Archives for September 2013

9 Thoughts You Need Out of Your Mind

09.26.2013 by Marc Chernoff // 40 Comments

9 Thoughts You Need OUT of Your Mind

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.”
?Albert Einstein

The human mind is wonderful and powerful, but it’s far from perfect. Too often we are addicted to our thoughts, and we can’t change anything in our lives if we can’t change our thinking. If you want to move forward with your life, you must change your mind and get these thoughts OUT of it:

1. “Life sucks and that’s just the way it is.”

The mind can be the harshest battleground. It can be the place where the greatest conflicts are carried out. It’s where half of the things you thought were going to happen, never came to be. But if you allow those thoughts to dwell in your mind and fester, they will succeed in robbing you of peace, of happiness, and of everything that is beautiful in this world.

Tell the negativity committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up. Don’t think yourself into a nervous breakdown, into depression, into hopeless defeat. If you’re being negative when you’re alone, the warfare is in your mind. The fight you’ve got to fight is in your mind. You can’t change what has happened, but you can choose how you’re going to deal with it.

2. “Those haters are right about me.”

Be wise enough to walk away from the negativity around you; don’t let it infect your thinking. Don’t let someone else’s negative opinion ruin your reality. No matter how much negativity is thrown at YOU by others, there is absolutely no need for you to stay put and partake in the decay they choose for their own lives. YOU decide how your soul grows. [Read more…]

10 Ways to Make the Rest of Today Amazing

09.24.2013 by Angel Chernoff // 36 Comments

10 Ways to Make the Rest of Today Amazing

The beginning is always now.

No matter what the history of your day has entailed thus far, the rest of your day depends on what you do right now. Write it on your heart that the rest of today is going to be amazing. Here are some ideas to help you make it so:

1. Loosen your grip.

Trying to micromanage every little thing every moment is stressful. Life should be touched, not strangled. Sometimes you’ve got to relax and let life happen without incessant worry and micromanagement.

Starting now, let go before you squeeze too tight. Take a deep breath. When the dust settles and you can once again see the forest for the trees, take the next step forward. You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going every single second to be headed somewhere great. Everything in life is in perfect order whether you understand it yet or not. It just takes some time to connect all the dots.

2. Focus forward.

You can’t go back to how things were, or how you thought they were supposed to be. All you really have is now. The smartest thing you can control in life is your reaction to what’s beyond your control. Dwelling on negativity from the past simply contributes to its power. So stop focusing on what happened and start focusing on what’s going to move you forward. [Read more…]

8 Things You Should NOT Do to Get Ahead

09.22.2013 by Marc Chernoff // 43 Comments

8 Things You Should NOT Do to Get Ahead

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
?J.R.R. Tolkien

Sometimes we find ourselves running in place, struggling to get ahead simply because we confuse effort with achievement. If you’ve been feeling like you missed a door somewhere and have thus been heading in the wrong direction, it’s likely that you got caught up in this sort of confusion.

The good news is, no matter how long you have traveled in the wrong direction, you always have the choice to turn around. So make that choice today. Promise yourself that you will NOT…

1. Follow a specific life path simply to satisfy others.

Sometimes we try to satisfy our parents, teachers, spouses and peers by walking a particular path in spite of the fact that our own inner GPS advises otherwise. Then, not surprisingly, we wake up one day and we feel completely lost. If you’re feeling a little lost now, its time to change course.

Life is too short to spend all your time trying to make everyone else happy. Besides, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time anyway. At some point, you’ve got to stop caring about what everyone else wants for you, and start actually living for yourself.

Make choices that take your mind, body, and soul into consideration. You are the only person who knows what’s best for you. It’s impossible for anyone else to know. No matter how much you share with them, they are not connected to your deepest desires, intuition, hopes and dreams. Always, ALWAYS listen to yourself and what you want first.

2. Sacrifice all your present happiness for future security.

Do not fool yourself into believing that you must live the same day over and over again for the rest of your life, simply because it’s the responsible thing to do.

So many people live daily with unhappy circumstances, and yet will not take the [Read more…]

7 Things Fear has Stolen from You

09.18.2013 by Marc Chernoff // 71 Comments

7 Things Fear has Stolen from You

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid;
courage means you don’t let fear stop you.

Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Don’t ever hesitate to give yourself a chance to be everything you are capable of being.

Although fear can feel overwhelming, and defeats more people than any other force in the world, it’s not as powerful as it seems. Fear is only as deep as your mind allows. You are still in control. The key is to acknowledge your fear and directly address it. You must step right up and confront it face to face. This tactic robs fear of its power, instead of fear robbing YOU of…

1. Your true path and purpose.

Fear of being different…

Don’t be fooled by what others say, especially when they try to tell you what is right for you. Listen and then draw your own conclusions. What is your intuition telling you?

There is not a clear path that everyone should follow. Your greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in life at all the wrong things. Choose a path that fits YOU. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. Challenge yourself to ask with each and every step, and each focus point that consumes your energy: “Does this thing I’m doing right now truly serve me and those I care about in the next few minutes, few months, and few years?”

Whatever you settle on, just make sure you don’t gain the whole world by losing [Read more…]

9 Things You Do NOT Need to Be Happy

09.15.2013 by Marc Chernoff // 55 Comments

9 Things You Do NOT Need to Be Happy

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never truly live if you are forever looking for the meaning of life.”
?Albert Camus

Today, as I was walking to a coffee shop in downtown Austin, a school bus stopped in front of me and a little kid waved at me frantically through the bus window. I laughed and waved back. There was instantly a look of surprise and then extreme happiness on the kid’s face just because I waved back to him. This reminded me of how, as children, we need very little to make us happy.

As adults we somehow grow into the belief that we need everything to be a certain way in order to find and appreciate moments of happiness. But the truth is, to be happy we need much less than we think we need. In fact, I believe one of the best feelings comes when you realize that you can be perfectly OK and happy without the things you once thought you needed. And that’s precisely what this short article is about – the things you do NOT need to be happy:

1. Ideal circumstances.

The happiest people do not live with a certain set of circumstances, but rather with a certain set of attitudes. Choosing to be positive and grateful for what you have now is going to determine how you’re going to live the rest of your life. So look for something positive about today. Even if you have to look a little harder than usual, it still exists.

Ultimately, your greatest achievements are moments in time when what you’re doing allows you to see how wonderful your life already is.

2. Everyone’s approval.

The biggest prison you will likely ever live in is your fear of what other people think.

You cannot let other people tell you who you are or what you want. You have to [Read more…]