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How to Focus: Juggling Life with Goals

In How to Focus: 20-20-20 Vision, I explained how focus works and why it is essential in many areas of our life. I compared mental focus to clear vision. If we see well, we function well. If we are able to stay focused mentally, we also function well. Easy!

As I said before, when we focus on one thing, the rest is blurry. It is important to remember that we cannot focus on everything with the same level of intensity.

It is as if we juggle too many balls at the same time. Even highly trained jugglers can handle no more than six or seven balls at a time and they train for years to reach that point. If we want to juggle the things we need to do in life, we need to train for years, and the sooner we start, the better.

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

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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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How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep and Why You Really Need It

When I was a kid, I did not really understand the importance of sleep. For years, I considered sleep a waste of time. I wanted to do so many things that I did not sleep much. My oldest daughter, Eden, never slept much either. She is 27 now and although she understands the importance of sleep in her mind, she sleeps very little.

It took me a long time to understand that we need to sleep because our body uses this time to rejuvenate, clear out toxins and recharge our batteries. Over the years, I also learned that the hours of sleep is not the only important thing. More important is who you are taking to bed with you every night and what happens in the minutes before you fall asleep.

I am sure you have heard the importance of starting the day on the right foot many times. Whatever happens in the morning will determine the rest of the day. Your day can be calm, organized, happy and cheerful, or angry, rushed, stressed, chaotic, sad and grumpy, depending on how you get out of bed.

Well, same thing happens when you get into bed, when you prepare for another big part of your every day – sleep. We spend a third of our life sleeping. If you live to be 90 years old, you will have slept 30 years of it. So you might as well make sure you get the most of this time.

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How to Control Anxiety: 35 More Tips

Anxiety is one of the most debilitating feelings we can have. We are anxious when we imagine a negative future. We do this in our head, triggering many processes in the brain that make us feel helpless and lost. Therefore, learning how to control anxiety can be very important in living a happy and healthy life.

Last week, I shared 25 tips on how to calm anxiety. Here are 35 more tips on how to control anxiety, which I hope you will find useful and easy to follow.

How to Control Anxiety Tips (26-59):

26. Tell yourself “I am safe” whenever you feel unsafe. Remember that anxiety is all in your head. Teach your head to say it whenever anxiety happens and it will do it after enough practice.

27. Set goals. Make sure to write them down. Having goals and having anxiety is the same process. We go into the future and in both of them, in our mind, but with goals, we imagine a positive future!

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series How to Deal with Anxiety

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Healthy Affirmations: Healthy Body

In the last chapter of the affirmation series, I explained why it is important to adopt good beliefs about the world around us. What we think of our body and about its health is very important to the function of the body and its health. We can plant healthy beliefs in our minds by using healthy affirmations and reading them over and over again.

As a mother, I am a strong believer in affirmations and planting good and healthy beliefs in kids’ minds. I have 3 kids and they are extremely healthy. They go to the doctor for health checks, not due to illness. I truly believe this is mainly because they have very healthy beliefs about their bodies and their health.

Gal and I appreciate health very much and we try to instill healthy thoughts in our children. If you are a parent and would like to raise healthy kids, read the list of beliefs and pick those you want to plant in your kids.

This post is part 4 of 6 in the series Affirmations

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How to Feel Good: Take Time Off

During a recent presentation, someone asked me to share some tips on how to feel good. In the first post of the series How to Feel Good, I shared the science of endorphins – the feel good hormones. In the second, I covered the science of smiling. In this post, I suggest another great way to feel good – taking time off.

Last year, I took time off from everything (home, work, kids and Gal) and went overseas to spend some time with my family. It was a wonderful reminder for me about why we have take time off to recharge out emotional batteries.

Taking time off from daily life can have a positive impact on our health and wellbeing. It helps us regenerate and start fresh. Sleep is the body’s natural way of giving us time off. It “forces” us to rest so we can function. Did you know that without sleep, we would die? If you want to torture someone, you do not need to hurt them. Just deprive them of sleep for 2-3 night. Just ask any mom!

