Posted on by Raj Daniels

Greener grass

Do you know what it takes to maintain the metaphoric ‘greener grass’ that you admire?

How much time and effort it took to grow the grass? And, what if the grass is not as green as you think it is? What if it just looks that way?

The tendency to want what others have has been linked to a deep seeded survival mechanism that was prevalent when resources were scarce for humans. However, nowadays it’s more likely to be tied to self-esteem. It is the measuring of one’s self-worth against the imagined life of others.

When you see someone’s life that you admire consider the tradeoffs of time, money, education etc. that they have made and ask yourself if you’d be willing to do the same. And if the answer is yes, then go for it.

It’s easy to fall in to the feeling of seeing other people’s lives as better than your own, especially in today’s hyper connected age. But keep in mind that there’s also someone out there looking and wishing they have the life you have.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Mindless accumulation

What do you have that you don’t need?

Why do you have it? Why does it occupy space in your home?

Do you keep it ‘just in case?’ How many times has there been a ‘just in case’ when you’ve needed to use it?

The mindless accumulation of things is a symptom of a deeper problem. Mindless accumulation is tied directly to temporary, in the moment happiness. If you think about you will realize that that a thing, an inanimate object rarely holds the power to give you happiness. If it did then every time you walked into your home everything you owned would make you happy.

There are probably a handful of items that provide pleasant memories but most of what you own just takes up physical space and even worse, sometimes it even occupies your mental space.

The constant need to possess is a vicious cycle because ultimately you become owned by your possessions. So, the next time you feel the need to buy one more thing, really ask yourself, why am I buying this and what need am I looking to fulfill? Perhaps you’ll end up with less stuff but more answers.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Yet

When you’re challenged with a difficult task or problem how do you respond? Do you balk at the first sign of a challenge because you immediately question your abilities?

Is your usual response an ‘I can’t do that, or I’m not good at that?’

What if you ended your self-doubt by adding ‘yet’ to the end of your thought?

So your new response would be, ‘I can’t do that yet or I’m not good at that yet.’ How would this one small change in vocabulary affect your approach?

The word yet can be life changing. Get in habit of using the word yet in your thinking when you doubt your ability to meet a challenge. It will signal to you the possibility of progress and increases your confidence when tackling new challenges.  It will help you transform how you see yourself and your current set of abilities.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

ROI

What do you expect from the time you invest in a relationship?

What do you expect from the love you invest in your children?

What do you expect from the money you invest in a business or the stock market?

What do you expect from the investment in your health?

What do you expect from all of your investments? What do you expect from them, and what happens to you after you make the investments?

The good news and the bad news is the returns you expect are rarely the returns you get.  Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down.

Does this mean you shouldn’t invest time, emotions and money? Well, it might. And that will depend on your tolerance for uncertainty and how you respond when things don’t go as expected.

If returns and results were guaranteed in any area of life then the world would be perfect, and boring. The one guaranteed return from your investments will be your experience. And how you respond to your experience will dictate your future investments.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Influence your thinking

Who or what do you think influences how you think, family, friends, the media?

Your thoughts are influenced by whatever you put your attention on. So whatever you expose yourself to on a daily basis will overtime drive your thinking, whether you admit it or not.

Your brain absorbs so much information in a subliminal manner and you’re often unaware of all the information being stored. That’s why advertisers keep showing and playing the same ads over and over, because they know that even though you think you’re ignoring them, your brain is in fact storing them.

There will be times when you cannot avoid information or stories that lead you to think about things that bring you down. However, if you want to experience strong, positive uplifting thoughts then you should make a conscious effort to expose your mind to information that will help you lead such a life.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Self-care

Do you have a self-care program? A system where you take time to prioritize yourself or have you chosen to sacrifice your well-being for others?

You’re probably familiar with the overplayed airline message of ‘put on your own mask before attempting to help others,’ but there is so much truth to this.

If you don’t take invest time in self-care then not only are you less effective for yourself, but also towards those whom you want to help.

When you prioritize caring for yourself not only will you benefit mentally and physically, you will also reap psychological and emotional benefits too.

Self-care doesn’t have to consist of hours of self-indulgence; it can be accomplished in just a few minutes a day. A few minutes set aside to breathe, to think, to move, to eat right all in order to replenish and rejuvenate your mind and body which will ultimately do wonders for you.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Inspire others

Do you actively find ways to inspire others? Do you use words of encouragement do drive them towards their goals?

If you’ve ever been inspired by the words or actions by another person then you know how good it feels, so why not seek out ways to inspire others?

