Resiliency is a hot topic these days and for good reason. Not only do we have the usual setbacks in our everyday lives, but the global economy has many of us spinning as well.

So, how can you bounce back from everything from the dog vomiting on your shoe to job loss to foreclosure? While there are many aspects to resiliency, here are the three top skills for you to use:

1. Practice acceptance

This is a broad topic, but here are the basics:

• Acknowledge your emotions about the situation. Sometimes people who have suffered through something like financial loss don’t really realize they are experiencing grief. Parents of kids with special needs sometimes have difficulty recognizing how resentful they feel at times. Losing your job can result in feelings of shame.

Read the rest of «The Top 3 Skills You Need to Bounce…»

It’s all over the news.
You can’t avoid it.
No matter how much we try to deny it…

The world is coming to an end. (Play eerie music here)

Just this year alone we have had a prediction about the end of the world or rapture. The U.S. Government has been downgraded by S&P. Greece and Spain are in utter disarray. People are being laid off, losing their homes and are quickly watching the balances of their retirement savings diminish. I mean with times like this what is the purpose of going on? We might as well give up now. It looks like all is lost, right?

Wrong! The troubles and the issues we face rather personally or as a nation are here for a purpose. Challenges do not arise to kill us, they come into existence so that they can be overcome. I am not afraid of a debt ceiling. I am not afraid of being laid off. I am certainly not afraid of inaccurate predictions, foreclosures, or plummeting investment accounts. What I am afraid of is the lack of faith that we as human beings have in each other.

In the U.S. our ancestors survived the Great Depression. We survived the Great Market Crash of 1929. We survived the financial crisis of 2008. We rebuilt after the devastating attacks on the Trade Center towers on 9/11. We will survive today’s challenges. We are a nation full of people who learn and strive through adversity.

I could care less about political parties and selfish agendas. I care about my neighbor who is a single parent working two jobs to feed her children. She gives me hope. I care about the guy who just got laid off from his job who has the courage to start his own business. He gives me inspiration. I care about the children who press their way to school, from broken and damaged homes, with no supplies trying to educate themselves. They motivate me to make keep trying to make a difference.

So, instead of wasting our time focusing on everything we see going wrong, lets take the time and do something right. The purpose of adversity is to make us stronger. Who have you strengthened today?

I refuse to be a participator in chaos. I want to be an advocate for solutions. Let’s build from the ashes of our past failures and pour a solid foundation that future generations can stand on.

Here’s some great ways for us to help based on the needs of the people:

• Resume Seminars
• Interviewing Seminars
• Volunteering
• Debt Consolidation Programs (not scams)
• Book sharing- If you read a great book pass it to a friend.
• Donate school supplies
• Career development coaching
• Financial literacy and responsibility programs

The more hands that get involved, the faster we change the news headlines into something worth reading. Let’s make a difference. I understand the purpose of adversity and I am up to the challenge. Who’s with me?

Frank Jenning is the founder of A Spark Starts where he writes inspiring stories to encourage you to reach your full potential. He writes with passion. He writes with purpose. He writes for you.

PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement| PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement

Post written by Lori Gosselin.

I remember reading M Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled when I was a young mother and wife. I loved the book so much I formed a book club around it. At our first meeting we read the first line of the book, “Life is difficult” and got caught up in discussion about it. I was surprised to learn that these classy, “together” women also found life difficult.

The verdict was unclear. Although we shared some issues, we also had different issues we were dealing with, ones that seemed less ‘difficult’ to those who had their own crosses, of various sizes, to bear.
Read the rest of «Is Life Difficult?»

Pop Quiz: Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What’s the secret for seeing huge results right now?!

I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey – despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.

Let’s get one thing straight…

When we admire someone’s success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort (and time) that it took to get there. This can cultivate unrealistic expectations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and an execution of sound advice.

The truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core – your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.

If you focus on what’s not working, guess what: You’re likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong.

You may even have negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” “It will never work,” or “Something must be wrong with me.”

