Tiny Bites of Wagaliciousness

You know that wonderful feeling of being in love? Want to feel more love? Be love because you are love. You are made of love, and love is who we are. You don’t need to find self-love – all you need to do is love. Look around you – there’s so much to love. Love the sun sparkling on a drop of water…love the bird calling out in the midday air…love the fact that your heart beats with no effort at all from you. Love the road you drive on and the car you drive and the people on the road around you, driving so they don’t hit your car. Love the music coming out of the radio, the radio itself and the people whose brains conceived of this amazing device, along with those who paved the roads and those who built your car. When you focus on what you love about the world around you, you feel that love. And doesn’t love feel good? And when you feel good, everything around you feels better too. When you learn to love everything, you’ll be in love all the time!  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Comparison is the way you dig away at your self-esteem. Ouch – could that be true? Yep, and research into social comparison theory finds that, while a small level of comparison can be motivating, most people spend way too much time measuring themselves against others and feeling “less than.” Nearly 10% of our thinking time each day is spent comparing ourselves to others in one way or another. If you find yourself feeling like you don’t measure up, ask yourself some questions: Is that person really the best way for me to measure myself and my talents? Where are they in their journey in relation to my journey – in other words, are they years ahead of me in practice or business or life? And my favorite question is: I wonder if this person is comparing themselves to me? You are the only you in the entire world. No one else can contribute the way you do, and no one else has your insights and expertise. You have always done your best to do your best and that makes you a role model. Instead of digging away at your self-esteem by comparing yourself to others, appreciate your kind heart, brilliant brain and your compassion. The world needs more people like you.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

When babies learn to walk, they make hundreds of balance mistakes before they finally manage to string a few steps together. When students take their college boards, most of them feel very anxious, and sometimes over-think things, creating mistakes where they wouldn’t have been. When babies fall they don’t chastise themselves. When students get a bad grade on a test, they do chastise themselves. What happens in the intervening 20 or so years? Other people imposing their expectations on us. Next time you notice your brain beating you up for making a mistake – stop and listen. Whose words are those? Whose disapproval is that? Not yours – you don’t talk to other people like that, so you must have learned that behavior from someone else. I’m here to gently remind you to realize those negative words inside your brain are someone else’s experience of you and you don’t have to continue living their experience. You can say something like, “Oh, there I go again, letting someone else’s words make me feel bad. I’m way better than that!” And then change the subject. Don’t let your brain talk to you in ways you would NEVER talk to another person. You’re way to good to feel so bad!  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure. Stephen King said that and I agree – do you? When you try to do something and it doesn’t turn out quite like you planned, what’s your usual feeling? Do you beat yourself up? Try to cover the failure up? Or do you find a way to see the problem more clearly so you can solve it more easily next time? When you can teach yourself to be optimistic in the face of failure, you are teaching yourself the secret to resilience. Sure, you’re going to try new things and some will go well and some won’t. The ones that go well help you feel confident – the ones that don’t can also help you feel confident, when you remember to mine the failure for the lessons it can teach you. Because every failure has at least one powerful lesson in it, and it's one you can only see when you’re looking at it with hopeful, optimistic eyes.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Focus on your strengths, not where you think you are weak. Oh, we can be so hard on ourselves!! For years I thought I was clumsy so didn’t go out for sports, go out on dates or put myself out there, for fear people would see how clumsy I was. News flash – I wasn’t clumsy, I just thought I was! How do you sabotage yourself with negative self-talk? Think about one weakness you believe you have and this week, when it pops into your head, remind yourself of two strengths you have. Train your brain to focus on your strengths and watch the fears of your weakness dissipate.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

