Saturday 31 December 2016

5 Key Lifestyle Changes For Staying Sober During Recovery



Once you’ve made the decision to get and stay sober, it is an ongoing process. It’s going to take effort and a massive 180 degree turn from your life as a former addict. While change is always a difficult thing to cope with, there are a few key lifestyle choices that you can make to help this particular change a little easier to stick to.
Here are 5 lifestyle changes that will help you stay sober during recovery, and even enjoy it.

Honesty

First thing’s first, you simply cannot truly get sober without being honest, sometimes brutally honest, about your addiction.
You absolutely must be honest with yourself first. The fact that you have decide to change your life proves that you can do that, but along the road of recovery you may be tempted to say ‘oh, I can handle that’ or ‘just one sip won’t hurt’. That may be true, but if it’s not, don’t fool yourself. Be open and honest with yourself, but make sure to leave the judgement and pressure at bay.
If you are really serious about sobriety, you’ll also need some kind of help. There’s no shame in it. In fact, getting help is the smart step to take. However, therapists, meetings, sponsors, and anyone else from whom you seek guidance cannot help you if you are not honest with them. It is understandable if you don’t wish to have your personal life become public news, but there are certain people, including yourself, that need to know the facts.

Fitness

Before you decide to skip over this part, remember that getting exercise doesn’t have to mean that you’re at the gym 5 days a week doing all kinds of fancy combinations of cardio, weight training, and so on. There are so many fun and creative ways to incorporate fitness into your routine without it being a hassle, or feeling like a chore. Think sports, dancing, rowing, biking, hiking, anything that involves a little bit of physical exertion and an increased heart rate really.
Working out, in its many forms, carries so many benefits beyond getting in shape and simply looking better. Many people have found that the naturally occurring high that you have when you get your blood pumping rivals the highs of drugs and alcohol, helping you stay sober.

Budget

It’s hard to feel like you’re in control of your life or making progress when there are bills piling up and your financial status is shaky. So much of the stress that people face on a regular basis is money related, and when you’re a recovering addict situations will weigh on you that much more.
So take control by budgeting. Get a job, calculate your earnings against expenditures and debts. Make sure that at some point you are able to save up towards certain goals. Try to stick to your budget so that you always have exactly how much you need. When the stress of a rocky financial status is lifted from your shoulders, you’ll have a few less reasons to reach for that drink.

Healthy Diet

Let’s not kid ourselves here; while living a life of addiction, making healthy food choices.
probably was not at the top of your list of priorities. Addicts and alcoholics alike indulge in an alarming amount of sweet and savoury, processed foods. Often times, the only food you ate in a day was probably junk food. Addicts and alcoholics generally don’t care what goes in their body, drugs, alcohol, incredibly unhealthy foods, it’s all the same.
When you’re in recovery, maintaining a fairly healthy diet will actually help strengthen your resolve to stay sober. Paying attention to the food you eat and making sure that it’s good for you will help reduce the chances of you deciding to just take a sip or try a hit.

Gratitude

Chances are that you became an addict because you felt like there was always something missing, or you were very upset about various things and situations. You probably started using or continued using to try and make yourself or the situation feel better. By practicing gratitude, you reverse that thought process.
Instead of focusing on things you’re not happy about, be mindful of the many blessings that you have the good fortune of receiving. When you start paying attention to the various little details of your day that you can be thankful for, you’ll probably find that life’s not all that terrible after all. You will probably find a new appreciation for the world, it’s all about perspective.
These are all very simple things that don’t require too much effort, but for a former addict they can seem like massive lifestyle changes. The good news is that once you get started, and are able to feel the positive effects these changes have on you, it will be that much easier to stick to them. Not to mention, they will increase your quality of life so that you don’t have to feel like reaching for a bottle to feel better. At the end of the day, your recovery is the most important thing in your life. It’s okay to focus on yourself, because you’ll only be able to properly be a part of other people’s lives when you are doing well.
It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Be the best version of Yourself!

How To Dream Specifically.



