From my article Realizing Success Through Empowerment at Dumb Little Man:

“So many times when things go badly in our lives we find ourselves wondering how we ended up in such a bad situation, or who is to blame. These are self-defeating mindsets that limit our ability to recover, or to succeed.

Instead of developing a defeatist attitude when something goes awry, try to adjust to a mindset that allows you to empower yourself. Empowerment, in turn, leads to greater success. It allows you to learn from your mistakes, be thankful for your accomplishments, and move on.

The next time you find yourself in a mess and wondering how or why you got there, try looking at some of the more positive aspects of your particular situation.”

Read the rest of Realizing Success Through Empowerment.

Your subjective well-being is a measure of how you personally feel about your own levels of happiness, satisfaction and emotional health - in short, your own evaluation of your quality of life. Having a high SWB means that you are happy with your life; you experience your life as being predominately positive and unpleasant feelings are uncommon and generally situational and temporary in nature. On the other hand, someone with a low SWB rates their life as dreary, stagnant or unpleasant, and considers happiness, joy and pleasure to be uncommon and mostly transient sensations.

According to Ed Diener, et al, in their paper “Recent Findings on Subjective Well-Being” (http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/paper1.html), there are three components to subjective well-being: Satisfaction, pleasant affect, and low levels of unpleasant affect. Satisfaction is a measure of how satisfied you are with your life. Pleasant affect refers to pleasant or positive emotions - joy, happiness, pleasure, love, pride, etc. And unpleasant affect refers to unpleasant emotions - guilt, anger, unhappiness, helplessness, etc. The sum of these factors, as you see them, makes up your overall perception of you subjective well-being.

Having a high SWB contributes immensely to your state of mental and physical health, you’re ability to cope with change and crisis, and your enjoyment of life in general. Here are a few ways you can boost your own personal happiness, and improve your chances of enjoying a long, happy life. Read Post

I’m presenting tomorrow at the Biz Tech Expo in Milwaukee. Topic: Personal Development in a Professional World.

Here are the details:

Our lives are defined by our choices. But often, the choices we make don’t appear at the time to be the important crossroads that they later turn out to have been. We go merrily along our way, taking what looks like a straight and well-defined path, only to realize later how many times we made life-altering decisions without a second thought.

Personal experiences, cultural expectations, peer and family pressures - each of these plays a role in how we look at life and the lives we choose for ourselves. But all of us have a unique and personal role to play in life. For this reason, it doesn’t pay to surrender our life’s choices to the highest (or loudest) bidder.

Reclaiming your uniqueness and your individuality can be a daunting but powerfully rewarding process. The trick is to shut out the clamoring demands of those around us and find a way to listen to the voice inside, the voice of our heart and our soul. Only by doing this, and acting upon what we hear, can we once again get back on our true path and live the life we were born to fulfill. Read Post

From my article Beating Procrastination is Easy – Once You Get Moving at Dumb Little Man:

“One of the biggest difficulties for most people to overcome is procrastination. We all have things we dread doing, and it is so much easier to come up with excuses not to do those things, or find other more pressing things to take care of, all as a means of avoidance. Then we look at all the time that has been wasted putting off the dreaded task, only to find that it is still sitting there, staring us squarely in the face. Not only did we lose precious time trying to ignore the unpleasant task, but it has since grown even more ominous.

An important aspect of any self improvement program is learning to overcome the fine art of procrastination. Some people are able to casually avoid an unpleasant or difficult chore, while others go to extreme lengths devising outlandish mechanisms for escaping their responsibilities. In many cases, the effort spent avoiding the task far exceeds the amount of effort required to complete it.

As you progress along your path towards self improvement, keep the following things in mind:”

Read the rest of Beating Procrastination is Easy – Once You Get Moving.

Someone posed an intriguing question to me recently. They asked me “how to make someone’s day in ten minutes.”

I thought about this for a few moments, and then I realized that Mick Jagger has the answer. Come to their emotional rescue.

When I say “emotional rescue,” it sounds like there’s a crisis happening. Certainly, it’s a given that if someone is freaking out or having a meltdown, they might need some attention from you. But that’s not what I’m referring to here.

