What Drives Happiness?

It is often said that satisfaction and contentedness lead to lasting happiness.

I disagree.

If anything, the opposite is necessary to be happy in life. The want - the drive - to be more, do more, facilitates the actualization of an exquisite state of passion.

The 'state of passion' defined as happiness.

Happiness isn't in having more, rather is a by-product of the process, the effort, the work that one puts in to make oneself better. Happiness that comes from the realisation of a goal is short-lived, followed by an emptiness, a hunger, only to be satiated by the gratification of the self with the realisation of a new goal. An unstable loop that we often get stuck in.

Happiness isn't in the realisation of the goal it's in the pursuit.

Happiness doesn't come from owning things, it comes from the experiences they enable us to have.

Those who base their happiness on having more than others will never be happy because there will always be someone who will have something more than you. That something is often defined as money. The conundrum isn't whether this hypothesis is right or wrong - for some, it is, for some it isn't.

The conundrum is how that 'something' ended up being money in the universally accepted social framework.

Of all the things you can pay for happiness, money is by far the cheapest.

Probably, because as humans we tend to define everything in the lowest possible denominator and in this case (happiness) - it was money. It's evident, easy to measure, compare, etc. But juxtaposing amplitude of wealth with well being is a very trivial/crude approach to decoding the human nature.

A deeper probe would reveal, however, that we human beings have complete control over defining this MacGuffin. Each person has the ability to define and pursue their own objective - one that will to a certain degree affect the perception of happiness they have erected around themselves.

So now the question is

How do we define the prime directive for our own happiness?

How do we assign values to the variables in our lives?

Chasing which goals will make us the happiest?

I believe there is no universal answer. Each of us has to define their own and then derive happiness from its pursuit.

Deriving this goal and defining the pursuit is something that will come from looking inward, empathising with the self and separating that one voice from the noise that is the humdrum of everyday life.

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Why Some People Are More Creative Than Others

Do you have creative instincts in you? How come some people are better at it? Are there any secrets to reveal? This article answers this question and shows how you can be like the ones better at it. Read on to find out.

Five Reasons why some people are more creative than others:

1. They find their joy that way

They immerse themselves in their creative works for hours together and gain great satisfaction.

2. Now they further know how to monetize their creativity

As a result, they are tapping on their creative juices even more and enjoying double benefits. They never have to work exhaustively another day. They love what they do and do them effortlessly.

3. They can relate to artistic beauty

Seeing a painting or a creative piece of writing, they can enjoy the beauty of it, which appeals to them.

4. They are passion-driven

They cannot live without their creativity which they are so much passionate about. They need to dedicate time and space for them.

5. They have a natural life calling

They understand they have a life calling for their creativity early in life. And they follow it because every fiber of their being guides them towards it and they know instinctively they are meant for that calling for their life on this fertile earth.

How can you become one of them?

Try this experiment on you consecutively for five days:

Day 1: Get a white sheet of paper and some water colors. Try to capture a natural scenery and paint it.

Day 2: Borrow a guitar from a friend, download guitar tabs from the web and play them on the guitar.

Day 3: Try to create a fiction plot - something you know based on life experiences because your life consists of many pieces of stories.

Day 4: Buy a camera and start taking beautiful, colorful photographs of your surroundings.

Day 5: Work for an hour or two in your garden by weeding out and loosening the soil. Plant some seeds of vegetables and also flower plants in an organized way. Water and add fertilizer in the right amount according to the instructions of an experienced gardener.

Among the five days of varying creative works, which one appealed to you the most? Which one would you care to do again and again? One of them must have made you feel different, bringing in ample joy and strength. This is it - this is your God-gifted talent and genius that has been lying dormant within you for years. Yes, hit on that creative activity, monetize it and let it passion-drive you. Your life will never be the same again and there can be no turning back. You have become one of those more creative people. Sounds good?

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How to Be Motivated to Do Those Tough Tasks

It's easy to allow yourself to slip into the habit of procrastination. But what is Procrastination? It simply means putting off those tasks that you really should be doing but don't. The reason for doing that is simply, that you feel more joy not doing those tasks than you would if you did them.

The problem is we can put them off too much and fall into a hole that we may struggle to dig ourselves out of. That's what we must avoid, but to do that we must learn to become motivated. Easier said than done especially with those less desirable tasks, such as taking the garbage out or even paying a bill.

So how can we become motivated to do those kind of tasks? We must learn to change how we feel about those mundane tasks. To do this we have to change what we see in our heads and how we imagine ourselves completing the task at hand.

If we can do that then we will replace the images of pain that we have when we think of those tasks and replace them with images of satisfaction instead.

So that's what to do but now it's time to find out how to do it. How do we change the images in our heads? We must learn to think more along the lines of what will happen if we do not do those tasks. What will your house look like if you don't take out the rubbish? What will it smell like after the rubbish has sat there for a while? What will your Partner say? You must learn to imagine this in great detail and feel like you're really living it now. You must learn to feel pain from not doing it. The other example of not paying your bills can be a lot more severe and is a good example. If you fail to pay your bills you may be taken to court, end up in debt, go to prison and even end up losing your family. Very extreme I know, but if you can get yourself to begin imagining situations such as this then you have definitely managed to get yourself to feel pain when procrastinating.

For many the feeling of pain will be enough to simply jump in and get those tasks done right away. But for others it may require practice. The more you practice techniques such as this the easier is becomes.

Of course there is no better motivator than just getting things done now. If you feel that you really don't want to do something learn to make yourself do it now and you will feel better once it's completed. The more often you do undesirable tasks the easier is becomes. You will be making a habit that will be difficult to break a habit that can set you up for life, because once you get started, who knows what else you can achieve?

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Reaping the Benefits of Meaningful Work (By Estra Roell)

"Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it's not merely benign or 'too bad' if we don't use the gifts that we've been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don't use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighted down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief." ~ Brené Brown

Whether you work for someone else or are self-employed, purpose and meaning are essential to your happiness and well-being. Research has shown most people find meaningful work is actually more important to them than the salary they receive or the job title.

What is Meaningful Work?

Meaningful work is about more than just doing a job to collect a paycheck. What gives our work meaning is doing something that serves something or others beyond ourselves.

