By Books Author Denise Turney

The earlier you recognize that you are stuck, the sooner you can break free. However, noticing that you are jammed isn’t always a cinch. Furthermore, and at a minimum, you could get stuck in one primary area.

Are You Stuck in These Areas?

For instance, you could get stuck in a relationship, a career or physical state. Examples of this include continuing to work a job you haven’t felt excited about in more than three years, carrying 20 or more extra pounds for two years or longer and staying in a relationship that leaves you feeling flat.

Settle for living a life that’s stuck and the experience could spread like contagion. At first you might feel flat in a relationship only to start to feel angry and unfulfilled at your job. Next, you might start questioning whether you made the right choice when you moved into your home.

Over time, more parts of your life might feel stagnant and stale. Forget living in appreciation. Everywhere you look, you might perceive little to be thankful for. This lack of appreciation affects your energy, potentially blocking you from perceiving and receiving the good you want, the very good that can get you unstuck.

Ways to Break Free from Being Stuck

To break free, first you must recognize what is happening. If you’ve slipped into the habit of lying to yourself, commit to being honest with yourself. The worse that might seem to happen is your own thoughts might reprimand, challenge or threaten you by telling you something bad will happen if you don’t return to the habit of lying to yourself.

Set aside time in the morning or evening, whenever you tend to feel more inwardly available, to think about how and why you got stuck. For example, did you stay at a job longer than you wanted because you were afraid that you couldn’t find a job that excited you and paid more (or the same amount) than what you’re current job pays?

Did you choose to stay in a dead-end relationship because you convinced yourself that no one else would want you? There’s a reason why you keep choosing to stay in a situation that you’ve outgrown.

Why You’re Staying in the Situation

Figure out what the reason is. The answer could provide clues to specific ways of thinking and actions you can take to get free and start to celebrate newness. Answers to why you keep doing what you know isn’t serving you also open your eyes, helping you to avoid falling into the same trap again.

Writing in a journal could help. Just start writing about how you feel about your relationships, work, physical health, responsibilities, etc. Focus on spotting fears that lie to you, telling you that you couldn’t possibly do better than you’re currently doing.

Put pen to paper and answer why you believe these lies. Avoid looking for someone to blame. The goal is to start to recognize how your mind is currently working. Getting free involves rewiring your mind.

Honesty is Key to Getting Unstuck

After you finish writing about why and how you got stuck, write about things you appreciate. Get specific. Don’t rush. Take your time, even if the process expands across one to two weeks.

The aim is to get comfortable being honest with yourself. Absent self-honesty, you might not break free. Next, pull out a spreadsheet or blank sheet of paper. Record what your ideal life looks and feels like.

Touch on specific areas of your life during this exercise. Also, think about what you want your life to look and feel like overall. The next steps require you to make decisions and get out and take smart actions.

Tips to Break Free

Create a column in the spreadsheet to record the specific actions you will take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. As an example, one entry might show as follows:

Keep yourself honest by recording specific actions you take. Also, record the outcomes from your actions. Getting unstuck, celebrating newness and staying free requires honesty.

Recording actions you take and when and the results or outcomes from those actions is important. It helps you to see what is working. And it helps you to see areas that need tweaking or a big change in your approach.

Review Actions to Get Unstuck

As you do this work, continue to write in your journal about how you feel and thoughts and ideas that surface. Once a week, review what you have written in your journal. Look at your spreadsheet once a week as well.

Should you get tempted to give up, especially if you don’t see the results you want as quickly as you’d like, remind yourself that a change in choices and actions will eventually produce a noticeable result. Motivate yourself daily by reading empowering messages like motivational questions and short empowering writings.

Prove You Love Yourself to Break Free

Show yourself that you love you. There are countless ways you can do this. For starters, you could:

• Write yourself a love note once a week. Place the note inside a card that you open on a Monday morning.
• See your connectivity to all that lives. Let the appreciation you have for pets, friends, colleagues, etc. expand until it includes you.
• Track loving thoughts and actions that you take toward yourself and others.
• Bless yourself with the gift of silence by sitting still once a day.
• Breathe deeply daily.
• Explore nature, allowing yourself to rest, be curious and recharge.
• Engage in creative arts that make your heart sing and jump with joy.
• Hug yourself.
• Look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I love you!”

Getting Out of a Stuck State is Healing

The more evidence you have that you really do love yourself, the more you might start to trust yourself. Valuing and trusting yourself can lift your confidence and stir up your courage, empowering you to take the actions you need to take to live free!

Open up to newness by celebrating good change that shows up in your life, even if the good change is a surprise, not something you were aiming for or expecting. Taking steps to get unstuck is a way to heal. Believe it or not, there’s a place within you that knows just what you should do and when to heal, break free and live in the wonder of newness! Open up to that place within you, listening to and following its guidance.

By Books Writer Denise Turney

Do you want to turn your passion into a career? You could do it, but you’ll need more than desire to pull it off. This article covers several ways you might be able to turn your passion into a rewarding career, one that pays all your bills and more.

Yet, let’s pause.

Before you take steps to work your passion, take a healthy dose of truth serum. It’s been said that doing what you love protects you from ever having to “really” work. Although this sounds good, simply doing what you love is generally not (if ever) enough to earn a full-time income.

