Archives for August 2014

20 Things Life is Too Short Not to Appreciate

08.27.2014 by Angel Chernoff // 51 Comments

20 Things Life is Too Short Not to Appreciate

Life is rarely perfect, but it’s always pretty darn good.

This morning I saw an elderly woman in a wheelchair rolling down the sidewalk in the pouring rain just outside the coffee shop where I was writing. She was moving at a snail’s pace and I thought she might be struggling, so I ran out into the rain and asked her if she needed assistance or a dry resting spot. She smiled and said, “I appreciate it, but the rain feels great against my skin. I’m out here and going slow on purpose.”

I loved her sentiment – talk about the epitome of appreciating life. And truthfully, life is simply too short for anything less. When you’re young, you might feel like there’s a huge mass of time ahead of you. But trust me, it passes much faster than you think. You get grey hairs before you feel like a real adult. And then you have kids, and suddenly they’re off doing their own things. None of this is bad, of course. It’s an extraordinary experience, as long as you pause long enough to appreciate it all. [Read more…]

10 Toxic Habits that Drain Your Energy

08.24.2014 by Marc Chernoff // 45 Comments

10 Toxic Habits that Drain Your Energy

It’s time to break the habits that have been holding you back. Respect yourself enough to let go of the mindsets and routines that have been sucking you dry.

Bear with me for a moment. You know when you’re driving to an unfamiliar place, blasting the radio while simultaneously watching your GPS spit out directions? Then you suddenly get to that one part of the route that’s ridiculously confusing, so you lower the volume even though it has no direct impact on the way you read the directions?

That is your life. The radio noise you need to cut out to concentrate? That is the needless, energy-sucking noise in your head.

Turning down the radio in the car re-energizes your mind and offers you clarity when you need it most. You don’t really think about how or why this makes such a huge difference, you just know that it does.

Now it’s time to apply this same principle to all the other noise in your life, starting with the noise in your head.

But how?

The first step is to eliminate toxic, energy-sucking habits that support this noise. With over ten years of experience as life coaches behind us, here are ten such habits Angel and I have seen thousands of people struggle with, again and again:

Pretending like everything is OK when it isn’t. – Do you feel overwhelmed? Do you feel like giving up? There’s honestly no shame in it. You are not a robot; and even if you were, you’d still need to stop for maintenance sometimes. There’s no shame in admitting to yourself that you feel exhausted, doubtful, and low. This is a natural part of being human. The simple fact that you are aware of this means you are able to turn things around. It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there’s no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again. [Read more…]

25 Things to Remember When Life Gets Rough

08.17.2014 by Marc Chernoff // 78 Comments

25 Things to Remember When Life Gets Rough

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Because it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
— Maya Angelou

Oftentimes things have to go wrong in order to go right. In fact, if the road you’re traveling is always easy, you’re likely going the wrong way. Some part of you knows this is true. Nevertheless, when life gets especially rough, it can be hard to remember.

So print this post out and let it remind you that, in the darkest moments, every failure is only a necessary step toward success, every discovery of what is wrong directs you toward what is right, every arduous trial today exhausts some tempting form of future mistake, and every adversity will only hide, for a short time, your ultimate path to happiness and success.

Here’s what you need to keep in mind when life gets rough:

It is your resistance to “what is” that causes your suffering. – Remember, happiness is allowing yourself to be perfectly OK with “what is,” rather than wishing for and worrying about “what is not.” “What is” is what’s supposed to be, or it would not be. The rest is just you, arguing with life. Think about that for a minute. This means your suffering only ever occurs when you resist how things are. You cannot control everything that happens to you; you can only control the way you respond to what happens. In your response is your power.
Where you are right now is a necessary step. – Sometimes we avoid experiencing exactly where we are because we have developed a belief, based on our ideals, that it is not where we should be or want to be. But the truth is, where you are right now is exactly where you need to be to get to where you want to go tomorrow. [Read more…]

12 Toxic Behaviors that Push People Away From You

08.10.2014 by Marc Chernoff // 141 Comments

12 Toxic Behaviors that Push People Away From You

Your behavior is a little thing that makes a big difference.

In our line of work, Angel and I hear from hundreds of coaching clients every month. Through this experience, we’ve come across scores of toxic behaviors that push people away from each other. And we’ve witnessed the devastation these behaviors cause – to relationships, to personal and professional growth, and to the general well-being of both the individual behaving negatively, and to everyone in their life.

Let’s be honest – we’ve all acted in toxic, damaging ways at one time or another. None of us are immune to occasional toxic mood swings, but many people are more evolved, balanced and aware, and such occurrences happen only rarely in their lives.

Whether your toxic behavior is a common occurrence, or just a once in a blue moon phenomena, it’s critical for your long-term happiness and success that you are able to recognize when you’re behaving negatively, and consciously shift your mindset when necessary.

The twelve most common toxic behaviors we see are:

Being envious of everyone else. – Don’t let envy (or jealously) get the best of you. Envy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. There is nothing attractive or admirable about this behavior. So stop comparing your journey with everyone else’s. Your journey is YOUR journey, NOT a competition. You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be. If you want to measure your progress, compare yourself to who you were yesterday. [Read more…]

40 Things We Forget To Thank Our Best Friends For

08.06.2014 by Angel Chernoff // 38 Comments

40 Things We Forget To Thank Our Best Friends For

I don’t need a certain number of friends,
just a number of friends I can be certain of.

Some of my best friends are family, some I’ve known since I was a kid, and others are newer friendships that continue to grow stronger by the day. Although they are all very different, every one of them is extraordinary. I wouldn’t be who I am today without these people in my life. And despite the fact that I know this, I often take my best friends for granted. I forget to thank them, for almost everything. So here’s my attempt at setting the record straight:

“Thank you for making so many ordinary moments, extraordinary.” – Yes, sometimes the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary, just by doing them with the right people.
“Thank you for always giving me the extra push I need.” – A best friend is someone who will inspire you to be who you always knew you could be. Keep this in mind. Anyone who helps you make your half-hearted attempts more whole-hearted through kindness, commitment and teamwork, is a keeper.
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” – Remember, being honest might not always get you a lot of friends, but it will always get you the right ones. Too many of us prefer gentle lies to hard truths. But make no mistake, in the end it’s better to be hurt by the truth than comforted by a lie. Best friends tell each other the truth, always. [Read more…]