I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.
Dr. Seuss
US author & illustrator (1904 – 1991)
1-The Glass If Half-Empty Or Half Full
Whatever way you look at it is how it is. Every situation you are in can be seen from a negative or from a positive perspective. I don’t like negative people, so I always try to see everything from a half-full perspective. It makes life more enjoyable!
2-Complaining Gets You Nowhere
Life is unfair. Get used to it. Sometimes you are the underdog and you get handed the crappiest hand out of everyone. Complaining about how unfair or how difficult something is will not make your life better. It’s going to make you suffer and it’s going to cause others to get seriously annoyed with you.
Don’t complain. Take action and change what’s bothering you!
3-There Is No Free Lunch
Promises of free gifts, free education, free money…99.9% of the time they are a trick. There is always something attached to it, because hardly anyone does something for free.
Don’t count on a free lunch, work hard for your own success. Every now and then you may get lucky and someone will genuinely offer you a free lunch, in that case, enjoy it!
4-Easy Success Doesn’t Exist
Overnight success or instant millions only exist if you win the lottery or inherit a fortune.
Yeah you might get lucky sometimes, or have an amazing idea like the creators of Youtube did. Most of the time it takes a damn long time and a lot of hard work to achieve success. This is not a bad thing, and it’s not a problem at all. Just be prepared to work hard.
5-Girls Are Awesome
Haha, kind of random. But I love girls. They’re so…girly and feminine. They have this awesome energy that makes me feel so alive.
Yeah they can be dramatic, and illogical and confusing…but that’s the biggest reason why they are so awesome. Life would be rather dull without girls
6-Failure Teaches You A Lot About Yourself And The World
Even though I’m just 24, I’ve succeeded and failed more times than most people have in a lifetime.
Initially I always thought that failure was devastating, that it meant I was not a worthy human being and that I should bury my head in shame. Luckily I learned that failure is an essential part of growth and success.
The more you fail, the more you learn and the closer you get to succeeding.
The most important thing to remember about failure can be summed up in this fantastic quote by Will Smith:
“Don’t let failure get to your heart and don’t let success get to your head”.
7-Not Everything Has A Happy Ending
Life is not the movies, and bad things can happen to you. You can get sick, you can have accidents, you can get beat up, you can lose money.
Once again, don’t let it get to you. Keep your heart stainless. If things get bad, move through it as best you can and stay optimistic.
8-There Are Some Really Bad,Evil And Nasty People In The World
Unfortunately not everyone is good. There are some truly nasty, destructive and hateful people out there. They will purposely go out of their way to make you miserable or to destroy what you are trying to build up.
Stay away from those kinds of people and if they don’t want to listen, kick their ass (just kidding)
9-There Are A Lot Of Good People In The World
I would say that there are much more good than bad people. While most people may be inherently good and on a neutral level, there are also many people who go out of their way to make a difference.
These are the kinds of people that you want in your life. Make friends with them, respect them and try and be one of these good people yourself.
10-You Can Live With Less
You don’t need a mansion in every continent, or a Ferrari, or $10 million in the bank.
Although money is certainly nice to have and something to strive for, you can be perfectly happy with a small apartment, great friends, an awesome girl and enough money to pay the monthly bills.
11-Friends Are (Very) Important
In fact, I’d go as far as saying that having a couple of true friends in your life is absolutely essential to your happiness. There’s nothing like having a friend who you can count on, who will do anything for you and who’s always keen to hang out or start an adventure with you.
If you have these kind of friendships, don’t let them fade. Hold on to them because they are priceless!
12-There Is Always Someone Better
There is always someone who is better than you in everything. Even if you are the best in the world at what you do, it’s just a matter of time before someone comes along who will be better than you.
This is not a bad thing at all. Try your best and strive to keep getting better, but don’t get hung up and frustrated because there are others out there who are better than you. That’s going to make you miserable.
13-Even When You Think You Suck, You’re Awesome
There will be times in your life when you feel like a useless douchebag. You may think you suck at something, you may think you are a failure or you may feel like the biggest idiot in the world.
Truth is that everyone feels that way sometimes. No matter how much you think you suck, there are people out there who look up to you and who respect you. You still have awesome qualities…so don’t ever forget that. You’re already perfect!
14-Treat Others As You Want Others To Treat You
Do you believe in karma? Well, whether you do or don’t, I really believe that you will get treated in the same way as you treat others.
If you’re a good person and you’re nice to others, this will likely happen to you. If you’re an ass to people and treat them like crap, at some point it will feel like the whole world is turning against you because you will get back what you sent out.
You will reap what you sow. So sow positivity!
15-Always Expect The Unexpected
Hardly anything ever goes as planned. That’s life and that is what makes life awesome.