Get to the Heart of Your Passion Career

Therefore, before you spend money on what you’re passionate about, ask yourself a few questions. First, ask yourself if you’re serious about this goal, not mildly so but intensely serious. Here are other important questions to ask yourself:

• How much time are you willing to invest in your goal?
• What have you used your passion to create so far?
• On a scale of 0-10, how much do you love working in your passion for 5 or more hours a day?
• Are you looking to work a full-time schedule in this career or are you hoping to strike it rich quickly so you don’t have to work?
• Is the motivation to turn passion into a full-time career rooted in the wish to run away from something (i.e., a demanding manager, difficult colleague)?
• Did someone you admire earn a full-time income working in their passion field and you’re now trying to emulate that person?
• In what ways have you exercised courage, resilience and persistence?
• Do you know someone who presently works in your passion field? Have you spoken with them, getting the details on what’s involved in achieving success in the field?

Work Goal Specifics

Passion is one of the hot emotions. The internal mental temperature is turned way up with passion, so much that it’s easy to slip into delusion once you start zoning in on what you love to do. To increase your chances of fulfilling your goal and to avoid deluding yourself, take your time answering the above questions. Really think about them. Go slow pondering your answers.

After you’re certain that you’re ready to move forward, it’s time to focus on resources. The specifics of your goal have a direct impact on required resources. For example, if you want to be a freelance writer, a graphics designer, a career coach, a virtual assistant or a customer service representative, a reliable computer, certain certifications, a printer and dependable Internet access could be sufficient.

Passion Career Resources

Other passions require more resources. So, to begin, identify how your passion aligns with careers that interest you. This will help reveal needed resources. As a tip, consider turning to reputable research material to understand what’s generally used in the career you want to enter. An example of this research material is the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If you plan to work your passion from home, there are basic resources you’ll need. Included among these basic resources are:

• A work desk and chair (get a desk and chair that fit your height)
• Computer and printer (as previously shared)
• Light source that promotes good eyesight
• Sit-stand desk if you want to avoid sitting for hours a day
• Filing cabinet
• Shredder (especially if you work with confidential information)
• Office supplies (i.e., copy paper, envelopes, postage stamps)
• Licenses and certifications (these are required for certain roles)

Money as a Primary Career Resource

Money is often a primary resource needed to operate a business, whether you’re a solopreneur or whether you work at home or in an office. This raises an important point. Even if you generate significant income from your passion early-on, you’ll likely need startup finances to turn your passion into a consistent revenue generating gig.

Where will those startup finances come from? Below are several places where you could find funds:

• Savings account
• Income gained from a second job
• Rental income you get on a second property
• Bonus check from work
• By paying off a recurring bill (i.e., car note, cable bill) and using that money to fund the startup
• Selling a vehicle you no longer use

Now that you’ve identified a career that aligns with your passions, gotten clear about needed resources and pinpointed where your startup finances are, it’s time to discover what you’ll need to start generating revenue. For instance, do you need to land paying clients, develop a product, register or patent a product or find a platform to start selling products and services on?

Way to Generate Revenue from Passion Career

Below are some ways you could start to generate revenue. Do your homework and research each option until you select the option that works best for what you’ll be doing.

• Attend networking events and develop relationships with prospects, eventually bringing them on as paying clients
• Set up mall pop-up booths and showcase your products and/or services
• Register to attend conferences and conventions, distributing business cards, flyers, product catalogs, etc. Regularly follow-up with the right contacts you make at these events.
• Build a website to sell your products and services on
• Offer a free giveaway to customers to buy one or more of your primary products
• Start a subscription service that has a direct link to your products or services
• Participate in affiliate sales programs
• Provide paid advertising for other companies on your website and social media accounts
• Run a sale to attract buyers
• Sell products on large, established sites like Amazon, Walmart and Target

Marketing and Promotion Tools

Generating ongoing revenue may take effort. Marketing and promoting are like friends when it comes to generating sustainable revenue. Here are platforms and marketing and promotion tools that might prove effective:

• Large online platforms like Walmart, Target and Amazon.com
• RangeMe (if you sell products in military stores)
• Social media (choose the platform that best attracts your products or services’ target audience)
• Press release distributors
• Ads in local newspapers (again media outlets that attract your target audience)
• Radio stations (think – target audience)
• Reputable product and service review sites
• Direct mail (i.e., postcards, flyers, effectively written letters)
• Festivals, conventions, conferences, etc.
• Public speaking opportunities

Ways to Care for Yourself While Growing Your Career

This next tip might surprise you. Just as it takes action, focus, intent and yes – passion – to find a way to turn your passion into a full-time career, it takes rest, awareness and self-care to keep that passion alive and strong. Definitely, avoid slipping into workaholism or basing your value on how hard or how long you work. Incorporating these and other relaxation and self-awareness techniques into your day could ensure you rest, relax and recharge regularly:

• Get sufficient deep sleep each night
• Sit still for 5 to 10 minutes in the morning and again for 5 to 10 minutes at night
• Read one to three positive quotes a day
• Exercise outdoors for 45 minutes to an hour a day
• Talk with a friend or relative several times a week
• Do three things you enjoy every day (i.e., listen to music you love, soak in a warm bubble bath)
• Treat yourself to a day at the spa
• Read books you love
• Go swimming
• Relax on the porch on weekends
• Turn off technology (i.e., tablets, laptops) two hours before you head to bed
• Avoid eating heavy meals four hours before heading to bed
• Count your blessings
• Practice awareness and take breaks when you feel
• Seek support as needed
• Pray
• Meditate
• Be flexible and open minded
• Eat a healthy diet

Sustaining Passion as a Career

Fantasizing and daydreaming about what you want to do is easy. Doing what you love is also easy. Turning passion into a sustainable, full-time career is another story.

There will be twists and turns. Surprises, starts, stops, successes and market and industry shifts. Each of these (and more) will be part of your journey, especially if you work your passion for a decade or longer. Long term success depends on your commitment to your career.