Inspiring others doesn’t mean being fake and supporting them in their every endeavor. However it does mean that you take time to listen and you learn to deliver constructive criticism and provide them with confidence to move forward.

You can also inspire other by genuinely celebrating their success and just as important, being there when they fail and not being the one to say, I told you so.

Inspiring others is ultimately a selfish act because when you make others feel good you too feel good about yourself and there is nothing wrong with that. The definition of the word inspire is to ‘breathe life in to,’ so why not be the on that breathes life in to those around you?

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Not good enough

Do you hesitate to try something new because you think you’re ‘not good enough?’ Well, you’re probably right, and that’s okay.

The feeling of not being good enough to even try something is like an invisible cage that prevents you from experiencing new and exciting things.  And the thing about this feeling is that it never goes away, it will be there every time you think about trying something new or different.

The trick is to embrace the feeling, acknowledge that you’re not good enough and that is exactly why you are going to move forward realizing all the while that even when you get better you’ll still feel as though you’re not good enough.

Don’t let the feeling of not being good enough hold you back. The truth is you’re already good enough to start anything.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Why can’t you be more like…?

Has anyone ever asked you, why you can’t be more like someone else?

Was it a parent, spouse, employer or friend that asked you? How did it make you feel? Did the question make you feel inadequate and question yourself? Or were you able to shrug of their question and remain confident in whom you are?

The ability to remain resilient to a world that is constantly telling you how you should be is a skill that can serve you well. This is not to say that you shouldn’t model other people if it serves you in achieving your goals, but don’t forget that even those you attempt to imitate have flaws that you’ll never see.

Remaining strong in your endeavor to be yourself regardless of the constant pressure to be someone else will serve you well over the long term. And the world will benefit from your uniqueness, not you trying to be someone else.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Re-focus

How will you see the world today?

What will you decide to put your attention on?

Will you start your day reading or listening to the news telling you about all the bad things going on in the world?

Will you focus on the traffic, the construction, the ‘bad weather?’

Will you be looking for faults in people around you?

Will you think about all the things you don’t have?

Or will you decide to re-focus and drive your attention towards all that is good around you and be grateful for what you do have?

Your attention is focused awareness and with practice you can train yourself to ignore things in your surroundings that you can’t change and focus on the things you can.

Try an experiment today. When you find yourself complaining or thinking about something negative that you have no control over, quickly re-focus to something positive in your life. Over time and with practice this will become easier as you re-wire your brain to your new habit and soon enough you will find this will be your new natural state.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

A little more

When was the last time you pushed yourself just a little more, physically or intellectually?

Pushing yourself to do a little more is your key to personal growth because it gives you confidence that you control your mind and that you can reach beyond your current capacity.

Doing a little more can be a simple as adding an extra minute to your exercise routine, reading an additional page of a book or spending a few minutes researching or learning about something that you’re working on.

The power behind a little more is that your efforts compound over time and your ability to control your mindset of being able to do a little more is a transferable skill.

Make an effort today to do just a little more than you think you can and notice how you feel a sense of pride as you realize just how much power you actually have over yourself.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

No Complaining

Do you complain about things you can’t change, things that you have no control over? Why do you do this? Does it make you feel better or change the situation?

Do you complain about?

The weather

The traffic

Your coworkers

Your family

The news

The economy

Or do you have any other personal favorites?

Complaining puts things you don’t like into greater focus which in turn makes the thing you’re complaining about seem more relevant than it is.

What if today you made the choice not to complain about the things you can’t change? And instead of complaining you just re-focused your mind.

When you find yourself complaining about something that you have no control over, learn to get in the habit of quickly changing your thoughts towards something you’re grateful for. By practicing this over time you won’t even notice the things you once complained about.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

You’ve already won

If you’re reading this then you’ve already won. Why have you won?

You’ve won because:

You know how to read.

You have the time to read.

You have a device to read on.

You have the command of the powerful language in the world. Yes, the majority of all worldwide business communication is conducted in English.

So now that you know that you’ve already won, what will you do with your winnings? Will you squander all your time and skills on trivial activities that waste away all that you’ve already won, or will you build a life of opportunities? The choice is yours.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

I don’t know how to…

Do you let not knowing how to do something stop you from moving forward? When you have a thought or dream of doing something new does your mind answer with ‘but I don’t know how,’ and you stop before you start?

Yes, there is uncertainty in feeling that you don’t know how to do something, but it can also be liberating.

Learn to develop the perspective that not knowing how to do something is a great position to be in. It means that your options are wide open and you have the freedom to experiment without any preconceived notions of the ‘right way.’

