5 Tips to ‘Think Positive’ When You Are Anxious

Do you ever have the experience where you are worried what is going to happen in the future? It’s not anything specific, or maybe it’s many specific challenges that are all adding up. You might even know your anxiety is ‘irrational’ but that doesn’t help!

Here are two approaches you can use to ‘think positive’ and get back into a state where you have ease and can concentrate.

Focus on the Moment

1. Focus on the specific physical feeling you are having in your body, not on your thoughts.
For example, say to yourself slowly, “I feel tension in my shoulders; I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.” Don’t focus on thoughts like, “What if I lose my job” or “I have so much to do”. Before 7 seconds have passed, you will notice a shift in the feeling in your body and breathing will come easier. Keep doing this a few times until the feeling of anxiety has passed.

2. Focus on what you CAN control in the moment.
Your thoughts tend to run wild towards worst case scenarios and what you can’t control. Try to pinpoint something specific you are worried about, and determine specifically what worries you about the situation. Ask yourself, “What can I do right now to have more control over the outcome of this situation?” Action replaces fear.

By Sharon Melnick, PhD
3. Train your body to get rid of fear.
Do this exercise: Bring together the tips of the thumb and index finger and bring your hands up so they are in front of your chest facing away from you. You will breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Each time you breathe out, forcefully push your hands away from you like you are pushing away something you don’t want and blow out through your mouth. Then breathe in through your nose and bring your hands back towards your chest, with your elbows by your side. Do this exercise for 1-3 minutes and you will train your body to get rid of fear.

Take yourself out of the moment — Sometimes overfocusing on the moment keeps you stressed. Instead:

4. Project yourself into the future.
Picture yourself in the distant future, when this particular moment is insignificant and you have worked out your current problems. This ‘future’ version of your self has more perspective on your overall life than you do right now — ask it what the best way is to proceed in the current situation.

5. Use distraction.
Make the distraction productive: connect with other people, go outside in a natural environment that is soothing for your senses, do a breathing exercise, listen to music or a motivating talk. Don’t just numb out with an unmemorable surfing session on the internet or putter around at your desk. Probably the best distraction you can do is to be grateful for the problems that you have. Though it sounds trite, there are many people in the world whose problems are much worse than yours. I immediately think of a child I support in Africa barely living with running water, or a man I often see in the subway station who has no arms. It immediately gives me renewed appreciation for all that I have and then energizes me to do something with it. This works for a lot of people and may work for you too!

Here’s a link to a recording that previews the Success under Stress for Women program.. We start the actual program next week so if you want to be more efficient at accomplishing work, have good concentration and energy all day long and sleep through the night, then don’t miss getting on the train that’s about to leave the station. Click here to find out more: http://getcontrolnow.com/
Here’s to you being positive when you are anxious!

Cultivate Gratitude for Greater Wellness This Year

As we enter the new year, you may be feeling a gamut of emotions from peace and happiness to distress and sadness. This year especially, many are struggling financially or simply feeling pessimistic about the economy. Others are struggling with health or relationship challenges.

A Daily Resolution for Change
Regardless of where you find yourself on the spectrum, being appreciative and thankful is a great way to start the new year and an opportunity to move toward greater wellness. When I am in need of healing or a change in my life, the first thing I try to remember to do is to focus on what I am truly grateful for.

I think most of us have made New Year’s resolutions in the past with the intention of creating positive changes in our lives. Unfortunately, many of us have not followed through with those resolutions nor created lasting change in our lives.

In my experience a far better solution for change is to cultivate a daily attitude of gratitude. If you don’t already have a gratitude journal, I recommend starting one and adding to it each and every day. Ideally, you already have a list of things you’re grateful for in your head and perhaps you have written some of those down.

If you decide to keep a journal, remember that habits are usually formed within three to four weeks. With a bit of focus, gratitude tends to take on a life of its own. Over time you will find a more positive (and less stress-inducing) attitude will become more automatic.

What Are You Thankful For?
Even in difficult times, there is always something to be grateful for, such as the breath of life, our heart beat, the blessings of family, friends, pets, sunshine, water, food, or any number of things we usually take for granted. Begin by simply allowing yourself (as best you can) to fully welcome the feeling of thankfulness in your heart for the simple things.

