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Search Results for "uncertainty" — 367 posts

What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Lost, Unsure, or Confused

“The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself.” ~Tony Robbins

I am naturally inclined to do—to go, to move, to take action. Slowing down takes a lot of patience for me. But I often find that moving too quickly actually causes me more confusion.

One day, my head felt overwhelmed with questions. What had started with a simple idea of little ole me living in a tiny house on wheels (one of those under 200 square feet homes built on a trailer) had turned into a big undertaking …

How 5 Simple Habits Made Me Love My Life More

“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” ~John Irving

Your habits are directly related to the quality of your life. Good habits lead to joy and fulfillment in your life, while not-so-good habits leave you yearning for your life to be different.

I think I always knew that, I just wished I took it to heart sooner. Better late than never, right?

Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits, says that “Habits are the invisible architecture of our daily life. We repeat about 40% of our behavior almost daily, so our …

How to Get Past Doubt and Do What You Really Want to Do

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.” ~The Buddha

As far back as I can remember, I’ve allowed my life to be shaped by external forces.

On the outside, it appeared like I was just another carefree soul, living in the moment and going through life like a leaf on the wind. But on closer inspection, I was actually running away from having to make any real commitments and avoiding getting into a position where I had to make difficult or important decisions.

It wasn’t until recently, when I realized it was four years to the date since I’d fallen into …

Let’s Get Real: Why I’m Done Pretending to Have It All Together

“If you’re not really happy, don’t fake a smile on my behalf. I’d rather you spill your guts with tears every day until your smile is real. Because I don’t care about the show, the disguise, the politically correctness. If you’re in my life, I want you to be in your own skin.” ~Stephanie Bennet-Henry

This is the story of my inner child, the insecure part of myself that I am ready to respect and recognize.

My thoughts and views are as follows: I’m not a superior mom, probably just an average psychologist, and am way too sensitive about …

Why Remembering You’re Going to Die Is the Best Motivator

“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babitt

Once a month, I visit the local cemetery and walk around. I’m not there to visit anyone in particular. I’m there to remind myself of my own mortality.

And it always wakes me up.

I soak in the energy: I read the simple legacies on the tombstones, from young children to those who made it to 100 years old. I’m not morose. I’m not negative. I’ve simply found the greatest motivational tool in the world, and …

Books & Things

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BOOKS

Tiny Buddha's Worry Journal

Filled with quotes, prompts, and questions, along with coloring and doodling pages, Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal provides a number of different activities to help you reframe your worries and minimize anxiety in your daily life. If you have a hard time detaching from worrisome thoughts, this could be just what you need to learn to let go and ease your troubled mind. A few mindful minutes each day can create major change!

Tiny Buddha's Gratitude Journal

Including questions and prompts pertaining to both your past and present, this journal will help you see

The ABCs of Personal Growth: How to Live a Meaningful, Fulfilling Life

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

Throughout my life, I’ve moved countries, studied a foreign language, changed careers, launched a business, run a half marathon, written a book, faced agonizing loss and grief, won awards, been deeply hurt, created awesome charity campaigns, lived with huge uncertainty and pain, found love and friendships to cherish, and given birth to three miraculous humans.

Throughout these and plenty more crazy, insane, complex, and utterly beautiful life events, I have collected treasured building blocks that help me live a life of meaning, purpose, and joy every single day.…

5 Psychological Strategies to Ease the Stress of Perfectionism

“Striving for excellence motivates you, striving for perfection is demoralizing.” ~Harriet Braiker

The last three months I’ve been trying an experiment. It’s something that I’ve never done before, and in a certain way, it’s been a huge challenge. However, in other ways, it’s been an enormous stress relief, and I would say a largely successful effort.

What I’ve done seems to go against conventional wisdom, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wise choice.

So what exactly is this challenge? Well, I have actively gone out of my way to be average.

Yep, sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? …

Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

“Whatever purifies you is the right path.” ~Rumi  

I’m tired of being good. It’s time to be deliciously free.

How I wish I could say that without rushing in to assure you that I promise I’ll still be good.

The truth is, I worry. Less than I used to, but still, I do.

I’ve probably had every kind of worry you could imagine. There’s the kind about things that haven’t happened yet, things that didn’t but very nearly could have, things that are highly unlikely if not impossible, things that are commonplace; I’ve worried about the things I want and …

Why I Won’t Let the Fear of Failure Hold Me Back

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~Winston Churchill

I am scared of sharks. Often when I’m floating in the ocean on my surfboard, amazed at the vastness before me and my relative smallness in the world, my mind drifts toward what may be lurking below.

