motivation – Page 3

How to use the power of positive affirmations

Inspiration, Mental Health, Mind, Personal Growth, Spirit

Since recently coming back from my travels around south east Asia, I’ve been feeling a bit unfocused and unsure of what the future holds. In order to tackle this, I’ve started practising positive affirmations; something I’ve always found useful in focusing my mind and combating any negative thoughts that creep in. So, for this blog post, I’m going to talk about affirmations: what are they, why should we practise them and how can they help us?

photo credit: Klafkid

Originally posted on January 18, 2012 @ 11:40 am

Be your own NLP master

Personal Growth, Spirit

I’m a big fan of NLP – or neuro linguistic programming – so I thought I’d devote this particular blog post to some of my favourite NLP techniques.

NLP is a personal development system based on an understanding of how the mind works – how people use thoughts, feelings, words and actions – and using this understanding to enhance our potential. Life’s everyday challenges can often produce stress, anxiety or anger if we are unable to find the right strategies to deal with them, so this is where NLP can come in handy.

photo credit: aithom2

Here are some things NLP can help with:

Releasing negative emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt.
Helping people who feel stuck in their careers or relationships, or those who are looking to change direction in their life.
Boosting confidence and self belief in all areas of life.
Demonstrating how to focus on what you want and feeling good, rather than on what you don’t want and feeling bad.
Providing effective listening and communication skills to improve relationships with colleagues, family, partners, and most of all yourself.

Originally posted on December 27, 2011 @ 6:49 am

How to fight fatigue naturally

Body, Natural Medicine

Every day you can guarantee that around 3pm my eyes will start to droop and I’ll struggle to stay awake at my desk – that’s when the dreaded afternoon slump kicks in. It’s so tempting to reach for a cup of coffee or a chocolate bar, but these can play havoc with the body’s blood sugar levels.

So, for this particular blog post I thought I’d suggest some of my favourite natural pick-me-ups to help you get through the daily grind still feeling fresh and raring to go.

photo credit: JPott

Originally posted on December 15, 2011 @ 8:24 am

How to Inspire Yourself to Continue Exercising

Body, Movement & Fitness

Photo credit: sjr60

Exercising on a regular basis is important because it provides several short-term and long-term benefits. Some of those benefits are staying in shape, losing weight, and reducing health risks such as heart attacks and strokes. Studies have found that one of the top reasons that people often quit exercising is that they become bored. There are, however, several ways to keep you on the right track of exercising regularly. Here are some ways to inspire your mind to alleviate boredom during exercise.

Change Up Your Exercise Routine

Continuing to do the same exercise routine day after day is a good way to become bored during exercising. You should try to change up your exercise routine on a regular basis to prevent getting bored. For example, if you mostly walk for exercise, try to alternate between walking and jogging every 20 minutes if possible to change it up. Not only does changing up your exercise routine help with boredom but it can also help your body lose more weight by burning more calories. [Read more…] about How to Inspire Yourself to Continue Exercising

Originally posted on May 18, 2011 @ 7:55 am

The Excuses Culture: Why We Protect Ourselves With Excuses

Inspiration, Personal Growth, Spirit

photo credit: sevenfloorsdown

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin

When was the last time you made a resolve to achieve something, set a deadline and then achieved it? Can you even remember the last time? I’m struggling. And the reason I am struggling to remember such a time is because of excuses. I make them for everything; consciously and unconsciously. Without noticing it, excuses have become a habit that I am struggling to shake.

In this post I want to talk about the excuses culture that we have develop within ourselves and why we use excuses to protect ourselves from feelings of failure and fear. Hopefully it will spur some readers out there into action.

Why we make excuses

exc

Photo credit: Franzi in der Wiese

A few years ago I was sitting in the car with a friend of mine having a conversation (argument) about how I always seem to find a way out of things. At the end of the debate he said something that has stayed at the front of my mind, something that I think about whenever I am feeling like making an excuse. He said:

“You have always found things easy. You are good at everything. But you aren’t great at anything because you make excuses. You would rather be the ‘potential’ to be great than actually try and fail. And that is sad.”

He was right. All my life I have been naturally gifted at sport and academics. I didn’t have to work hard to get good. But I never really excelled at anything. I never worked really hard to become great at a certain activity. Why? Because I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of trying and not getting there.

My parents role in this habit
I never blame my parents for anything in my life. I simply do not feel like it is a productive exercise. But I can see how certain things they did impacted the way I turned out. And one of those things was how my mother always told me how amazing I could be. She would constantly tell me how smart I was, how good at soccer I was and how I could become something truly special.