What's meaningful is unique to each individual. Some people can find meaning in their work by simply shifting their perspective. For work to be meaningful, you need to understand the "why" behind your work. Try thinking beyond what you're doing to who or what is helped or enriched by what you do. In what ways is your work important?

For many, it's about matching their passions, talents and interests with the tasks they perform at work. What do you love to do? What are you good at doing? What engages you? Where your passions and talents intersect, you'll find meaning.

Meaningful work will always be in alignment with your values, so it's important to understand what you hold as your top values. Take a look at how your career does or doesn't reflect the values you hold. If you work for a company, do their values align with yours? A disconnect between your values and the workplace values destroys any sense of purpose and meaning.

"A meaningful career is one where we feel an authentic connection between the work we do and a broader life purpose beyond the self." ~ Jory MacKay

The Benefits of Meaningful Work

When your work is meaningful:

• You're charged with more energy because what you're doing matters to you and you know it benefits others. You have a sense of purpose.
• You're making a contribution to the larger whole in some way, which enhances your levels of satisfaction.
• Your ability to perform at your highest levels is supported.
• You're spending your time in work that aligns with your values.
• You're more engaged with your work, so job satisfaction rises.
• You're more excited to get to work each day.

When It Goes Beyond Meaning

Sometimes work can be meaningful, but other factors interfere with the satisfaction one would expect. I experienced that in my career as a lower elementary Montessori teacher when there was a management change in the school. Teachers were being asked to do more paperwork, which could have been accomplished in a more streamlined fashion. Input from teachers on many issues weren't valued. The entire work environment became more restricted, so it left little room for innovation.

When the work environment grates against your personal style, it erodes job satisfaction, even when doing meaningful work.

Be aware of your own work style and see where you can negotiate some changes. There may also be ways you can find the wiggle room to create more freedom to work according to your own style. If not, it may be time to consider a different environment.

What is meaningful to you? I invite you to comment below to share your thoughts on what you find meaningful in your work, or what you envision as a meaningful career.

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Don't Scrimp on Self-Care - 5 Rituals to Help You Stay on Track

To embrace all that life has to offer, I advise you to move self-care to the top of your list every day.

Self-care is key to your success and satisfaction no matter what your goals and responsibilities may be.

We all know that life gets way too busy. Sometimes it gets so busy that you feel like you can't carve out ANY time to take care of yourself. But that's one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

The rituals you practice to take care of your mind, body, and spirit both soothe you and energize you. As a result, you experience more success and joy in your moments. This, in turn, transforms your feelings about time. And that affects everything you do.

5 Self-Care Rituals for you to build into your routine...

These rituals help you remember how important you are. When you practice them, the results are powerful and palpable.

Exercising relieves your stress and rejuvenates both your mind and body.

No matter where you start, getting the physical activity your body craves will revive your mood and enrich your life profoundly. Try a 10-minute walk to give your mind a rest or lift your spirits.

Whether you choose a brisk pace or a slow saunter to admire the landscape, consider it a gift to yourself to go for a brief stroll.

Re-acquaint yourself with the magic and exhilaration that nature provides.

Nothing relaxes and nurtures us like getting outdoors. Find time to sit on your porch and just watch the birds. Take a few minutes to care for a flower garden, or go for a walk in the park.

Take a Bath.

Bathing is one of the top self-soothing moments of your day. Rather than rush through your bath, take the time to soothe yourself by using a luscious soap or that new loofah sponge or bath puff. Light some scented candles, put on relaxing music, and take the time to fully enjoy your self-care time.

Find time to do the one thing you really love to do.

There's something so special and nourishing about making the time and space to do something that you feel excited about. Maybe you love to read. Or perhaps you like to sew or work with wood.

No matter what your beloved activity, figure out a way to make it happen. Even if it's every other day or once a week, an important part of self-care is doing what makes your heart sing.

Stay in touch with your feelings.

This is vital for the deepest and most meaningful self-care. When you're honest with yourself about how you feel, you'll have more peace and contentment inside.

Living your life based on your real feelings brings comfort and joy to your heart because you are in sync with yourself. It can be a challenge to be truthful with yourself and others about how you feel. But when you do, the rewards are great.

BONUS REMINDER: Self-care isn't a luxury! Re-frame it for yourself as a responsibility.

Engaging in activities and rituals that soothe you deep inside enriches your time and your life. A regular practice of self-care demonstrates that you recognize your own worth.

You'll deepen your experience of your moments and find more success and satisfaction by practicing soothing and energizing self-care rituals.

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Life Is Not About Finding Yourself But Creating Yourself

Life is how we make it. Be that as it may, but many people are experiencing their lives along these lines. Regardless of whether deliberately or unknowingly we disengaged from our capacity, substance and soul to wind up feeling at some degree lost. Possibly it happens when we appear to have all that we need superficially; cash, assets, achievement, yet we need satisfaction at the most profound level.

At some instances, we feel lost and confounded along these lines, it is our awareness to wake us up to the truth of who we truly are; divine limitless creatures that are incredible, unfathomable. The saddest part is that individuals may never tune in to this call from soul. A significant number of us are so molded, so sleeping to our own stunning force that it's excessively startling. Rather than grasping our capacity, we deviated our cognizance.

On the other hand, when we are open and responsive to revealing our fullest potential, we increase an awesome chance to gain proficiency with the embodiment of what it genuinely intends to make our life. The way we pick here is the thing that decides the course of our future, and influences our capacity to genuinely venture into our most noteworthy conceivable articulation. The single greatest change we can grasp now in our lives is to assume radical liability for who and where we are now.

From this point onward, we become open to development, extension and the fixing of the entirety of the constrained perspectives and being we have utilized before. Assuming liability for your life along these lines takes HUGE measures of mental fortitude. It might be awkward on occasion to decide to be the sensible maker of our reality, since it implies there is never again any other person to blame for the things we don't care for. What is unmistakably increasingly awkward however is carrying on with an actual existence path underneath our potential since we never had the mental fortitude to assume liability for our lives.

Every individual holds a different perspective about life due to our distinct way of thinking and attitude towards life. I believe it's up to us to create our role in it. Life is all about discovering our true self. It is high time to stop finding yourself and go ahead to creating yourself.