You know how someone gives you the willies? You know that one thing that when you eat it, you don’t feel good the next day? You know there’s that one street you avoid driving down and you don’t know why? Trust those feelings. Gut reactions – knee-jerk responses – intuition – no matter what you call feelings like that, trust them. Your brain and body are picking up on something that you may not understand, and it’s ok that you don’t understand it. Trust it. You know what you know…trust what you know, whether you can explain what you know or not.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Don’t spend your time trying to make people like you. When you’re around someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate you, understand that’s their issue, not yours. Move on. Seriously – move on! It took me a long time to realize that, the same way I don’t like every single person in my life, it’s perfectly ok for others to not like me. And once I really understood and internalized that, it was one of the most freeing moments in my life. There are people you don’t like. Maybe you don’t even know why you don’t want to be around them – you just don’t. Allow others the same leeway. Don’t keep trying to make someone like you. Let them come to you eventually, if they want to, and in the meantime, let them be.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Strength comes from moving through life’s tough moments. Most people wish they had an easy life – plenty of money, no problems in their relationships, lots of free time to do as they please. But it’s in life’s tough moments that humans gain their strengths. When you learn to make do, when you learn to make up and when you learn to balance your working hours with your leisure hours, you become stronger and more confident. And when you’re stronger and more confident, life’s tough moments don’t feel so scary. So next time fate deals you a challenging hand, remember that it’s your opportunity to get stronger.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Did your parents encourage you to learn from your mistakes? Mine did, and that’s good advice. Unfortunately, sometimes I got in trouble for making mistakes, which taught me how to deny them. It’s hard to learn from mistakes you’re not owning up to, so if you learned the same lessons from your parent as I did, here’s a tip – own your mistakes. Yep, you’re a grown-up now, so no one is the boss of you. Heck, you might even be the boss of a team! When you own your mistakes it frees you up to learn and grow from them, plus it makes you look amazingly strong and ethical. That’s a pretty good way to look to others, right? Go ahead – make mistakes, own them, learn from them and move on, confident that you’ve done a great job of adulting.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Think about successful inventors and creators. Michelangelo. Thomas Edison. Bill Gates. They changed the world because they saw visions of what could be and focused on those visions instead of on the world in front of them. They used their imagination to create things most other people would have called crazy. It’s not our big brains that made us a successful species – it’s our ability to imagine things instead of just seeing what’s in front of us. And here’s the secret – every single one of us has the ability to imagine and create. What have you been imagining? What will you begin to create today?  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Think of the most positive person you know. They may be so positive that sometimes they annoy you with their sunny outlook. Now, take this in – that person has negative thoughts, just like you. Neuroscience research has documented the brain’s negativity bias – it’s a survival trait that we don’t really need anymore but it still persists. Even the most positive people have negative thoughts. They just don’t let their negative thoughts control their day, and you can make the same choice. It sounds easy and often it’s not easy. It can be done – when you find yourself feeling helpless, hopeless or headed for a downward spiral of horribilizations, use that mental stop sign and distract yourself. It’s harder at first, and the more you catch yourself and distract yourself, the easier it becomes. Try it today.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Even if you avoid dousing yourself regularly with news coverage, you still know what’s going on in the world. And you understand that a lot of what happens around you and sometimes even to you isn’t perfect. Heck, sometimes it’s downright horrible. There is darkness that sometimes happens to you, but the darkness isn’t you. You are the light that refused to quit shining in spite of the darkness you endured. You are the beacon that others look to in order to find their own strength. Never forget that – you are the light that others follow, even when you don’t know they’re following you. Be the light and shine in a way only you can.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you let your imagination run free at least a few times a day? Imagination is allowing your brain to consider the possibilities, no matter how outlandish they may be. It’s very easy to get caught in the rut of doing things the way you always do them, and reacting the way you always react. Today, try to give your imagination free run of a few decisions and see what happens. How did it feel to get playful inside your head? How did what you thought you’d do change when your imagination was in charge? How did it turn out? Let your imagination run free – that’s where fun and growth live. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

There’s so much wisdom on Facebook – have you noticed? A friend posted a meme that said “Stop tending other peoples’ gardens at the expense of your own.” Think about that for a moment – how often do you help a friend when you really need to be doing something else? How often do you stay in a conversation that makes you feel bad just because you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings? How often do you choose to hurt your own feelings instead of hurting someone else’s? It’s ok to occasionally do for others instead of for yourself, but if you almost always tend other people’s gardens and let yours become a bed of weeds, that’s not ok. You matter. Your needs matter. Be sure to tend to your own needs so that you can joyfully help others with theirs. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you often feel self-conscious around people you don’t know well? That’s normal, and trust me, as you grow in self-confidence you’ll lost some or most of that uncomfortable feeling that others are judging you. You are the center of your universe – and you are not the center of anyone else’s. People don’t focus on you as much as you think they do, because they’re busy focusing on themselves. That one belief – that people are too busy focusing on themselves to be focusing on you – will help you feel more confident, no matter what’s going on. They’re not focused on you nearly as much as you think they are. You focus on you and what you want to do, accomplish or be. Your attention to yourself is what really matters. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Judy Garland said, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” What does that quote mean to you? To me, she was talking about self-confidence – about being the best you, the boldest you, the kindest you and the most confident you. When you try to be like someone else, you’re trading self-confidence for a need to fit in. A great way to start the day is to remind yourself that there is only one “you” on this planet and you’re going to be the best “you” possible all day long.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

