1. Love. This is the wellspring of happiness, renewable and everlasting. We often think that being loved is the best feeling in the world, but it’s the second best. The best is loving someone else. Love is the polar opposite of fear, emotionally and neurologically. Thus, it is the antidote to fear and the first step toward happiness.

2. Optimism. Optimism provides power over painful events. Optimism is realizing that the more painful the event, the more profound the lesson. Once you bring this knowledge into your heart, you can never again look at any event as all bad. Optimism gives you power over fear of the future and over regret for the past.

3. Courage. This is your strongest weapon for overcoming the split-second power of fear. You can’t rise above fear without courage, because fear is hardwired into your neural circuitry. If fear is eternally programmed into your brain, though, so is courage. It comes from the neocortex and is a product of the spirit, the intellect, and the higher emotions of love and generosity. It is nature’s natural balance for the fear that has helped us survive. It’s the quality that allows us to thrive.

4. A sense of freedom. Nothing fills the soul like freedom. Freedom is choice, and choice is what makes us human. When we choose, we define who we are. Everyone has the power to make choices, but unhappy people don’t know they have it. They think it’s only for the rich. It’s not. I’ve met a thousand rich people who didn’t feel free. Choice is available to anyone who has the courage to exercise it.

5. Proactivity. Happy people participate in their own destinies and forge their own happiness. They don’t wait for events or other people to make them happy. They’re not passive victims.

6. Security. Happy people know that nothing, over time, lasts - not money, not approval, not even life itself. So they don’t measure security with a calendar or a calculator. They simply like who they are. They’re not slaves to popularity, longevity, or financial status. They know that security is an inside job.

7. Health. Happiness and health are interdependent. It’s hard to be happy if you don’t feel healthy, and it’s hard to be healthy if you’re not happy. Of special importance for happiness is healthy mood chemistry. You can have a happy life and not even know it if you’re tortured by faulty mood chemistry. An imbalance of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, for example, can mask the happiness that lies beneath it.

8. Spirituality. Happy people aren’t afraid to go beyond the boundaries of their own lives. They let go, and welcome extraordinary experiences. They have markedly less fear of death. They’re not concerned about dying - they’re concerned about not living.

1. Start with the commitment to make the marriage work.

2. Understand that you deceived each other in the courtship process and practice the skill of forgiving. While you were courting, you always put your best foot forward in order to accomplish your objective: marriage to the one you were courting. For this reason, you probably agreed to almost everything. Fortunately, you can overcome the problems that arise when you reveal those deceptions with a strong commitment and by recognizing that you not only want the marriage to work but also want to make it thrive.

3. Work at verbalizing your true feelings without taking punitive action against your mate. Say that you and your spouse swap cars, and when you switch back, you find that your mate has returned your car with the gas tank almost empty. Punitive action would be returning your mate’s car with an empty tank the next time in order to get even. Instead, pleasantly say to your mate, “Honey, you may have noticed that when I use your car, I return it at least half full of gasoline. I would really appreciate it if you would show me the same courtesy.” Chances are superb that if you handle the situation gently, lovingly, and with a big hug and smile, your mate will respond appropriately.

4. Take time to build the skill of courteousness. Building the skill of courteousness is good advice for husbands and wives to follow. Discourtesy is really disrespect; you’re seldom discourteous to anyone you truly respect. Marriage counselors say that one thing lacking in many poor marriages is genuine respect for each other. In marriage, we are often more discourteous than we are in friendships or in business relationships. Venting your anger in marriage and thinking that doing so costs nothing is irresponsible. Hurt relations always cost, especially in marriage.

5. Eliminate the words always and never from your vocabulary - as in “you always do this” or “you never do that.” Those statements aren’t true, and they can elicit nothing but a defensive retort from your mate.

6. Practice looking for the good in your mate and work on finding the humor in problems. Many couples report that, in the midst of a heated argument, something hilarious happens or is said, perhaps an interruption by a child or an innocent but appropriate remark that hits the funny bone. At any rate, the anger immediately dissipates and laughter sets in - not at each other but with each other.

7. Remember that your mate is not a mind reader. Many couples expect each other to know that they really don’t enjoy being kidded about their expanding waistline, their receding hairline, their inability to wake up instantly, their dislike of sloppiness, or their need for support and encouragement about a specific thing. But you need to gently tell your mate what your needs are. He or she can’t read your mind. Resentment builds within you if your mate doesn’t meet a need or conducts himself or herself in a way that displeases you, but he or she may not have a clue as to the nature of the problem.

Planning for success is an important way to overcome barriers to growth. It’s similar to taking a vacation. You need a guide or a road map to keep you on course and give you direction. Would you attempt to navigate a ship on the open sea without a chart or map? Of course not. Even the ancient mariners used the stars and constellations to find their way.