In fact, we lose our true essence because we want our society to accept us, so we change, and compromise. But when we spend few moments to reflect, we realized that it is important that we create our own identity. Every choice we make matters. To shape our lives like the way we want it, we need to make bold choices to achieve our goals even if it means taking the road less traveled. We need to make decisions that bring us closer to our goals of creating a name for ourselves.

We are the directors of our life and it's up to us to decide what role we want to follow and create an incredible story.

https://ezinearticles.com/?Life-Is-Not-About-Finding-Yourself-But-Creating-Yourself&id=10229207

Discover Why Self-Fulfillment Begins With You, Not a Job

When you wake up in the morning, do you immediately believe this is going to be a rewarding day? Do you look forward to what's ahead and know you will be able to feel good, regardless of what transpires throughout the day?

This would be the ultimate goal it seems, to have a life which flows easily from day to day, and one in which you are able to feel a sense of purpose no matter what occurs. Yet for most people, this isn't the case. There always is a sense of struggle for many, searching for something to give them hope, looking for happiness in things that can be acquired, basing how they feel upon external circumstances, or any other number of similar factors. In other words, a sense of self-fulfillment is in short supply and often tied to a state of happiness, related to circumstances and fluctuates frequently.

I've thought quite a lot about self-fulfillment as I have a milestone birthday coming up this year, and I know these types of birthdays can prompt reflection. I think back to the difference between the milestones, starting with the difference between my 20s and 30s. The focus was on career development and growth. As time has progressed, I've evolved more into a desire to be involved in work which paves the way for self-actualization for me. As an educator, I find this every day when I'm working with learners, even those who challenge me, as I'm having to continually learn and grow myself.

Then I began to think about finding self-fulfillment when working in less than desirable conditions. Consider the person who works a demanding job, with long hours, rarely receiving recognition or acknowledgement for their hard work. Does this sound familiar to you? Is the type of work itself enough to create a sense of fulfillment, despite the conditions? What I have come to conclude, through time and experience, is this: If you take responsibility for development of your own self-actualization, and you base it on your own achievements, you will always find contentment in your life. I'll share some strategies with you that I have learned along the way.

What is Self-Actualization? Does it Matter?

I've mentioned the concept of self-actualization as it has become important in my life and at my age. Now if you are younger, this may not be as important to you yet. If you are familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is the highest level, the attainment of your true potential. This is after you have met all other needs, including your self-esteem needs, which are related to status and recognition. I know of many people who are in their 50s and 60s who still are pursuing their self-esteem needs, which means they are still seeking status and recognition in their career.

Typically, actualization occurs later in life, though there are no set rules and you can begin to experience it at any age. You will know you are in the process of seeking self-fulfillment when the idea of chasing the next big promotion or job title is no longer enough to make you happy and instead, you want to do something each day that connects with you from the inside. I have read many stories of people who have changed careers later in life, to pursue something they have "always thought of doing" and were "too afraid to do". You likely have heard that as well.

Often when we start our careers, we don't always know what it is we want to do. It's a significant transition to go from high school to adulthood, and the expectation is that you'll go to college and/or know what type of career to pursue. I started a career to pay bills and it evolved over time based upon what I naturally enjoyed doing. I had another career transition in my 40s, from the corporate world to higher education, and it was then I really found what I believed to be my vocation. I have worked like many online educators, who spend long days, nights, and weekends helping learners, and yet, I find such immense satisfaction from my career I cannot imagine doing anything else. This is what it means to find and live self-actualization. You do the work that you love and love the work that you do.

How to Develop a Self-Fulfillment Attitude

It seems that many people are awaiting circumstances to get better, or for the right job to come along, before they can ever find and know true happiness in their career. If this is you, it is possible you might be waiting for quite some time, as there is no predicting when circumstances or situations will ever be perfect enough for you to feel good. More importantly, if you tie your personal happiness and well-being to external events or conditions, you are certainly setting yourself up for disappointment. Why? There are certain to be people who are going to let you down. There are going to be managers who will recognize you for your hard work, and others who only contact you when you have done something wrong. More importantly, there is never going to be a perfect job or set of working conditions.

What this means is that you must base your needs, at least the most important of all needs, on that which you can control. If you go back to the definition of self-actualization within Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you'll find it involves the realization of your talents, abilities, and skills. More importantly, it is the awakening of your true potential. Now you may be thinking that this is in fact dependent upon the conditions of your job or external environment, and it can be, if you allow it. But if you want to experience the full essence of your self-awakening, it is time to turn within. You make a transition from dependence on anyone else to only yourself. Perhaps these strategies will assist you.

Self-Reflection for Self-Awakening

If you are feeling a need for something more than advancement in your career, waiting to be recognized, or any other form of external validation, there is already something going on within you that is indicating a transition is in place. Now is the time to begin self-reflection, and you can accomplish this deliberately through a few minutes at a time, rather than viewing it as a long process of lengthy meditation periods. This can be as simple as using a journal, typing notes into a Word document, or any other method you can think of to put your thoughts down as a record.

Why is this important? During a time of transition, there are many thoughts available that you may want to examine, and there are some you may want to question, challenge, or discard. Put those thoughts down on paper, in some format, will help you begin to address them. You do not have to be too concerned about what it all means, rather you want to allow the process of self-awakening to begin. This can allow you to find out what is driving you now, and perhaps, what is motivating the desire for change at this time. You will likely discover something new about yourself in the process.

Self-Awareness to Create Self-Dependence

After you have begun the process of initiating self-awareness, you can now see a clearer picture of who you are and who you want to become. It will now become much easier for you to determine if this next phase of your life, and possibly your career, will involve a shift away from self-esteem needs to self-actualization needs. If this is the case, then you can also start to make a shift from thinking about the conditions and people who need to do things, say things, or create situations to make you feel happy and fulfilled, to considering how you can create your own sense of fulfillment.

This means you are now making a shift to self-dependence for your happiness. At this point you are able to think about the activities you are involved in each week, or the duties and tasks you would like to be involved in, that can bring you the most fulfillment. This may not be a quick or easy process either, especially if you have not thought about your job, life, or daily activities from this perspective. But when you have decided you want to experience a sense of meaning from your life, now is the time to look at what you are doing each week and from that list determine what is most satisfying. This is not to state you can or will make immediate changes; however, you can begin to get to know more about yourself and who you are becoming.