Don’t let not knowing how be your crutch that you fall back on and stop you from moving forward. You live in a world of abundant resources and the answer to almost every one of your ‘don’t know hows’ can be found as long as you are willing to look for them. And for the answers you can’t find, well now you have the opportunity to be the one with answer to someone else’s ‘I don’t know how.’

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Start to Start

What personal project, goal or idea have you been putting off? What’s that one thing that you think about that you really want to do that you haven’t taken any action on? It could be as small as clean the junk draw or as big as travelling the world. What’s yours?

Make time today to write down one thing you want to do. And I don’t mean make a list or take a note. Write it out in long form and go in to as much detail as possible.  Describe what the end result will look like and what it will mean to you.

Starting is one of the best habits you can develop for yourself. Not only will you get more done but it’s only after starting that you can really grasp the effort required in accomplishing what you want and it will also help you decide if you really want to continue.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

How can I help you?

How can I help you?

How may I serve you?

What can I do for you?

These questions have magic within them. They have the power to transform your life if you ask them with a sincere desire to serve others.

These questions also require you to have an abundance mindset because you have to know and believe that you have enough time, energy and mental capacity in order to make time to do things for other people.

Research shows that when that when you help others you’ll receive the added benefit of feeling good about yourself too. So make helping others part of your daily routine.  Add these questions to your vocabulary, make a habit of using them often, and experience how your life changes when you commit to helping others.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Self-Worth

 

What is your self-worth tied to?

Is it tied to the amount of money you make, the number material possessions you have, your house, your car, your job, where you live? Would you have less self-worth if you lost any of the preceding items? Is it tied to how people see you? What if they were no longer in your life?

Self-worth begins from respecting yourself. It starts with appreciating who you are regardless of what you have. Now this sounds easy but you’ll be challenged daily by external forces such as family, friends,  media and advertising telling you that you’re not worthy until you have what they think is important.

Fighting these external forces is tough and you’ll often find yourself second guessing your self-worth because you begin to assess your value through the eyes of others. And you begin to measure yourself against other people.

The first steps to improving your self-worth are to stop tying your self-worth to possessions and to stop comparing yourself to others. Comparing yourself to others is not only destructive but it doesn’t make logical sense since each individual is made from a totally different set of DNA.

When you find yourself questioning your self-worth, challenge your inner thoughts, see yourself for who you are and commit to appreciating who you are and what you have.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

A Good Person

Are you a good person?

Recently I was at dinner with a friend and she shared that she was interviewing her grandmother and one of her questions to her grandmother was ‘do you have any advice for your grandchildren?’ And her grandmother had one answer, be a good person.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this, especially from people that are in the later years of their lives. The people that have lived the longest seem to realize that in the end once you strip away all the titles, money, awards and material possessions very little really matters except being a good person.

So what if you start off with the end in mind of being known as a good person? What if you made that your guiding light? How would you live your life? How would you priorities change? Would you behave differently?

Being a good person is a broad definition and can mean different things to people, however there are some key characteristics that most can agree on.  If being a good person is important to you then start working on the behavior that will result on you being a known as a good person.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Need or Want?

What are the things in life you need and what the ones you want? Finding a balance between the two can be challenging especially if you have trouble differentiating wants and needs.

Food/water, shelter and clothing were at one time considered basic needs and more recently sanitation, education and healthcare were added to the list. Now each one of these categories is vast and can span the spectrum from very basic to highly sophisticated.

Differentiating between a need and want can be tricky because the language seems to be interchangeable and external influences often lead you to believe that wants are needs.  The key is for you to use the language correctly.

Having wants is good in that it can push you and motivate you towards certain goals. But just remember that because you want something doesn’t mean you need it.

Posted on by Raj Daniels

Why am I trying?

Have you ever asked yourself, why am I even trying? Why am I even trying to be happy, lose weight, earn more money, be in a relationship, build a business or any other endeavor?

The why am I trying question usually arises when whatever you’re attempting to do seems impossible. Or when you think it’s just way too hard to continue.  And it can be a very valid question. And in the question lies the answer. It’s in the ‘why?’

What is your motivation for trying? What will you gain, what will you become if you succeed and will you be strong enough and willing enough to pay the price?

Defining your reasons for why to start and also re-examining your why while you’re on your journey will help you decide if you should continue. The majority of people that quit going after what they want is because they stop asking why.

Keep your why in front of you. Read it or see in on a regular basis so that when things do get difficult you will know why you are trying.