But rather than spurring me on to excellence it seemed to do the opposite. I was comfortable being the potential for greatness. I was afraid to actually give it a shot for fear that I wasn’t actually as smart, talented and athletic as she thought. So I made excuses. Excuses so I wouldn’t have to try.

And we all do it. All the time.

Fear: the reason for most excuses
So why do we make excuses? Why do we find ways to get out of things? Well, for the most part, it is because we are afraid. We are afraid of trying and we are afraid of failing. We are afraid of change and we will do anything to keep the norm functioning. Fear is the reason most of us make excuses.

If you look deep into your own mind and your own behavior you will see that you make excuses to protect your sense of self. We spend our whole lives developing and ego and decorating it with friends and family and money and success and we will do anything to protect our concept of that self. Even if it makes us depressed and unfulfilled. And ultimately that is what excuses do, they make you feel unfulfilled.

How to stop making excuses and move forward

Stretch it Out!
photo credit: Triphamr

People say that the hardest thing you will ever do is quit smoking. But quitting excuses is 10 times harder. Excuses are the reason you started smoking, drinking and eating bad food. You make an excuse not to be healthy and an excuse not to be happy. Breaking the excuse culture is damn hard work. Here are some things you can do.

1. Realize that you do it all the time
As always, you need to take a look at yourself and really truly realize that you make mistakes. Find concrete examples of where you have sabotaged your progress by making an excuse and remember that incident. Bring it to mind whenever you feel like doing it again.

2. Look at your (lack of) progress
Take a look at how much progress you have made with your meditation, athletics, mortgage repayments or family weekend time. See how many excuses you have made and how that has affected your progress is a very real way. Until you can see that it is doing damage you will have no real impetus to stop.

3. Realize that death is coming
People always send me emails saying that I am too depressing when I talk about death. I always reply saying “it is depressing not to talk about it”. For too long our species has made death a taboo subject when, in fact, it is the only thing in life that is certain. Understand that death is coming and that you have no time for excuses. Not any. Its too hot, too cold, too nice inside, I’m too tired, I have a headache… all of those sound like absolute bullshit when you are on your deathbed looking back at what you didn’t achieve.

4. Realize you do it out of fear
If you go up to a fat man in the street and tell him that he is a coward he will probably punch you in the face. Men don’t like to be considered afraid, but that is exactly what we are. We make excuses because we are afraid. Why, then, do we still do it? If someone told us that we were afraid of something else we would do everything in our power to change and prove that we are brave. Do that now with excuses. Prove that you are not afraid of failure, change or losing the norm.

5. Be different in five years time
How different are you now to five years ago? Are you more loving, compassionate, patient, strong, rich, happy, thin, etc.? Take a look at whatever goal you have in your life and see how much closer you are to it now than you were five years ago. If you can say you are happy with your progress then chances are you don’t have a problem with excuses. If you are almost exactly the same then you can bet your right eye on the fact that you are stagnant because you are sabotaging your progress by saying “its too hard” or “its too cold outside”. Be different in five years time and stop making excuses.

Do you make excuses?

I would love to know how many of my readers consider themselves to be excuse makers. What kind of excuses do you come up with and how (if at all) have you dealt with them? Have your excuses held you back from being all that you can be? And how have you felt the weight of this “potential” slowing you down in life? Is it easier to not try?

Originally posted on September 27, 2009 @ 3:43 am

5 Small (But Big) Ways to Beat Depression Every Time

Healing, Mental Health, Mind, Spirit

“If you don’t think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.”

Kris Carr – New York Times and #1 Amazon best-selling author, wellness activist and cancer survivor.

photo credit: JSmith Photo

Depression is pretty horrible. I went through a period of bad depression a few years ago. Getting out of bed was hard. Going to work was hard. Smiling was hard. But, I got myself sorted and life seems a whole lot better now.

However, depressed thoughts still come and go. Sometimes during the course of my day I will just start to feel crap for no particular reason. And because I decided a long time ago that these depressed thoughts weren’t going to weigh me down anymore I adopted quite a few strategies to deal with them. This post is designed to give you a few small (but big) ways to beat depression every time.

Realize that depression is transient

Ways to Beat Depression — Depression is transient, don’t forget that

One of the best things I ever did was to firmly resolve in my mind that depression, like everything else, is a transient phenomena. Like a rainbow, a puddle, a bubble or a cloud in the sky – depression does not last. It never does and it never will.

Even the unfortunate souls with the most severe cases of depression are happy sometimes. There are a few moments in the day when their depression fades and another emotion sweeps over them. They might be watching a comedy show and a joke snaps through their depression and gives way to laughter. They might be out for a walk and see some animals playing and experience joy. Or they might see the new political candidates speeches on Youtube and experience patriotism. However bad your depression is I guarantee that you are not depressed 100% of the time.