Self-Development to Nurture Self-Actualization

The process of awakening to self-actualization is transformational in that you are now determining what matters most for you, in terms of creating value for your personal and/or professional life. For many people this occurs over time and as a product of age. But once it occurs, you can begin to think in broader terms than just switching jobs. Now you can examine fully those aspects of your week that bring you contentment, and compare it to what you've been thinking about for your life. Perhaps your transition into a new self-awareness will involve simple steps, such as a new hobby to compliment your life, or it will lead you to a career change.

More than likely, you may already have naturally evolved like I did and are working in a career you enjoy. If so, you may want to find other means of expanding upon your talents and skills. I find writing for me is another form of satisfaction, as I'm sharing with others and connecting with a broader audience. The opportunity to share what I've learned, with those who are highly experienced and educated, is always an exciting prospect. This also leads to the prospect of opening up an intellectual dialogue as well. Perhaps you can find an extension of your talents as well, when you continue your self-development in the pursuit of your purpose. Whatever it may be, it is certain to help you find purpose and meaning.

A Job is More than a Job, When You Make It Meaningful

When you have finally gone through a process of transformation, and reached the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you will find yourself living life in a renewed manner. This is not to state you are going to live your life without challenges, or that every job you are employed with will be perfect. But what it does mean is that you can have the best job and find meaning, and you may also have the most demanding job with the toughest of circumstances, and still find your purpose in the work you perform. It isn't the job itself that is meaningful, it is the work you do and the disposition about the work you hold which determines how you connect to it.

If you are in job and decide there is something there that brings you fulfillment, the external circumstances of that job will become much more manageable. There may still be days that are challenging to overcome, and yet, you will still find your purpose through it all because you have awakened to the knowledge you seeking a life of purpose. How you approach the tasks you perform will be much different, and even the most mundane of tasks may now have new meaning. Even if you have to find a new job or career, the realization you are now working towards a new future, one you are in control of now, will give you hope. When you decide to look for meaning within your life or career, and base it upon your needs rather than conditions, then you will find greater purpose, happiness, and long-term fulfillment.

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Abraham Hicks ~ Magical Ways To Receive Great Abundance

Why You Get Triggered At Work And How To Stay Calm

We all get triggered. The difference between one successful professional and another can lie simply in the way they deal with pressure and their ability to stay cool when triggered.

According to George Bernard Shaw, "Self-control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive." This is particularly true in the corporate world.

Neuroscience helps us appreciate exactly what's going on in our brain when we get triggered. With this knowledge, we are able to find ways to help us stay cool in these stressful situations.

Let's take some time to explore being triggered. One of the key areas we help our clients explore as part of our leadership development coaching programme is their values.

Values represent those things that are important to you. People have different core values and just as companies take time to (or at least, should) identify their values, so should individuals. Values explain why one person loves their job and someone else in the same role hates it. When our values are aligned to the work we do, we experience job satisfaction and fulfilment. On the other hand, when our values are stepped on - be it in the workplace, by our partners or by our children, we lose our cool. We get triggered.

What's Happening In Our Brain When We Get Triggered?

Our amygdala, part of our limbic system plays a key role in processing emotions, identifying threats and activating the well-known 'fight or flight' response. This leads to the release of various chemicals that result in the biological responses we recognise such as increased heart rate, feeling flushed and tense etc.

According to Daniel Goleman, a pioneer in the field of emotional intelligence, we experience an "amygdala hijack" which means our rational brain, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) responsible for weighing options and making rational decisions gets marginalised and we do or say things that we later regret.

Essentially, in these situations when we most need to tap into our PFC, we find that it has almost shut down. Now, we're not knocking the limbic system. It is the key to our survival as a species and continues to keep us safe. Obviously if we were truly facing a threat e.g. a wild dog racing towards us, we need that activated limbic system to get us out of the situation! However, how often do we really need it to run the show at work?

Five Ways to Stay Cool when Triggered

What we need in these situations is to re-engage our 'higher brain', the PFC. Very hard to do when you're in a charged state! Here are some steps:

1. Get to know yourself. Identify your values and look out for situations where they are stepped on so you can practise ways to deal with them when these situations arise. For instance, do you dread feedback and the review process? Think about situations where you have been triggered, how you reacted and how in hindsight, you would have preferred to react? Anticipate and plan for similar situations so you are conscious and intentional about your reaction.

2. Understand what's going on in your brain when triggered and how that impacts your reactions. We have looked at some basic explanations here.

3. Pre-empt your reaction by recognising your physical warning signs (such as heart rate starting to speed up, fist clenching etc.) so you can calm yourself down and prevent an amygdala hijack.

4. Calm down. We are all familiar with the advice to stop, take a deep breath and wait before responding when angry. Deep breathes deliver more oxygen to our brain. This helps us to calm down so we can take a break and give our brain time to engage the PFC and plan our responses. Sometimes it can be as simple as Thomas Jefferson's advice: "When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred."

5. Practise mindfulness meditation. Research shows that mindfulness meditation may be associated with structural changes in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing such as the prefrontal cortex. This means meditation could help us build our capacity to restrain our impulsive emotional reactions and help us stay calm under pressure.

Over to you

What are your top tips for staying cool when triggered? If you would like some help with regulating your emotions, working effectively in a high-pressure environment or dealing with people you find difficult, get in touch for an informal chat about how we can help you.

Spread the Knowledge

If you found this article useful, please spread the word on social media, or email it to someone that would also benefit from it.

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To Succeed You Need a Compelling Reason Why! (By Anne O'Dwyer)

Why is it that so many new resolutions fail after a few weeks or months? Have you ever started a project full of enthusiasm only later to lose interest and abandon it. Do you always finish a book? Have you learnt that language you started, it seemed a great idea last summer! Did you keep up your gym membership for more than 6 months and did you use it regularly? How about your plan to lose weight, did you lose more that 2 pounds and keep the weight off?

Why do we start a new venture full of enthusiasm, and at the first few hurdles lose interest? The ANSWER is we need a compelling "reason why"! If you have a really important reason to continue you are likely to do so. Something really important that will keep you on track despite the hurdles, brick walls, or alternative distractions. You must continually visualize the final picture and think how important it will be to achieve it. Enjoy the feelings and satisfaction of the end result. This must happen daily or even hourly, really "see" how it will benefit you.