What this mentally does is engender more of these counter-productive feelings. And given what we know about the Law of Attraction, you attract what you are feeling. So negative experiences, people, and results will beget more negative experience, people, and results. There’s not much success in that.

The key, then, is to focus on what IS working. To do so, I recommend two simple practices: journaling and meditation.

Maintaining a journal (I call it an Evidence Log, Results Journal, or Gratitude Journal) is a great way to steer your attention to the positive and continually renew your vision for yourself.

Start each day with reflections on what you are grateful for in your life (list them out!) and end each day with notes on what went right (again, write them down), however small they may seem.

Spend time each day in quiet contemplation, prayer or meditation.

Meditation can be powerful tool for arriving at solutions to problems and shifting your attitude so you can attract success sooner rather than later. The magic of meditation is its ability to essentially shut down the outer layer of your judgmental, highly-critical brain and allow your unconscious mind to take over.

This is where you enter a deeper state of inner peace and joy, tapping into a higher level of creativity that will help usher in the results you want. (Don’t know how to meditate? Lots of books and materials are available to guide you this practice. It’s easier than you think. )

Let’s say you’re doing ALL these things, but you still aren’t happy with your results…

I’ll ask you then, are you taking real action?

You may be taking the actions you are used to taking. But if you keep doing what you’ve already done, then you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten. It’s a matter of practicing some new behaviors. Shake things up a bit and see if you can take new actions or modify existing ones.

Remember the Rule of 5.

Every day do five specific things that take you toward your goal. Change up the five actions regularly and be open to feedback so you know when you’re off course.

Lastly, I want to remind you about patience.

It’s natural to underestimate how long a certain goal can take, especially a profound one. When I set a goal to become a millionaire the year was 1983. How long did it take? Eleven years. It took time for Chicken Soup for the Soul to hit the bestseller lists. You could say our tenure on the New York Times list was more than a decade in the making. That’s a lot of patience for someone who initially wanted overnight success.

So, yes, patience is a virtue. But keep at it, and in no time, you’ll be only one week, or one day away from your ultimate success.

Remember… be grateful, reflect on what IS working and continue to take action!

To your success,
Jack Canfield
_______________
Jack Canfield, is the founder and co-creator of book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your success tips from Jack Canfield now at www.JackCanfield.com

-what was your biggest takeaway lesson you learned from the ideas above? Is there anything you would like to share that would be helpful? Feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Motivation Articles, Essays, Tips and Advice

I think my business colleague was a bit nervous when he first got into my Eagle Talon sports car. I was driving us to a few appointments that day. About halfway into our day on the road together, he said that he was pleasantly surprised about my driving. For some reason, he thought that since I drove a black sports car, I would be driving like a wild man. But much to his surprise, he noticed that I never sped or drove very aggressively. This is when I told him about my story about an incident many years ago that changed my driving habits forever.

Negative Experiences That Change You For The Better

I was a young man in my mid twenties just starting my career. I decided to reward myself with a new car. It was a black Toyota Supra, the first car I ever bought on my own. After seeing the black Ferrari on Miami Vice, I wanted a black sports car as well. I seem to have a thing for black sports cars as I’m currently on my fourth one now and the next one will likely be a black Mustang.

I was driving in the fast lane westbound on the QEW, which is the highway that runs around Lake Ontario from Toronto to Niagara Falls. It was a Canadian winter day but the weather was clear and so were the roads, or so I thought.

Like many other vehicles on the highway, I was doing about 120 kilometers per hour in a 100 kilometers speed limit. Everything was smooth sailing on the highway until my car started to somehow lose grip on the road. I spun around 180 degrees and actually saw the other cars coming toward me as I went across all three lanes. Fortunately, my Supra ended up off the highway on the far side shoulder.

It‚Äôs a miracle that I didn’t get hit by any of the other vehicles as I went across the lanes but the side of my car did hit a post which resulted in my side window smashing apart. I was not hurt though so I came out extremely lucky.

