How to Focus: 20-20-20 Vision

If you wear glasses, you understand focus really well. Why is it easy for people who need glasses? Because many of them just cannot see what is in front of them without their glasses. If you cannot see clearly, it is very hard to function effectively.

I have been shortsighted since I was 15 years old. Without my glasses, I cannot read well, drive, enjoy TV or notice facial expressions from half a meter away. Without glasses, I cannot do my presentations, coach, cook, clean the house or even choose what clothes to wear. My vision plays a big part in my life, and without it, I am crippled.

Mental focus works the same. If we are not focused, it is as if our vision is blurred. The lack of focus affects all aspects of our life negatively and we are crippled.

This post is part 1 of 2 in the series How to Focus

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Stop Verbalizing and Justifying Your Negative Feelings

As a life coach, I teach mindfulness. To me, mindfulness is observation of sensations, thoughts and emotions without judgment. Our conscious mind is in charge of 10% of our actions and our subconscious mind is in charge of 90%. Therefore, mindfulness is a simple and highly effective way to increase our awareness, overcome negative feelings and gain more control over our actions.

One basic tools used to reach high EQ is “Name the feeling”. Researchers have found that when people give a name to a hard feeling they have, their brain decreases the intensity of the feeling. Matthew D. Lieberman, professor of psychology and director of the UCLA Social Cognitive Neuroscience lab, has shown that simply labeling emotions reduced the activity of the amygdala, the brain’s center of emotional responses, which reduced fear. Naming emotions also increased activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the mind’s regulator.

Many people know this concept, but some of them take it too far, because not all verbalizing is healthy for us. Many people believe that if we name the “problem”, we are half-way into solving it. After working with many clients, I can tell you that almost 90% of them know what their problems are, but they are far from solving them.

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How to Keep Negativity Away from You

Girl looking worried while giving the thumbs up

Last week, in Toxic People and Why You Should Stay Away from Them, I wrote about the kinds of people we should stay away from when we feel they are damaging our self-esteem. In this post, I will cover some ways to keep those people away from your heart and minimize their influence on your mind.

The main difficulty we have with energy consumers is that we take their negative influence with us, even when they are not present physically. By taking it with us, we spread the bad vibes to other areas of our life and affect other people in our lives negatively.

Think of this negativity, as a virus that spreads and damages people’s self-esteem. To overcome the virus, you need to find its source and then, make sure it will not spread.

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Toxic People and Why You Should Stay Away from Them

Ronit, Tsoof and Noff on the Great Ocean Road

I think that the people in our life have the potential to help us evolve into better versions of ourselves. On the other hand, toxic people drain us from energy and do not help us move forward. In some ways, they even take us backwards.

When my youngest sister traveled, I made her a journal to capture her experiences and added quotes. One of them was this:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

– Mark Twain

This quote now hangs on my fridge too.

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Experiences, not Possessions: How to Best Spend Money on Your Kids

If you wonder how to give your kids the best life possible, do not buy them things. Instead, give them great, exciting experiences. Research shows they will remember special events and adventures longer and relive the joy and excitement again and again.

We live in a world of abundance. If you want to understand how much you have today, all you need to do is think of how your life would have been 50 years ago. I like asking myself, “What did my parents not have 50 years ago that I (or my kids) have today?” It is a good lesson in perspective.

Unfortunately, not every person who asks this question reaches the same conclusion. Some people feel grateful and other feel fear. Grateful people, who feel that they are fortunate, tend to appreciate what they have and care for it. Fearful people panic and start to accumulate things. No matter how much they accumulate, they are never happy. Fear takes away the joy of what they already have.

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Make a list: Life Lessons Learned

Road sign with all arrows leading to the right way

Old people often reflect on life and give the younger generations their list of life lessons learned. It is as if experience gives them the credit to give tips to the young on how to live life.

Well, it does! Experience is important and the best thing about it is that it helps develop perspective.

Unfortunately, not all old people with lots of experience have the perspective to give “young ones” and many of their tips are not applicable to the way life happens now. What worked for my parents, who are now in their 80’s, might not work for me or for my children.

Does this mean I cannot learn from them? No! I can learn a lot from them, but it is best to develop my own lessons, because the lessons I learn by myself are the lessons I can live by.

This post is part 39 of 48 in the series Make a List

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Children with Auditory Processing Disorders or Not?

A brain made from words marking the different brain functions

I went to study special education to help children and adults with learning difficulties. When I started my journey, over 30 years ago, I thought there were many people with learning difficulties. I still think there are, but in the past, I was convinced they were “organic” – physical, possibly genetic – and therefore hard to change.

Now, after seeing so many children and people of all ages, I think that social attitude creates or aggravates the problems in many cases. Many people have small difficulties that are blown out of proportion and labeled as disorders.

Auditory processing disorders are very popular and easily labeled, even among very young children. Every year that passes, I hear about younger and younger kids with auditory processing disorders. Recently, I even talked to a mother whose son was one year old and she insisted he had an auditory processing disorder. I am qualified enough to know that I cannot assess a child for APD at one year of age.

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Mental Pain Shouldn’t Kill You. It Can Make You Stronger

The word depression projected onto a sad man's face

I have written before about emotional pain as a reaction to a perceived threat and our body’s way of telling us that something is wrong. Mental pain is not the enemy. It is the messenger. And it is very important not to kill it.

Many people will tell you that when you come out of the other side of pain, you feel stronger. I have learned the hard way that the fear of pain takes more energy than the pain itself. Worry is an example of it. When we worry, we experience mental pain from something negative we have imagined in our head. Yes, all in our head.

There are many techniques to turn mental pain into psychological strength and the more you use them, the less you feel the pain. I have gathered some of them here to share with you. All of them are proven and practical. I use them with my clients.

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Assertiveness: Successful Communication Summary

Middle-aged woman in a suit looking assertive

You can learn assertiveness skills at any stage of life and you can always improve them and gain more respect for yourself and others. In this post, I have gathered all of my assertiveness tips in one big list. I hope this summary will be useful for you and for your children and students.

If we create a society full of assertive people, we will not have conflicts and we will live with each other with respect, so pass this along to everyone you know.

This post is part 6 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

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Assertiveness: Know Your Rights

Assertive woman writing "I'll do it My Way"

So far, I have covered things that affect our ability to be assertive. This post adds some tips on how to know your rights, keep them and be assertive about them. I hope they will help you on your quest to develop your emotional intelligence and communicate with assertiveness.

When you are assertive, you express yourself with confidence without hurting others. You are firm, not a bully. You are clear, not manipulative. You are honest, not aggressive. Healthy communication is based on honesty, clarity and confidence.

First, you have to know your rights in every communication. It takes two to tango and when one has more rights than the other does, this will not be an assertive relationship. I suggest teaching kids these rights too and giving them opportunities to practice them.

This post is part 5 of 6 in the series Assertiveness

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How to Focus: 20-20-20 Vision

Stop Verbalizing and Justifying Your Negative Feelings

How to Keep Negativity Away from You

Experiences, not Possessions: How to Best Spend Money on Your Kids

Make a list: Life Lessons Learned

Children with Auditory Processing Disorders or Not?

Mental Pain Shouldn’t Kill You. It Can Make You Stronger

Assertiveness: Successful Communication Summary

Assertiveness: Know Your Rights

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