Archives for November 2014

You will find that it is necessary to let some things go, simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go… LET GO of them before the end of the year. Tie no weights to your ankles.

“Yesterday afternoon my twin sister called me from her hospital room.  She’s been in a coma for almost a year now.  Entering the holiday season and New Year with my sister back at my side is a priceless feeling.  We actually spent the entire night together, talking and laughing.  She’s still weak, of course, but surprisingly coherent.”

That’s the opening paragraph to an email I received this morning from a reader named Amber.  It caught my attention for obvious reasons.

Amber then went on to say, “But you know what the really crazy thing is?  A month before my sister’s accident, we got in a ridiculous argument and didn’t speak to each other for that entire month. And today, honestly, neither one of us can even remember why we were so darn mad.  We were just being stubborn and holding on to the wrong thoughts.  I’m so grateful we were able to let it go and get another chance to love each other.”

Wow!  Talk about a wake-up call and a great reminder for all of us to LET IT GO.

And since the New Year is just around the corner, which inspires many of us to refocus our energy and attention on the right things, I think it’s a perfect time right now to start letting go of the wrong things.  Wouldn’t you agree?

So today, I challenge you to this:

Before the New Year…

1. Let go of your temper. – Never do something permanently foolish just because you are temporarily upset.
2. Let go of petty grudges. – Life is far too short to be spent nursing bitterness and registering wrongs.  If there’s someone in your life who deserves another chance, give it to them.  If you need to apologize, do it.  Give your story together a happy, new beginning.
3. Let go of the idea that everyone has it better than you. – If the grass looks greener on the other side…  Stop staring.  Stop comparing.  Stop complaining and START watering the grass you’re standing on. [Read more…]

At the end of the day, the questions we ask ourselves determine the type of people we become.

When you’ve been running a successful personal development blog and life coaching business for the better part of a decade, one thing becomes crystal clear:

Everyone has the same basic wants and needs.

No kidding, over the years Angel and I have gotten to know thousands of people of different ethnic backgrounds, from different cities and countries, who live at various socioeconomic levels, and trust me, every one of us basically wants the same things.  We want validation, love, happiness, fulfillment, money, and hopes for a better future.  The way we pursue these needs is where things branch off, but the fundamentals are the same.

Think about it.  If I ask you, “Quickly, in one sentence, what do you want most out of life?” I bet your rushed response is going to be something like, “I want to be happy, and have a healthy family, and a career I like that pays well, etc.”  Your response is going to be so common and ubiquitous that it basically doesn’t even mean anything.  Which is precisely why senseless, happy-go-lucky questions like this aren’t very helpful.  And yet, this is precisely the kind of questions we often ask ourselves.

So what kind of questions might you ask instead?  Questions that force you into a corner.  Questions that help you embrace the sacrifices it takes to get where you want to go.  Questions that motivate you to focus on the next step forward.  In other words, questions like…

1. What is worth suffering for? – If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs.  If you want the six-pack abs, you have to want the sweat, the sore muscles, the early mornings at the gym, and the low carb meals.  If you want the successful business, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business deals and decisions, and the possibility of failing fifty times to learn what you need to know to succeed.  If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is just an idealization, a fantasy, and a false promise.  Maybe you don’t actually want it at all, because you’re not willing to suffer though the work it’s going to take to achieve it. [Read more…]