You look at the world through the sum total of your life experiences. Your partner looks at the world through the sum total of their experiences. Every person you interact with looks at the world through their own life experiences. No two humans have the same experiences, so all of us will react differently to the same things. We’ll see things differently – even things that we watch unfold as we are right next to each other. Maybe you’ve heard that eyewitness testimony in a trial isn’t very reliable? Eyewitnesses often get it right – in cases where DNA exonerates someone found guilty, 75% of the time they were convicted because of eyewitnesses who got it wrong. Understand that you are unique and have a unique point of view, just like everyone else. That’ll help you stay out of arguments and misunderstandings.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Are you facing something that looks like a big decision or a big problem? Wait. Wait. And then wait some more. Time and flexibility of thoughts will often bring you the path to follow. When you are very conflicted about something and don’t know which way to go, do what I do – give it to the committee in the back of your head. That’s my name for it – you might choose something else to call the process of knowing that some part of your brain will be working in the background while you go about your life. You don’t have to focus on the decision or problem – your brain’s got it. And suddenly, almost like magic, the perfect solution or decision will come to you. Thank you, committee in the back of your head!  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Sometimes people who are older than you will say “these are the best years of your life.” They may be trying to help you put something into perspective, they may be remembering their life at your age, or they may just be parroting the same old k-r-a-p that was said to them when they were your age. They don’t mean to be dismissive of your problem, they probably think they’re helping you. If you can bring yourself to do it, ask sweetly, “how could you possibly know that about me?” Sweetly. And don’t continue to converse with them if they have the lack of tact to try. Smile sweetly, lips together. And inside your head, remind yourself that you haven’t lived all of your life yet and every day – every moment – holds endless possibilities for success, happiness and joy.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Want to know the secret to stress relief? It’s not having a stress-free life, it’s having a stress-free outlook. What happens around you happens. You’re not in control of red lights, gridlock traffic, rude clients – none of it. You can’t control what happens around you – you can control your response to it. Your brain makes it challenging to choose a new reaction, though, because for years you’ve reacted to the same stimuli in the same old way. If that way feels stressful, switch it up. Think about one thing that happens in your life fairly often, think about how you usually react and how you’d rather react. Practice the new reaction in your mind and your thoughts, so that when the thing happens, you’re ready to try out your new, improved, stress-relieving reaction.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

An author known for writing deeply frightening books, Stephen King, said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” He was talking about writing a book and could have been talking about anything. Beginning something new is always filled with at least a little bit of dread or trepidation or even fear. That is normal, and if it was felt and acknowledged by the king of fearful fiction himself, then you know it’s ok for you to feel it and move through it, too.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Where do you find happiness? How often do you actually look for happiness? There are people who tell you that life shouldn’t be about being happy all the time, and it might surprise you to know I agree with them. Life isn’t about being happy all the time – it’s in the setbacks, heartbreaks and wanting more that we learn to stretch ourselves and grow. And it’s in the happy moments that life is truly worth living, so it’s wonderful to teach yourself to look for and find happiness. When you learn to focus on things that please you, you’ll find happiness everywhere. It’s up to you to look for it, though.  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

How do you feel when something or someone you wanted doesn’t become yours? Maybe it was a new work situation, a new house or even a new spouse? Well, that question seems stupid, doesn’t it? Rejection hurts. Rejection is disappointing. And then there’s this - rejection is good because it shows you that you tried. Failing at anything is a bit of a gut-punch at first, and that’s to be expected because you’re human. Reframe that feeling – remind yourself that you put yourself out there and you tried, and when you try again it could very well turn out in your favor. Lick your wounds for a moment and then move on – life has more adventures in store for you!  Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Focus on what you love, not what you fear. Have you heard the phrase “you are what you eat?” Work in neuroscience and neuroplasticity is proving that you are what you think, too. People who focus on what they dislike are constantly aware of what they dislike. The neighbor’s barking dog – red lights – people who cut in line or cut them off in traffic. What you focus on is what you’re paying attention to, which means it’s what you’re going to notice most and react to most. So focus on what you love, not what you fear or what you dislike. Notice what makes you happy – believe me, there’s more of that to focus on than the negative things. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