Similar to how rest, self-awareness and self-care can keep you from slipping into workaholism which can, in turn, guard you from burnout and overwhelm, celebrating your successes fuels your ongoing efforts. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend money to acknowledge and celebrate your forward steps.

Celebrate Successes Linking Your Passion and Career

Playing music that you love and dancing to your heart’s delight as you focus on a recent success is one way to celebrate. Treating yourself to a delicious home-cooked meal, an afternoon at the theater or an outdoor bike ride are other ways to acknowledge and celebrate what you have done. You could also send yourself flowers or buy yourself a small gift, something that will last and remind you of the achievement.

In addition to celebrating successes, keep learning. Take online courses, attend webinars, go to conferences and offline seminars. Read books that focus on your career. Network with people who share your passion to learn about new product development, marketing, promotion, etc. resources and growth opportunities.

By Books Writer Denise Turney

A loving family and faith in good outcomes are an effective combination when it comes to facing and overcoming breast cancer. The stronger your support system, the better. Yet, even with a strong support system, there are days when you may feel exhausted and worried. Expressing concerns with your oncologist and family practitioner can help.

Catching Breast Cancer

Catching the disease early is also key. Regardless of the stage of recovery, it can help to speak with other women and men who’ve experienced breast cancer. Open dialogue with people who are experiencing a similar challenge can protect you from believing that you’re isolated, alone or without options. Communicating and sharing with others who are going through what you are is also a great way to learn of strategies to deal with treatment recovery, inability to connect with colleagues in-person and financial strain.

Having a loving family and faith could give you the courage to inform loved ones about the disease and how it is impacting you. Even more, you would have one or more relatives you could discuss current events with, placing them lovingly against the backdrop of a challenge you experienced as kids and overcame. Being open and honest with someone who you’ve known since childhood can offer strength and comfort.

You Are Loved

It can also assure you that, regardless of what happens during treatment, recovery and beyond, you are always loved for who you are. And this raises an important point. Your background, health level, financial situation, home life circumstances, what you experience day to day – nothing – changes what you were created to be.

You are beyond words, beyond explanation, past any type of perception – an absolutely amazing eternal being.

A disease cannot take away your ability to care, be kind, trustworthy or courageous. Breast cancer also cannot take away your ability to love. Depending on what your passions are, you might also be able to continue to pursue your passions. For instance, if you love to paint, write, build crafts, sing or create architectural designs, you could continue to engage in those passions.

Connecting with Family and Friends During Breast Cancer Treatments

Should you find yourself feeling isolated and alone, on days you’re feeling better, you could call a relative or a friend and volunteer at a local charity event. Also, rather than to stay at home, you could spend a few hours a week hanging out with your sister, a brother or another relative-friend.

Joining a book club and attending book club meetings, preferably in-person, gives you the power of a shared passion. Engaging in discussions around your love for reading books in one or more genres, gives your mind a break from focusing on breast cancer. Furthermore, it allows you to laugh out loud, look at specific scenarios and celebrate big events that occur in the books with like minded book readers.

It’s these people who share your passion, as well as friends, including family members and childhood friends, who can help you tap into your inner power. These loving people can encourage you to keep going. They might tell you something like, “While you’re receiving treatments and pulling back on the hectic schedule you once worked at the office, let’s get involved in a charity.” Or they might suggest, “Instead of staying home all weekend, why don’t we go see that new comedy movie and grab salad and pasta from that great Italian restaurant near the mall.”

Shift Focus Away from Breast Cancer

Suggestions like these, especially if you take family and friends up on the suggestions, keep you from getting isolated and from feeling alone, even if you’re the only person you know who’s dealing with breast cancer. Each time you take loved ones up on an invitation to be social, you also help your focus to shift away from challenge.

Who knows? While you shift focus, you might stumble upon a new passion, something you get involved with that brings you joy for decades. For example, you might discover that you have a passion for creating gorgeous floral arrangements, quilting, ceramics, fishing, boating or teaching.

Family and friends can also help you to use food to treat and strengthen your body. To motivate you to invest in a healthy diet, family members might start eating healthier themselves. Additionally, family and faith in good can reduce worry and stress which, in turn, can help you to sleep better at night.

Breast Cancer Recovery

Blessings that a loving family and faith in good bring to your life extends across years, well beyond recovery from breast cancer. The love and support you gain from reaching out to family and friends and keeping faith in good can empower you even as breast cancer research discovers new ways to reduce deaths and symptoms associated with the disease. And fortunately, researchers continue to seek a cure.

In fact, breast cancer research continues to give women and men diagnosed with the disease hope. This hope and cure effort expands decades. For instance, six decades ago, in the 1960s, being told you had breast cancer could send a message that your life would be short.¹ That’s not so today.

The National Library of Medicine shares that, “Much of the progress in breast cancer was the result of the development of adjuvant chemotherapy. Fisher and Bonadonna showed in the mid-1970s that the addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to definitive surgery improved disease-free and overall survival in primary breast cancer.”²

Forward Strides

Fortunately, the number of deaths caused by breast cancer have declined. In fact, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shares that, “Deaths from breast cancer have declined over time, but breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death among women overall and the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic women.”³

Yes. Strides have been made, but there’s a good deal of work yet to be done. Reducing breast cancer deaths among Hispanic women and lowering the breast cancer death rate among African American women are two areas to focus on gaining good ground in.

Fundraisers, charity walks, ongoing efforts and attention on finding a cure and better treatments, especially treatments that produce fewer side effects, are wins. So too is connecting with loving family and good friends, allowing yourself to be loved and cared for. In this spirit, may Portia’s fictional story offer hope, empowerment and inspiration.