What must have happened was that I hit some ‚’black ice’ on the highway. This is a term we use here in Canada that describes ice on the roads that drivers can’t see. In my case, I was driving too fast in black ice conditions I was not aware of.

This single negative experience on the road changed my driving habits forever. Although it didn’t change my personal taste for black sports cars, I no longer speed especially on the highways during winter months. Quite often in questionable winter days, I’m actually well under the speed limit and don’t mind almost every other vehicle on the road passing me, even if they are driven by little old ladies. I would rather make it to my destinations in one piece.

Life Without An Eraser

My real estate agent sends me regular newsletters and in one issue, I saw the following quote by John Gardner.

‚’Life is the art of drawing without an eraser’.

This quote pretty well sums up how to realistically live our lives. We all make mistakes and have some negative experiences in life. We don’t have giant erasers to erase the bad circumstances we all go through. However, if we learn from these negative experiences, we can live our lives better in the future much like how the developing artist learns to draw better each day.

In my Toyota Supra black ice accident, which I can’t erase, I quickly learned to change my driving habits. As a result, I have been accident free for the last twenty five years as a driver ever since (except for one small incident when another driver hit my car in a shopping mall parking lot).

Each day is a learning opportunity for us and having some bad experiences from time to time is just reality. We can’t erase these bad experiences whether they are accidents, failures or mistakes, but we can certainly learn from them.

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author and Karate World Champion. See his FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series to learn how to expand your comfort zone to conquer even your most daunting goals in life.

PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement| PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement

Challenge is an opportunity: make it gold or a tough stone, it only depends on you, you are your own alchemist.

Every time you overcome a challenge, it will lift you up, build you strong and make it easier for you to overcome your next trial. But if you surrender to the challenge, it will downsize you, break a piece of confidence in you and make it harder for you to overcome it the next time. It’s like building muscle – the more you train it the stronger it will become. Once you lift 50 lbs, then adding 5 lbs more is easy. By adding a harmless 5 lbs each time, with consistent practice you will eventually lift a magnificent 100 lbs of challenge, effortlessly. But if you give up on your first 20, 30 lbs, you will never build strong enough muscles. Make a decision now – do you want to live with powerful muscles or saggy fat?

Personal story: I overcame my food cravings by passing over my favorite food stores again and again.

I used to be obsessed with all kinds of sweet and fatty foods. I ate deserts all the time: before, between and after meals. Then later I found it was not a healthy habit. So I decided to quit it and it was hard. Every time I pass my favorite stores, I struggle. There were thousands of voices inside me arguing: Should I eat that cake? Oh I shoud not eat that sugar coated poison! Should I devour those crispy chips? Oh I should not shovel that junk into my stomach! Should I get that insanely rich chocolate? Oh I should so not be tempted by that dark evil sin…The voice was loud and I was on the edge of breaking down. But somehow I pulled out the last drops of willpower remaining in me and managed to pass by the food store once, buying nothing at all. I felt extremely uneasy until I got back home and tasted my first joy of small victory: it was delicious. Then I passed by the seductive food stores again, for the second time. It was a little bit easier because last time I did it nothing horrible happened except I felt extremely proud of myself. And I made myself pass those heavenly-scented bakeries and fast food chains again and again, each time getting bothered less. Now I have my diet healthily streamlined and I am so happy that I made the first few tough choices towards fighting my food addictions. It built good momentum for me to coast by the rest of the temptations easily and smoothly.

I also transformed my lifestyle into an active one by adding exercise one dose after another.

