Living Your Best Life

The starting point of mental toughness is genuine self-awareness. To the serious student, there is only one real book to study: the manuscript that you, yourself, are. Knowing yourself means understanding where your negative emotions come from. THE SOURCE OF ALL NEGATIVE EMOTIONS If you observe yourself carefully, you will see that all your negative emotions come from one source: not getting what you want. Anger is desire contaminated by helplessness. Fear is a desire for the future contaminated by helplessness. Sadness is rage at being attached to a desire we cannot fulfill. Grief is extreme sadness; disappointment is a milder form of grief. In fact, all negative emotions are a variation of this theme. This is why many people feel stressed out these days: they are not taking their desires seriously enough. They say things like, "My job doesn't matter to me. I'm just going to get a job that pays the bills." Then they spend 8 hours a day doing things they don't want to do. This is a recipe for feeling negatively all the time, and it is definitely not for you. LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE Now that you know how your emotions work, you can use this knowledge to live your best life. If all negative emotions come from NOT getting what you want, I suggest you arrange your life so you get what you want as often as possible. WHAT DO YOU WANT? First, write down what you want. Be specific. If you want to make more money, write down how much. If want a promotion, describe the job you want in detail. If you want to improve a relationship, record exactly how you want to change it. This is called goal-setting, and most people never get beyond this step. In fact, only 3% of the population has clear, written goals with an action plan to achieve them displayed in their home. And, it is the top 3%, at least in financial terms. Most people do not set goals because they fear failure. This is natural. However, the only way to guarantee failure in your life is to do nothing. The wonderful thing about goal-setting is that it mobilizes your conscious and unconscious energies towards your objectives. I urge you to write down at least 3 goals that are important to you. Then, promise yourself that you will take action towards them within 7 days. I'll talk to you again soon. Your friend, Lisa