Empowerment Commences With Resiliency

Failure is not an option!

Nothing is more frustrating and self-defeating for many folks than to try and fail at something new, challenging, or even life-changing and enhancing.

This somewhat haughty observation is not premised on what I have heard, but rather premised on what I have learned through a nearly life-long struggle with humongous weight loss and even greater weight rebound.

If you are on the eight-ball side of a dastardly habit you try to wipe from your slate, but eventually (and inevitably) slide back into, read on my brothers and sisters.

I came across a blogger, Leo Bautista, which essentially sums up the mindset and action steps necessary to be a resilient warrior and victor over the habit-slip dilemma:

A Guide to Habit Resilience

By Leo Babauta

I’ve coached thousands of people who want to change habits, in my Sea Change Program, and I’ve found there’s a key difference between those who actually make changes and those who don’t.

That key difference is what I like to call “habit resilience.”

Habit resilience is the ability to bounce back when things don’t go as you planned, to stay positive, to encourage yourself, to forgive yourself, to be loving and compassionate with yourself, to shake it off and start again afresh. To learn and grow from struggles.

The opposite of habit resilience is getting discouraged when things don’t go as planned, beating yourself up, trying not to think about it when you mess up, ignoring problems, complaining, blaming others, deciding you can’t change, hardening your low or harsh opinion of yourself.

Let’s look at one example:

I want to change my eating habits, which is pretty tough to do … so I set myself a plan to eat oats for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and scrambled tofu with veggies for dinner. Great! But then during the week, I have to go to a work get-together, a family party, a 3-day trip to New York, and then my daughter’s birthday party. All the plans went out the window on those days.

So at this point, I can give up, beat myself up, ignore the problem … or, if I’ve developed habit resilience, I can shake myself off, make some adjustments to the plan, give myself some love, encourage myself, and start again, keeping a positive attitude the whole time. The second way of doing it will result in long-term change — if you can stick with it, there’s no change you can’t create.

That’s just one version of habit resilience, but you can see the difference between the first option and the second one is huge.

So how do we develop habit resilience? Let’s take a look.

Developing Habit Resilience

The good news is that you can develop this marvelous quality or skill of habit resilience. Actually, it’s a set of skills, but they can be developed with some practice.

Here’s how to develop habit resilience:

  • Loosen your hold on expectations. When we start to make changes in our lives, we often have unrealistic expectations. Six-pack abs in four weeks! But when we actually try to hit those expectations, we usually fall short. At least, at first. Over the long run, we can often make greater changes than we think we can. But over the short term, the changes are small, and not very orderly either. Change is messy. So just expect things to go less than ideally. Don’t be too attached to how you expect things to go, so that when your expectations aren’t met, you can just take it in stride.
  • Learn the skill of adjusting. If your diet plan doesn’t go as planned, it’s not necessarily a fault of yours — it’s the fault of the method or plan. How can you make it better to accommodate your life? Maybe you can get some accountability, set up some reminders, get rid of junk food from you house, and so on. There are a thousand ways to adjust a plan or method. When things go wrong, look for a way to adjust, don’t just give up.
  • Practice self-compassion and forgiveness. This is so important, but most people have the opposite habit — when things go wrong, we often beat ourselves up, are critical and harsh. Those kinds of reactions are unhelpful and can keep us stuck in old habits for years. Instead, we need to learn to be kinder to ourselves when we don’t measure up to what we hope we’ll be. When we let ourselves down, it’s important to forgive ourselves. Be compassionate, seeing our own suffering and wishing for relief from that suffering. Wishing for peace for ourselves. Being loving to ourselves, no matter what we do.
  • Don’t ignore problems, face them with kindness. That said, being forgiving is very different than just pretending it didn’t happen. If we’ve gone off our exercise plan, or stopped meditating … don’t just ignore the problem, not wanting to face it. Instead, turn towards the problem, and look at it with kindness. It’s like if you have a crying child — is it better to ignore the child and just hope that they’ll shut up? That will just lead to more pain for both of you. Instead, give them a hug. Acknowledge their pain. Give them love. Be there for them. And do the same for yourself when you’re having difficulties.
  • Learn to encourage yourself. I wrote recently about the importance of encouragement vs. discouragement … we need to practice this regularly. When you falter, can you be encouraging to yourself? Can you stay positive in the face of failure? Can you look at it as another step in your growth, instead of failure?
  • Find encouragement from others. In the same way, we can get encouragement from other people. Being in a program like Sea Change, with other people who are there to encourage you, is a good way to find that support. Ask for help from friends and family. Find a good friend who will help you get back on track, with love. We are not alone — lots of others know what it’s like to struggle, and are willing to support us when we’re struggling.
  • Learn perseverance — keep coming back. Stay positive when things go astray, and just keep coming back to the habit you want to change. Want to quit smoking but you backtracked when your father died? Get back on it as soon as you’re able. Come back with even more resolve. Commit yourself even deeper.