Resources:

1. https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.3322/canjclin.20.1.10
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4879690/#:~:text=Much%20of%20the%20progress%20in,survival%20in%20primary%20breast%20cancer.
3. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/basic_info/index.htm#:~:text=Each%20year%20in%20the%20United,cancer%20than%20all%20other%20women.

By Books Writer – Denise Turney

Technology has busted open the door to the entrepreneurial life. More than a few people are taking advantage of this shift. In fact, Nasdaq reports that, in the United States alone, 1 in 3 people have a side hustle.1 More money, flexibility, opportunity to work your way into a new career, lifelong learning and the chance to slowly launch your own company are reasons why you might want to consider a side hustle.

So Many Benefits Working a Side Hustle

Because you could work a side hustle from home or even while out on the road, you could work a second gig from anywhere. You could even tap into income that you receive from your full-time job to fund a startup. Another thing that you could do is to use money from your full-time gig to pay for marketing, office supplies and other resources that you need to keep your side hustle going.

Thinking about starting a gig on the side? Check out these additional benefits associated with having a side hustle:

• Pay off credit cards and loans
• Set aside more money for retirement
• Build a savings to travel, pay for home repairs or put your kids through college
• Explore new careers
• Invest more money in real estate, stocks and bonds
• Work your way into better financial health to eliminate money worries

Are Your Organized for a Job Side Hustle?

There are plenty of benefits to be gained from working a side hustle. That’s for sure. However, even if you love the second gig, taking on additional work is going to chew into your time. If you have strong organizational skills, you might enter a smooth flow while working your second job.

On the other hand, if “being organized” is not your strength, you could still make it work. To realize success while working a side hustle, consider why you want to work another job. Knowing the why behind the move can definitely help you realize when you’re on track.

For example, if you want to work another gig to pay off a high interest credit card, write that down in a notebook. Then, pay a certain amount extra on your credit card until it’s paid off. Believe it or not, you do not have to keep a credit card balance. You can actually live very good without one.

Set Yourself Up for Job Success

Here are more ways to yield successful results after you take on a side hustle. As a tip, the number one thing is to take on a side hustle in a field that you’re passionate about. This is a part-time job, project, freelance work or consulting work that you absolutely love.

Now, for the ways to increase your chances of experiencing side hustle success:

• Set days and times when you’ll work your side hustle. The last thing that you want is to keep taking on more work until you end up having to manage two full-time gigs. So pay attention to when and how much time you’re investing in your side hustle.
• Determine how much money you’re going to pour into this new job. For instance, if you’re writing books as a side hustle, get clear about how much money you’re going to spend on book marketing, attending book festivals and promotions.
• Keep your side gig separate from your full-time job. This might take some discipline. In other words, focus on your full-time job while you’re there and on your side gig at other times.
• Delegate and grow. Reach out to the “experts” when you need to complete work that you’re less experienced with. In this case, you might hire someone on Fiverr, Upwork, etc. to design logos, write and distribute press releases or design a website.
• Keep clear records. You’ll really appreciate this one when you file taxes. Also, educate yourself on quarterly taxes or any self-employed taxes (and deductions) that you might deal with.

And, network. Just as you can benefit from networking at your full-time job, you can continue to move forward by networking with people in your side hustle field. Who knows? One day soon, your side hustle could become so successful that it becomes your main source of income, earning you a lot more than you ever made working a traditional gig.

Resources:

1. Nasdaq:  https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/1-in-3-americans-have-a-side-hustle.-here-are-the-benefits-to-having-one-2021-07-24

By Books Author Denise Turney

What do you think about this? On average, you have anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day.¹ That’s a lot of thinking! If you’ve recalled your dreams, you’ve experienced your mind thinking while you’re sleeping, which brings up an important fact.

What Never Stops Thinking

Your mind never stops! Even more, what you think creates situations. Continual thoughts influence how you feel and what you think about yourself and your environment. Your thoughts are powerful!

During a day, you might think about a project you’re working on, a community event you’re interested in attending, how your body looks or feels, a relationship, your finances and what you’re going to do over the weekend. Furthermore and although you might not consider it, there’s something you think about a lot and it’s having a huge impact.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s YOU!

How Long Have You Been Wrongly Judged?

Many of the thoughts you have regard YOU at some level, in some way. This means that what you think about yourself is absolutely critical. It impacts everything you feel, do, talk yourself in or out of, believe and more.

If you’ve spent years striving to achieve a goal only to consistently face a seemingly impenetrable wall, your perceptions about YOU could be what’s actually creating the wall. How you see yourself can empower you or rob you of goodness.

Here’s a test. Take a few minutes to reflect on situations and people who you feel happy, safe and loved around. Could be a loving parent, a trustworthy friend, a pet, a certain holiday or a favorite vacation spot.

Is The Thought Door Opening or Closing You to Good?

Are there certain words or phrases that spring to mind when you reflect on these people and situations? For instance, do these descriptors pop up:

• She’s such a good friend
• I can always rely on him
• That’s got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth
• It’s so much fun attending those events
• As long as I’ve had my pet dog, she’s been loyal and so loving

Regardless of how busy your schedule or how fatigued you are, there probably isn’t much resistance when it comes to thinking about being in those situations or with those people or pets. The door is always open.

Do the opposite. Reflect on people and situations that you experience fear-based emotions (i.e. anger, disappointment, anxiety, frustration) when you are around them. Again, this could be a neighboring bully, supervisor who enjoys criticizing you, violent ex-partner, a house that keeps breaking down or a computer that regularly stalls, causing you to lose valuable data.

Linking Thoughts and Emotions

Which descriptors automatically surface in your mind when you’re around these people or are in these situations? Are any of these familiar:

• Never should have bought this house. It’s nothing but trouble.
• This is the last time I’m eating at this restaurant. The service and the food are bad.
• She can’t stand me. Being mean to me brings her joy.
• He’s so unpredictable; he scares me.
• If I had the money, I’d swap this computer out for another one.

