Life gets a lot simpler when you clear the clutter that makes it complicated. Bring your attention back to what’s important, and move forward with your life.

Your days fill up so fast, and they are so rushed and packed with distractions—sometimes they literally seem to be bursting at the seams.

I know exactly how you feel. This used to be my life too.

Before I started simplifying my life, I was being pulled in dozens of different directions every day and never had enough time to get everything done. Naturally, I wanted to do a great job with each obligation I had, and somehow I had convinced myself that I could do it all. But the reality was I was stretched way too thin, and thus I was doing a lousy job at everything and completely stressing myself out in the process.

This feeling of being mind-numbingly busy and overbooked is a huge source of stress for most people, and stress is perhaps the single most important determining factor of whether we’re healthy and happy, or sick and tired, in the long run.

Unless you want your health to decline and your stress to continue to skyrocket, you must start simplifying.

So how can you simplify your life? It’s not as hard as you might imagine… [Read more…]

Happiness does not start with a relationship, a degree, a job, or money.  It starts with your thinking and what you tell yourself today.

“I had a date scheduled for last night with this guy I started talking to on a dating app.  I waited outside the diner where we agreed to meet for 30 minutes past the time we were supposed to meet.  He never showed up.  All sorts of negative thoughts were running through my head.  I thought maybe he saw me from a distance, didn’t like what he saw, and then bailed.

Just as I was about to leave, one of my old college friends, Jared, who I haven’t seen in nearly a decade, walked up to me with a huge smile on his face and said, ‘Carly!  It’s great to see you!  You look fantastic!’  I almost blew him off because of how I felt inside at the moment.  But luckily I pulled myself together to engage in a conversation.

After we talked in that same spot for awhile, he said, ‘What are you doing for dinner?’  We ended up going into the diner I was supposed to eat at with the no-show date and having an amazing conversation filled with laughter.  After dinner he walked me to my car, we exchanged numbers, and he [Read more…]

You need to do hard things to be happy in life.  Because the hard things ultimately build you up and change your life from the inside out.

Daily stress is one of the primary causes of major mental and physical health problems in our lives: it can cause heart disease, anxiety, sleep deprivation, auto-immune disorders, weight problems, unhappiness, and even deep depression.

But we’re busy – we all have places to be, things to do and people to see.  So, how do we alleviate stress and still get our work done right, without neglecting our loved ones and ourselves?  What can we realistically start doing today to nurture our mental health and overall wellness?

I’m going to be brief about this, because time is of the essence.  There are eight simple (but not easy) things that need to be practiced.  A few mindset shifts and a couple actions that take only a few minutes [Read more…]

Last night I met a tired and weary soul at a local charity event.  We struck up a conversation after I helped her pick up some papers she had accidentally dropped on the floor.  She said she was volunteering at the event, and several other charity events over the next few weeks, because she didn’t really have anywhere else to be for the holidays.  Details aside, she basically told me she struggles with a lack of healthy relationships, a lack of self-confidence, and a lack of purpose in her life.

I consoled her as best I could during our 10-minute conversation, and assured her that the volunteer work she’s doing is making a difference.  Then we hugged and I handed her my business card before departing.  Hopefully she reaches out to me, because there’s so much more I’d like to share with her.  I know what it’s like to feel tired and weary, to feel down and depressed, to have no one to talk to.  I have desperately struggled with anxiety and self-confidence issues numerous times in the past.

So I’m writing this short post for her, and all my fellow souls out there who are tired and weary and struggling to find happiness today.

You are struggling, maybe even heartbroken, and this state of being is hard to deal with.  It can feel lonely, draining, and even downright hopeless sometimes.

How do you motivate yourself when you feel defeated?  How do you heal when you have little hope?  How do you connect with others when you don’t feel the self-confidence needed to put yourself out there?

I know you want answers.  And I’m [Read more…]