Stories

How to Find Energy to Achieve Your Goals

The saying goes, “Every journey begins with a single step.” For me, at least, the problem isn’t that first step. I can delve into projects with great enthusiasm, no problem. It’s usually step number 352 that gets me down. Then, through lack of energy or simple frustration, I simply get off the road.

Achieving a goal often feels more like a bell curve to me. The beginning is great, and when I reach the end, all is well. It’s that pesky middle area, when the bump in the road appears and I feel like I’m running uphill for miles, that’s the hardest to overcome. I keep looking for the end to be in sight, and when I can’t see it, I can get discouraged and give up.

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3 Reasons We Don’t Like Our Jobs

By Margareta Ackerman / 50 Comments

“I don’t want to wake up,” I remember thinking to myself. I had no idea what went wrong. All I knew was that getting out of bed would only make things worse. But I had no choice, I had to go to work. I was doing an internship at Sun Microsystems at a time. I was getting paid quite well and looking forward to a “bright future.”

It fit perfectly into my plans. I was going to become a manager at a software company! And what’s better for that than a reference letter from a reputable company? Everything was going according to plan. There was only one little problem: I hated my life.

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How Travel Changed My Life (& Could Change Yours Too)

By Hannah Braime / 32 Comments

If you had told me three years ago that I would be writing this now from a colonial casita in Merida, Mexico, I would have responded “Yeah, right…”. But just over three months into a seven-month trip, here I am – and I won’t ever say “Yeah, right…” again. Travel has changed my life. And I think it could change yours too.

Travel (especially long-term travel) isn’t for everyone. If you’ve thought about it and are on the fence when it comes to traveling, however, I can assure you that the experiences, benefits and perspective you get are too good to miss. Here are some of the most life-changing aspects I’ve experienced over the past few months:

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Why Waiting to Change Your Life Can Be Dangerous

By Ali Davies / 51 Comments

There are days that your life will change forever, in an instant, never to be the same again. You don’t know it is coming. You haven’t prepared for it. It just happens to you. I had one of those days a couple of years ago.

I was facilitating a meeting for a group of Self Employed Women. As we were having lunch my phone rang and my husband’s name flashed up on the screen. “That’s strange” I thought. He never phones me if he knows I am running a business meeting. But when I answered it wasn’t my husband’s voice at the end of the line. It was a paramedic.

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Why You Can’t Live Without Passion

By Matt Coast / 34 Comments

I was watching a movie the other day called, “Peaceful Warrior.” There’s a character in that movie called, “Socrates.” He’s a very wise and intelligent guy. One of the things he said really caught my attention. He said, “Death isn’t sad. The sad thing is: most people don’t live at all.”

Most people don’t live. It seems almost esoteric or new agey to say something like that. But deep inside, I know it’s really true. Most people’s lives flash before their eyes. They go day in and day out just going through the movements. They’re not really… living.

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How Death Changed My Life (& Why It’s Important to Think About Yours)

By Robert D. Smith / 25 Comments

For most of my life, I kept a tragedy to myself. An event that I witnessed at a young age altered my thinking forever. It fueled the way I approach life. In recent years, I began sharing how death changed my life.

When I was a freshman in high school, I saw a good friend of mine die. Paul Kartlick was playing basketball in PE class one day and tripped. He hit his head on the outdoor concrete court and died on the spot. One moment we were playing basketball and the next moment he was gone. He was 14 years old.

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How $16 Changed My Life

By Trent Hand / 52 Comments

Before going any further into this post, I want to clarify two things: 1) This is not a product or promotion I’m pushing that costs $16; 2) This is a very low point in my life that I haven’t shared with many people. Now, with full disclosure out of the way, I’ll tell you what the title is all about.

In the summer of 2008, I worked as a sales trainer for a small marketing firm in Nashville, TN. Although during my career there I would work in over 7 different campaigns, at the time I was selling and training salespeople for a retail promotion involving At&t’s home services inside their cellular stores. Do you remember going into an At&t store and someone coming up asking you about your home phone service? Could have been me or someone I trained.

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Journaling for the Body and Soul

By Liz Seda / 47 Comments

All I could see was the blank page. I found myself staring at the journal that lay open on my lap. It was the third time in a week I’d made an attempt to start writing in my new journal and I was determined to begin with something other than ‘Dear Diary.’ Several minutes, one headache, and three aspirin later I closed the journal and decided I’d try again tomorrow when I was fresh.

The morning rolls around and I sit staring at that wretched blank page which just stares right back at me as if to say, “How many times are we going to go through this?” Finally I caved and I wrote, ‘Dear Diary,’ in black pen. Suddenly, the words that wouldn’t come flowed easily. I wrote for an hour. Who knew I had so much to say? I was fascinated.

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Are You Really Ready to Change?

By Alison Ottaway / 25 Comments

How do you feel when you look at your life right now – how your day has been lived, the way you look, the things you’ve done and are doing, where you are, the people you’re around, the life you’ve laid, the thoughts that surround you?

If there are things you want to change in any part of your life there’s something you need to know.

And it’s not pretty: Change isn’t for everyone. Change isn’t easy.

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Authentic Change and the Role of Choice

By Dr. Joseph Burgo / 13 Comments

Everywhere you look, in popular magazines and on media websites like the Huffington Post, there seem to be countless articles outlining the five or six essential steps to follow for some type of self-improvement. Americans are fixated on personal growth — becoming more effective in their professions, happier and more tranquil in their private lives, less depressed with higher self-esteem and a more satisfying sex life. The website on which you’re reading this post is devoted to promoting change. We all want to grow and change for the better.

In my experience, however, most people change very little over the course of their lives. They tend to become more the way they already are.

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How to Breakthrough Ten Common Fears

By Tess Marshall / 19 Comments

Fear can be defined as an anxious feeling, caused by our anticipation of imagined, stories, events and experiences. Most of our fears are about the future.

When I took speech in college, I was excited and eager to learn. I’ve always been social and outgoing and I’ve lived a challenging and adventurous life. I thought my stories would interest and help others. I was ready to share. The first time I stood up in front of the class, I was anxious and nervous. After about five minutes, I couldn’t go on. In front of everyone, my voice cracked and I began to cry. I quickly returned to my seat. I thought I would die from embarrassment.

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