A plan is a powerful tool for achievement. It’s a magic key that helps you reach your goals and gives you the momentum to get through difficult passageways. Planning prevents unnecessary detouring, and helps you take responsibility for your actions. Goals are what keep you going and give you your focus. Keep focusing on your goals and continually take the needed steps to reach them. Your ability to keep moving after achieving one goal depends on how clearly you see the next step to set new goals.

Goal-setting is an ongoing, reciprocal process between you and the world. Accomplishing your goals helps you to overcome inner barriers of fear, and affirms your self-confidence. Goal-setting is not a mundane process. It generates out of your human need for self-drive and accomplishment. This drive for accomplishment is innate, it comes from within you. When you set goals, it solidifies you physically, mentally and emotionally. You begin to feel more connected to yourself and to the world.

There are six ways to focus on your goals and plan your success. It is important to include the following in your goal-setting procedure:

1. Identify your goal and make it a realistic one. You must care about it.

2. Select a goal that you can work on, rather than something someone else has selected for you.

3. Make sure it’s specific, not vague. For example, choose a skill like “Communicating more effectively with your friends by using positive vocabulary,” or “Managing your time more efficiently by stating a time and date for getting your goal accomplished.” Selecting a goal you can do something about gives you the power and influence to actively and assertively accomplish your goal. (more…)

Hurtful memories can stifle your development and growth. How do we break through this insidious mental conditioning? How do we grow and develop beyond hurtful episodes that bury themselves in our subconscious and influence our lives? How do we change and grow so that we can live our dreams?

The first step is to break the hold of these inhibiting influences from the past. Recognize them and then either get rid of them or turn them into a positive force that pushes you ahead rather than holds you back. Identify these inhibiting memories in your life so that you control them rather than allowing them to control you. Did someone hurt your feelings? Forgive them and forget it. Move on. Did someone punish you unfairly? It’s over. It’s done. Go on.
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Before you decide whether a single goal fits into your goals program, you should work that goal through a process that can help determine whether you should be pursuing this goal at the current time. This can take considerable time but it can save you much time and frustration by eliminating goals that are not for you at this time and helping to identify what you need to focus on now.

1. Target in on your goal: Your goal must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Remember: Some goals must be big and some goals must be long-range.

Significant goals must be broken down into smaller parts to ensure daily accountability. For example, if you want to lose 50 pounds this year, you can break that down to a goal of 4 pounds a month or 1 pound a week and then figure out how many calories you need to cut out or burn off to achieve that weekly weight loss.

2. Identify how you benefit from the goal: People often fail to reach their goals because they concentrate on the costs rather than the benefits. “If I lose the weight,” they reason, “I’ll have to give up this and do that.” Or “If I quit smoking, I know that I’ll gain weight and be miserable and difficult to get along with.”

Instead of concentrating on the negatives, think of the benefits that you’re going to enjoy. As you set goals, make a list of the tangible rewards that will be yours when you reach each goal. Each time you begin to ask yourself whether pursuing a goal is worth the effort, simply take out the list of benefits and read them aloud again.

3. List the obstacles that stand between you and your goal: You need to identify obstacles in order to be realistic and avoid being surprised. People have experienced many times that they had no idea that pursuing such-and-such a goal was going to be so demanding, require so much effort, take so long, and involve so many unexpected pitfalls. Careful planning in advance eliminates much of this disappointment, but you must understand that you can’t always see the roadblocks ahead. That’s why commitment, attitude, responsibility, and focus on the benefits remain constant necessities. Patience is also extremely important. Just remember that by keeping yourself focused on the goal, you can see the benefits and not just the obstacles.

Very few people get excited about obstacles. A mammoth traffic jam when you’re in a big hurry or a bad cold just before a long-planned vacation doesn’t create excitement in your life. Disappointments or setbacks of any kind are seldom viewed with enthusiasm. Yet those very difficulties should generate excitement, if for no other reason than that overcoming obstacles makes you strong and enables you to soar to greater heights.

What is success? The answer depends on who’s responding to the question. There are as many definitions of success as there are people. Success involves every facet of life: your relationships with others, your ability to make it in the business world, the health that you need to preserve, and the happiness that you enjoy. It also involves a security that goes well beyond financial security; I’m talking about the security of knowing that you have the love, trust, and support not only of family but of friends and associates as well.

However, success does include a degree of financial prosperity. (Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale.) To be candid, we all like the things that money can buy: houses, cars, clothes, vacations, and so on. You don’t need to be super-rich, but you should have a great need not to be poor!

In addition to the financial prosperity that just mentioned, success should also mean success at home, success in your profession, and success with friends and associates. It also means peace of mind.

The question is, what can you do to achieve this balanced success that involves your personal, family, and business lives as well as your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, with a recognition of the need for financial prosperity? It starts with developing the right mental attitude.