Can you feel that if you practice these skills, you’ll handle any difficulty that comes your way? That your path to change might be bumpy, filled with obstacles, but nothing will stop you if you keep a positive attitude, keep coming back, keep being loving and compassionate with yourself?

This is habit resilience. And it will change your entire life, if you practice.

************************************************************************

I followed his path by coincidence, and in one year I reduced my weight by 100 pounds at age 68… without starving myself. The maintenance is now, by far, the bigger challenge.

Yet one point remains constant…

We Must Understand That All New Habits – After Years of Failure In Changing Them – Must Be Defended By Resilience And Unswerving Dedication To Be The Best You —No Matter What Is Or Seems To Be Slung Your Way.

Want to see my before and after Pics? Then CLICK HERE, and then we can discuss how I may be able to help you be the most resilient and healthiest you now. I can relate to the common man and woman who has trouble seeing the sparkle in their character or the bounce in their step.

The Top 10 Careers of 2018

To help you achieve your career aspirations, here are the top 10 most in-demand careers of 2018

Customer Service

Are you a people’s person? Do you like finding solutions to customers’ problems? If you answered yes, then Customer Service is the career for you!

  • Customer Service
  • Understanding Consumers
  • Communication Skills

Data Science

Starting from finding valuable insights hidden in your company’s data, to optimizing business processes, Data Scientists have a multidisciplinary role.

  • Data Science
  • Data Analytics
  • Statistics

Teaching

A rewarding, demanding and consistently popular career path – Teaching is considered to be one of the evergreen career choices expected to grow 8% by 2026.

  • Teaching Skills
  • English for Teaching
  • Teaching Professionals

Nursing

A career in Nursing is not only fulfilling, but also deemed to be one of the highest paying. Demand for nurses is expected to grow 16% by 2026.

  • Nursing
  • Health and Fitness
  • Cardiovascular Health

Digital Marketing

With an increase in more targeted, precise and economical online promotional trends, Digital Marketing expertise once again leads the pack for one of the most desired skill sets.

  • Digital Marketing
  • E-Business
  • Inbound Marketing

Care-giving

If you are a warm and compassionate person looking for a rewarding job but also looking to make a difference in someone’s life, then Care-giving is the career for you.

  • Care Provision
  • Childcare
  • Healthcare

Software Engineering

Development, research, design, programming, and testing of computer software – a career in Software Engineering is based on the complete life cycle of a new/modified software product.

  • Software Development
  • Operating Systems
  • Mathematics

Operations Management

Listed as the second most in-demand professional field for 2024 by Business Insider, one of the perks of this field is that there are jobs available in almost every industry.

  • Operations
  • Quality
  • Supply Chain

Financial Advice

Be it preparing the organization on acquisitions, or helping financially distressed firms through liquidations, Financial Advisory remains one of the top in-demand careers in the long run.

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Banking

Management in Healthcare

Healthcare – an essential service, a wealth of opportunity! The management and leadership expertise needed in this industry are currently among the most sought-after skills.

  • Leadership
  • Supervision
  • Healthcare Workplace Safety

Achieving and Making a Difference

Image result for notable achievement

The Means to Notable Achievement

Are you prepared to direct and deploy these forces with masterful control and strategic skill? Are you prepared to use all your reserves of mental energy in the crises of your career?

Individual mental efficiency is an absolute prerequisite to any notable personal achievement or any great individual success. Your mental energies are the forces with which you must wage your battles in this world. Are you prepared to direct and deploy these forces with masterful control and strategic skill? Are you prepared to use all your reserves of mental energy in the crises of your career?

A Mighty and Intelligent Power resides within you. Its marvelous resources are just now coming to be recognized.

Recent scientific research has revealed, beyond the world of the senses and beyond the domain of consciousness, a wide and hitherto hidden realm of human energies and resources.

https://media-exp2.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/AAEAAQAAAAAAAALBAAAAJDM0YjNmOTQwLTAxMDAtNGFkOC05NDllLWQ2MDFmZGFmZGRiMw.png

A Process for “Making Good”

These are mental energies and resources. They are phases of the mind, not of the “mind” of fifty years ago, but of a “mind” of whose operations you are unconscious and whose marvelous breadth and depth and power have but recently been revealed to the world by scientific experiment.

Thus in many fairly independent ways we are brought around to this same idea of a common structure underlying all the many seeming diversities manifested by what we call matter.

Attainment of Mind Control

Image result for future world

The Men and Women of Tomorrow

Twenty-first century people can harness the energies of mind, and shall put them at the service of humanity.