Focusing on the above phrases and descriptors, how do you feel? Do you feel like you can trust these people and situations? Furthermore, does life feel good and open to you when you simply think about these people and these situations?

Uncovering Hidden Sabotaging Thoughts

Believe it or not, you’ve probably felt and thought a range of both about yourself. Hiding judgments and perceptions about yourself doesn’t clear out the perceptions and judgments. It just pushes them down, out of conscious mind, and far enough away so you get lost as it regards knowing why you feel the way you do and why you stop yourself from living fully.

To live more fully, pay attention to what you think about YOU.

Simply notice what you think about yourself. Easy ways to do this are to:

• Write in a journal (do this daily or 3 to 5 times a week)
• Type the first thought that pops into your mind in to a spreadsheet when you waken (you’ll start to notice repetitive thoughts and might start to see how those thoughts link to your emotions)
• Sit still in the morning and before you go to bed and just watch thoughts pass like clouds across your mind

Promise Yourself

Beyond noticing what you think about yourself, commit to love yourself. Back to a good friend and situations that cause you to feel joy, peace and safe — start talking to and about yourself in ways that empower you, that help you open to more good. Be a good friend to YOU!

Why is this important?

What you think about yourself builds your self-identity. A strong, love-based self-identity offers the courage to go after what you really want. Additionally, a strong, love-based self-identity lets you know you can overcome challenges, get through trying situations while walking in peace and shift into higher levels of living.

Forbes shares that, “Having a solid sense of self is essential to your overall well-being, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health – fueling your recognition of your worth.”² The periodical goes on to say, “Lacking a strong sense of self can make it hard to know what you want – forging feelings of uncertainty or indecisiveness for important decisions.”

Thoughts and Your Self-Identity

Self-identity keeps you stuck or it can set you free. For example, if you see yourself as an impatient truck driver who should be thankful to simply have a job that pays the bills, you might never become a patient, caring chiropractor, even if that’s what you truly want to do.

The way you see yourself (what you think about YOU) determines what you achieve. Whether you live the life you came here to live or not is truly up to you.

It’s been said that nothing changes in your world until you change (on the inside). In fact, there’s a school of thought that the “outer world” is merely a reflection of your inner world. Neville Goddard, Alan Watts, Lisa Nichols, Tony Robbins, Dr. Wayne Dyer and others have shared these truths for years.

Healing Starts with YOU!

Knowing this, the greatest thing you can pull off is to love yourself. See and feel yourself living the life you want. Actually, see yourself doing and being in situations you want to be in now – not seeing yourself more patient, more loving, more courageous, more insightful, etc. in the future, but seeing yourself that way right now.

Sure. It might take a few days, but you should start to feel and see shifts happening on the inside and outside. Keep at it. Seek support through open discussions with trustworthy people who love you, therapy, books, etc.

Loving yourself is very powerful. It’s also the only way to heal.

Resources:

1. https://tlexmindmatters.com/#:~:text=It%20was%20found%20that%20the,thoughts%20as%20the%20day%20before.
2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2022/06/16/heres-how-your-personal-identity-and-sense-of-self-affect-your-growth/?sh=14198feb69bf

By Book Author Denise Turney

The pull you feel – that inner tug moving you toward success may never fully go away. Why? You were born for success. Depending on your childhood, it might have felt natural to approach new tasks as if you were going to succeed.

 As a kid, you might have believed and felt that you’d never fail at anything. That’s why you explored so much, learned as much as you did and flexed your creative muscles. Within six years, you may have learned to roll over, stand on your own, talk, walk, read, run, climb, ride a bike, do a somersault and more. Learning was fun because you just knew that you were going to succeed.

Make Learning Fun Again

Now learning might not be as fun. You’re older and you’ve experienced setbacks, disappointments and, the sting of – failure. What you might not notice is that you’ve likely had more successes, maybe even a lot more successes, than failures, which leads to the first point.

To see how easily it is to open to success, get a sheet of paper or open up a spreadsheet. List successes that you have been a part of over the last year. Let your mind go. Recall as many successes you were involved with as you can. Take your time.

This exercise can help you prove to yourself that success does come easily for you. Stay free of judging the successes, categorizing them as simple or hard. Simply list the successes. If you find the exercise particularly enjoyable, go back two years – revisiting prior achievements.

Come On, Get Curious

Next, step away from the past and get curious about a major success you’d love to achieve – a goal you’d love to manifest in the approaching days. Consider the purpose that’s linked to this specific success. In other words, get clear about why you want to succeed at the goal.

For instance, will achieving the goal help you fulfill a promise you made to your younger self? Will achieving the goal help you strengthen people who are now experiencing a challenge you’ve overcome?

Finding out the purpose (or the why) that’s associated with your goal can prove to be incredibly empowering and motivating. Additionally, it could remove mental barriers you have about you being successful.

Linking Success to Greater Gains

As a start, if you think you don’t deserve to have the success you want, linking the achievement with how it benefits others could send you above the self-judgement barrier. Depending on what you’re aiming to do, you could help military veterans heal from mental injuries. Or you could stop human trafficking in the town where you live.

Regardless of the goal, people are watching you. In tangible and intangible ways, your success will inspire others. In fact, you may never know everyone who your wins will impact.

See if you can think of 50 ways that others would benefit if you achieved the success you want. This short exercise will help you to see how big the impact of your goal is. As you continue doing this exercise, you might increasingly start to see and feel how much good is linked to your success.