I’m actually referring to something more subtle - the little things people say and do that indicate that may be needing something at this time. It’s so easy to get caught up in the busyness of our lives, and overlook these subtle cues from people. But they’re there, aren’t they? Noticing others, relating and being there for each other, is what life is really all about.

When we overlook the little things - the courtesy, the attention, and respect that other people deserve from us - this leads to bigger things. Maybe it seems like life is fine, we have our friends, our stuff, and all is well. But is it really?

Many people today have turned to drugs and therapy to alleviate whatever pain or emptiness they’re experiencing. When doctors offer us prescriptions to help shake feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, swinging moods, anger, and other imbalance… this somehow validates our issues, wouldn’t you say? Being handed a bottle of pills confirms what we’re feeling is real.

But what if we also believed that the source of unhappiness, is not only real, but curable in a very real, natural, and human way? Real, meaning through our own reality - the people who we come into contact and connect with. The friendships and relationships we cultivate.

Every human being has emotional needs. The actual need may vary depending on the person, the circumstance, and your role in their life. The intensity will vary as well. But if there is one thing that we all crave these days, but maybe we’re not getting so much of as we did in the past… it’s emotional validation and support.

Who can you rescue emotionally, in just ten minutes? Read Post

For some people, aging is not a positive experience. I remember hearing one senior saying, “Aging is not for cowards!” Yet, for some, aging is a rewarding experience. For those are people who have learned to age with dignity.

No matter how we look at it, aging is inevitable. Look at the alternative–not being around to age. So if it’s going to happen to us anyway, why not make the most of it.

In the next few years, the baby boomers will be reaching senior status in record numbers. Yet, who’s to say what’s a senior? Does it begin at 50, when you can join AARP? Or is it 60 when you can get a senior discount at the movies? Or do you become a senior at 70 when you can start collecting the full value of social security benefits?

We often hear, “You’re only as old as you feel.” I agree with that statement. Age is more a state of mind than a state of body. Yes, the body does start to wear down, but you’ll find lots of “seniors” doing things their younger counterparts can’t. In other words, how you age is up to you. I know an 89-year-old who hits the dance floor at least three times a week, while many people his age are waiting to die in nursing homes. And some people half his age are complaining about this pain and the other and haven’t danced in years.

So is there a secret to aging with dignity? Read Post

Men often complain that they have no idea what women need. They even go further to say that even when they ask women what they need, women don’t know themselves. It’s no wonder men and women have a challenge communicating and meeting each others’ needs.

Truth be told, we are not here to meet each others’ needs, but more to understand our own and others’ needs and to offer support and guidance to help each other fulfill their own needs. That’s not to say men and women don’t fill certain needs for each other, but the bottom line is it’s up to each of us to fill our own needs–whether from the opposite sex, same sex friends, or ourselves.

What I’ve discovered for myself in coaching both men and women is that what women need is really not a whole lot different from what men need. Other than the basic needs for survival and safety, here is what I’ve distilled down to some of our basic needs for either gender: Read Post

When you were younger you were able to achieve many things because you had to be accountable to people like teachers, parents and coaches. They expected certain things from you, which motivated you to achieve that which you might not otherwise have accomplished if left on your own.

However, when we go out on our own, we often fail at reaching goals we set or don’t reach our full potential. This is because we’re not accountable to anyone but ourselves. And let’s face it; sometimes, we can be pretty lousy at motivating ourselves because we too easily let ourselves off the hook when things get tough.

Here are 5 signs you may need an accountability partner to keep you on track with your goals: Read Post

From my article Better Time Management Through Better Focus at Dumb Little Man:

“In today’s hectic, multi-tasking society it can be difficult to maintain your focus on a project. We become easily distracted by many things – co-workers, the telephone, e-mail, or the television. We also lose our focus as we try to juggle several projects at once, finding ourselves pulled in many directions.

In order to accomplish more during your day, you must learn the technique of focusing your attention on one thing at a time. The more thought you can dedicate to one project, the quicker you will be able to complete it. Honing your ability to focus as a time management technique will translate directly into greater success completing your projects, and a greater amount of free time once you are finished.”

Read the rest of Better Time Management Through Better Focus.