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Posts tagged with “dreams”

Changing Direction: It’s Not Too Late to Be Who You Want to Be

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“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~C.S. Lewis

Growing up, people always saw me as the over-achiever and said, “That girl is really going to make something of herself one day.”

I often felt the pressure of having to live up to these expectations.

I recently turned 30 and it was a day of reflection for me. I always had this idea that by the time I turned 30, I’d be one of the top celebrities in South Africa, living the life of a talented singer, a self-made millionaire, driving a …

Feeling Lost and How It Can Help You Find Yourself

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“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Another day, another class missed, another alarm turned off. No motivation but to turn the pillow over to its colder side and lay there half asleep, unanswered questions gliding in and out of my mind.

This was how most of my mornings went in my last days of college. I had never been too motivated by the promise of college, even in high school, but it had always been set in my head that a college degree was my goal, my path to that elusive happiness …

Letting Go of Fears and Worries About Getting Things Done

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“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown

As the days have continued on past the beginning of the New Year, my discontent has been growing as I’ve been thinking (or worrying) about how unmotivated I feel.

The holidays have come to a close, the New Year began, we made wonderful goals for ourselves, and yet, I’ve begun nothing. I wanted to write another article, keep up with my blog(s), organize my house, work on my finances and my fitness, and start new projects.

The holidays were rough to get …

10 Steps to Create Lasting Change in Your Life

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“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

From time to time I read my old journals. When the moment strikes me, I choose a journal at random from my bookshelf.

This time it was the beautiful green and gold one my mom had given me in what must have been September of 2010, because the writing chronicles my life from September 20, 2010 to January 1, 2011.

Basically, it is my perceptive exactly two years ago.

I had just started my second year of grad …

6 Ways to Live a Life of Passion and Adventure Right Now

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“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” ~Denis Waitley

I remember dreaming for years about living abroad. First it was Italy so that I could discover my roots. Then it was Fiji because it seemed like the furthest place from Los Angeles (which I actually did, but only for two months during the summer of 2003).

After Fiji, there was an eight-year gap that was full of college and Corporate America. My daily routine involved waking up early, working all day, and studying …

How to Believe in Yourself in the Face of Overwhelming Self-Doubt

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“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” ~Honore de Balzac

You know what that voice in your head says…

You can’t do it. You’ll never be good enough. You’re going to fail.

This voice taunts you whenever you set a goal. It criticizes you when life gets difficult. It beats you down when you struggle to stand up against its running commentary.

You know you shouldn’t let self-doubt bother you, but it’s a sneaky critter. Sometimes, you just can’t contain it and it slips past your barriers.

And self-doubt is greedy. When it’s loose, it …

Realizing Your Dream: Stop Dwelling on “What Ifs”

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“Excellence can be obtained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.” ~Unknown

I think I always had an idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I sort of tweaked it along the way. I knew I wanted to work in the field of science, but like most kids, I wasn’t exactly sure where I fit in.

When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut. At the age of …

Book Giveaway and Author Interview: 52-Week Life Passion Project

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Note: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

It’s not easy to do something you’re passionate about for work—and not only because it’s hard to discover your passion or find a job to leverage it.

Once we know what we love to do, we then need to work through all kinds of limiting thoughts, beliefs, and fears that may prevent us from taking action. Then we need to decide what that action should be—how …

28 Powerful Questions for a Happy Life

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“Keep your head clear. It doesn’t matter how bright the path is if your head is always cloudy.” ~Unknown

Have you ever noticed that your biggest “aha” moment comes from someone asking a powerful question? Suddenly everything seems to make a little more sense, and you know what you need to do from that point forward, right?

That’s exactly how it is for me. Someone will ask me a seemingly trivial question and bam! I’m suddenly overflowing with answers, emotions, solutions—I’m practically made of clarity!

I remember a friend of mine asking me over coffee one rainy afternoon …

Happiness Comes to Those Who Live Their Calling

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“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.” ~Rumi

I was on tour with a famous rock legend, Joe Walsh from the mega-successful seventies band, The Eagles.

We were riding around in one of those air brushed tour busses, living the party life and flying to exotic places. Staying in the finest hotels. Beautiful women hanging around the backstage door trying to get my attention.

You would think this would be a dream come true, right?