I used to be an inactive person. I was sitting behind my desk at work for 8 to 9 hours every day, commuting to work and everywhere else by taxi and subway, sitting in my couch at home and sleeping for one third of my life in the bed. I was involved with zero exercise at that time and lived with very low energy and spirit every day. Then I finally felt sick of it and chose to add some movement to my life. I changed my office job into a part-time one and applied for another part-time job working in a bar. So I made myself stand hours in the venue and walk around customers all the time. The first days were a “standing hell.” My feet were screaming “You fat lady!” all day and night. But I stuck through every minute I wanted to give up, telling myself “Everybody in this business stands full hours just fine. You can definitely do it too! Let’s hang on for one week first.” And after that one week, though with sore muscles everywhere I still came up with the conclusion that, “This is actually bearable.” So I hung on another week, then one more after that… until it’s been four months now and I feel as comfortable as a fish in its pond to stand 20 hours a week in the bar. And I didn’t only stand in the bar for those four months. It was just a small trigger that activated the rest of the revolution. I soon fell in love with bicycling. I rode my bicycle to work, to meetings and to many romantic spots in the town. I was on the road for a minimum of one hour every day. I also got myself involved in a “stand up computer” project and was standing at the computer four hours everyday on average. It has become my most comfortable position to play with the computer now. I also touched up my life with dancing and stretching. Whenever my body feels stiff I give myself a good stretching and a round of dancing too if the mood is there. Basically I became quite an active person now and this is not at all hard as I so self-convincingly imagined in my couch for the past years. I am so happy that I made the first tiny steps to walk out of my comfort zone. Soon I was catching up with the rhythms and running spontaneously.

So what is your challenge that you are afraid of? Face it now, conquer it and let it leverage you even stronger.

If you are too timid to speak up for yourself in daily life, then regardless of your fears, force yourself to say one word out of the heart every day. At first, you will only mumble nonsense and totally sound like a nerd. But just keep throwing the balls, you will eventually hit some targets and organize clear sentences.

If you are suffering in your current life but don’t think you deserve a better one, then you will keep living in the suffocating situation. To breathe new air, you need to step out of your dead zone. Once you buck up and make the first courageous step, then adding a few more steps is not that a big deal and soon you will walk farther away from the cave you hated.

It is always easier to do nothing about the challenge and remain in the status quo. But I strongly suggest you choose a harder choice, fight with your challenge and let it lift you to a higher position with more beautiful views. Once you get started with throwing a few bold punches into life, you will soon feel comfortable to box with those opponents you thought so tough and tall. And later you will get so good at your skills that you must call in stronger competitors to the ring to match the game and have more fun. Be that aspiring boxer in your life.

As Nietzsche put it, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement| PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement

Photo by Anna Gay

Guest Post By Allison Mac

“Adversity is like a strong wind.
It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn,
so that we see ourselves as we really are.”
~Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Have you ever faced the kind of adversity that crushed you to your soul and left you feeling paralyzed and numb? Have you ever felt so lost that it seemed as if there was no way out of the darkness?

I thought that I have faced adversity and overcome it. In my life I have battled illness, financial loss and relationship trouble and yet I endured to be strong, healthy, financially stable and loved. It wasn’t until several months ago that my biggest challenge was about to stare me straight in the eyes and make me buckle at the knees.

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Why do we fear that which will make us grow? Think about that statement for a minute. Why do we fear that which will make us grow?

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Unfortunately it is not. It seems all those things in the world that will assist in our growth we completely overlook. We then substitute it with something haphazard.

We treat things like confidence, courage, self trust, love, as if they were the grim reaper. It is as if they were entities that only the elite could access.

Why is that? How did we get to a point in civilization when our gifts are perceived as our demise?

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You probably agree that the #1 reason why people can’t pursue their passions is MONEY. It takes time to find a way through which your passion can replace the secured paycheck.

However, there is another equally important reason.

On the surface, you can call it the fear of failure!

However, there is a much deeper and critical aspect of your fear of failure, specially when it comes to pursuing your passion.

It doesn’t hurt that much when you fail to achieve an average goal that you’re not so emotionally attached to it.

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There are many ideas that are not easy to accept, and one of the worst is the idea that we can not have the success that we look for, because we are afraid of success.

It is frequent to see how people that are working on their life’s argument, as a way of approaching more quickly to the goals that they have, when they begin to practice what they have learned, and begin to come closer to their goals, all of a sudden they stop practicing the techniques. Why do they do that?

Simply because they are afraid that their new behaviors might take them toward some kind of unknown danger.
Read the rest of «Do You Suffer Fear Of Success?»