There’s a concept in sailing called velocity made good, or VMG for short. Because a sailboat cannot point directly into the wind and make any forward progress, you have to sail at an angle to the wind. So VMG is the speed that you’re actually making toward your destination.
For instance, as part of a round the world sailing trip I took with my family, we wanted to sail from Panama to the Galapagos. Our speed looked great on the surface, but there were forces holding us back. The most obvious was that the wind was coming directly from where we wanted to go. To make any forward progress, we had to sail at a forty-degree angle to the wind (called tacking), so we were doing a massive zigzag toward our destination. That quickly turns a six hundred-mile passage into a twelve-hundred-mile passage. The wind was also unseasonably light, so we just weren’t sailing fast enough.
However, perhaps the most disheartening force working against us was the one we couldn’t see. There were strong currents under the surface of the sea that were literally pushing us back. So while the boat felt as though she was moving forward across the surface of the ocean, we were actually making very little progress.
The same thing has a tendency to occur in our day-to-day lives: Our VMG just isn’t good enough. We have our eyes on a goal, or a dream, and yet there are forces—both seen and unseen—working against our realizing those dreams.
A key question to ask yourself to begin counteracting those forces is this: Do I really know where I am heading, and where I want to go? Said another way—how am I dreaming?
If you are like most folks—you have a dream. In fact, you have lots of dreams, and yet, the chances are that they are not specific at all. Almost by default, your VMG toward them will be poor.
Dreams, like wanting to be successful in business, wanting to retire rich or early, wanting to be happier, or wanting to have a strong marriage are all vague. Each is lacking specific detail about not only how you’ll arrive at that goal but also what the dream specifically means. What does it mean to you to be happy? How much do you require in your savings account to fund a comfortable retirement? “I want to have a successful career” is a dream that almost everyone has, but people who are specific about defining what success means to them, how they will get there, and by when are far more likely to achieve the dream.
Without specifics, all these dreams lack “teeth”; they are vague. Because they are vague, they open the door for you to focus on the obstacles, fears, and dreads. Ultimately, these negatives get so overwhelming that they paralyze you and prevent you from ever achieving your dream. Your VMG toward that dream will stall altogether, and the likelihood is high that you won’t achieve it. That’s what I mean when I say you’ll die full of potential. You could have achieved something that was important to you during the course of your lifetime, but you didn’t.
Back to the theory of VMG. You are not always sailing against a current when you set sail, and you do not always have to tack back and forth because the wind is coming directly from your destination. Sometimes, the wind is on your beam, (coming across the side of the boat). This typically enables your boat to sail along nice and fast. And sometimes, the current is actually accelerating your progress toward your destination. Your boat’s instruments indicate you are sailing along at seven knots, but your VMG—because of the current—is actually twelve. That doesn’t sound like much of a difference—but in a sailboat, it is massive, cutting the time to your destination almost in half—a really big deal! It’s the difference between taking eighteen days to cross the Atlantic and taking ten and a half days. Metaphorically, this is precisely what happens when you change the way you dream. Instead of dreaming in a way that enables all your specific fears, dreads, and obstacles to paralyze you, you need to dream specifically. With this approach, you will be much better equipped to simply deal with all the fears, dreads, and obstacles—one at a time as they arise.
This changes the conversation entirely. One of the positive side effects of this approach is that it places you much more firmly in the driver’s seat. You have made a specific choice, and you are taking the necessary steps to make it happen. You are no longer a victim of circumstance. All of the more difficult decisions will be easier because they have context—they are all enablers for you to achieve your specific dream.

It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Be the best version of Yourself!

Thursday 29 December 2016

5 Ways to Be Happier in 2017

It is my suggestion that there are five thieves that rob us of our happiness. A thief is someone who takes away something that is already yours. In the case of happiness, the thieves are thought patterns and internal filters through which we see the world in a distorted way. They cloud our view of what is true and natural.

The Five Thieves of Happiness: control, conceit, coveting, consumption, and comfort. 