I know that I am more likely to get injured during the car ride to the beach or get struck by lightning when I get there than be attacked by a shark. I also know that, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission …

The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

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“Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

She knew it sooner than I did. And more intensely than I did.

I, on the other hand, may have considered our differences but never thought of them as deal-breakers. I tried to justify the many struggles we had between us and believed that our marriage could work despite the challenges.

I had this feeling things would get better and stayed hopeful no matter how bad our relationship got.

I told myself that her extraverted personality and my more introversion could …

I’ve Learned That I Deserve…

When I was growing up, my parents never spoke to me about what I “deserved.” They spoke to me a lot about what was “expected.” They were very clear about that.

They expected me to be tough, hard-working, well-read, and smart. They expected me to help others, especially those struggling on the margins. They sent me to work in impoverished parts of the world, so I would realize I was very lucky and really had nothing to complain about. They expected me to go to church every week, to be honest, to help my brothers, my cousins, my community. …

You Aren’t Stuck in Life: Commit to Change and Get Started

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain

We all have big dreams, big goals, and big ideas on what we think our life should look like, or how we think life will end up.

Some of us meticulously plan out our lives, envisioning and letting ourselves daydream as we think about all the stuff we’d love to accomplish. I’d wager that our plans include some pretty big things in life that would make us feel pretty proud.

The problem is, a lot of us have trouble reaching the potential we’ve set for ourselves. Time kind of …

3 Ways to Stop Worrying and Feel Less Anxious

“There isn’t enough room in your mind for both worry and faith. You must decide which one will live there.” ~Sir Robertson

Do you consider yourself a worrier?

Maybe even a perfectionist or Type A personality?

When I’m not at my best, I can be all of those things combined. (Not cute, I know.)

Because of this, I know exactly what it feels like to be stuck in my head, with tightness in my chest and emotional wrenches in my gut.

If you also struggle with worry and anxiety, then I feel you. I rode the worry struggle …

3 Things That Are Helping Me Deal with Stress, Pain, and Loss

“Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness; but it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.” ~Unknown

Life has not been kind lately.

My aunt passed away in October. She had been suffering from cancer, but her family kept the extent of her illness to themselves, and hence I did not have a chance to see her before she passed away. I felt bad about that.

My father followed her a month later, just after Thanksgiving. He had been ailing from Parkinson’s Disease, but his death as well …

Pre-Order Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal and Receive 3 Free Bonus Gifts

There was a time when worrying was like breathing to me. It’s estimated that we think between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day and we breathe 23,040 breaths. It would likely be accurate for me to say I once panicked as often as I inhaled.

I worried about what people thought of me. I worried that people weren’t thinking of me at all. I worried about what could go wrong. I worried I might have done something wrong. And I worried about being wrong—just by being me.

All this worry was crippling. It’s hard to enjoy anything when you’re there …

A Different Kind of More: The Beauty of Living with Less Stuff

She was all that mattered. I was deeper in debt, legal fees, and uncertainty than ever before, but I held on tight to my vow to give her more.

I would give her everything. I’d work harder, make more, buy her more, take her to see more, do more, and prove to her that everything would be okay. I had no idea that this new goal would be just as damaging, and just as hard on my heart.

My desire to give my daughter more wasn’t wrong, just misguided. While I could never have articulated it then, I did want …

How I Stopped Feeling Trapped in a Life I Didn’t Want

“Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.” ~Terry Josephson

When I was in my early twenties I was lucky enough to spend about a year living just a few blocks from the beach in Virginia Beach, Virginia, but you know what I remember most distinctly from that time? Sitting at a red light on the way to work one day thinking: I feel trapped.

To put it simply, I felt stuck in a life I didn’t want.

I had a college degree I wasn’t using. I had a job that I dreaded. I had …

4 Things I Needed to Accept When I Was in Transition and Felt Insecure

“Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.”-  Robert Tew

I want you to picture this. You are standing on a mountain, and in front of you is a taller mountain with a prettier view. Between the mountains is 100,000 foot plunge to the bottom, filled with jagged rocks. You know that you need to make it to that other mountain and that the only way for you to do so is to jump—but for some reason, you cannot move.

This is what transition feels like, especially when you have to make …

The One Realization That Helped Me Forgive Myself and My Father

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
~Maya Angelou

Sunlight shone through the living room window. A lazy Sunday afternoon. I lounged on the couch reading a book with my dog cuddled at my feet. My love had just set out to purchase a new set of acoustic guitar strings. Soon he would return, and music would fill our home, adding to my sense of blissful peace.

The telephone rang. I could see from the caller ID it was my father. “Good,” I thought. “It’s been a few weeks. I wonder …