Start Taking Action

To recap, remind yourself of how much success you’ve already been a part of. Then, discover the purpose that’s linked to a current goal you have. And see how many ways fulfilling the goal will benefit others.

After this, it’s time to take action. Research what you want to do, looking for shortcuts, ways to save time, money and energy. Also, identify step-by-step actions that you’re going to take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Write down necessary resources too. These resources might include grants and other funding tools, administrative staff, marketing tools, etc.

After you list the actions and resources you need, take at least one action that you listed. Don’t wait. Take action. Just thinking about what you need to do does not count. Keep at it, action-by-action, until you complete all steps required to fulfill your goal.

Measure the results of each action, identifying where you need to make changes. Stay focused. Steer clear of magical thinking. To stay empowered and motivated as you do the work that gets you closer to your goal, read books, articles and research material about your goal and how your beliefs about your ability to succeed affect outcomes.

By Self Help Books Author Denise Turney

Decision – It’s the one act that’s fueled with power. Regardless of the situation you’re in, you have the power to decide, to choose. Also, whether you recognize (or accept) it, throughout the day you’re making decisions.

Decisions That Are Creating Your Life

The sooner you accept that you are, indeed, developing your own life decision by decision, the sooner you can change your life. Here’s a test. When you wake up, write down your first impulses. It could be the impulse to go to the bathroom, revisit an emotional experience from the previous day, exercise, check your mobile device or eat or drink.

Years could pass before you clearly recognize that you are choosing to have these impulses, and not only that, but that you’re choosing to have these impulses when you experience them. Fortunately, your desire to own the power of a single decision is enough to motivate you to focus until you become aware of the choices you make.

How Do You Feel When You Wake Up?

Those studying the empirical sciences, pioneers¹ like Sigmund Freud, John Henry Brodhead, Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and Mamie Phipps Clark, discovered some of the mind’s power, particularly regarding the power of the unconscious mind. Discoveries of how the unconscious mind functions pulled a thick cover away from the ability to understand oneself and each other.

Before you continue, it might be beneficial to learn more about your subconscious. Why? The mind never stops. Even as you sleep, it’s working.

Which is why you wake up feeling different emotions. Depending on what your subconscious focuses on as you sleep, you may wake up feeling energized, hopeful, loved, confident, depressed, angry, unloved or afraid.

Good-Bye Past

Here’s the thing. Past experiences and memories are huge reservoirs that the subconscious taps into to make present-day decisions. Well shares that the subconscious “keeps your experiences, concepts, insights, and perceptions long after your conscious mind has forgotten them. From here come the feelings and notions that rule your conscious self, behaviors, habits, decision-making, and mindset.”²

Sure. This brain functioning removes a lot of work from your conscious. It also puts you on autopilot, which goes back to early impulses you feel when you wake up.

Pay attention and you’ll see that your life experiences as well as emotions you feel – repeat.

Becoming Aware of Patterns and Repetition

If you’re serious about awakening and experiencing the power of a conscious decision, you might find it helpful to write down the first thoughts and feelings you have when you wake up. A simple journal is enough to jot down the thoughts and feelings.

Do it for a month and see if you don’t spot patterns, repetition. Also, write down your night dreams. After all, it’s during night dreams that your subconscious speaks. You might be tempted to think that dreams, thoughts and impulses are coming from outside you.

They aren’t. Instead, they are coming from a part of you that you have disassociated from. Now you don’t recognize it, but your lack of recognition or willingness to accept what you’re doing doesn’t stop the whole mind from putting the power of a single decision into action.

And not just once or twice – but hundreds or more times every single day.

Oh. The power of a single decision.

What Is Your Mind Doing?

Because the mind is split, you’ll have to find ways to become aware of what your whole mind is doing. This can allow you to make better decisions, the type of decisions that develop the life you want, a life filled with joy and peace.

In addition to writing down your first thoughts and emotions when you wake up and writing down your dreams, to become aware of what your whole mind is doing:

• Write down repetitive actions, thoughts and emotions you experience during the day and before you go to bed. Simple journaling could reveal a lot of this.
• Be honest with yourself. Refuse to lie to yourself.
• Let the idea that sacrifice is good – go. Just let it go.
• Say good-bye to repression. When you repress thoughts and feelings, you hide things from yourself. What you hide is still at work in your subconscious. Keep repression and you could enter a state where you engage in behaviors but don’t know why you do what you do. Speaking is behavior. What you choose to say is behavior.
• Speak positive affirmations throughout the day to reprogram your mind. The more emotion that’s attached to the affirmations, the better. Creating your own positive affirmations could also be more effective than reciting affirmations someone else made.

How To Start Thinking Differently

Here are more actions you could incorporate into your day to become aware of how your mind works. Even more, these actions could help you reprogram your mind so that what you think is increasingly beneficial:

• Visualize yourself experiencing the good that you want. Daydreaming doesn’t count. Use your conscious mind to visually experience what you want to happen. Be diligent and persistent. However, don’t press. Stop should feel anxious, fearful or discouraged.
• Breathe deeply one to three times a day. Simply stop and take in and release 10 deep breaths one to three times a day.
• Engage in three love-rooted activities that cause you to feel joy and peace, a welcomed lightheartedness, every day.
• Try a new approach, activity or path at least once a week. Again, pause or stop should you feel fearful, anxious, pressured or discouraged.
• Read about people or talk with people who changed their lives in good ways. This will build your memory bank with “real” life experiences that show the power of a single decision.

The Power of a Single Decision

The power of a single decision might be realized with just one thought. Depending on how your mind functions and your programming, it could take weeks, months or years of decisioning to experience a major shift.

Time doesn’t diminish the power of a single decision. To gain more from a decision, take smart actions. It’s like rubbing sticks together to start a fire.

