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Home » acceptance / judgment / tolerance » Page 5

The Optimistic Creed

Be Optimistic

Everybody in the world wants happiness. Ask around and you will see. Being optimistic is a way to reach happiness and if you want to go this way, you must first believe that it will take you to where you want to go.

When we talk happiness at my workshops, many people highlight the obstacles to happiness. They share stories of heartache, disappointment, frustration, failure and pain. For them, you can only be in a state of happiness when everything in life functions at a 100%. When I ask them, “What makes you happy?” they mostly list what needs not to happen, which shows a focus on the past and on avoiding pain.

When I draw their attention to this focus, they make a list of what needs to happen for them to be happy. This is better, but we quickly discover that one painful thing is enough for them to feel unhappy, but to feel happy, they need the whole list to happen at the same time. This way, they make sure that unhappiness is easy to reach and happiness is really hard.

When my clients understand that this is a problem, they usually ask, “Ronit, how do we change the formula?” and one of the best ways to do it is by practicing optimism.

Read The Optimistic Creed »

Published: October 4, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: February 15, 2023In: Personal Development Tags: emotional intelligence, anxiety, empowerment, happiness, optimism, law of attraction, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, gratitude

Assertiveness: Things You Should Keep to Yourself

A safe behind heavy doors

Keeping things to yourself does not mean keeping them a secret. Assertiveness comes from confidence, while secrets come from fear. Sharing is expressing yourself confidently without reservation and without any pressure to convince others or justify your own thoughts and beliefs.

Here is a list of things you can keep to yourself or share selectively. If you are confident about them, you do not need validation, approval or to have the majority with you to hold them. If you want someone’s opinion, ask. If someone asks for your opinion, respect their choice not to accept it or to do whatever they want with it. If they disagree, do not like it or do not want to use it, it should not create any doubt in you. Some things are yours to keep and you can share them, but never with pressure. Pressure is not assertiveness.

This post is part 3 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

Read Assertiveness: Things You Should Keep to Yourself »

Published: September 29, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: April 28, 2020In: Personal Development Tags: assertive, positive attitude tips, stress / pressure, responsibility, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, emotional intelligence, self confidence / self esteem / self worth, how to, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, choice, freedom, trust, empowerment, control, change

Happy Friendship Anniversary

Couple at sunset

This week, Gal and I celebrated 36 years of being together. We have known each other for 37 years, been a couple for 36, lived together for 31 and been married for 29 years. Every year, we celebrate our friendship anniversary instead of our wedding anniversary, because our wedding experience was not a very happy experience and we would really like to celebrate a happy thing in our life rather than an event we never liked.

I have a relationship philosophy that worked very well for me over the years. I am happy that my philosophy, together with Gal’s, brought us together to this anniversary. We still fight. We still disagree on things. We are very different in many ways, but we are still friends who love each other and care about each other greatly.

In my sessions, I share with my clients my formula for happy relationships. After each session, I send them a summary of the topics we covered, so they can reflect and work on their relationship. I have decided to include them here with the hope that many more people will use them to reach happy, supportive and loving relationships.

Read Happy Friendship Anniversary »

Published: September 27, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: March 17, 2021In: Relationships / Marriage Tags: friends / friendship, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, love, responsibility, inspiration, how to, Life Coaching, relationships / marriage, romance, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance

Assertiveness: Keeping Things Private

A private sign on a gate

In order for us to be assertive, we need to create clear boundaries between us and other people. In the previous post about assertiveness, I explained that assertiveness is the ability to express our needs and desires without hurting others and that this skill is important, yet nobody learns it at school. In this post, I will describe the things we do (and should not do) that sacrifice our own best interest and let other people into our personal space.

In order to be assertive, we must understand that everyone is entitled to his or her own thoughts, beliefs and actions. At the same time, we do not have to accept them as applicable to us. We should always stick to the things that are important to us and take care of ourselves first.

This post is part 2 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

Read Assertiveness: Keeping Things Private »

Published: September 22, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 26, 2019In: Personal Development, Parenting Tags: control, change, assertive, aggressive, positive attitude tips, stress / pressure, responsibility, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, emotional intelligence, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, how to, freedom, choice, practical parenting / parents, empowerment

Assertiveness: It is better to be Wise than to be Right

I believe in me with a man jumping for joy

What a shame! Assertiveness is not something we learn at school, so if you cannot learn it from your parents, because they never learned it from their own parents, then you can be easily manipulated and pushed over.

Everybody hates being pushed over. I see it as a natural part of life. We all do everything we can to improve our position, and if others are in our way, we push them aside. Sometimes, well, most times, we hurt people along the way without any bad intentions. Assertiveness can help us do better in life without hurting anyone.

Many of my clients mainly need assertiveness. When we do not have it and we cannot express our needs and assert our rights, we resort to either avoidance or aggression. It is the old “fight and flight” response. We see a lion or a snake and we either run away or attack. So when I see aggression or avoidance, I know that assertiveness is needed.

This post is part 1 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

Read Assertiveness: It is better to be Wise than to be Right »

Published: September 15, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 26, 2019In: Personal Development Tags: empowerment, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, control, freedom, wisdom, expectation, change, work life balance, assertive, aggressive, responsibility, decision making, emotional intelligence, positive attitude tips, how to, stress / pressure, choice, acceptance / judgment / tolerance

The Expectations Paradox: Mindfulness is the Cure

A tree with words about what love is

In the last two posts about the expectations paradox, I explained how expectations from others and ourselves can cause us lots of pain and why respect and acceptance are the keys to overcoming them. It is much better to be prepared for the future than to try to control a specific outcome. Today, I will describe how to develop respect and acceptance with mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of reflection with no judgment. This state is similar to mediation. We observe and do not let the ego interfere with our observation and tempt us to label and judge what we experience. In a mindfulness state, we do not give a rating to the event, thought or feeling. We only name it. In a higher state of mindfulness, even naming it is not necessary. We just notice.