You never know at what point your perfect life is going to crumble or at which point your crappy life is going to turn awesome. Try to think about possible situations that could happen and be prepared how to act in case those situations occur.
16-Your Ego Is Your Downfall
Your ego is a nasty thing. It can cause arrogance, over-confidence and stupidity if you’re not wanting to admit you are wrong and still carry on going.
I have learned that it is best to remove my ego from all situations. If I’m doing something purely for validation or pride…I ask myself if there is any other reason why I’m doing it. If not…then it’s just my ego wanting attention and I usually don’t do it.
17-You Can Learn Something From Everyone
No matter how smart or how dumb someone may seem, I really think that everyone has some golden nugget of wisdom to share. Whether it is a way of eating, a handy little trick to get something done or an age-old wisdom…never think that you can’t learn something from someone.
18-You Can Make Something From Nothing
You can start off with absolutely nothing and build a massive empire. You can create products or items that millions of people across the world will use.
You can write articles that hundreds of thousands of people will read. If you can imagine it, you can create it.
19-It’s Nice To Help People
One of the most rewarding things to do in life is to help someone else improve their life in some way.
If you can share your knowledge or skills with someone. Even just help someone out with a place to stay or a loan for them to start a business, you can make a world of difference.
Sometimes a smile is all it takes for you to help someone have a better day.
20- Work Smarter, Not Harder
Ridiculous hard work usually makes you more successful than others.
What will really make you successful beyond your wildest dreams is working ridiculously hard following the smartest and most proven to work methods.
I can work really hard and dig a huge hole in my garden. Will that make me successful? No! (Unless I find gold). But if I work really hard on creating something that everyone needs, that is going to make me wildly successful.
Work smarter, not necessarily harder.
21-Never Stop Learning
Life is one constant school. From the moment you are born you start to learn, and I think the biggest mistake a person can make is to stop learning.
Always keep reading, books are awesome. Keep interacting with people, make connections, learn new skills. Keep trying new things, do something that you have never done before.
22- Fight Club Is The Most Awesome Movie Ever
Out of the hundreds of movies I have seen in my life, my best and favorite still reigns as Fight Club.
It has inspired dozens of bloggers to write articles about it. I’m pretty sure it has inspired thousands of men around the world to change their lives. On top of it all, it’s a movie you can watch every year of your life without it ever getting boring!
23-Your Health Is Everything
All the success, fame, money and friends in the world mean nothing if your health is so bad that you can’t enjoy life.
Take good care of your body and your health by exercising, meditating and eating healthy!
24-Good Or Bad – It’s Awesome Being Alive
I don’t understand people who say “Life sucks” or “Life is unfair”.
Life is the most awesome thing that you have…ever. Yeah it may be difficult, it may seem impossible to get anywhere and you may have been dealt crappy cards.
But as long as you are alive you have the possibility to achieve anything you want. The mere fact of being able to see, smell, hear, touch and taste is incredible.
Enjoy the awesomeness of life, and appreciate every moment that you have!
posted by Dirk (Diggy) the writer behind UpgradeReality.
“I’ll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.”
“I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.”
“A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”
I’m guessing Muhammad Ali doesn’t need a long introduction. As an amateur he won the Olympic Gold. He then went on to become a three-time World Heavyweight Champion.
And in 1999, Sports Illustrated and the BBC named him as “the Sportsman of the Century”.
But what can we learn from one of the best boxers of all time?
Well, here are five tips from Muhammad Ali on how to break through the barriers in the world and in your mind.
1. Take a risk.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
To get what you really want you will pretty much always have to take risks. Of course, that can be scary.
So how can you overcome this, take a leap and take the risk? I don’t have some simple and easy solution. But I do have a few tips.
Really, really want it. When you really want it simply becomes easier to push through the inner resistance you feel. You are so motivated to achieve whatever it is you want that the risk may be scary but smaller than your desire.
Ask yourself: what’s the worst that could happen? We often build big, negative fantasies in our heads of what may happen if we do something. Huge scary monsters. But probably 90 percent of what you fear never comes into reality. This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.
Detach from the outcome. When you are actually doing and taking the risk in real-time detach from the outcome. Just focus on what’s in front of you. Things will become easier. You’ll create less inner anxiety and pressure for yourself. And you will perform better because you are totally focusing on what’s right in front of you and not weighing yourself down with a lot of self-created negativity and doubts.
Every time you take the leap and take a risk – even if things might not go your way that time – you can build confidence in yourself. By getting more experiences where you took action instead of sitting on your hands it will over time becomes easier to start moving in the direction you desire and take a chance.
2. Steer clear of self-sabotage and creating inner obstacles.
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”
This is a big problem because often you don’t even know that you are for example self-sabotaging. You think that the thought loops that spinning around in your head is reality. But you can’t predict the future. But you are so stuck in your thoughts that you believe them as if they where the absolute truth.