I ran across this quote from Pema Chodron – “You are the sky. Everything else is the weather.” Do you love that as much as I do? It’s a great reminder of your vastness, your calmness, your value and your beauty. It’s also a reminder that, just like the weather, difficulties will pass and you can remain vast, calm, valuable and beautiful. Whether or not you recognize your vastness, your calmness, your value and your beauty is completely up to you. You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you have people in your life that get on your last nerve. Maybe just the thought of them makes your skin crawl, or makes you want to avoid them. Maybe you feel like they don’t deserve your good thoughts or your friendship or your love. Maybe you even think they’re bad or evil and so you are justified in vilifying them. They may truly not deserve your good thoughts, but you do. You deserve your good thoughts about them. When you can find just one positive thing to focus on about a person you want to dislike, you shift your attitude from one of negativity to one of positivity. That benefits you. You deserve your good thoughts about every single person on the planet, no matter what they’ve done. Can you do that? Because when you can, you become a better friend, co-worker, leader and lover. And you deserve to be all of those, too! Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Today is a brand new day. Yesterday only comes into your mind and your decisions if you choose to bring it along. Tomorrow isn’t here yet and you can’t do anything in your tomorrow today. Today is where all of your possibilities lie. What do you want your tomorrow to include? What changes would you like to see as you move forward through this week or month or year or life? Today is the day you can begin to effect those changes. Today is a brand new day. How will you use your today? Because it really is all up to you. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you care about someone who seems to self-sabotage? Maybe they’re a co-worker or employee, or maybe they’re a family member or a friend. You, as a caring person, want to help them. You, as a caring person, might help out in every way you can think of, only to see that person make the same poor choices, and it breaks your heart because you’re a caring person. You might not want to hear this, and yet you need to hear it – the very best thing you can do for someone who’s making poor life choices is to set a great example. Give them a map to follow – your example – and point them towards resources they can choose to use to create their own better life. You would probably be irritated if someone tried to change you, so don’t try to change anyone else. You can’t anyway. Love them, set a great example for them, show them resources that exist to help them and let them make their own way. It’s their life to live as they choose, and to learn and grow if they choose. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Are you a mirror or a candle? What the heck do I mean by that?? Mirrors can be used in a lot of wonderful ways – they allow us to see ourselves, they can make a room look bigger, and those are good things. But mirrors simply reflect what’s around them. Candles can also be used in a lot of wonderful ways – they light the way, light another candle and help others feel more stable and less frightened than they might be if they had to sit in the dark. Mirrors reflect – candles shine. Are you a mirror or a candle? Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

I ran across this quote from Pema Chodron – “You are the sky. Everything else is the weather.” Do you love that as much as I do? It’s a great reminder of your vastness, your calmness, your value and your beauty. It’s also a reminder that, just like the weather, difficulties will pass and you can remain vast, calm, valuable and beautiful. Whether or not you recognize your vastness, your calmness, your value and your beauty is completely up to you. You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Are there special things you see that mean something to you? Maybe it’s matching numbers like 333 or 1111. Maybe it’s a butterfly, or a hummingbird or a rainbow or any of a million possibilities. Those little happenstances can be called godwinks or coincidences or synchronicity – no matter what you call them, notice and appreciate when they show up in your day. Smile and use that moment to remember how much good there is in the world and how wonderful it is when it shows up for you. Being in the moment instead of letting your time-traveling brain wander around in past problems or future worries lets you focus on life’s little miracles, which are always just waiting for you to see them. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

