thejennyjacobs

I was speaking with a woman the other day who in a few sentences proclaimed her plans for her life for the next 15 years. She is currently attending school to become a midwife and her children are 6 and 8. She was telling me how eager she is to be done with school, work as a midwife for 15 years, and then retire so she can spend her days gardening. While it is great and necessary to have plans it was obvious she is spending all of her energy living in the future thereby missing out on today.

Living in the present is difficult at times especially if you are not happy with your present life. There is the tendency to dwell on the past or try to fast-forward to the future. Life holds no guarantees. We are not promised a tomorrow. What you do have this moment and once you determine to savor each moment, make the right choices in this moment, and stay focused on the present your life will drastically change for the better.

Constantly living in the past or in the future only leads to stress and unfulfillment. Taking time to stop and smell the proverbial roses will be just one small step in achieving balance and a sense of calm in your life. Take time to do it NOW.

Being thankful is one of the surest ways to reduce stress and develop balance in your everyday life. One of the common threads I’ve noticed among successful people is their attitude of thankfulness. No matter what a person may be experiencing there is always something for which to be thankful.

Having a thankful heart helps you focus on what you have instead of dwelling on what you do not have. It is an exercise of focusing on the present – what you are or what you possess in that moment – and it is very powerful for changing your outlook.

When you start to feel overwhelmed in your life or feel yourself becoming envious, become thankful instead. Be thankful for what you have in the moment and you will be pleased with the level of calm you will soon achieve.

Catch the gratitude attitude and then pass it on!

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

This is not only a biblical principle but also an important principle both professionally and personally. Every successful business and/or business person has a clearcut vision. If you have no idea what your vision is how will you know where you are headed?

Determine where you want to go and want you want from your life. As you focus on it and implement your goals and plans even a little each day you will eventually get there. This really is a case of practice makes perfect. If you used to have a vision but got sidetracked get back on course. That’s the great thing about life – as long as you have breath in your lungs it is never too late.

Don’t let your plans, dreams, and goals perish. Refocus your vision today.

Everyone is filled with good intentions and they love to declare them – on Facebook, Twitter, or to anyone who will listen. Accountability is great but choose a close friend or family member instead of 700 Facebook friends to whom you hold yourself accountable. And instead of continuously talking about it, just do it. Your results and successes will speak far more loudly than merely declaring what you wish to accomplish.

Napoleon Hill said it best: “Tell the world what you intend to do, but first show it.”

There’s an old high school cheer that says “Be aggressive. Be, be aggressive. B-E-A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!” Now being aggressive on the football field might be great but being aggressive in your everyday life is a recipe for disaster and eventually leads to a very stressful existence.

Instead you must strive to develop an ability to become assertive. Being assertive means feeling confident, positive, and able to get your point across without blowing up or feeling intimidated.

The best way to be assertive is to focus on living in the present. Stop staying stuck in the past or fretting about the future which only causes you to miss out on today and what needs to be accomplished. When you live this way you begin to dwell in that vicious cycle of giving away your power each day or with each difficult event which ultimately causes stress, anxiety, and lashing out with aggression.

Leave the aggression to the sports field and today try focusing on the present and being assertive.

You know when you pull a garbage bag straight up out of the trash can and it creates a vacuum preventing the bag from escaping? And the more you wiggle the bag and the can it seems to take longer and sometimes causes garbage to go flying everywhere? But if you just gently lift the bag the trash can slowly slides down eventually freeing the bag from its grip.

Well, that is pretty much the picture of patience. The more you try to force a situation or another person into your own timeframe you essentially just spill garbage everywhere and accomplish nothing. Just calm down and wait. Yes, it is difficult at times but far better in the long run and with a less messy outcome.

Pull one thread and the whole sweater will unravel…

Many people are on the verge of unraveling at any given moment. It is important to be as emotionally evolved as mentally. It seems as if many people are afraid of emotions. They are afraid to feel too happy (waiting for the hammer to fall) and even afraid of feeling sad (spiraling into full-blown depression). God created us and gave us emotions. Even the Bible says, “There is a time to laugh and a time to cry”. It is only when any emotion gets out of control that it becomes detrimental.

Feel your emotions. Cry and let it out. Feel happy, feel angry, feel sad… When people hold in their emotions or attempt to abolish them the emotions will only find their way out in some other form. Maybe not in the immediate future but you have to release and deal with thoughts and emotions in a healthy way.

Write down your thoughts, talk to a trusted friend/therapist/pastor… feel your feelings. Stop living each day on the verge of unraveling. Living that way is only giving away your power. You are meant for so much more.

Dealing with an unpleasant/difficult/dead-end situation in your life is a lot like cleaning out your refrigerator. You know something is in there that is starting to faintly smell and every time you open the door you swear next time you will clean it out. But then you get busy and ignore the smell and it just gets worse and worse. Finally, when you can no longer stand it you snatch out the offending container and throw it away. Crisis averted.

Only when you finally deal with that “smelly” situation in your own life will you be able to continue on to bigger and better things. Stop avoiding what you know needs to be done. Only you know what it is and that it’s starting to stink up your life. Stop letting it hang over your head robbing you of joy, and giving you that anxious, unsettled feeling.

Just deal with it, throw it out, and move on.

One thing that took me awhile to learn when taking a multiple-choice exam but had a profound affect upon my grades was to quickly assess what the answer is NOT. Sometimes I knew the correct answer right away but if I didn’t the best way to get to the right answer was to eliminate the incorrect answers. Once I narrowed it down I could more easily figure out what was next.

You might not always know exactly what you want from the life – career, spouse, geography, etc. But once you decide what you DON’T want the right “answer” seems to become more evident. My mom had told me years ago that it is good if you decide what you don’t want in life and that has proven to be true time and time again in my own life.

Stop being so stressed that you don’t have everything figured out. No one does all at one time. Life is a process of twists and turns and finding out what you really want and how you want to live… but first you must figure out what you don’t want.

I find that life is often like a game of Words With Friends (aka Scrabble). Sometimes you have all the right letters and you are able to form the perfect, high-scoring words. Other times no matter how hard you try you just can’t seem to get the right words and you end up with all vowels.

But, just as in life, you have to keep playing the game. If you never play you will never win. Life can be difficult and frustrating at times but you have to persevere. It’s just the ebb and flow of life and once you experience victory – even a small one – it will help you more effectively plan your next move.