Reminding yourself that depression doesn’t last actually makes your stages of depression seem a lot less potent. I noticed this for myself – I went from having actual panic attacks complete with elevated heart rates and vomiting to just a few “down” moments. I used to be afraid of depression when it came – now I know it doesn’t last.

Be careful with the label “I have depression”

I have to be really careful here as I know a lot of people will kick up a fuss about this comment. Let me be clear, depression is an illness. In the words of Will Ferral, “…it has real doctors and everything!” But I sometimes wonder whether telling yourself “I have depression” really makes things better. From my own experience I can tell you that it actually made me feel a whole heap worse.

Why?

Because the diagnosis “you have depression” is very solid. It is very fixed. It seems unchangeable. But like I noted in the first point, depression is actually very transient. It is impermanent. It doesn’t last. But when you are told you have depression you run the risk of labeling yourself as a depressed person. And that is very solid.

Of course, diagnosing people with depression and depression related disorders is very important. It is vital to the health and recovery of that person. Without that diagnosis the person might not get the drugs or the counseling that they need. It is not the diagnosis, as such, that I have an issue with. My issue is with labeling yourself as a depressed person.

The title of this strategy is be careful with the label “I have depression” and that is all I want you to do. Be careful. Do not continually remind yourself of your diagnosis. You do not want to repeatedly tell yourself that you are depressed. In the same way that repeatedly telling yourself that you are fat leads to more problems, repeatedly telling yourself that you are depressed will make you even worse.

This is about avoiding extremes and using your mind to reinforce positive tendencies, not negative ones. It is not about pretending you don’t have an illness. You very well might have one. What I am asking is that you don’t let yourself get bogged down in your ideas and notions about that illness.

Learn the value of human contact

photo credit: Fabiana Zonca

When I was going through a particularly bad rough patch after a tough break up one of my dearest friends came over to my house… every day. For almost the whole summer this friend rang me up in the morning to meet for breakfast, called me at lunch time asking where we were going to eat and in the evenings took me to the gym or martial arts center. For six weeks this friend of mine got me out of the house, off the couch and out with people.

And it was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

What my friend did was truly amazing. I don’t have many friends who would have gone to such consistent lengths to take care of me. And two things about this time stood out to me:

Knowing people love you makes a difference
Being around other people helps

The two lessons here are about helping people with depression and helping yourself when you have depression. If you are depressed you need to get out and be around people. It doesn’t matter how you do it, science has shown that having human contact helps depression.

The second thing is that if you know someone who is feeling down you should go and help them. Get them out of the house, take them out for a walk and get them out with people. This will not only help their situation, it will also help your depression.

Eat and drink healthy

photo credit: avlxyz

Something that seems small but actually had a massive impact on my levels of depression is how I ate. By learning what foods make you depressed and avoiding them you can seriously change the way you feel.

I have written about this many times but it is something so important that I want to stress it again. Bad foods make you feel bad. Good foods make you feel good. Just like the saying goes, “you are what you eat“. If you want to feel better mentally start eating cleaner foods.

So what are we talking about here? What foods make us feel bad? The big ones for me are coffee and fatty foods. Coffee makes my mind run at a million miles and hour and I have trouble settling down. This is bad for people who are really anxious. And fatty foods that are really heavy cause your mind to be sluggish and sad.

Try to eat all natural foods like fruit and vegetables. Get lots of chili and ginger and other natural medicines. Eating a natural diet full of really fresh and tasty foods will absolutely change your life.

Get out in the sun and run

Scientists and doctors are now spouting the benefits of two things for depression: sunlight and exercise. Mix the two together and you have got a recipe for a better mental state.

Forget the gym with its stale air, televisions and plastic people – get outside in the sunlight and start running. Take your dog or your buddy and hit the dirt while the sun is shining on your skin and face. Go somewhere where the air is fresh and the view is inspiring. If you have a local park or forest then head out there. Spend as little as 15 minutes a day doing this and your depression will seem like a thing of the past.

Some of the happiest moments in my life have been when I was out alone in the woods running in the sun. Just me and the trees and the birds chirping away. I am particularly fond of jogging where there is running water – the sound is so soothing and magical.

If you aren’t a big runner it doesn’t matter. Walk. Or, join a football or soccer team. Play tennis on the weekends. There are so many amazing things to be doing out in the sunshine and all of them will have a positive and immediate effect on your depression.

Conclusion

Depression is not a fixed state. There are things you can be doing all the time to beat it. Don’t sit by passively and be a victim, start doing things that will really get you happy. Nine times out of ten your mild depression can be alleviated with some change in your behavior or lifestyle.

What has helped you? Leave a comment – it might really help someone!

Originally posted on August 26, 2008 @ 3:25 am