It is this that will drive you to success, you will be enlisting the help of your subconscious mind; which in fact is your willing servant waiting to help you achieve. However if you don't give it clear instructions about your desire it cannot help you. If sometimes you are positive and sometimes doubting how does it know what you aim is? There is no need to rely on will-power when you could have all the assistance you need. Just be single-minded about your end result. Your journey may change direction a little if you hit "road blocks" but concentrate on the end result to reach it like a laser beam.

For example it's not so much you want to lose 10 pounds or 3 stone but why do you want to lose weight, what difference will it make to your life, how will you feel, what great advantages will it give you? How will it affect relationships or in what fantastic ways will you gain.

When I was left with 3 children to bring up I used this method. I needed a teaching job to give me school holidays, I love children so it seemed the obvious solution but I didn't have an exam to my name, except in nursing. I set out to achieve my goal and in a few years was the proud owner of a teaching certificate. All this despite it meant a trip of 70 miles a day, and I didn't drive at the time! That is another story, but it is an example of what you can do if your desire is great enough.

I have since moved on to other things now the youngsters have flown the nest. I have learnt basic computer skills and set up a small internet business. So if you are doubting your ability to achieve your dreams, take heed, most things are possible if the desire is compelling enough.

If working at home with an internet business is your dream, affiliate marketing is the simplest starting-point online. Begin with the guidance of a coach and mentor with a proven track record. Someone who provides excellent products and great training in marketing. Believe in yourself and start earning commissions whilst you are learning the skill necessary.

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Love Is Not Everything In A Relationship

There is nothing quite as electrifying and satisfying as falling in love especially when you've found a partner to spend your life with. But what happens when you start to realize that this man or woman might cause you more sufferings than satisfaction? You've already let yourself get so invested that you even enter the sanctity of marriage. You don't know that it's more painful than you could have imagined.

This was my experience again and again, until I started to see my relationship from a different perspective. Love alone is not enough for a marriage to work. It should be coupled with trust and respect. When you know how to embrace your weaknesses and strengths.

When my marriage failed, I kept on asking myself why it happened? But lately I realized that it's not really because my husband was wrong or I was the one faulted. It's because we never learned to accept ourselves wholeheartedly that we keep on searching from each other to fill that emptiness. For any relationship to work, both parties should be willing to feel and to deal with their ugly feelings.

For having a happy married life, love is not enough. There are still many things that will change your love life entirely. Some people even will take extreme action to prove his love to her due to lack of ability to control his feelings for a woman. Not because they don't understand what is right or wrong, but when the attraction is too strong and they are not mature enough to get themselves in control, chances are they will make mistakes unconsciously because at the moment it just feels right.

Love is not enough for a relationship. What really makes a relationship stronger and sustainable is respect, honesty, truthfulness and win- win,understanding of each other. There are so many events over which we have no control. But being happy isn't something that happens based on how others are doing for you. Happiness starts from within. No matter what happens, you have the control over your life, so, your happiness depends upon your choice even if sometimes we delude ourselves in the common belief that love alone can save or make our relationships work.

The moment you have feelings for someone, nothing matters anymore. All you are concerned about is that you are in love;you are in love of being in love.You don't care about the consequences of your wrong choices and you get hurt every time you go into a relationship, and you still don't learn. The fact of the matter is that you are loving wrongly.

In a functional relationship, love or for want a of a better word emotions is never enough to sustain any relationship. The feeling, the emotions and its results will not make it work. There are more important ingredients that make relationship sustainable of which love is not included. What really makes relationship stronger and sustainable is respect, honesty and truthfulness.

Every good relationship is anchored on win-win situations and have nothing to do with love. Relationship based on win-win situation, means everybody is benefiting from the relationship. At the end of the day, everybody was happy and not one-sided. At the end of the day, every complains was addressed. Every fight was settled. Everybody was satisfied.

If a relationship would not work in the first place, coming back again will not make it better. It's just a waste of time. Just focus on yourself and the people around you who supported and loved you unconditionally like your family and kids. Even if trying to understand, goes a long way to bridge the gap between you and your partner in a more satisfactory manner; patience is required to make the relationship work, and not love.

Strong relationships are built not on love, but built on mutual respect, mutual understanding, sharing private matters when needed.

For any relationship to work, it's important to set some time aside to just be a couple; and spend quality time together regularly, especially during hard times. This doesn't need to involve money; just a walk down the park together or along the beach will help. Just taking yourself out of your home environment will be beneficial and this does not necessarily requires love; just merely mutual understanding.

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5 Steps To Personal Satisfaction

Happiness is measured based on a million different standards. We all know that someone's happiness doesn't really mean it is happiness for all. If I love drawing and you hate it, drawing to me would be happiness, while to you it would be just a hassle.

We can't all agree on happiness, however, we can all agree on personal satisfaction. Which means being satisfied with who you are at the moment. This falls under being content, and as for being happy, it requires taking a few steps further after becoming satisfied with yourself.

How do we reach a level of personal satisfaction? There is a fine line between what we think of ourselves, and what people think of us. The common thing between the two is that they both affect us. Well, we let them affect us.

We need to be affected by what we think of ourselves, but let's try to let it affect us after the achievement of a personal satisfaction level. We need to follow 5 steps to reach this level, one after another, and when we reach it, we will wake up everyday without the insecurities and the stress of how we are portrait by others. Do you know how much time and effort you put just so you don't get judged by someone who truly doesn't matter to themselves yet alone you? The answer is a lot.

1. Don't do what you hate.

We all know exactly what we hate, yet we do it anyways resulting in shame, insecurities, and disappointment. There is an old trick to training dogs, don't put your dog in a situation where you would have to punish him. So if your dog growls when you get near his food, just don't get near it until he is done. We are the humans, we have to do the thinking. Just like the dog, you need to not do what makes you sad. If each time you get lonely you call your EX boyfriend and it ends up in a disappointment, don't call him. Self control, it is hard at first, but it is very rewarding very fast. You can see the fastest result with self control it is almost like magic. Simply write a list of things you hate doing, and STOP doing it.