I remember the first time I mediated. Gal and I were in California at a meditation course. Every week, we learned a different kind of meditation. We did walking, eating, light, mantra and visualizing meditations and we were very confused. Millions of thoughts ran through our minds and we had no control over them. When we got home, we went to sleep and felt overwhelmed.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

Read The Expectations Paradox: Mindfulness is the Cure »

Published: September 13, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: June 21, 2022In: Personal Development Tags: communication, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, responsibility, love languages, success, expectation, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, meditation, empowerment, control, change, communication styles, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance

The Expectations Paradox: Self-inflicted Pain

Rusty sign saying Welcome to Reality

In the last post about the paradox of expectations, I explained how unmet expectations can bring lots of misery to life when we do not understand them properly. Today, I will explore additional aspects of expectations and what happens to us when our expectations are not met.

Many people think that expectations are part of their identity. They expect so much of themselves that they believe this gives them the “right” to expect the same from others. I am sure that if you examine the definition of arrogance (“having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities”), you will see someone who expects a lot from themselves and from others as arrogant. Thinking highly of yourself is great, but expecting others to fulfill your expectations is not!

Most people care a lot about what others think about them. They are in the approval trap and have the disease to please. It is very hard to be assertive and to take care of your own interests when you are busy pleasing others. It may be easier when you are young, but it becomes more complicated during the teenage years, when you realize that that some of the expectations of those around you contradict others.

More people find the pain we experience from unmet expectations unbearable. They think that life is hard when things do not happen the way they expect them to. But this is only because they believe life is supposed to work as they expect.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

Read The Expectations Paradox: Self-inflicted Pain »

Published: September 6, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: March 1, 2020In: Personal Development Tags: control, change, communication styles, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, communication, love languages, responsibility, expectation, success, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, empowerment

The Expectations Paradox: Danger Ahead

Sign: Danger, expectations ahead!

From the minute I woke up, at the age of 16, and took control of my life, I had a good understanding of the power of expectations. At least this is what I thought for a long time. I thought that I switched from having low expectation to high expectations and believed that high expectations were the key to success in life.

I still think so, although I believe that it is important to distinguish between expectations from ourselves and expectations from others. Even more important is what we do when our expectations are not fulfilled.

Expectations can be a blessing or a curse and we can always determine what they were after the event. Subconsciously, when we succeed, we tend to consider our expectations as blessings, as a ladder that led us to victory. When we fail, we consider them false, frustrating and painful. In victories, we reward ourselves for having “motivating expectations”. In failures, we blame circumstances and/or people, and sometimes, we blame ourselves.

Expectations are a double-edged sword if we do not define them properly.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series The Expectations Paradox

Read The Expectations Paradox: Danger Ahead »

Published: August 30, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: December 26, 2019In: Personal Development Tags: personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, expectation, responsibility, goals / goal setting, success, emotional intelligence, empowerment, control, change, motivation, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance

What Kids Really Need to Grow Up Healthy, Successful and Happy

Little girl looking happy

Children do not really choose their parents (I say “really” because some people claim that we chose our parents in some karmic or spiritual way). Like it or not, they are born helpless and needy. Therefore, the power over the relationship is in the parents’ hands and the fate of the kids depends on the parents’ ability to care for them.

During my parenting workshops and seminars over the last 30 years of my career, I have seen many thousands of parents. I can tell you that parents are full of love for their kids and want to give them the world. If not, I would never have met them in my line of work…

Parents want their children to be healthy, successful and happy. That’s it! If I could sum up all of parents’ desires, they would fit into those three areas. I meet them when they feel they cannot do that, because their kids are not healthy (which is very hard for a parent), they struggle at school, lack social skills, have behavior issues or are simply unhappy. Too many times, their children need to overcome two or even three of these things.

My conclusion is that parents’ hearts are in the right place, but action always beats intention. Parents simply do not know what kids need in order to be healthy, successful and happy.

Read What Kids Really Need to Grow Up Healthy, Successful and Happy »

Published: August 18, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: February 28, 2020In: Parenting, Kids / Children Tags: practical parenting / parents, focus, how to, role model, social skills, family matters, kids / children, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, behavior / discipline, emotional development

The Devastating Relationship between Expectations and Conflicts

Couple under signs in opposite directions saying "I am right" and "Me too"

Conflicts determine the quality of every relationship. Even the most loving couples, friends or family members face conflict in their life. It is because we are different people, with different life experiences, tendencies, desires, fears, challenges and upbringing.

Every moment in time, whether we have judged it as a negative, positive or neutral, has molded us into the people we are today. We can define ourselves as the accumulation of all those split-second moments of experience and how they have affected us.

It is important to remember that even twins, having the same genetic code, do not have the same path in life, because each of them was in a different place in their mother’s womb, was born at a different time, has a different name and reacts differently to the same experiences. As hard as it may be to accept, the chances that two people will go through the same experience and come out of it the same way is zero.

Read The Devastating Relationship between Expectations and Conflicts »

Published: August 16, 2016 by Ronit Baras
Last modified: September 20, 2022In: Personal Development Tags: communication, emotional intelligence, change, happiness, hope, conflict, positive attitude tips, acceptance / judgment / tolerance, personal development / personal growth / personality development / self improvement, expectation

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