As you start to experience the power of a single decision, you’ll see the importance of desire. Plainly stated, if you don’t really want what you have decided to pursue, you’ll probably quit. Therefore, avoid hiding thoughts, impulses and emotions from your conscious.

Become aware of what you really want.

Continue to discover how your mind functions, your whole mind.

Then, speak love-rooted affirmations, visualize, meditate and journal to reprogram your mind. Keep at it until your thoughts, emotions and impulses change, until your life in this world changes.

Believe it or not, you’ve already done this. Look back and see how much you’ve changed since you were a kid. Those shifts didn’t just happen. Your mind created the change.

You can do it again, changing and improving your life with the power of a single decision.

Resources:

1. History of Psychology – Psychology (wsu.edu)
2. How Your Subconscious Mind Controls Your Behavior (well.org)

By Self-Help Author Denise Turney

When was the last time you promised that you weren’t going to worry? How many weeks or days passed before you broke that promise to yourself? Or did you start worrying after only a matter of minutes, if you lasted that long?

Worrying Health Risks

It’s understandable. You have great intentions. After all, who wants to worry? But why can’t you stop, especially considering the health risks associated with worrying. Among those risks, there’s:

• Mood disorders including depression and anxiety
• Headaches and joint pain
• Sleeplessness that could lead to insomnia
• Restlessness
• Chest pain
• Shortness of breath
• Panic attack
• Nightmares
• Chronic inflammation
• Stomach pain
• Nausea
• Unwanted weight gain or weight loss

Here’s How Worrying Hurts

On top of the above risks, when you invest in worrying, you put yourself at risk of developing unwanted habits. If you’re a habitual worrier, you might already be engaging in one or more of these habits. See how many sounds familiar or resonate with you:

• Automatic negative thoughts
• Inability to concentrate
• Poor relationships
• Overwhelming guilt
• Hopelessness
• Resenting those whose lives “appear” worry-free or “better” than you think your life is
• Struggle to relax and enjoy peace and mental still-ness

Each of these robs you of peace and of the certainty that you are loved. Yet, of them all, the habit of experiencing automatic negative thoughts could be the most devasting.

Bringing the Worry Habit to a Halt

Once you reach this point, your subconscious automatically worries. It’s as if your mind searches for something to feel afraid about. Should you prefer to stay by yourself, avoiding interactions with other people, this could be why.

Interacting with others puts you in position to disagree about other people’s opinions and perceptions. Even more, you might have outright disagreements with a colleague, relative, friend, neighbor, etc. These are a few of the outcomes everyone experiences when they socialize.

However, isolating is not the answer. Pay attention and you’ll see that isolating doesn’t stop you from investing in worry. In fact, if you’re a worrier, you likely spend hours each day worrying, even if you live and work alone.

Someone glances at you, eyebrows raised, and you immediately wonder: “Am I talking too loudly? Is there a stain on my clothes? Do they not like me?” Strangers and friends might produce these types of questions within you.

How Do You Talk to Yourself?

Let dreams and goals get sidetracked or even sidelined and, without searching for the cause of the disruption, you might think: “Am I too dumb to make this work? What if I never figure out how to make this work? Why does success keep escaping me? How come nothing I do turns out right?”

If it’s not that, when you look at your bank statement, a surge of fear might bolt through you even if your savings are rising. Step on the bathroom scale and you might do more than cringe when you see the numbers. You might start working to convince yourself that there’s something wrong with your body, your health or your personality.

All of this worrying and no one else is around. In this case, you could be isolating from others and still worry. It’s a mental habit and you’re the only one who can break it.

The way out is to make a crucial decision once and for all – no going back. Just decide if you’re going to worry or not.

It really is that simple.

Are You a Good Life Manager?

Perhaps it’s time to look at it differently. Instead of simply stressing yourself out. Step back and look at how you treat yourself as if it was someone else forcing you to think, feel and behave the way you do.

For example, bad bosses run people away from an organization more than nearly anything else. A bumper-to-bumper commute, long work hours and challenges take a back seat to a bad boss’ behavior when it comes to deciding if you’re going to stay at a job or leave.

Looking at bad boss traits, how many of these behaviors would you assign to a bad boss:

• Overbearing, rarely offering you the chance to look at a situation differently
• Poor communicator, often keeping secrets about important details
• Making assumptions without asking questions and digging deeper
• Expecting others to see things the way they do (as if everyone is using one brain)
• Pushing team members to overwhelm
• Getting angry when workers chit chat or take a break from work

Do you treat yourself in any of the above ways? Be honest. Do you push or worry yourself into states of overwhelm? How often do you make assumptions, even about yourself, especially negative assumptions?

The Love Shift

Consider shifting gears and treating yourself with respect and with love. Commit to investing in loving YOU. More ways to free yourself of worrying follow:

• Live free of creating catastrophes in your mind. Look back over your life and see if what you worried about didn’t resolve itself without turning into a catastrophe.
• Get up and walk into a different room
• Shift your gaze slowly from one object to another, landing on two to three different objects, until you feel fear decrease
• Walk outside in nature in a safe place at least 45 consecutive minutes a day
• Breath deeply when you feel yourself investing in worry
• Empower yourself with enough deep sleep at night
• Meditate – train your brain to enter states of peace – let yourself enjoy peace
• Perform yoga
• Listen to soothing music
• Accept that you cannot predict or control the future (even if you predict the future “sometimes”, you can’t control everything)
• Write down what you’re choosing to worry about. After you do this, write actions that you will take to deal with the situation. Then, let it go.
• Talk with a friend
• Seek professional help from an experienced, ethical and licensed psychotherapist

What Are You Going to Choose?