When things get tense, find something to laugh about. This is especially important for people who work closely together in stressful situations, like veterinary hospitals. Having an inside joke – one that’s not at the expense of anyone – can quickly ease a tense moment. One of the veterinary teams I worked with used the phrase “and your Aunt Mary, too!” to lighten things up. Aunt Mary was what they affectionately called one of their clients when she was out of earshot. They loved her because she was always courteous to the staff and doted on her two Shih Tzus. Invoking Aunt Mary reminded everyone to take a breath, relax and get through the current tough moment, just like Aunt Mary would. Do you have an Aunt Mary in your life – someone you could think about and be like when life throws you a curve ball? Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Johnathan Swift, the satirist from the 1700’s, wrote, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” Need an example of a visionary? Nikola Tesla, who dreamed and then created alternating current, the concept of the electric power grid and even wireless communications, though he ran out of funding before completing that work. What is your vision? What do you see that others can’t, and maybe that others have told you is impossible to do. Your vision feeds your soul – don’t share it with those who’ll try to talk you out of it. Hold on to the art of seeing things invisible and keep moving towards realizing your vision, no matter what it is or how impossible it seems. You dreamed it – you can do it. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Are you big? I spent a big part of my life trying to fit in, to adapt, to be part of…whatever. And then I discovered that we were never meant to do that. People who cared about us taught us to adapt and fit in because that’s what they’d been taught to do. When we do that, we limit our own bigness. We were born big – full of wonder and love and possibilities. Remember how that felt, before you began to “what if” everything and before you tried to adapt to the world instead of shape your world? You are powerful – you have the spark inside you to be as big as you want to be. Be big – the universe is expanding and changing and you can, too. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Gratitude is different than appreciation. Nice is different than good. Right is different than fair. And words intended to solve a problem can be the very way a problem gets way out of hand. Those three sets of words – gratitude and appreciation, nice and good, right and fair – are often used as synonyms and can mean wildly different things to different people. If you’re in conflict with someone, don’t assume the words being used mean the same thing to both of you – they probably don’t. When the other person says something that gets under your skin, stop and ask, “can you please explain that a little more for me?” You’re not issuing a challenge, you’re asking for more clarity. When the two of you understand what you each mean, the pathway to mutual understanding and potential agreement can happen. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Remember the problems you had in elementary school? You have different problems now than you did then, so why do you repeat the same behavior patterns now that you did then? That’s easy to answer – it’s because those behavior patterns were formed when you were a young child, and your brain is a pattern-running machine. The human brain’s ability to learn new things is driven by its ability to recognize and replicate patterns, so if you learned that crying would get you out of having to make your bed, maybe you still tear up if someone needs you to do something you don’t want to do. Next time you catch yourself reacting in the same old way, ask yourself if that’s really how you want to behave now that you’re grown up and more in charge of your life. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

“All the beauty of life is made up of light and shadows.” Leo Tolstoy said that and if you’ve read any of his work, you know he valued the shadows of life as much as the light. Without shadows, the world around us would appear flat and featureless. And without the challenges that life throws at us sometimes, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow and learn. If you’re having a tough day, remember that it’s temporary and things always get better. Look into the shadows of your tough day – what are the lessons you can learn from the difficulties? What are the things you can do differently next time those difficulties crop up? What are the policy changes you can implement to keep them from cropping up? Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Human beings are creatures of habit. Have you ever watched helplessly as your best friend picked the same type of bad-for-her relationship partner? That happens because we’re innately drawn to patterns of behavior that fit a pattern we’re used to. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good pattern or a bad pattern – it’s a pattern that feels familiar, and therefore our brains flood our bodies with oxytocin and dopamine in response. If you have a pattern of behavior you’d like to change, make a plan, work the plan and be patient and kind with yourself when you find yourself reverting to an old way of doing things. Our brains love patterns – it’s how we can learn and grow so rapidly – so creating a new pattern and then sticking with that new pattern will create your new habit Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you have team members who play the blame game? When something happens, their default response is to point a finger at someone else so that they won’t be blamed for it. This is so harmful to team dynamics and to the hospital culture, so this person is ripe for education and the opportunity for personal growth. Take them aside and help them see that blaming others makes them look bad. Nobody likes a tattle tale, so they’re just hurting themselves in the long run. A better response would be for them to either accept responsibility for their part in the problem or remain quiet. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Have you let your imagination come out to play at work? Maybe you have a difficult surgery on your schedule – what if you let your imagination do the surgery before you actually do it? Imagine the steps through the process, imagine the best possible outcome and imagine the potential problems that could arise. Let your imagination work on the surgery first, and once you get started in reality, it will feel more familiar and you’ll feel more confident. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

The kindest, most loving, most supportive thing you can do for others is to set a great example. When you show someone that success is possible, that happiness is possible, that living life on your terms is possible, you give them a huge gift. They see your life and, no matter what’s going on in theirs, they can see the possibilities for themselves. You don’t have to do anything concrete for that person in order to lift them up, and you may never know the difference you’ve made in their life, and that has to be OK with you. Living the life of your dreams shares that dream, amplifying the good you do in the world. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

