We each carry around our personal mythology in our heads, the stories of who we are, who we think we are, who we would like to be, and the person we would like others to believe we are.

We are the heroes in our story, sometimes playing different roles – rescuer, victim, bystander, chronicler, philosopher, critic, follower, or leader.

Our challenge is always to manage our fantasy mythology and translate it into real-world behavior:

We can chose to either live a life of self-delusion,

shrink our dreams to match our capabilities, or

expand our capabilities to meet our dreams.

If you are struggling with personal happiness and fulfillment, then it’s time to rewrite the personal myth that you are acting out.

Be honest with yourself, understand how the past has influenced your story and begin living a new chapter that is congruent with your highest aspirations.

Best of Success!

Stephan

Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior…and Feel Great Again

Simple Steps To Self-Actualization

Problems can never be avoided and sadly, they can get the better of us. As much as we would like to pull our hair out and wail like a child, we keep all the anger bottled deep down inside. Then, we try to move forward and mask the issues with a calm facade. We all know that this is the last thing we should do.

Stress is everywhere and we cannot live our entire adult lives like children, free of cares and worries. As we enter into the real world and live our lives as adults should, we will encounter things that we may not always like, we will meet people that we may not take to, or we miss out on the fun simply because we have to take care of other needs first. Whatever the reason is, it’s not too difficult to find a reason to frown.

What most of us take for granted are the good things that we encounter as we move forward with our lives. We’re simply so preoccupied with the bad things that we often forget to look at the good. We count all our misfortunes; keep track of all our failures.

We need to remember what we live for, lest we become bitter human beings. Avoiding problems is all very well in theory, but many of us have worries that we simply can’t resolve, and statistics reveal that one in every twenty people suffer from panic attacks.

The idea here is not to attain permanent happiness. We all know that we will stumble along the way as we learn life’s lessons. What we need is a simple strategy to deal with the issues that we face so that by the end of the day we can still give ourselves a pat on the back and say that we are proud of ourselves and happy with our lives, despite all the negativity happening around us.

Here are just three things to keep in mind should we feel overwhelmed at everything happening to us:

1. Avoid situations that aggravate anger – this is a classic case of fight or flight. If we see ourselves heading towards a dark corner of the street, we simply have to turn around and take another route. Unfortunately, not every situation offers us a way out. When we have to deal with a difficult boss or a stubborn colleague, we cannot always solve the situation by going the other way. The best solution to this is to have something that helps soothe our nerves – a stress ball, some exercise, a few minutes to ourselves, or anything that gets us to shift our momentary unease.

2. Reprogram your mind – there are several books in leading bookstores that offer us guidelines. Advice and exercises from experts like Anthony Robbins and David Neagle have provided reassurance and help for many people.

3. Think positive – as simple as this sounds, the task can be daunting. It’s especially difficult when we come face to face with something that we simply do not like. The trick here is to exercise our minds. It is only through practice that we can perfect this skill.

In the end, we have to know that we’ll survive. Life isn’t always about winning.  As Les Brown reminds us, most of the time it’s about getting up when we’re down. It’s the ability to continue and move forward as we go through life’s processes. Know that problems don’t kill us. We are in control of things of our destiny, and if we let these inconveniences get in the way, then we definitely will lose. We always have a choice, and we should always choose to be good to ourselves.

Best of Success!

Stephan

The Reality Behind the Law of Attraction

Life always has a way of working out. The recent success of books like The Secret and The Law of Attraction can credit the people’s enthusiasm to its increase in sales. However, many also mistake the practice of this law. They’ve misconstrued the general message of these books and have led themselves to believe that they simply have to sit back, relax, and think about what they want with their lives.

As far as I’m concerned, I believe that the law can only be put to good use with action on our part. I do believe that the universe works with us when we strive to achieve all our dreams. But, it can only nudge destiny towards our way. The rest is up to us, whether we choose to meet it halfway or not. After all, no one rewards the lazy.