More importantly and regardless of the “reason” you’re choosing to worry (i.e., inflation, aging, school grades), decide that you are not going to worry. Just make the decision. Should you feel tempted to worry (engage in an old habit), set a time limit on how long you will worry.

For example, you could choose to worry about a family or work situation for 15 or 30 minutes. At the end of this time period, stop thinking about what has been concerning you.

Just don’t think about it anymore. Start today. Make the choice to live worry free a new, loving habit. Practice awareness to notice when you’re worrying. Catch yourself early and train yourself to stop and think loving thoughts. As previously mentioned, consider writing down what you’re worrying about and the actions you will take to resolve the situation.

This can’t be overstated. You cannot control everything. Not everything is going to turn out the way you want. If you allow conversations, other people’s opinions, thoughts and perceptions and situations to push you into worry, you could end up worrying nearly all the time.

Not investing in worrying is completely up to you. No one can make the decision for you. Choose to love yourself. Train yourself to live worry free. There’s a part of you that knows the way. Let that loving part guide you.

Resources:

1. The Side Effects of Worrying—and What to Do Instead (chopra.com)

By Middle School Book Author Denise Turney

It’s bad enough that kindergarteners and first graders lose about a month of reading comprehension skill during summer. Older kids, as early as the second grade, fall even further behind in reading. Despite how long your child’s summer break is, there could be impact.¹ A sure workaround is to keep kids reading books during summer.

But how do you pull this off?

Reading Books During Summer Benefits

Incorporate reading books during summer into your personal schedule. If this sounds like too much of an ask, settle on stories you love. That or you could read nonfiction books that strengthen your parenting, career or life knowledge and skills.

The more value you associate with reading, the better. For example, the simple act of reading offers a range of benefits², including:

• Enhanced mental focus
• Improved creativity
• Better empathy, which can make your relationships more rewarding
• Deepening knowledge (it’s hard to think of a course that doesn’t rely on a book or some form of written content)
• Strengthens brain network circuits
• Expands vocabulary

Book Reading Advantages

Read books, especially for enjoyment, and you can lower stress. As you continue reading, your children are bound to notice the positive impact that reading for pleasure has on you. That alone could cause them to link reading books to a beneficial activity.

However, your kids probably won’t see the real advantages of reading books during summer if you simply tell them how much they could gain from opening a book. Instead, your kids need to experience the advantages of reading firsthand.

So first you must get your kids to read books outside of school. To do this, make visiting a library or bookstore part of your weekend activities. Set the intention to make choosing books to read fun. Start early, before your kids begin going to school.

Creative Ways to Get Your Kids to Read Books

That shared, the below options can work regardless of your child’s age. Get the most out of these actions by partnering with your kids, working with them to bring each step from concept to practice:

• Consider visiting the library or bookstore after you finish weekend chores. That way, your kids and you may feel more carefree when you head out to pick out books to read.
• Let your kids fill out their own library card application.
• Sign up to attend bookstore reading sessions. Your local bookstore might bring children’s book authors in to read from their bestselling novels. Attend these visits with your kids and your children can walk away with an autographed copy of a popular children’s book.
• Attending author reading sessions also makes it possible for your kids to ask their favorite authors questions about an interesting book character, setting or plot.
• Let your children choose several books they want to read. After all, your children’s taste in books might be different from yours. What you think is a great story might actually bore your young readers.
• Join in the fun. In other words, instead of sending your kids to their room to read books during summer, read a book with your kids. Actually sit and take turns reading a book out loud with your kids.

Fun Places for Book Reading

Where your kids engage with books can make reading a lot of fun. Because books are lightweight, the options are plenty.

When it comes to picking fun places to read, let your imagination soar. For instance, you and your kids could read books:

• In a tent while you’re outdoors camping
• While sitting in a hammock
• On the back porch during a late, hazy summer afternoon
• Next to your kids’ toy box
• On the living room sofa on an early Friday morning on a day you’re on vacation from work
• As you’re swinging on a park swing set

On out-of-town vacations, you can enjoy reading books with your kids while sitting around a hotel pool. As a reminder, don’t hold back. Allow yourself to get creative when it comes to picking places to read books with your kids.

Identify Times to Read Summer Books

To keep kids reading books during summer, set aside a time when you’ll encourage your kids to read. To make it easy, you could ask your children to tell you the title of the fun book they want to read a few minutes before you encourage them to start reading.

If they don’t suggest a book they want to read, select a book on your own. When your children finish reading, ask them interesting questions about the book. This helps to make reading interactive.

Stay free from critiquing your child’s responses to your questions. Make reading books during summer stress free. Soon you’ll learn the types of books that your kids like most.

Another factor you might notice is how vibrant your child’s imagination is. Who knows? One of your kids might be a writer. Give them several more years and you could be reading books they wrote.

What Happens When Kids Love Reading Books

Should your children come to love reading books during summer and year-round, you probably won’t have to encourage them to read anymore. Other takeaways that could surface include:

• Kids knowing which parts of schoolbooks the teacher is likely to focus on during in-class work and on exams
• Ease understanding what you and other people communicate, whether you’re talking or writing
• Clarity when identifying nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.
• Better understanding of sentence structure

Just one summer of book reading and your kids might find it easier to understand and complete their school assignments. This single benefit can increase your children’s confidence, particularly as it regards academics.

More than that, if you make it fun to keep kids reading during summer, you could instill a lifelong passion for book reading in your children. Long term effects could be passed down through generations. And it all starts with a single book.

Resources:

1. What We Know About Summer Learning Loss: An Update | Psychology Today
2. Benefits of Reading Books: For Your Physical and Mental Health (healthline.com)