Personal Development, Self Growth

Posts about personal growth, personal development and personal improvement, how to be a better person, how to keep yourself motivated, particularly as a parent, and how to be happy in life

Success vs. Talent: How I almost made the Olympic team

Some people think that talent is the only thing we need to succeed in life. I thought so too when I was young. I was very talented in gymnastics and I thought that talent was the only thing I needed. It was very hard for me to realize that talent was just a baseline and guaranteed nothing.

I’m all for helping our children find their talent, but finding it, and even pursuing it, is not enough for success. They need something more.

Not long ago, I had the honor of working with two amazing young athletes on the Australian Olympic team. They were both equally talented and had all the physical skills, but one of them had what it takes to succeed, and the other didn’t.

Working with them reminded me of my Olympic team adventure as a child and why talent is not enough for success.

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Cruising for Perspective: What I Learned on a Cruise Ship

Some time ago, Gal and I went on a cruise together. It was the first time we had been on that type of cruise. What a wonderful lesson in perspective it was. Sometimes, we need a change of scenery to appreciate what we have.

Many years ago, we cruised from Miami to the Bahamas, but that was very short and the only thing I remember is that everyone gambled, and we didn’t like that at all.

The second time we cruised was when we lived in Singapore. Our daughter was 9 years old and our son was just under 3 years old. We took a cruise for three days with another family. They had an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old baby. We were at sea and things didn’t get as glamorous as we’d expected, because we had no babysitting arrangement and it was not very friendly to kids.

We ended up agreeing with our friends that one night, they would stay with all the kids and we would see the show and the next night, we would swap. It was two nights and apart from the excitement of being at sea and having “free” meals, it was hard work.

This time, we went on a cruise because our daughter had gone on a cruise with her husband and it had been a great experience for them. We booked a 7-day cruise and started asking friends and family about their experiences, which were mostly positive.

So, we went on the cruise and this is what we learned.

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New Year Reflection Activity Continued

The year 2019 is approaching. If you’ve New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018, you know why it’s important to take stock of your life and prepare for the next year.

I honestly believe that holidays, and time off in general, can help charge our batteries and help us gain perspective. I think we all should write goals when we are on vacation, or right when we come back, because we are usually wiser then.

Not everyone can take a long vacation, so here is a list that will help you gain perspective even if you can’t get a lot of time off.

Ask yourself the questions on the list below for a detailed reflection on the ending year in preparation for the year to come and have a great 2019!

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New Year Activity: Reflection on 2018

We are approaching the end of 2018 and our Be Happy family is preparing for a vacation. Every year, around this time, we take a month off to recharge our batteries. I believe that recharging our batteries is very important. It’s like eating food. We eat so we can get through 3-4 hours without food, and the quality of our food is important. For me, holidays are food for the soul and they give us the energy to survive the next year.

I think we are a lucky family, because we can take that time off. I do not take it for granted, because I know many people can only take the week of Christmas and New Year off.

I often measure the quality of the year by how many vacations I’ve taken. This year was a great year for me, because I took several short and long breaks. I am very grateful for being able to do that.

Every holiday is a lesson in perspective that allows me to examine my life and make changes for the following days, months and years of my life. I want to help you do the same, even if you can’t take a long vacation.

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Contentment and Gratitude: How Green is Your Grass?

I’ve written a lot about happiness and realized that some people just don’t get that happiness is an idea, a thought, an action you choose. On the other hand, unhappiness is the absence of that idea. One of the things that make people miserable is always comparing themselves to others.

I guess the reason we compare is that we learn it from our parents. It is an essential part of life and an important factor in our evolution. We must have a definition of what is right and what is wrong to navigate through life. If green, vibrant, healthy grass is the definition of happiness, then yellow, dull, dying grass is the definition of misery.

So, it’s OK to look at other people’s grass to find better ways to treat ours. But it’s not so good to believe that “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

Do you know why it’s not good? Because it’s not true.