If we made an inventory of all the successful individuals in this world, we’ll realize that each of them went through hell and high water just to be where they are today. Whoever said that the path to success was easy couldn’t have been further from the truth. In reality, to reach our goal, we’ll have to ready ourselves for the hurdles we’ll face along the way. It’s now simply a question of how badly we want the dream to become a reality.

As we go over the bumpy and potholed path, we sometimes stumble along the way. We court failure when we have the kind of self-defeating attitude that leads us to believe that the more we’ll fall, the harder it’ll be to get back up. This is a shortcut to sabotaging our dreams. It’s when we shift our focus to become pessimistic that we doom ourselves to failure.

Instead of thinking of what we don’t want to happen, we should think of what we do want. Putting words like don’t or no in our statement is an indication of where our focus is, and that is in the negative. On the other hand, if we make claims about things that we yet have to achieve, this can also be seen as a lie.

Positive thinking is based on the belief we WILL get what we want and that we are in the process of fulfilling our dreams. We’ve all heard of the term self-fulfilling prophecy. It is in believing that good things will come to us because we’ve already started to fashion our lives according to our personal desires.

I’m not suggesting that success can only be measured through our monetary achievement. Winning comes in all forms and in every aspect of our lives. Be it with our personal or career paths, we can only truly say that we’ve won if, at the end of the day, we go to sleep with a happy and content heart. We truly have to understand what the law of attraction is.

Simply put, it is accepting the fact that we can do what we want and that anything is possible if we work at it. Something good can happen to us today and the miracle is already set to unfold if we open the doors to opportunities that will make us happy.

Best of Success!

Stephan

Our lives are made of opportunities and challenges, often in unequal measure…

We know that life is not always a walk in the park, so to speak. Problems come in two forms: ones that are easy to solve and ones that look nearly impossible to overcome. It’s simple to say that life is sweet when we are able to overcome a difficult situation. When things start to go against us, we forget about our basic beliefs and let situations like these affect our overall outlook.

The secret to a happy life is in being optimistic; to always see the glass as half-full. The tricky part comes when we encounter roadblocks along the way. It takes a lot of practice to become a positive person, but once we do become that kind of person, we will live happier lives. Remember, happiness is not a state of mind that can be achieved with just a snap of our fingers. Happiness is a positive choice we make and it is the attitude we need to inculcate in ourselves every single day.

If you need to take some time off to become the kind of person that oozes out confidence and that brings warmth to everyone, then by all means, do so. Take a step back and reevaluate your life if you must. If the work you do makes you an angry person, then maybe it’s high time that you rethink your career path.

Strive for happiness with the following steps listed below:

1. Write down the things that make you happy – make an inventory of all your dreams, ask yourself how you can achieve them, and start working on them now. The tendency to procrastinate is what gets you into trouble. The longer you sulk, then the bigger the problems become.

2. Have a healthy outlet for your anger – you need to let your frustrations out. Talk to someone if you must or go to the gym to pump out those happy hormones. Studies show that people who exercise are more readily able to find solutions to their problems.

3. Have a support system – with great friends and a caring family, the burden doesn’t have to entirely rest on your shoulders.

4. Be thankful for what you have – you know, “when life gives you lemons, open a lemonade stand”. Life may not be all that you want it to be, but you also need to know that you have other talents and resources at your disposal as well. Face the problem head on and see the good that comes out of it.

5. Communicate with the Infinite – believing in a higher power has gotten many people out of even the toughest of situations. The idea that there is something out there looking out for everyone is sometimes enough for people to continue on and pursue their goals.

Being too hard on yourself can sometimes keep you from victory. What stops you from pursuing your path to happiness? If it’s because you just don’t believe in yourself that much, then you need to know that mistakes can only slow you down. You can still move on after you slip-up because at least then you’ll know what you shouldn’t do. It’s not how many times you fall that counts, but the number of times you got up despite the hard fall.

Best of Success,

Stephan

p.s. Check out this great DVD from Mrs. Brown’s baby boy,  Les Brown Live – Step Into Your Greatness