Too many of us put others on a pedestal and care more about their opinions about us than our opinions of ourselves. We care so much about what they think about us that we let them have power over us emotionally and we subconsciously believe that the answer is to try to conform to their ideals and beliefs.
When we know that somebody doesn’t approve of us, we become insecure about ourselves and develop needy attitudes. The image of them criticizing us stays in our minds night and day, their words repeat themselves endlessly in our subconscious and we let their opinions become the basis of how we ultimately view ourselves. As a result, we develop anxiety disorders when we are around new groups of people.
[click to continue...]
Are you surrounded by yes men or people who tell it like it really is?
Whenever you have something that people want, whether it’s money or power, you’re going to run into people who are going to lie to you. We’ve all run into people like this, right? If you have something that they want, they’re willing to say or do anything it takes to get it.
Sometimes the lies are blatant and sometimes they’re cleverly well hidden. Maybe they’re not necessarily lying to you on purpose. Maybe that person is so desperate to get what they want that they are oblivious to how corrupt they have become. Either way, they are undeniably deceiving people for their personal gain.
[click to continue...]
One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant. — Sun Tzu
We all find ourselves in situations where no matter what we do, we can’t make the progress we want to make. Maybe it’s because our strengths aren’t adequate for the task or the difficulties of the situation seem to exploit our weaknesses. Either way, we are stuck. If we continue fighting in this scenario, we’ll end up with years of wasted effort and relatively little to show for it.
If you find yourself in this situation, the best move you can make is to channel your energy outside of this situation. You have to look for another battle, a winnable battle, where you can make the fullest use of your greatest strengths. Find a battle that has opportunities and vulnerabilities that your strengths can easily exploit; you will achieve considerably more in a shorter span of time.
[click to continue...]
It may go without saying that many of our limitations in life are self-imposed. We seem to have every reason in the world to surpass them easily: we’re physically capable of surpassing those limitations and there are no obstacles standing in our way. Yet, we continue to harbor those limitations because of the fear of what might happen if we try to venture beyond them.
Fear is like an invisible prison that confines our habits and actions into a small circle of possibility. Even when we want to do something that is perfectly reasonable and acceptable to everyone involved, our fears cause us to hesitate and freeze up instead of letting our actions and words flow out naturally and effortlessly.
If you’re like most people, you probably have moments in life where you want to do something but you second guess yourself, retreat, and continue doing what you’ve always done to play it safe. You might not think anything of these moments at first but later you start to think about what might have happened if you took a chance and went after what you wanted.
[click to continue...]