2. Let go of people.

You obviously shouldn't drop people out of your life, however, you will get a lot further in life if you understand the insignificance of people's opinions about you. "You look fat" says your friend. Those three words could end up with you jumping off of a building. While the one that said it is sitting on the table eating dinner thinking about a lot of things, what they said isn't one of them. The idea here is to understand the simple reality of people's opinions, it goes with you wherever you go, but the ones that said it drop it right there with you and never think about it again. It's your life, you put in the work, and you make the decisions. Make a decision today that people will not affect you anymore, you have to be prepared to take the criticism and let it go, as soon as you master this, you will go far in life, while they sit there like useless critics.

3. Do what you love.

Notice that doing what you love comes after not doing what you hate. This is not a mistake. Good things has less effect on you than the bad ones. Sadness takes over a lot quicker then happiness. So before you start doing what you love, make sure you stop doing what you hate. Now that you are clear from most of the things you hate doing, ask yourself this, what are my passions? Write a list of all your passions, and do them all. Yes, not one, not two, but all. Why are you holding back? Don't save any for the future because your passions will grow with you, they might even become a career if you decide you want to do so. You can never do enough things to make you happy. Start by the simple things, and make your way down the list until you are doing everything you love on a monthly basis.

4. Have fun with yourself first.

If you only have fun with friends, then you have a problem. You have to love yourself before expecting people to love you. You get approvals from your friends that you usually don't get from yourself. This is OK, but you need to start showing yourself some good time. Spend alone with yourself doing the things you love while crossing off the things you hate. Alone time is the only time where you can work on yourself as an individual, so take the chance to better yourself in your own eyes. The more sincere approvals you get from YOURSELF, the better you will approach life. Love yourself, have fun with yourself, then call up some friends and hang out.

5. Put a fire under your creative side.

Creativity is simply thinking outside of the box. We have all seen what is inside the box, and we are all bored of it. Cherish your creative side and you will never be bored. Remember, creativity brings more creativity, ideas, opportunities, and life changing decisions. Draw, write, dance, sing, play music, take pictures, see nature, and even talk to yourself in a non-crazy way. Stay outside of the box, and you will see things you would never see inside. Make sure to do creative activities once a day.

Before we can think about success in our careers, life, and relationships, we have to think about success with ourselves. We can't live our lives looking the other way from someone that is sitting in the same room that is your head. You can fool anyone, but you can't fool yourself. You know how you feel, yet you choose to ignore it. Take a step towards personal satisfaction, then take another, to another, and before you know it, you will reach a level of satisfaction, with that you will have the confidence, attitude, and ideas to go very far in life, and most importantly, you will be happy through this whole journey.

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Wake Up With Determination - Go To Bed With Satisfaction

Wake up with determination. Go to be with satisfaction. Such an easy principle to live by and yet today, at this very moment, the matrix that is your mindset traps you. In truth, it is your belief system which is so ever-present. It keeps you from taking action and becoming who you want to become.

So, how can you have the correct mindset right from the start go? What are you going to accomplish today? How can you make progress? What can you do to achieve your goals? How can you help?

You must understand that your mindset is so ingrained into the fabric of who you are and the way you process data that you do not even notice it. Actually, you do not even know it is real. And that is a fact that impacts your life; it is your inability to see that your mindset controls everything you think, believe or do.

Therefore, if you want to wake up with determination, you can reconstruct your belief system. If you can choose at any moment to believe in something that is more empowering than what you thought the moment before, it finds its way into your actions. It allows you to do things you could not do previously knowing that opportunity is right now.

And to wake up with determination in the morning, you must take a few minutes to look or think about your goals. Then motivate yourself and think positive thoughts. The reason I am saying this is because as you awaken, your subconscious mind still accessible for the next twenty minutes which set the rhythm of your day. So, you have to choose what you think or say wisely.

Waking Up with Determination Sets the Pace

When you wake up with determination, no matter how much you appreciate life, or how much you are grateful for, you always make it better. It does not matter who you are, or what your goals are for the day. So do something that will help set you up for success that day.

Then the time comes to hustle! So, at the end of the day, you will be happy you did, and you will be one step closer to your goal! If you do that, you will then go to bed with satisfaction! And if you live each day by waking up with determination and go to sleep satisfied, you will achieve your goals.

Now, while you strive for greatness or to accomplish desires, it also makes life a little more complicated. You have to realize that you are trying to make changes while you are living life. Thus, you seek to modify the course of energy which is already propelling you on a particular path.

Being Determined to Small Changes

There are also people who decide to cut most or all ties with their past lives, jobs, habits, friends, and even countries. The majority, however, cannot risk losing everything to create the life of their dreams. Therefore, you perhaps have no choice than to live the life you are now living.

But it is always conceivable to wake up with determination and begin making small changes. I know, you may say it is tiring to maintain the life you have so far shaped for yourself and your loved ones. While at the same time trying to create a different, newer future for yourself.

"One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself." - Leonardo da Vinci

Waking Up with Determination Is a Choice

When you do not wake up with determination, you are dividing your beliefs, thoughts, and focus on the life you are trying to change and the one you are attempting to build for yourself. Some people do jump ship and start from scratch, but it is a choice.

Either way, you have to wake up with determination and do all that you can to go to bed with satisfaction. There is no other way to stay in the right frame of mind. And if you are not determined, you will inevitably fail.

The Key to Wake Up with Determination

So, the key element is to end the day strong, and the only way is by starting it off with the right mindset. Rather than hitting your phone alarm or clock, you should take a minute or two to focus on your goal when you want to wake up with determination.

However, I am not talking about your small daily goals but your big objective, your dream. You have to focus, not dwell, on the goal that matters most to you, and this, first thing each morning and evening. Visualize you achieved your primary goal, and use that vision to fuel your day.

Determination is also Taking Risks

How many seconds and minutes do you waste every day doing things that do not even bring you near your goals, aspirations, and dreams? A determination is also taking risks which are at the core of your journey to success. You have no other choice than to jump into the unknown and see what happens.

Yes, of course, a risk is, somewhat, terrifying. You can lose everything you have in the process. Criticism and humiliation may also be a part of the encounter. All you have left after is to pick up the pieces and begin all over again, and often, more than once. The rewards can be prodigious, but so can the cost. You will fail, but you will have to rise. So, in all cases, your asset is to wake up with determination.

