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Posts tagged with “Change”

What Would Your Future Look Like If You Took a Leap of Faith?

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“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make. ” ~Unknown

Have you ever thought about making a big change in your life?

Chances are, just that very idea produces a mild sense of anxiety and discomfort. But what if you were to actually go ahead and make that change? What would that look like, what would that feel like?

A rhetorical question, I realize. You only know if you go through with it. If you don’t, you will never know. It’s a …

How to Change Your Habits and Your Life in 5 Steps

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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass

We all experience struggles. Some are seemingly insurmountable. Others, like mine, are comparatively small. Regardless of their scale, it’s what we learn from our struggles that counts.

Mine began while at university in London. Originally from a small town in the Welsh valleys, the move to the big city was a scary one for me.

A mum’s boy at heart, I didn’t deal well with being so far away from home. I’m also an introvert who didn’t embrace the uni lifestyle of drinking to failure, so I didn’t make …

When You’re Restless Because Every Day Feels the Same

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“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Years ago I found my self at a low point. It wasn’t a big, life-changing event that got me there; just a sudden realization that life sucked. Every day of that horrible summer, this question nagged at me: “Is this as good as it gets?”

My sons were very young then and always happy, a joy to be around. My marriage was healthy and my husband was doing great. The problem was …

Rediscovering Yourself and Rebuilding Your Life After Loss

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“He who sits in the house of grief will eventually sit in the garden.” ~Hafiz

My life has fallen apart around me.

I ended a five-year relationship with a man I thought I wanted to marry, quit a full-time office job with no further prospects, and moved back to my tiny hometown to live with my parents.

All of these transitions occurred within the same week.

I was twenty when I met my boyfriend, and he was twenty-eight. We spent every waking moment together, dating for four-and-a-half years and living together for two. This time was punctuated with moments of …

Share Your Privilege: Your Story Could Change Someone’s Life

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“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.” ~Brené Brown

I think most of us can reflect vividly on the turning point that brought us toward where we are today.

Often during these transitional periods, major life events push us to pursue the peace of mind we have always dreamed of having.

For me, this journey started my sophomore year in college. My father had just passed away from suicide, and subsequently I was diagnosed with major depression for the second time in my college career.

It wasn’t the most pleasant diagnosis to receive, but I was relieved that I now …

Life Changes When We Change

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“We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.” ~Earl Nightingale

Last Christmas, I was jobless.

With piling bills and debts, I was trying to switch from a freelancer to a full-time employee. I had been job hunting for weeks, with zero results. I started wondering why. I was qualified, I had a great resume, and I was willing to work hard. So why did I feel so helpless, like the reins were in someone else’s hands?

I didn’t like the feeling, but I couldn’t see how I could take control. …

Changing Your Life Story and Finding Your Happy Ending

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“Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” ~Unknown

For the longest ever time, I had no idea what my own story was.

Desperately uncomfortable in my skin as a child, I was equal parts pathologically shy with strangers and fearless with my sisters and brother, running wild over the boulder-strewn southern California land during summers.

As a young girl, I was also, more than once, the target for predators and perps.

The nameless elementary school janitor who invited me into his dark and dirty closet one day. The terrifying neighbor who stopped me in a …

4 Tips to Live a Balanced, Happy Life with Fewer Regrets

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“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

Balance has become an ever-elusive thing these days. The onslaught of technological breakthroughs, aimed at making life easier, has given way to a societal expectation that we are available around the clock.

This has bled into our careers, where our employers have ever increasing expectations that we can do more in less time. We have 168 hours in our week to sleep, work, rest, be with our loved ones, and pursue personal interests.

Unfortunately, the majority of people in the world today …

How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself

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“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

I used to watch people on the streets and in restaurants and think that their boisterous conversations and broad smiles were evidence that they lived a life much better than mine.

I assumed that they were happier than me, smarter than me, and worth more than me. All around me was evidence that this was true: my meager bank account, my junky car, my thrift store clothes.

I would sit in my apartment and try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.

I wondered what …

Want to Change the World?

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Source: Emily’s Quotes

How to Intentionally Embrace Change in the New Year

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“Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud

What do you do when you come to the end of a calendar year as it approaches the start of another one? Do you get caught up in the festive season hype and then, as you roll into the new year, find it all a bit anticlimactic? Or, are you a bit like me and prefer to keep it a quieter, reflective time?

