If you want a change in lifestyle, you must be prepared to pause… and take that leap of faith. Here’s how you can do it.

Never look back.

When you decide to take a new job, don’t quibble. Quit now and start applying. Want a new relationship? Cease suffering the old one. Get out there and meet new people!  Want more money? Don’t second guess opportunities. Pick one, implement it and proceed.

The decisive take a leap of faith and reach a goal almost always. Those who look back trip their own feet. Others feel your indecision and subsequently treat you with reservation.

There can be no half measures.  Take that leap of faith. Confidence in your abilities empower you to succeed.

You want a lifestyle change? Then just do it now. And Don’t look back.

But this isn’t the case. We hide our emotions from the world so well, that we end up hiding our sentiments even from ourselves. Often, I’d talk with a friend or colleague and ask them how they felt. I’d get an honest answer saying, “Uhmm… I don’t really know.”

Wow. People who are out of touch with their true feelings often lagged in self-esteem. I’m sure you’ve notice that. Are you one of them?

I urge you to check your feelings throughout the day. Every hour, take a breather. Ask yourself “How am I feeling right now”. Then discern the reason why.  Often we find that there’s no basis for feeling depressed or anxious. In this case- ask yourself “What’s the worst that can happen for xxxxx”. You’ll quickly realize it’s easy to leap into a blazingly constructive frame of mind with this technique.

Take inventory of your feelings. Be true as to the cause. Then make the conscious effort to choose a better frame of mind if it isn’t serving you well.

You’re ready to scream.

Whenever a particular sequence of unfortunate events  conspire to bring you down, how do you cope? I’m sure you’ve gone through hell like this and you’ve been farthest from sentient. Were you rational? Maybe you hit suicidal. Stress eventually leads to volcanic eruption and the poor fella you finally yell at had nothing to do with your day’s misfortunes.

Before you reach the point of no return, try the following tactic to unwind in a second:

• Seek out a quiet, private spot.
• Lock the door.
• Stretch out your mouth really wide and flex your entire body.
• Throw your fists to the heaven and scream- to your heart’s content.
• Relax.
• Rinse and Repeat.

Ah…. didn’t that feel better? Now you’re in control once again.

 You want rapport? Then always mine for similar attitudes, likes, dislikes, cultural backgrounds, virtues, experiences, career objectives, and values. Highlight the commonalities in your conversation and behavior. You’ll create instantaneous attraction even with total strangers!You see, creating similarity, even artificial similarity create hidden cues that the subconscious looks for. When people detect these cues, their minds think “little can go wrong between us- after all, we think the same!” Similarity eliminates risk and perceived danger. It breeds comfort.

The next time you want to create a great impression on a fantastic new stranger, ask her “What’s the story behind that.” Listen. Then say “me too!”

Watch the stars light her eyes.

Ready?

I want you to write down 20 words that best describe you. Don’t stop until you finish writing. Take as long as you need, but don’t let anything distract you from this.

Done? Look at your answers one at a time and decide which beliefs are empowering and have positive implications. Place a check next to these words.

Next, look at which beliefs are disempowering and damage your self-esteem. Place an X next to these words.

Now scan the list and look at all the X answers. Consider very intensely why you believe these things to be true. Some of them may be unsupported assumptions. DISCARD THEM!

Always challenge disempowering beliefs. Does it serve you well to believe something that doesn’t work for you?

Flashback 2001. While I didn’t look as bouncy as Mr. Canine here, I certainly felt just as  bloated as he looked.  The reason? I was about 10 pounds overweight. My dietician blamed a slow metabolism. I simply blamed Ronald McDonald for setting up shop next door.

I felt lousy when guys in muscle shirts strode past. Here I was, clad in flashy Prada but my physique made me sag like a duck next to these lean dudes in tattered Levis. Something had to be done. So I did what every fat slob was doing: popped the Hydroxycut, did the Atkins and hit the iron. It didn’t work.