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Turn Your Unhappiness into Personal Growth

I often discuss happiness with my clients. They find it very awkward when I tell them it is possible to find happiness everywhere, including times of unhappiness.

Most people try to avoid unhappiness like the plague. They divide life into happy and unhappy and think they should move towards happy and avoid unhappy. This is good if you think of it as a process and direction, but not if you think of it as something that shrinks you. You see, we can grow from happiness and we can grow from unhappiness.

Trent was a 28-year-old man who worked at a petrol station. He was healthy, made good money, could pick shifts if he wanted to do something in the evening, had time for computer games and had some good friends.

On the surface, you’d think Trent had a very good life, but he didn’t. His friends were all professionals with university degrees, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to do in his life. He told me he’d never known what he wanted to do in his life.

One day, Trent had a weekend away with his friends, and although the time spent together was fantastic, Trent came back very unhappy. This was when he looked for a life coach and found me.

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Make a List: 100 Reasons to Be Wealthy

Everyone wants to be wealthy. We want it for our children and for ourselves. The problem with being wealthy is that if you are not born to wealth and know exactly what it means, you don’t know how to get there.

The Internet contains millions of websites, blogs, podcasts and videos of people who promise you that if you do what they’ve done, you will become wealthy. If they were so successful, everyone who visited their site would be wealthy by now. Sadly, the transition from not being wealthy to being wealthy is filled with obstacles.

To me, wealth is a sense of security. Real richness is mostly about things that you have and no one can take away from you. We can be rich in memories, rich in experiences, rich in love and rich in friendships, not just possessions.

This post is part 44 of 44 in the series Make a List

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Make a List: Judgment of Right from Wrong

Judgment is a very tense concept. We hear many objections to it, like “Do not judge a book by its cover” or “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes”. Still, although judgment is considered negative, we have lots of judgment towards everything that happens around us.

The reason we do is that we need judgment to navigate through life. If you consider judgment as the process of determining right and wrong, then judgment is essential to our survival. This is especially true for social survival.

We must have some kind of judgment towards everything we do in life, because it helps us choose what to do and what to avoid doing. Judgment and decision-making are Siamese twins. They have the same DNA and are inseparable. Making decisions requires us to use judgment to determine which of our choices we consider the best. So, judgment is not bad if we use it to make better choices.

This post is part 43 of 44 in the series Make a List

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Make a List: 100 Things I Want People to Think of Me

Generally, I think we need to live our life based on our own judgment be developing a sense of self that functions as a moral GPS (or compass), and not by other’s judgment or external rules and beliefs. In life coaching, the task of finding who we are relies on our ability to strip away other’s expectations and what they think of us. Instead, we learn to listen to our inner voice and “redesign” ourselves.

This process of redesigning who we are happens in the context of being part of a society, because connections and relationships form a huge part of our experience. When we “bare ourselves” and take off the “clothes” of what others think of us, the “shoes” of where they think we should go, the “coat” of others’ compliments or criticism, we need to put on new “clothes” that we love and feel comfortable with to warm us through life’s challenges.

Sometimes, looking at ourselves from the outside, can help us see things with fresh eyes.

This post is part 42 of 44 in the series Make a List

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From Sickness to Health: Happy Ending

On the third week of my parents’ visit, after the withdrawal from her pain killer patches, my mom came back to life. When we played “3 things that made me happy today”, she cooperated.

We still avoided long trips, but she was willing to walk in the shopping center for 4 hours to buy some gifts she wanted to take home with her. She also walked with Eden and Ayla around the neighborhood.

When we asked her about sweating at night, it dropped to once a night or none at all and she cooked a lot more, because her arm was stronger. For her, cooking is part of her identity. Not being able to cook made her feel useless. The results of her blood sugar were excellent, and she was in pain, but rated it much lower.

This post is part 11 of 11 in the series From Sickness to Health

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