Again, one way to gain a sober perspective is to ask: what’s really the worst that could happen? And then you can make a plan to handle that worst case scenario if it were to come into reality.
Another important thing here is to do what you think is the right thing [2] in life as much as you can. Why? Because when you do that you start to build an image of yourself as someone who deserves the good things that come to him/her. Self-sabotage comes from thinking that you on some level simply aren’t worthy of what you want. So you sabotage for yourself along the way to get yourself back into the place or level of success you feel you deserve. So you have to make yourself feel more deserving.
Doing the right thing isn’t always easy. But you choose to go and work out instead of lying on the couch and watching TV. You choose to be kind instead of petty or judgemental. You choose to take a chance instead of not taking it. And a lot of the time you might not do the right thing. But by just increasing the number of times you do it during your week little by little you can really change how you view yourself. And over time this habit can become stronger and stronger.
Now, another essential thing to avoid self-sabotage and creating mind-monsters is this…
3. Keep your self-talk positive.
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”
“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.”
If you are always negative and down on yourself it will be a lot more painful and sometimes pretty much impossible to achieve what you want. Keeping the self-talk in your head positive is essential. You can make that easier to by following the tips above.
Another helpful thing is just to be mindful of how you think about things. To say “Stop!” and cut off negative thought threads before they become strong. Just cut them off as often as you alert enough to do so. And replace them with more positive thought spirals by asking yourself questions like “What’s awesome about this?” and “What can I learn from this?”.
Keeping your self talk positive may seem cheesy or uncool. But beating yourself up all the time is far worse and really not helping you at all.
Plus, the thing is that your self-talk is contagious. Because how you talk to yourself affects how you feel. And as we know from bumper stickers, enthusiasm (and any other feeling) is contagious. And as we know from Ali, this self-talk can also start to seep out into what you say out loud too.
As you interact with people, there is always a social feedback loop. People tend to treat you as you see yourself and as a reaction to how you make them feel. Someone with very positive self-talk will probably be perceived as confident and positive and therefore be treated a certain way. Someone who thinks s/he is a loser and is always down on him/herself may be met with sympathy but also irritation or simply that people tend to avoid that person.
And since people and support is essential to just about any success you may desire your self-talk – and how you talk out loud – becomes very important.
Now, the social feedback loop is about what you really feel about yourself. Not that you repeat affirmations all day that you don’t believe in. So you need to start doing the right thing too, because positive real-life experiences have a deeper impact on how you feel about yourself than just making the self-talk more positive. At least in my experience.
4. Don’t make a big deal out of it.
“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
So you create a more positive self-image by doing the right thing and keeping your self-talk more positive. But it’s also a good thing to not go overboard. To not grow a huge ego and come off as arrogant or well, like a jerk.
This may be a bit counter-intuitive but not making a big deal out of what you are good at have some big benefits.
Less defensiveness and negativity. I could for instance create a big ego around the fact that I have many readers on this blog. And that would feel awesome for a while. But sooner or later my head would become too big and I would come off in negative way. And if people would question what I am saying I would start to feel more and more threatened and nervous. Because I would have a big image to live up to and defend each day. I think it’s a lot easier to keep the self-talk positive but also just be a guy who knows some stuff, has done some things and write about all of that.
Makes the doing easier and more enjoyable. If you think it’s a big deal then it becomes a big deal. And things become unnecessarily hard and complicated. You start to create monsters in your mind again. Your ego may want you to think that it’s big, big deal because it means that you are a big, big deal too. That effect is enjoyable but makes the doing harder and less fun after a while as the inner pressure starts to ramp up.
5. Use your emotional leverage to succeed.
“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”
If you are here or have an interest in personal development then you have probably hit a point sometime in your past where you said “Enough of this! Something has to change”. Or you felt like you hit rock bottom. Now that isn’t fun. But as Ali says, it’s also there you can find that extra motivation and power to push through.
If you were unhealthy and overweight you feel like you never want to go back to that again. If you didn’t get anything done, procrastinated all day and felt like crap you don’t want to go back to that. If you were buried in a mountain of debt you want to never go back to that place or headspace again.
When you have had enough you will find a way to change your life. And I’m not saying that you should be driven by a fear to never return back to where you were. But to simply remind yourself of how it where back then when things get tough. And realize that yes, it may be hard right now. But it is temporary. And it’s definitely better than it used to be.
Your worst times may not be fun at all when they are happening. But later on they can be some of the most helpful and powerful experiences of your life.
Posted By Henrik Edberg On November 12, 2010 @ 4:36 pm http://www.positivityblog.com/
FOOTNOTE 4 