covey makes the point that we need to be aware of our language, and change our "I have to's" into "I choose to", or our "I should's" into "Iwant to" or "I would like to...". 

Focus on the individual

The fear of change can be one of the biggest barriers to change at work or in your personal life.

While a force field analysis can assess the broader situation the time spent really understanding people's reactions allows you to intervene where they are at.

Encouraging the involvement of employees early in the change process and allowing them to be part of the process also leads to lower levels of resistance to change and higher acceptance and engagement in the change.

As successful change management is defined by the ability of people to move towards, and accept, the vision for change it is essential to support the process by focusing on the individual.

Resistance to change is normal. When you are aware of someone's fear of change your change management planning can support them to make the change.

SOURCE

14:11:00 - By Vincent 0

How Perfectionism Destroys Happiness

BY Steven Handel

If you want to never be happy or satisfied with your life, one great way to do that is to raise your expectations to an unrealistically high standard that can never possibly be met.

This is the essence of perfectionism. It’s the inability to be happy with something until it is perfect, without any flaws whatsoever. Of course, the problem with this mindset is that perfectionism is often an illusion.

Life rarely works out exactly the way we want, in any domain – whether it’s relationships, work, or goals.

And many times being more happy with your life requires that you let go of these expectations and learn to be more content with how things are, rather than how you picture they should be in an “ideal world.”

Many studies are beginning to show the many ways perfectionism can destroy your happiness.

Perfectionism leads to feelings of regret and dissatisfaction

In one study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, it was found that a “must have the best” mindset can magnify feelings of regret and dissatisfaction.

Psychologists are calling it the “maximizing mindset,” and it’s one symptom of perfectionism. We always seek to choose the best possible option in every given scenario, but that’s not always possible.

These findings are consistent with another recent study published in the Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy that discovered perfectionism can lead to more “post-event rumination.”

This just means that after something happens to us, we are much more likely to continue to think about it and second-guess our choices. This makes it much more harder to let go of our past decisions, and especially our past mistakes.

Perfectionism hurts our relationships

The research continues to build on the negative consequences of perfectionism.

In another recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, it was found that perfectionism can hurt our relationships as well.

Romantic couples who see their relationships as a “perfect unity” (“We are soul mates” or “We we’re made for each other”) are more prone to relationship problems than those who view their relationship as a “journey” (“We grow together” or “Look how far we’ve come”).

This makes sense. Every relationship is going to have problems we have to work through. But if you think you both are absolutely perfect for each other, then it’s going to be hard to accept and deal with the highs and lows of every relationship.

Often times, a more practical and realistic mindset prepares you for the inevitable road bumps in life. And it’s better to prepare yourself for reality than to live in delusion.

Perfectionism negatively influences your work

One of the most common effects of perfectionism is how it influences our work and personal goals.

In a study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology discovered that individuals who have a greater tendency for perfectionism are also more likely to procrastinate.

When we have a perfectionist mentality, it’s really hard to swallow our pride and say “I’m done.” Instead, we find ourselves constantly changing things, tweaking every little detail, and working non-stop until we finally feel satisfied. Although we never do.

This is also consistent with another study on how perfectionism can lead to “workaholism,” an unhealthy drive to never stop working, which can often lead to more stress, fatigue, and burnout.

Perfectionism hurts our self-esteem and body image

According to a study published in the Journal of Eating Disorders, perfectionism can also hurt our body image and play a role in the development of eating disorders.

We commonly compare our body appearances to the “ideals” we find in movies, TV, magazines, and other forms of entertainment. This can lead us to set our own standards incredibly high, which will often lead to disappointment in our own bodies.

As you can see, perfectionism can destroy our happiness in many different areas of our lives. It’s an attitude that we have to be very careful of. Here are ways to think less like a perfectionist in your daily life.

How to let go of perfectionism

Perfectionism is ultimately a mindset, so the best way to let go of it is to start building a new mindset toward life.

For many truly happy and successful people, they don’t have a perfectionist mindset – but agrowth mindset. They understand that life is a process of ups and downs, and we are constantly learning and growing from these experiences.

Unlike the perfectionist, the growth-oriented person doesn’t see their happiness or success in any area of a life as a “fixed place.” Instead, it’s a never-ending journey.

Start thinking in a new direction:

• “Mistakes are a normal part of everyday life.”
• “Failure is often a necessary step toward success.”
• “It’s not about being the best, but trying your best.”
• “No single event in the past defines you. Move forward.”
• “You’re always growing as an individual.”
• “Focus on the bigger picture more than the details.”
• “Your flaws and imperfections are what make you unique.”
• “There are always new obstacles to overcome.”
• “You accept the ups and downs in life with grace.”

Choose 3 of these self-affirmations that you like best.

Now, write each one down on an index card and place it around your home where you’ll see it frequently, for example: a mirror, a fridge, or above your bed.

For the next week, every time you see these self-affirmations, try repeating them to yourself 3 times each (either inside your head or out-loud to yourself).

This is just one small step in changing your thinking to a more “growth-oriented” mindset. With a little conscious practice, this way of thinking will begin to spread into your daily life.

Try one of these exercises:

If you want to go one step further in overcoming your perfectionism, I challenge you to try one of the following exercises:

1. Just Complete One Goal Today

Assign yourself a small project, and just give yourself to the end of the day to finish it. It can be anything, the simpler the better: creating a new song or writing a poem. The point is to just do it, and not obsess over the final product. Give yourself permission to say, “It’s done!” without needing to second-guess yourself.

2. Try Failing On Purpose

Put yourself in a situation where you know you’ll fail. You’ll often find that failure isn’t that bad, and it often means you’re challenging yourself in a positive and productive way. Many times, you may even feel better about yourself for trying and failing, rather than never trying at all.

Individuals with a “growth mindset” do these types of things everyday – they are always taking small steps, and willing to put themselves in situations where they are challenged and may fail.

In many ways, perfectionism is the opposite of growth and happiness. It stagnates us and keeps us both stuck and unsatisfied. To truly be happy, we need to first learn to let go of our unrealistically high expectations about life.

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17:00:00 - By Vincent 0