Your journey toward success will flow more smoothly if you ride the “right” attitude all the way to the top. “I think I can” beats “I can’t” every time. A can-do outlook on life helps you to achieve goals in record time and make friends and lifelong business associates along the way. Everyone enjoys being around someone who is a solution-finder and who looks for the good instead of the bad in everything.

Here are some important points about attitude to keep in mind:

1. You need to have the right attitude toward your family, friends, and associates. An attitude of acceptance, forgiveness, love, kindness, respect, and consideration goes a long way in any relationship, including those with family members, friends, and business associates.

2. You need to have an accepting, open-minded attitude toward your personal growth and education. The world changes constantly; as they say, “Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.” Unless you change with it, you’re destined for mediocrity at best.

3. You must have a sensible attitude toward positive thinking. You may hear some people say that “Attitude is everything” or that “With positive thinking, you can do anything.” Careful analysis forces you to realize that this idea is simply not true. Of course being positive is a much needed tool for success, but it takes action, planning, and work – as well.

Be Specific: Write down every goal you have and put boundaries around it so that you will know when you have achieved that goal. Saying “I’m going to be a better manager,” “I’m going to be a better parent,” “I’m going to get a better education,” or “I’m going to get a new house” simply isn’t effective. You must specifically and clearly identify your target. The more details you give, the more likely you are to get excited about your goal and develop the passion that enables you to focus on reaching that target.

If you decide that you are going to be a better parent, for example, you must determine “better than what.” Better than being too tired after work to spend time helping with homework? Better than being impatient and yelling at the children over every little thing? Better than never saying “I love you”? You can see that this procedure doesn’t get to the solution quickly enough. Instead, decide to spend time with your child, be patient, and hold your tongue - except when it comes to saying “I love you.” Get specific! (more…)

Self-sabotaging behaviors prevent you from conditioning yourself for success. And changing those long, established behavior patterns like self-sabotage is as difficult as recognizing and understanding them.

How, then, can you eliminate sabotaging beliefs and emotions? First, understand and accept yourself before attempting to understand and accept others. You have to take a journey within for personal evaluation. This means looking inside yourself and listening to your inner dialogue or self-talk. Remain open minded to what you see and hear when understanding your beliefs. This is essential when making constructive changes in your behaviors. Deciding how far and deep you want to go before introspection is your decision. However, you can take your life to a new level when you discover empowering insights to eliminate damaging self-talk and undermining behaviors. (more…)

Imagine telling a significant role model in your life something new and exciting. An idea or event that has stimulated you both mentally and physically. It can be anything from trying out for a dramatic play, joining a sports team, beginning a new career, starting a new marriage, losing weight, developing a new outlook, changing your image, or continuing your education. Instead of receiving an encouraging comment, what you hear instead is: “That’s ridiculous,” “You’re always daydreaming,” or “You’ll never make anything out of yourself.”

Negative statements such as the ones mentioned above can create fear of failure and fear of rejection within a person. This situation can leave an individual on the receiving end feeling helpless. Negative attitudes create barriers toward individual accomplishment. The implicit, or unspoken message, is: “Whatever gave you the idea that you are motivated enough?.”

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You must see your goals clearly and specifically before you can set out for them. Hold them in your mind until they become second nature. Before you go to bed each night visualize yourself accomplishing your goal. Do the same while you brush your teeth or take a shower in the morning.

Goals are not dreamy, pie-in-the-sky ideals. They have everyday practical applications and they should be practical. Your goals should be:

1. Well-defined. You won’t know if you’ve reached them if you haven’t established exactly what they are.

2. Realistic. Not that you can’t be president some day, but shooting for state representative might be a wiser first step.

3. Exciting and meaningful to you. Otherwise, where will your motivation come from?

4. Locked into your mind. Always stay focused on what you want, and not on what you don’t want.

5. Acted upon. There is no sense in having a goal if you aren’t going to go after it.

How do you find your goals? We all have dreams of what we would like to be doing, what we would like to have, who we would like to be with. Think about your dreams. What goal would you go after if you knew you would not fail? If you had unlimited funds? If you had infinite wisdom and ability?

One of the most essential things you need to do for yourself is to choose a goal that is important to you. If you need to set goals for your career, find a job or profession that is important to you beyond the bills that it pays. It is vital to your growth as a person that your work is more than a job to you; that you have a higher purpose for doing what you do. Sometimes we get into career paths or relationships that are really not what we want and then we struggle to make them work. As a result, we become frustrated and confused. We feel that we are working to no good purpose.

A woman told me once that when she went in to work at a job that she despised, it was like a refrigerator falling on her shoulders as soon as she stepped inside the door. She knew that she had gone as far as she would ever go in that job, and it weighed heavily on her.

She was stuck in that job and it was stuck on her. They were paying her just enough to keep her from quitting and she was working just hard enough to keep from getting fired. If you find yourself in that pattern, you must change your thinking and your behavior; otherwise you will continue to carry the weight of mediocrity on your shoulders.