Risk and the Will to Win

When you wake up with determination, all will chip away at your will to win. So, ignore that weak voice inside of your mind which is telling you that you won't be able to make it. It will beg you to stop and promise safety and security if you would just quit. And yes, if you quit, you are not at risks anymore, but you are also not at possibilities for greatness.

If you want to achieve something, you have got to find ways to put yourself at risk for something significant to happen. You have to put yourself in the situation where you may fail. People will have doubts and say that you have limits, but those boundaries are self-placed by the same individuals. The reason is that they were not willing to take a risk or they failed. But you can go beyond that.

As a result, if you are not waking up with determination, fortitude, taking risks and going to bed with satisfaction, you are missing out on a better, more pleasant reality for yourself.

Determination is Essential

The key is that, if you want to make an extraordinary performance, or if you want to dazzle people absolutely, then you have to do something amazing. You have to be willing to put yourself out there. And you need to do things that other people think are going to break you, or that others just believe there is no way that you could be able to pull that off.

You have to show that an ordinary human animal is incapable of going to the lengths which you are professing to go. And when you profess it, you have to be ready to back it up. You have to put yourself on that march knowing that under no circumstances or reason whatsoever, you'll ever be willing to back down.

When you wake up with determination and go in with that level of certainty, then and only then, you are going actually to pull it off.

"Champions keep playing until they get it right." - Billie Jean King

Being Determined Builds Momentum

So, you have to wake up each day with determination. In this way, you can build momentum, because without it you will never realize your goals. A lot of people underestimate the importance of momentum. You need it to produce the well-needed power and energy to break through whatever walls and obstacles life has placed in your way.

No matter how small, rejoice in every success you get along the way. Use it to fuel your drive and desire to succeed. Exploit it to push yourself onward with even more resilience. You might fail at times, but use your failures to give you more determination to reach an even greater success.

If you wake up with determination and go to bed with satisfaction, you will always feel proud to live the existence you currently live. I do not fear many things in life, but regrets, they stick with you. It only hurts you and drags you down.

4 Steps to Wake Up With Determination

1. To wake up with determination, take an hour or two, and go in nature. Sit there and write down your five top goals and dreams. However crazy your goals are, just write them down. Think of what you want to be written on your tombstone and what you would like to be remembered for?
2. Then put a dash that says 'next step,' because the biggest problem people have is that next step. We can all write down our passion, but we always struggle with the next step. And right down next to your goals, put the resources you already have that you can use.
3. Next thing to do is to print what you have written and post it. Post it in three places, where you go to bed, where you brush your teeth, and on the door, you go in and out the most in your house. And the reason why is that, your house is your sanctuary, it is the place you trust.
4. Keep looking at those posts for as many days and months as you possibly can. And you will start to believe and wake up with determination. What you believe becomes your reality. But how can that be? Belief itself is a construct, and if a conviction is such, then it can be manipulated and changed.

A Final Word

At any moment, and this is important to understand, you can choose to believe something new about yourself. The soon as you change a belief, it becomes real. I do not know why or how that is, and I may never understand it but after some time, just believing something makes it true.

You have to live the life you were born for because if you do not, you will regret it. If you learn something or if you take away one thing from this article, it should be: create your reality and always remember that luck is an accumulation of superior efforts and focused execution. Therefore, you should always wake up with determination and go to bed with satisfaction.

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Taking A Positive Pursuit Toward Your Desires

Your pursuit towards your desires encourages you towards your own achievement. This drives you toward greater satisfaction in your life lays a new blueprint for more positive experiences.

• Do you have a strategy for staying healthy?
• For staying passionate?
• For living some part of your dream every day?
• What does that look like for you?
• What could it look like if you let it?

We're taught not to be too self-important, not to be conceited or think too highly of yourself. Women particularly are programmed to be hard on themselves and judgmental. We're taught that how you look is more important than what you think. You're taught to put the needs of others before our own.

Whatever you believe intellectually, it can be hard to overcome these stereotypes and break out into what is yours to do and feel good about it. To feel confident and purposeful. That said, it's an 'inside job' one you must do yourself. When in pursuit towards your desires begin with valuing yourself, your contributions, your visions, your goals and your dreams.

Small gratifications in your pursuit towards your desires make up the bigger picture of satisfaction. To build your bold and courageous - and envisioned - future. Create a vision board, write it down, and/or take a picture and keep it in your wallet.

When you train a dog, you do it through a series of positive rewards. Eventually the dog learns that if it does this, it gets that. We use food and treats to create positive reinforcement.

Our mind works very much like the dog in this instance; repetition and positive reinforcement eventually create an outcome you desire. You are creating positive experiences; you're 'racking them up' so you can move further and further in the pursuit of your desires toward success.

In your pursuit towards your desires, act by doing this consistently and repeatedly. This creates new neural pathways, trains and re-trains your brain to get more of you what you desire. Through remembering positive experiences, you develop strategies for driving toward greater satisfaction, for staying healthy and contributing to your being.

However, if in the pursuit of the one thing, you desire the most, you begin to deny yourself any fun or free time, and are feeling constantly insecure, unsuccessful, unimportant, and unsafe, you're living your life in a state of lack, hoping one day that you will have an experience that you do want.

Does this mean that you should just work on your state and ignore what is driving you? Not at all!

Focus on what you want

We often need to clear away the dirt and see clearly and it's often surprising how much easier it is to do when there is guidance. Really, when you stop and think about it, most things are easier when you have help, but you seem to think that when it comes to our personal changes - you should be able to do it alone. When you are in pursuit of your desires, yes, you can do it alone, but sometimes you lose perspective on yourself, having no ability to be objective.

This is like a step by step process of cleaning the window - think of it as the window to your soul, or your inner longings, and it can be a profound journey, possibly the most important one you'll undergo. Once you start to see clearly - you will now have the 'what' identified in many areas of your life.

For some, it is like peeling back the layers of the onion, more and more revealing and less clutter as you peel back. For others, it is like cleaning the dirty window of their mental vision. Suddenly daylight streams in, illuminating all that was there, but lying dormant, unseen. For some the process is very quick, for other it's slower. Either way, it's always an exciting process that has a positive outcome.

Learn to discern what's right for you - know or get clear on what you want and then get out of the way as this makes for a life that's rewarding - a life of purpose, passion and clarity.