Another way to cultivate gratitude is to simply accept whatever is manifesting in your life right now, whether “good” or “bad.” This means letting go of dissatisfactions and even the desire to change. I know this sounds contradictory, but oftentimes the wanting to change creates negative feelings that can block inspired solutions. The more you can let go of resistance to what is, the more you can feel grateful for what you already have.

And if you need more inspiration, the following vignettes (which have been widely circulated on the internet) can help put things into perspective and remind us of what we have to be thankful for:

1. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of the people in the world.

2. If you can attend a church or synagogue meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.

3. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are more blessed than 500 million people in the world.

4. If you have money in the bank, money in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8 % of the world’s wealthy.

5. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

Benefits of a Grateful Disposition
Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California Davis, is engaged in a research project on the nature of gratitude and its potential consequences for human health and well-being. Here is just a sampling of what they have discovered thus far:

• Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

• Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks.

• Spirituality: Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others. Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.

• Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods. They are less likely to judge their own and others’ success in terms of possessions accumulated. They are less envious of others and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.

The Healing Power of Gratitude
Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto’s work with water also reveals the healing power of gratitude. Using high-speed photography, Emoto discovered that when thoughts, feelings, or words of gratitude were directed toward water, the most beautiful and the most intricate of all water crystals were formed.
In his book The Hidden Messages in Water, Emoto concludes: “What the world needs now is gratitude. We must begin by learning what it means to have enough. We need to feel gratitude for having been born on a planet so rich in nature, and gratitude for the water that makes our life possible…When you have become the embodiment of gratitude, think about how pure the water that fills your body will be. When this happens, you yourself will be a beautiful, shining crystal of light.”

By Nancy Hearn

5 Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

If you have a habit of setting resolutions at the beginning of the year and then abandoning them a few days later, now is your chance to try something different. Imagine how the course of your life could change for the better if you followed through on your resolutions until you achieved your goals!

Change Your Thinking
It’s very possible to overcome your habit of giving up on New Year’s resolutions with a few basic tips. Above all else, avoid regarding your resolutions as something to aspire to and then forgetting them when they no longer seem pertinent or interesting. New Year’s resolutions can be extremely enriching and self-improving if you find a way to maintain them throughout the year.

Here are some tips for keeping your resolutions:

1. Make a firm commitment.
You must be willing to make a strong commitment to change in order for your resolutions to be successful. Believe that you can, and will, accomplish what you set out to do. If you give yourself unwavering support, then you’ll bolster that belief and achieve what you seek.

• Choose New Year’s resolutions that you genuinely want to achieve. Make positive resolutions and focus on the positive aspects of achieving them.

https://dwomoh.wordpress.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/writing-helper/i/requestfeedback.png

• Tell someone you trust about your resolutions. When someone else knows what you’re setting out to
achieve, they can help hold you accountable.

• Plan ahead how you want your year to end and develop your goals based on that vision. “See” yourself at the end of the following year having achieved the goals and resolutions you set at the beginning on that year. It helps keep you focused and the sub-conscious mind works to create the vision and bring it to reality.

2. Have realistic expectations.
Continued motivation is the key to achieving your goals. If you set the bar too high, then you also set yourself up for failure, which can be profoundly de-motivating for you.

• Aim realistically, rather than too high. Give yourself a challenge, but not so much of a challenge that you end up setting yourself up for inevitable failure.

• If you plan on setting similar resolutions as last year, consider first and foremost why last year’s resolutions failed. If your resolutions didn’t work last time, then determine why in order to avoid a repeat performance.

3. Write down your goals.
When you put your resolutions into writing, you make them real. You put your commitment down on paper. Put your goals where you can see them, in written form, so you won’t forget what you’re setting out to achieve this year. You could even create a vision board or a vision book as a concrete reminder of what you desire to create.

4. Plan out your goals.
Articulating what you intend to achieve this year is a big part of setting resolutions, but planning how to achieve them is a completely different story. Write down a plan for each resolution that you want to achieve rather than simply hoping for the best.