Are you fully equipped to take a valiant part in the work of the coming years?

Image result for mental waste

The Dollars and Cents of Mental Waste

The greatest of all eras is at hand! Are you increasing your fitness to appreciate it and take part in it, or are you merely passing your time away?

Take careful note for a week of the incidents of your daily life—your methods of work, habits of thought, modes of recreation. You will discover an appalling waste in your present random methods of operation.

Individual mental efficiency is an absolute prerequisite to any notable personal achievement or any great individual success. Your mental energies are the forces with which you must wage your battles in this world.

The Empowerment of Saying No

Humans are social creatures, and most of us crave attention and acceptance.  The rub is that we often haven’t a clue how to get it, so we cave to authority figures in the name of being a “team player.”  Here’s a better way:

20 Enlightening Quotes About Self-Esteem…

You Need To Read Right Now

1.  Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.

— Karl Lagerfeld

2.  I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

— Charlotte Brontë

3.  The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

— Mark Twain

4.  One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.

— Michael J. Fox

5.  When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.

— Jodi Picoult

6.  The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.

— C. Joybell C.

7.  You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.

— Yogi Bhajan

8.  How would your life be different if…you stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day…You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others

— Steve Maraboli

9.  Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.

— Shannon L. Alder

10.  Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

—Marcus Aurelius

11.  What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

12.  To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

— Oscar Wilde

13.  No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

14.  Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

— Dale Carnegie

15.  A human being‘s first responsibility is to shake hands with himself.

— Henry Winkler

16.  The greatest success is successful self-acceptance.

— Ben Sweet

17.  Self-love, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.

— William Shakespeare

18.  Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness.

— Deborah Day

19.  You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.

— Maya Angelou

20.  The things we hate about ourselves aren’t more real than things we like about ourselves.

How People Make Decisions That Are Bad For Them

by Dr. Kerry Petsinger

He looked shocked.

I was having a conversation recently with a guy who was telling me about his nephew, a high school senior. “He should be an engineer,” the guy told me. “Engineers make great money. The job market for engineers is good. My nephew should definitely become an engineer. Don’t ya think?”

“No,” I said.

(That’s when he stared at me, stunned).

“What?” he replied.

“No,” I repeated. “I don’t know your nephew. What are his strengths?”

“His strengths?”

“Yes, his strengths. What are his strengths, his gifts, his passions? What is he interested in?”

“Passion?” The guy scoffed. “Nobody chooses a job based on PASSION!”

I calmly replied, “It’s important for him to discover who he is…what his strengths, passions, and interests are…” and he looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.

I haven’t seen the guy again, and am not sure which career path his nephew will choose. But I know one thing for sure: if the nephew doesn’t understand himself, and if engineering doesn’t align with his strengths, passions, and interests, it might not be a great decision to become one.

We’re all guilty of making bad decisions. These decisions can greatly affect the course of our life. Whether we get involved in relationships that aren’t good for us, choose a career that doesn’t light us up, neglect our self-care repeatedly… we make bad decisions at times.

Why So Many People Make Bad Decisions

Making bad decisions can drastically change your life, leaving you unfulfilled and dissatisfied. When people make recurring poor decisions, they may not reach their potential.

People make bad decisions for many reasons. Their mindsets, lack of self-expertise, and following societal norms are three of the reasons they make poor decisions.

Your Mindset Determines the Quality of Your Decisions

Mindset, according to Merriam-Webster, is a mental attitude or inclination. It is important to recognize that your mental attitudes and inclinations are present and can greatly affect your ability to make decent decisions. Living your best life starts with your mindset. If you think small, make decisions based on limiting beliefs, and consistently avoid taking meaningful action due to fear, you will never reach your full potential.

Jim Taylor, PhD, explains cognitive biases as:1

“the tendency to make decisions and take action based on imited acquisition and/or processing of information or on self-interest, overconfidence, or attachment to past experience.”

He describes many cognitive biases. One bias, the myopia bias, he explains, is when you

“see and interpret the world through the narrow lens of your own experiences, baggage, beliefs, and assumptions.”

The homecoming queen/king bias, Dr. Taylor writes, is when you “act in ways that will increase our acceptance, liking, and popularity.”

When you make decisions based on your cognitive biases, your choices aren’t always wise. It’s important to realize your mental inclinations are present.

Understand Yourself, but Don’t Let Your Feelings Lead You Astray

If we aren’t self-experts, it’s hard to make good decisions. Lions are amazing, strong, powerful, majestic animals. They know where they belong in the food chain, and they know where to live. They know how to hunt and how to act. However, what if a lion didn’t understand this, and attempted to live in the ocean? Surely it would NOT thrive in the ocean. The same goes for us. If we don’t understand who we are at the core, it’s hard to make the best choices that enable us to fully thrive.