This post is part 3 of 4 in the series How to Feel Good

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How to Test Your Stress

Stress is the new era’s worst disease. It is estimated that over 90% of all illnesses are caused or worsened by stress. In the future, you may find yourself dedicating most of your energy to overcoming stress. Stress management is a lifelong journey and everything little thing you do can help.

There are many ways to test your stress level. I personally like rating it on a scale of 1 to 10. For any of my coaching clients, I recommend a stress review every three month to make. This helps them make sure they are progressing (or at least helps them find out if their situation is getting worse). The issue with stress is that you start noticing it when it gets out of control. Regular monitoring when things are going well can be critical. It allows you to find a benchmark that you can compare to. If things go a little sour, you can do something straight away before you find yourself in a mental health ward with a nervous breakdown.

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Handy Family Tips: Wake Up With a Smile

In every family, some mornings are harder than others. How the morning goes often sets the tone for the rest of the day, so the way all the family members wake up can determine whether the day will be easy and relaxed or stressed and chaotic.

Imagine a rushed morning. You find yourself saying things like, “Get ready”, “Get dressed”, “Come on, put your shoes on”, “We are going to be late”. The kids are late for school, you are late for work, you spill coffee in the car, the kids forget their lunch boxes and when you think it could not possibly get any worse, you find yourself stuck in traffic. You end up thinking if only you had those 5 minutes you wasted hurrying the kids, you would have been ready on time.

It is not always easy to wake up kids. If they went to sleep later than usual, or they stayed up late in front of a screen, it can be even harder. The best way to help them wake up in the morning is to give them time. I know it sounds funny but enough time to wake up at their own pace is all it takes. Regardless of their age, waking up at their own speed is essential for a good start to the day.

This post is part 18 of 23 in the series Handy Family Tips

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Be Yourself: Who Am I?

When my clients come to the Be Happy in LIFE program and I ask them, “What do you want?” they are confused by my question. They could easily tell what everyone else wants. Their wife, husband, mother, father, boss, children. But they do not really know what they want. Often times, all they want is for something someone else wants to stop. I tell my clients that when you don’t have a definition of who you are, it is easy for people to offer their definitions, regardless of whether they suit your or not. If you are confident in who you are, your self-concept will not change because of something someone says to you. For example, if a friend comes up to you and says, “You are not a good friend because you didn’t come to my wedding”, you might think to yourself that you did not come to the wedding because you were being a good son and your mum was in hospital. Your definition of yourself as a good friend would remain, despite your friends feeling. Conversely, if you do not have a good definition of yourself, you will probably accept it as “fact” that you are just not a very good friend, because your friend said so.

Every person has an image of perfection that they wish to achieve. It is an image of the perfect person, someone who is all knowing, smart, healthy, wealthy, loving and successful. There is no other person on earth who is exactly like you and has managed to find the perfect balance of all those things we want in life. Despite knowing this, we create an image of the perfect person by picking and choosing attributes form different people. Our perfect person is the miss universe beauty queen, who is a perfect mother, a great chef, a celebrity, with a PHD in something brainy, with bucket loads of money like the Queen of England and the spirit and dedication of Mother Teresa. Although I think it is good to be inspired by others, when we lose ourselves in the quest for this perfection, we chase our tails endlessly and never reach our final goal.

This post is part 2 of 2 in the series Be Yourself

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Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Taken

We all go through a journey to define ourselves and develop our self-identity. Be the person you want to be instead of the person others want you to be.

During a very tough time in my life, I started a search to find out who I was and define my “self”. Much like everyone else, I grew up in a society in which the “self” was a very vague concept that kids never considered. I was 16. I went through a bit of crisis when I discovered that I did not know who “I” was. I needed to find and define “me”, to make the choice to be myself.

The second step of my journey was during the first year of my degree. I was studying psychology with one of the most incredible teachers I have ever met when I realized that self-concept, regardless of when you start defining, is something we all have to figure out. In our very first lesson, the teacher walked into a room full of students and asked, “Who are you?”. It sounded like such a simple questions, but we struggled, big time!

This post is part 1 of 2 in the series Be Yourself

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