5. Give your goals flexibility.
Not everything is going to work out exactly the way you planned, so be flexible in the goals that you set. Avoid allowing rigid resolutions to throw you off track if something doesn’t go quite how you planned it. Try to predict what challenges you may face, and create a Plan B for those challenges if and when they arise.

Bottom Line
You can keep your New Year’s resolutions if you do a little bit of planning and preparing ahead of time. Just like any goal setting process, the key is to be realistic about your goals and the challenges you may face in trying to achieve them. The more realistic and flexible you are, the more likely you’ll be to achieve your goals.

by Ginny Edwards

Traits of the Effective, Respected, and Liked Leader

A truly energizing leader acts as a catalyst – the one who ultimately gets people going. They move others out of their comfort zone by believing in them and providing the support those people need to take risks. This person can raise the passion and enthusiasm of others so they want to take action. Change is looked upon as something to embrace, not fear. Challenges are met with open minds and more optimism versus pessimism. One of the principles in the Dale Carnegie Training program is for a leader to become a consensus builder. A major point is to arouse interest in your ideas by asking for advice and opinions. Make the phrase “What if…” a standard working tool. When people have had a say in setting a goal or putting together a proposal, they are more willing to work hard to make it work right.

A respected and liked leader operates from a base of integrity and honesty. You can be trusted to do what you say you will do and people believe that you will act for the good of the situation, the firm, and/or them-depending on the circumstances. Others may not like what is happening but they know the leader is acting upon what he or she believes is the best option given the timing and situation. While these traits can make you vulnerable, you will generally find that people will stand up with you and behind you for support. Telling people the good, the bad, and all the important details in between builds a base for them to share with you. Many times, an innovative suggestion will emanate from an unexpected source.

Leaders find ways to create small wins for the team as this helps to motivate people to continue striving and achieving towards individual and group efforts. Opportunities are set up to reach achievable goals so that good feelings of esteem and attitude are regularly obtained.

A sense of humor helps keep the perspective – especially when times are tense or troubled. Let’s face it, hardly anything in life can’t be laughed at if you look for that element. We tend to look for the worst so go for it and magnify those scenarios until you find the ludicrous in the situation. Of course, humor is important for everyday use as well – so many studies have proven this over and over. We’ve all heard that laughter is the best medicine, and it’s true. Jim Rohn states that “in leadership we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.”

Over the years I have found a great deal of truth to the following statement made by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. “Some of the best leadership lessons I learned as a young officer were from terrible officers. I mean, absolutely morally bankrupt officers who had no redeeming qualities. People followed them out of sheer wonder for what they would do next. You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.”

A good leader learns to listen attentively to what is said between the lines and for ferreting out what else needs to be brought out into the open. Words left unspoken can often be the most dangerous because they lurk and fester. Also, an astute leader notices who isn’t saying anything and tries to find out why and then find out what was left unstated. An open environment will tell you a lot but rarely will each individual involved be totally upfront about what is on their mind. Feedback and alternative perspectives are essential to a healthy organization of any type.

Discovering the way someone processes their thoughts and how those turn into actions is a prime responsibility for an effective leader. The method a person arrives at for his or her conclusions can be the basis for understanding how that person views their world, how they find solutions to problems, how they will interact with others, and if they work better on their own or as part of a team.

An innovative and interesting way to engage people’s imagination is to make use of slogans. These can make a big difference in attitude and productivity. Advertisers have known this for a long time and companies have built up a certain image internally and externally by branding their strategy, product, or service with a slogan. The words may be forceful (as in Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream”) or they may be more subtle and only used within a small group as their private cheer or motivating statement. This idea can work for a corporate company, a special team, a club, or an individual entrepreneur.
Being an effective, liked, and respected leader entails a lot of characteristics that aren’t always easy to live up to and live with. But they will make you successful and people will be loyal to you-regardless of the circumstances. Act with integrity, be accountable, express interest, act with quality, be dynamic and flexible, show humor, reassure your working companions that you are there for them, create winning situations, and be a catalyst. You probably already incorporate most of these traits into your life – now enhance them to enlarge your base of positive power.
By Virginia Reeves