When you understand yourself, you are better equipped to make good decisions. This does not, however, mean that you should always make decisions based on “how you feel.” In fact, making decisions based on your feelings can sometimes significantly restrict your growth.

For example, recently I was asked to speak to a group of business professionals. While I’m an extrovert and love being around people, and am very comfortable working with my coaching clients from around the world, standing in front of a crowd as a speaker is currently out of my comfort zone. My immediate response was discomfort, but I said “yes” to the invitation. Why? Because speaking is one of my goals, and I know as I move toward that goal I will be uncomfortable at first.

Stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary in order to experience growth. As Brian Tracy says,

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

Following Societal Norms Can Lead to Bad Decisions

Societal norms affect people’s choices every day. The people you spend time with and society in general often influences the jobs you choose, the hours you work, the level of success you reach, your habits, and everything from your worldview to your view of what a “good” relationship with your significant other is.

Blindly following the crowd can cause you to live an unfulfilled life. Just because everyone you know works 9-5 in an office doesn’t mean that’s the best fit for you. Just because everyone you know has their kids in a bunch of activities doesn’t mean that’s the best plan for your family.

How to Make Great Decisions That You Won’t Regret

Three keys to consistently making great decisions are being aware of our mindsets, understanding ourselves, and making decisions intentionally instead of passively following the crowd.

Be Aware of Your Mindset

It is important to understand that your mindsets can lead you to make poor decisions. Success starts between your ears, with your mindsets. People often avoid making positive changes in their lives and doing big things because they believe achieving their biggest dreams is not possible for them. They settle for less than their full potential. Many people have an internal dialogue that is less than friendly toward themselves.

Start paying attention to your thoughts. When you think about achieving a big goal you have, what thoughts do you have? Are you encouraging toward yourself? If you discover that your self-talk is discouraging, work on modifying your thoughts. For example, if you think, “I can’t start a business; I don’t know how,” modify that sentence to “I don’t know how to start a business right now, but I can learn.” If you think, “I can’t lose weight; I failed last time I tried,” modify it to “I didn’t achieve my goal last time, but this time I’ll do x,y, and z to get great results.”

One way to minimize the risk of making poor decisions due to your mindset is by collaborating with an expert on your decision, or learning from people who have already done what you aspire to do. For example, when making career decisions, you can hire career counselors or executive coaches. If you want to retire when young and travel the world, learn from people who have done exactly that. Learning from experts and mentors who have achieved what you aspire to do can help you stay inspired and encouraged.

Become Self-Experts

Becoming self-experts is an important key to making good decisions. When you have a strong understanding of your strengths, your priorities, and the impact you want to make on the world, you can make purpose-driven decisions and live more fulfilling lives.

I highly recommend the book, Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The book helps people discover 5 of their strengths. Having a strong understanding of your strengths can help you choose a career path that allows you to maximize those strengths, rather than choosing a career that isn’t a good fit for you.

Make Decisions Intentionally

Being intentional with your decisions rather than passively following society’s recommendations for your life can help you make choices that align with what matters most to you. Pause to reflect and think about why you’re making the choices you’re making. Are you living your life in a manner that enables you to become the best version of you, and make the impact on the world that you are here to make? Or, are you living the life that society wants for you?

One simple step to being more intentional in your life is to write out a tentative schedule for your day. When you tell your time where to go, it can help you minimize time spent on time-sucking activities that don’t align with who you most want to be.

Also, as Jim Rohn says,

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”

Being intentional with who you spend time with can also steer you toward better decisions.

Although nobody’s perfect, and nobody has a perfect life, working on these strategies can help you make better decisions, leading to less regrets and a more fulfilling life.

Thriving in an Ambiguous World

The present world – jam-packed with mixed messages on how to succeed and stay ahead of the financial curve – is hard to negotiate for many of us. If good intentions were enough to succeed and thrive, undoubtedly we would all be swimming with success.

However, like a majority of folks with scant knowledge of how to be on top of our respective life/business games, we struggle mightily to cope with the information-overload age and the quicksand-pit of half-baked programs claiming they can teach us “all” we need to know to be empowered and happy.

Teachers and coaches come in all stripes and hues, but the effective, empowering ones are not usually the prodigies whom we worship. The best ones understand through their own experience what long-term failure can and will often do to most of us mortals. Failure makes us less likely to take chances or stick with a dream long enough to turn it into a reality.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
-Albert Einstein-

After a lapse of many months since I last wrote, I have concluded that I can help you find the right information, teachers and systems to empower you in the present moment and insure a much brighter future, even if the world and economy seem to be going to Hell.

In the coming months I will share with you my prolific and profound research into the people and solutions which can propel you to unimagined greatness. Stay tuned.