We know that calendar time is really artificial, for true time is simply an infinite and continuous cycle of day and night, seasons, birth and death, and change.…

Why We Feel Stuck in Life and the Secret to Dealing with It

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“It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings.” ~Dale Carnegie

We’ve all felt like we’re drowning in mud.

You feel stuck, worthless, and confused.

You want to move. You should. You have to. But you can’t.

And then it evolves into anxiety, fear, and overwhelm.

But what if—just what if—being stuck isn’t the problem, but how we perceive it?

The Truth About Being Stuck

Every year, I have periods where I feel “stuck.”

Yet when I look closer, I see that “being stuck” is a label I give to a natural part of …

Change How You Feel by Changing Your Perspective

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“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

While I was a going through what I considered the worst divorce in history, I remember waking up every day thinking throughout the day what a horrible thing divorce was. I wondered how other people had gone through it and come out with their sanity, and not marred with cynicism about love and life.

For a year, all I saw was the negative in everything, including my ex-husband, my life circumstances, and most of all myself.

My husband was fighting for …

Moving On Isn’t Failure: 5 Lessons On Changing Paths

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“Letting go isn’t the end of the world. It’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

Ever since I was young, I have been intensely driven and very goal-focused. I have never been the type to flip-flop and I have never been the type to start something I do not intend to finish.

Recently, I was faced with the incredibly difficult decision to leave the career path I had committed myself to. In the process, I learned quite a lot about my definition of “failure” and what happens when we allow ourselves to move on.

About three months after …

How to Get Lasting Results: The 4 Laws of Permanent Change

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“Sometimes, it’s the smallest decisions that change your life forever.” ~Keri Russell

Seven years ago I was that athletic, hyperactive person you could look at and admire.

I was madly in love with cardio, and I could easily work out twice a day, six days a week, without a single complaint, not to mention jogging at 6:00AM five days each week.

In college I went through lots of rough times, especially in my senior year. I was always stressed, I procrastinated a lot, and I couldn’t care less about working out, until one day I woke up and realized that …

Things Change When You Do (and Small Changes Add Up)

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“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ~Victor Hugo

A year-and-a-half ago, I was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every day, I felt like I was travelling through an endless tunnel. The only way I could fall asleep was by pretending that I was dying.

My life felt pointless. I felt like I was on the wrong path. The combination of my two mental illnesses made me feel like I was a prisoner in my own body, like I could not control my brain.

Since this point in time, a lot …

When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

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“I’ve discovered that you can’t change people. They can change themselves.” ~Jim Rohn

This is indeed a fact—a fact I took a long time to learn.

You may argue that we help each other change, and it’s true. But the deepest truth is that only we are responsible for our own growth.

The most difficult work is the seemingly minuscule shift from resistance to willingness, which allows us to face the difficult things we’ve been hiding from, and only we can do this for ourselves. 

I had boyfriends who had issues. One of them lacked ambition; he was already lost …

How to Find Peace and Balance When Dealing with Change

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“Change is the only constant.” ~Heraclitus

Have you ever noticed how many transitions we go through all day?

The transition from waking up to getting out of bed, from PJs (or au natural) to clothes, from red light to green light, from inhale to exhale. Every waking moment is a transition.

Why, then, are we, as humans, so uncomfortable with change?

We want everything to stay the same, but at the same time, crave variety. We grasp so tightly to how we think things should be (did she not hear that I wanted extra foam on my latte?) and, simultaneously, …

Finding a Window of Opportunity When Life Closes a Door

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“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” ~John Wooden

“Why don’t you just take up swimming?” the doctor asked.

I was twenty years old, single-minded in my pursuit of a dance career, visiting yet another doctor about the vicious tendinitis that had forced me to give up my spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City.

What the doctor didn’t understand is that dance isn’t just a sporting activity; it’s a way of life, an identity.

Telling a young dancer to “just take up swimming” is about as helpful …

Are Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back and Making You Feel Bad?

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“If you believe yourself to be limited in some way, whether or not it is true, it becomes true for you.” ~Brian Tracy

I have often wondered why the most formative years of one’s life, in early childhood, tend to be the hardest for us to recall.

Most of us cannot even begin to tap into those memories. Those scant memories that do bubble up to the surface are often fog-tinged and dreamlike. Images or sensations may appear, but the linear, day-to-day recollection evades us.

Perhaps Mother Nature does have a sense of humor, because, oddly enough, it is usually …