Six months and 8 bottles of Hydroxycut later, I dropped a whopping two pounds, landed in the hospital twice and still felt like that same fat  dog- only lazier. My grand fatloss scheme certainly wasn’t working. So I consulted a few more diet experts. Their advice were suspicious carbon copies of each other. The general suggestion was that I  can boost my metabolism by eating enough (not too little, like most slobs on a diet), chowing more frequently (5-6 small meals a day), and slapping more protein and fiber to the  diet. Throw in weight-training, and high-intensity cardiovascular exercise and I should theoretically reach a lean ripped mass.

Yeah right. I’ve been on an ephedrine high, bland water diet and bone jarring exercise regimen six months… and all I had to show for it was a lightened wallet from gym membership and a GNC recurring bill. Plus, I was cranky as a cop without his doughnuts. There had to be something else.

There was.

By accident I heard of a queer practice called solarhealing invented by Mr. Hira Ratan Manek. This fine fellow claimed that by gazing into the sun a few seconds at sunrise and a few seconds at sunset ultimately eliminates the need for physical nourishment. He likened the human body to a solar battery. The act of gazing this way for 40 days ultimately charged the human body with energy and liberated anyone from the need to eat. Check out the fantastical documentaion on this guy. Allegedly, he’s stopped eating since 1995 and US Universities appear to back up his claims.

That was good enough for me…so I tried this sungazing thing. Armed with light tinted shades and an alarm clock, I gazed into the sun as prescribed. The exercise exhilarated me! I literally felt electrified with new found energy.

Day ten into the regimen, I abruptly noticed that cravings for fatty foods had permanently stopped. My gym workouts extended up to 3 hours without winding me. Weight dropped about one pound. No Hydroxycut included.

Woah… I was on to something.

I kept it up for six months straight. Either the sungazing rewired my actual need for chemical nourishment or it effected a constant psychological satiation becauseI found myself eating a quarter of what I used to per meal. That’s a far cry from Hira Ratan Manek’s claims that eating will be totally eliminated. I was still eating, period. But, miraculously, I was eating very little and feeling explosively powerful.

I don’t know if sungazing or my workouts or my recent immersion in hatha yoga affected my metabolism, but I do know this: I no longer looked like the droopy dog. My schedule forced me to abandon sungazing after six months, but the benefits persist till today.

And I have a muscle shirt to show for it.

So next time something debatable comes up, speak your mind. Fight a bit. It’ll do you and your spouse a world of good.

“I’m too old!”

I hear that excuse a hundred times a month when someone’s faced with a seemingly indomitable endeavor. That leaves me wondering… what precisely about age hinders you from getting what you want? It’s just a darned number after all!

Think about it. Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquered most of the known world at age 12.  Was he too young? Then there’s Mack who scaled Everest over the age of 45. He was handicapped. But he made it. Okay, those are extreme examples. But even today, you can find fantastic folks making waves despite their age. Check out this cool kiddblogger who’s building an internet empire at the age of 13. Before long,  he might be next great web emperor… like the two visionaries who started the world’s largest search engine under the age of 29.

 You know them. They own Google which is now a multibilliondollar enterprise. To think the company started in their backyard.

Next time you’re faltering because of your age, think again. Hundreds of others have made it. They were either too young or too old… but that didn’t stop them.

Fly high!

If age

The secret’s really simple. Next time a pile of work piles and you’re tempted to delay, simply stop. Then ask yourself:

“If I delay this today, am I being kind to myself tomorrow? Will tomorrow’s Me be mad at today’s Me for leaving an even larger pile of hell tomorrow?”

Analyzed from this viewpoint,  you may suddenly realize that there’s no payoff for delaying the inevitable. Might as well be done with it.

Do you have a pile of stuff gathering dust on your desk?

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You.

It works well… most of the time.

The problem arises when others wouldn’t want to be treated the way you do.

Let’s say you loved to eat only vegetables. So you decide to treat your meat loving spouse the same way- by force feeding him vegetables. Think that would work great? Of course not. Here, the Golden Rule obviously fails.

Doing unto others the way you want done unto you works only if you have the same likes and dislikes. If you’re different… the Rule causes discord.

Let me amend the rule then. Let’s call it the Platinum Rule:

Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.

Now isn’t that better? Can you think of a way that could ever go wrong?