Here I was rubbing shoulders with people like Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and yet, …

Active Contentment: 5 Tips to Have Both Peace and Ambition

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“Peace is not merely a distant goal we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

Stress equals success.

I wholeheartedly believed this for many years. Who had led me so astray? I have only myself to blame.

The concept of peace had no practical application in my life. Peace was something that was necessary in war-torn countries, not in my mind.

This toxic belief began in college. The library often felt like a boxing ring where my fellow students and I competed to be the most stressed out.

Who had the most …

Finding Your Special Thing: Connect with Your Passion

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“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.” ~Rumi

You know what it is; you’ve always known. Maybe it’s been just a shadow in the fog, or it’s crystal clear in amazing Technicolor before your eyes. Either way, it’s there, sometimes stinging you with a numb sense of denial, sometimes scratching at your skin like a bad case of poison sumac.

It’s existed since the day you arrived on earth with a cry and a gasp.You knew it already when you were small, when you drew pictures with crayons and finger paint, when you …

When Your Dreams Change: Let Your Values Guide You

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“It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” ~Roy Disney

It has been four months now since I made the hardest decision of my life.

In the fourth grade, I made a pledge to work as much I had to until I became successful and moved the heck out of Ohio!

That commitment led me to graduate as valedictorian in high school and summa cum laude in college. However, it also resulted in missed recess (to do homework), missed parties (to research), and missed relationships (to study). Of course, I am not upset, …

Letting Go of Stress Around Your Goals: 4 Tips to Help You Relax

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“Control is never achieved when sought after directly. It is the surprising consequence of letting go.” ~James Arthur Ray

I have always been a bit of a control freak, and if I’m not mindful, it can suck the joy out of my work and my passion.

I like tasks done a certain way, which means I don’t always do well when it comes to delegating to others and can end up overextending myself.

I want things to be done on my timeline, which means I may feel a need to micromanage tasks I have delegated to decrease the potential …

Finding Direction When You’re Not Sure Which Choice Is “Right”

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“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

Like so many others, I am a recent college graduate who is still living at my parents’ house and working my minimum wage high school job as I scour the web for opportunities and get one rejection email after another.

However, I don’t know how many others I can speak for when I say that I didn’t see this coming.

I graduated with a nursing degree and heard from more than a few people in the field that there was a shortage and jobs were plentiful. I had no …

The Difference Between Fulfillment and Achievement

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“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~C.S. Lewis

I have always been ambitious. I have always felt an incredible need to become someone, to do something, to achieve. I have always been a dreamer on my way up.

I’m a fashion designer. I belong to an industry that I knew was highly competitive from a young age. Ambition and hard work counted, but increasingly, I was getting the message that status, money, and connections were far more important factors for success.

In fact, fashion as an industry is parallel to the …

When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed: Create a To-Live List

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“The only pressure I’m under is the pressure I’ve put on myself” ~Mark Messier

It was enough. I was lying in the bathtub with the water up to my nose when I realized that I couldn’t go on like I’d been going.

I had been working incredibly hard over the few months prior, so hard that I had forgotten why I was even doing it. And now that I was stressed out and exhausted, I was trying to remember.

That’s why I had escaped into the bathtub, without any books or magazines to distract me from myself.

I thought …

Letting Go When It’s Time to Dream a New Dream

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“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

Growing up in a family of medical professionals, I received an abundance of opportunities with the understanding that my “job” was school. There was immense pressure to bring home straight A’s. I internalized this pressure and spent hours in my room memorizing texts and studying for classes.

In my mind medicine was the only acceptable career for me. Family, friends, and teachers routinely asked if I wanted to go to medical school, and my …

Overcome Fears Through Lucid Dreaming

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“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan

It took me a second to realize what was happening.

I was hanging onto a rope and headed straight for the sky.

I must have been around 100 feet in the air. I was looking at the ground and it kept getting smaller and smaller. I couldn’t take it anymore and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again I was lying in my bed.

But this was no ordinary dream. I was actually aware of what was happening, as it happened. I was “awake” inside my …

The World Needs You to Come Alive

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“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman

Three years ago, I found myself in the biggest predicament of my life.

I had finally found what made me happy. I knew that travel ignited a part of me that otherwise lay dormant. The foreign sights, sounds, flavors, and language of a new country are what make my heart pound, my blood pump, and my soul bloom.

I love everything about traveling, and how it impacts my life: the Greek …