In your pursuit towards your desires, these are simple questions, but they can give you some real insight into where you resist and where you're open. Often the ideas you have originating in our growing up years. Even if you've changed radically, you still hold the ideas and beliefs from your family of origin somewhere in our heart or head.

It's good to occasionally shine a light onto your beliefs and see if they still serve you. It's helpful to separate out what comes from your head and what comes from your heart.

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How to Easily Unlock Your Creativity and Thrive

Ever wondered how you can tap your creative side and thrive? It is easy peasy. Read on to find out.

First of all, you have to be crystal clear what meaning you will give to being creative and then act on it. You have to be fully aware what creative activities exist out there and pick one or two and do them and find for yourself which of them resonates best with you.

Creative activities can be for instance, painting, making handicrafts, art, drawing, singing, dancing and plotting and writing fiction stories or novels. Do any of these speak to you or spark you? Think about which of these will make you lose yourself absolutely and you will be able to be fully in focus no matter what distractions are there in your environment. Of course, you will want to lull all noises and interruptions in your surroundings and then work on the creative activity you have chosen.

Either way you are the winner so long you persist and persevere. Spending time on your creative activity does make you happy and help you earn bliss and satisfaction. The more you work on it, the better you get at it. You don't have to be an expert from the start itself but make your way towards it gradually.

After you think you have mastered it, it's time to show your talents to the world and find a medium to display or outsource it.

For example, if it's a great piece of novel, sell it on Amazon and work as many promotions as you can for bringing out its publicity. It will be hard work at first but once you have become renowned, you don't have to work that hard. People will already know you and your quality of work and so they will be read your piece of work and hence purchase them.

The same principles are valid for other creative activities. So just make it a point to pick your favorite creative activity and do it and show it to the world.

Getting recognized for your gem piece of work is not only rewarding but also very satisfying. You understand that you are on this earth to make a difference and stand out from others.

Not everybody succeeds this way because they do not persevere and keep hanging on for a longer time. Anybody who is willing to do that surely succeeds and gets all the recognition, popularity and rewards. So are you the one willing to pull through with your favorite creative juices and thrive?

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A Good Chance In Succeeding

We all want to succeed in life. There might be some people who are better than others but there are certain factors that determine just how successful we will become at reaching a particular goal or dream. We need to take charge of our life and never let anything hinder us.

In order to have a good chance to succeed, we need to know who we want to be and let go of our present self to be who we envision ourselves; find satisfaction in pursuing our goals; pursue a realistic goal that can improve our lives; think positively and let go of our fear of failing; acknowledge little rewards along the road to success; take responsibility for our actions and outcomes; build a strong support system and strong confidence and not to blame others for our lack of resources or accomplishments in life.

Another good chance in succeeding is to keep on trying. Success has something to do with how we react to our circumstances. It's actually a matter of attitude and principle. In order to be more successful, we must have a deep connection to the things we want to accomplish. We need to seek for something that is emotionally fulfilling like financial stability so we can spend more quality time with our family.

Many people feared to pursue something because of losing out on something else. Sometimes we think negatively when we consider pursuing a goal or dream. Most people think about all the negatives that may come along with that pursuit. Negative thinking is much easier to do than positive thinking, and those negative thoughts put fear in your heart which is detrimental to our success. When we develop our ability to look at things in a different perspective, we can increase your chances of success.

There are also times when people tend to quit before even starting. That is the reason why it is important to set up our goals. Let us focus on things that have short-term rewards. This will allow us to be more patient in reaching our goals. When we Improve this delay factor, improve our chances of success.

When we feel like we can't make something happen, it's easy to put the blame on other people rather than take responsibly for our lack of accomplishments. It's a well-known fact the we cannot control the situations that may arise in our quest, but we can control our actions.

We need also to improve the number of people who support us to increase our chances of succeeding. If we believe that we can do something, we won't mind the distractions that are holding us back and we can make it happen.

If we happen to have no available resources, we need not blame it to someone else because there is always a way to make a goal achievable. For example, seeking out new experience. The wider the range of experiences we pursue, the more we will be exposed to different people, lifestyles and perspectives. Seeking out new experiences means that we're willing to challenge ourselves and want to keep learning about the world around us.

When we have high expectations in life, the more we are disappointed if we cannot achieve them. We need to be open-minded. When we are open to possibilities without necessarily expecting anything immediately or directly in return, amazing things can happen.

We need to treat everyone we meet with respect. Each of them has something to offer. We'll be surprised at how many people are willing to support and follow us if we treat them with respect, regardless of what they've achieved or where they are in their life. To be successful, we all need help. People are dynamic and situations do change. We need not to be judgmental, we need to have friends and build network and linkages.

From time to time, we also need to share what we have. By doing this, we become better and we focus less on our own shortcomings. There's so much for us to appreciate in life even if our road to success has many stumbling blocks.

In fact, our mistakes can lead us to success if we learn from them. People who are willing to take risks inevitably make mistakes but have more chances in succeeding life.

People are often easily discouraged when they encounter difficulties in their pursuit to success. This article somehow provides some recommendations on how improve our chances of succeeding by never quitting.

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What's More Important: Strategy or Intention?

"However beautiful your strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Winston Churchill

Strategy is a means to an end. However, a strategy without a clear vision for what the end game is can lead you to an endless path of doing things that give you no satisfaction. That would be like running in a race without ever knowing where the finish line is. It would be impossible to know if you were running at the correct pace. In your mind, you may think you are winning because you are running at a great pace for the 100-meter dash, except the race is 1 mile. Most likely, your strategy will not take you the distance.

To most, this may sound like common sense. Yet, everyday people take actions without knowing the final outcome they are seeking. As a rule, people ignore the importance of asking themselves what they and others involved want from a situation. People are eternally hopeful that chemistry will magically make it happen; the belief everyone should know.

So let's get this straight. Strategy is a process for achieving the final result. If you do not look up to see where your strategy has gotten you, you may find yourself in a place of unhappiness. Even Charlie Sheen would know that's not "winning."

Get clear about the final outcome you are seeking first. Do so without imposing all the reasons it can't happen. If the outcome you envision is a step to get you somewhere else, you still need to take steps to know the end game. Once you are clear about what you want, your strategy could change dramatically. Even if it doesn't change, still look up to see where you are.

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