How often do you appreciate? Appreciate a person, a pretty day, an unexpected break in a busy schedule – how often do you take a moment to notice the tiny gifts each day brings? Appreciation is a skill most children have, and most of us, as we get older, learn to take things for granted instead of being almost in awe of them. Try to bring the appreciative child in you along with you through your day – be present and notice the goodness all around you. I promise you, it’s there, and will make you feel so much less stressed when you remember to focus on it instead of on the issues and problems. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Do you sometimes…or maybe often…fret about what others think about you, or how they perceive you? Taking that a step further, do you try to shape your behavior to look better to others? In other words, you choose your behavior in a certain situation based on what you think someone else will think about your decision. You aren’t inside the other person’s head and you have NO way to predict their thoughts. You can’t control the way others see you, react to you or feel about you. Give it up – be your authentic self, because you’re the only person on the planet who can be you. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Is there something in your body that hurts? For most of us, there’s an ouchie place or two that gets our attention on a daily basis. When you focus on it, you give it more airtime and power in your life. When you can joke about it, you lessen its impact. After sitting down for a period of time, I’m getting a bit slow to get up. Ouchies! If someone asks what’s wrong, I usually just say that like a flower, sometimes it takes a little time to unfold. That gets a laugh and helps me feel better, too. What light-hearted thing can you say about your ouchies? Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

What is happening to you right now is temporary. No matter what’s going on in your life, good or bad, it’s only temporary. The wonderful, magical thing about life is that it keeps moving and everything keeps changing. Enjoy the good-filled now when that’s happening, and tolerate the not-so-good-filled now when it shows up in your life, secure in the knowledge that it’s temporary. It’s all temporary. And you can handle whatever life throws at you, right? You have so far – trust yourself that you can going forward. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Are you worrying about something that’ll happen in the future? In addition to flooding yourself with stress hormones right now, you have no way of knowing that what you’re worrying about will even happen. Heck, you have no way of knowing that the future will even happen! Worrying is an indulgence of the brain that makes us feel like we’re doing something productive, when in reality what we’re doing is spoiling our day today. You know you have today…why not enjoy it instead of spoiling it with worry? If and when the thing you’re worried about shows up, you’ll deal with it. And it may never show up, so for now, just let it go. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Agreement is good…and not essential. One of the things that keeps life interesting is that we all have different points of view. That means we bring our own life experiences to whatever is going on right now, and often it’s those life experiences that can cause friction. Because no two people have the same experiences, no two people interpret situations exactly the same way. You see something one way, the other person sees it differently, and when both people feel strongly tethered to their viewpoint, an argument can erupt. Here’s how to not let that happen. When someone proclaims that they are right and you are wrong, just tell them – and mean it! – you’re right! In their head and heart, based on the experiences they’ve had in their life, they are right. That doesn’t make you wrong – it’s just a difference of opinion. See how easy it is to not argue? Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

Should is a punishment. There, I said it – when you should on yourself or when others should on you, punishment is involved. When you say, “I should have gone to the gym today,” you’re wagging an imaginary finger at yourself, blaming yourself for laziness or distractedness or an inability to manage your time. None of that is productive. If you want to go to the gym each day, shoulding on yourself isn’t the way to get it done. Lay out your workout clothes the night before, set your alarm a little early and go to the gym. Whatever you’re shoulding on yourself about, focus on the solution, implement it and move on. Ahhhhhhh…adulting is fun! Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"

How do you react when there’s a big problem in your family or at work? You know, the kind where it’s the only topic of conversation and everyone focuses on what’s wrong…the injustice…the unfairness. In the power and swirl of a big problem, it feels like you’re getting something done by talking about it with others. In reality, all you’re doing is training your brain to be more negative and notice the negative. This is not my opinion – this is backed by neuroscience and research into neuroplasticity. When the conversation around you is focused on the negative aspects of a situation, find ways to focus it on the possibilities the problem highlights. Focusing on the solution trains your brain to be more positive and focus on solutions, leading to more success!

How do you feel about a liar? What if I told you that most of the time, someone who lies to you has decent motives for it – would you feel better about that person? Think about a time in your life when you told a lie – didn’t you do it to make the other person feel better than they would have felt if you’d told the truth? Or maybe you did it because, in that moment, you were feeling a little insecure and wanted to feel better about yourself? Or maybe you told the story the way you wish it had happened, not how it actually happened. When people lie to you, there’s usually no malice behind their lie – there’s concern for how you’ll feel, a desire to have done better or concern for how they’ll be perceived. Instead of being angry, try being compassionate instead. You’ll feel better, and the relationship will be better, too. Want more? Click here for a free audio course, "Happiness is an Inside Job"