Control
The first thief is control, the desire to control the outcomes of our life and for things to be different. Happiness is knowing what we can control and accepting what we cannot control. All suffering is resistance to whatever is at any moment.
How to stop the thief:
In each moment surrender to whatever is happening. Control and influence what you can while choosing to accept whatever is at that moment. Accept the hard truths about life.
Remember that it is the craving for things to be different, not the circumstance that robs you of happiness.
Conceit
Conceit is perhaps the single greatest barrier to true contentment and even societal well-being. Conceit if a focus on your small self, on trying to find happiness separate from all other people and things as opposed to in the experience of being one.
How to stop the thief:
Whenever you find yourself obsessing about the story of your life, remind yourself that you are already a part of a larger story. The thief wants you sitting around, staring at your reflection, but there is no happiness to be found there. Building an equitable world that works for all is part of this, if not for moral reasons than for practical ones. Only when all prosper can we all be truly safe and happy.
Coveting
Coveting is the third thief and comes disguised as something harmless or even ambitious in some productive way. Coveting also keeps us from celebrating for others because life becomes a comparison.
How to stop the thief:
Whenever you find yourself asking the mirror on the wall of your subconscious how you compare with others, remember that it is the thief speaking to you. It is lying when it tells that you that life is a contest rather than a journey. Ask instead: Am I being my best self? Also, practice gratitude through daily journaling or simply taking a few minutes to identify three things that you are grateful in that day and one in your life. Each day choose another person and write down three things you want to celebrate for them. 
Consumption
Consumption tells us that there is something outside ourselves that we need to achieve happiness, and it tries to hide from us the truth that we can choose it at any moment. Intuitively, of course, we all know
that happiness cannot come from consumption of something because we all know people who appear to “have it all” but are consistently discontent, as well as people who have “next to nothing” and appear to be quite happy.
How to stop the thief:
Whenever you find yourself saying, I will be happy when…or I will be happy if…, stop these thoughts and come back into the inner house where happiness is found. Focus on the choice to be happy now. Challenge the consumer in yourself. Whenever you are tempted to buy something, ask yourself if it will bring any real happiness. The thing itself is not a problem; the belief that it will bring happiness is the issue.
Comfort
The final thief—comfort—is an insidious one. In fact, at first glance it may even appear as a source of happiness rather than a barrier to it. This thief is like a lethargic person on the sofa, TV remote in hand. It wants us to stay on the same channel, in the same comfortable position, stuck in a routine that is not life giving. It does not care about the consequences of this routine, even if the channel we are on is no longer of interest to us or serving our higher needs.
How to stop the thief:
Make a commitment to try one or two new things every week. Vary your routines, from taking a new route on your daily walk to a different dating experience with your partner on a Friday night. Try new areas of learning—it is good for both your mental and physical health. Notice the core comfort patterns of your life. What have you carried from your past that is no longer adaptive to your life today? Identify an important pattern, and take two months to work on noticing how it shows up, then choose to ride in another direction. 


It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Be the best version of Yourself!

Wednesday 28 December 2016

Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Will Fail – and How to Avoid It

Are you excited for the upcoming new year?
I’m sure you are! The beginning of the year is a special moment…your hopes are at their highest level. You want to live your best year ever.
This also means you already wrote (or are thinking to write) your new year’s resolutions.
But…
…you need to know something very important.
It may be a little too harsh, but…your new year’s resolutions will likely fail.
Let me show you why.

Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Stanford University’s professor Baba Shiv conducted a very interesting experiment that will make you think.
In his study, he took 165 students and divided them in two groups: one group had to memorize a 2-digit number, the other one had to memorize a 7-digit number.
After memorizing the number, each student had to go to another room. But on their way to this room, they were offered a snack: they could choose between a chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad.
You’ll be surprised to know that those students who memorized the 7-digit number were almost twice as likely to take the chocolate cake.
What does it mean?
If you use your mind energies for something, you will have less willpower. Or to put it in another way: your brain energies are limited – and so it’s your willpower.
Think about it: what are you doing by choosing your new year’s resolutions?
You’re basically asking your brain for a huge amount of willpower to carry different disciplines. The more resolutions you choose, the more willpower you will need…and the more likely you will interrupt your resolutions before reaching your goals.
Now, it should be obvious what’s the secret to stick to your new year’s resolutions…

What To Do To Stick With Your New Year’s Resolutions

Given that the more resolutions you have, the more likely you are to fail…the less resolutions you have, the more likely you are to succeed.
Which means that by having just one new year’s resolution you have the highest chances of success.
Now, you probably are wondering “if I can choose just one resolution, which one should I pick?”
Of course, pick the most important one. The most important for you. It’s the resolution that will have the highest positive impact on your life.
But you don’t have to stop there! In fact, there’s something very useful that I want to share with you.

How to Accomplish ALL of Your New Year’s Resolutions

Your willpower is taxed by the adoption of new behaviours…but you don’t really use it for certain old behaviours.
Think of all the things that you do in your day: how many of these things take a good amount of willpower?
Not many.
The reason is that many of the things that you do during your day are habits.
Habits are magical 
Habits consume almost no brain energies.
So, if you transform one of your resolutions into a habit, you are free to had a new resolution in your schedule. The way to do that is by sticking with one of your resolutions for about 21 continuous days (this is the average time that a new behaviour takes to become a habit…so know that this number may be a little different for you).
After that time, your resolution will be a habit and you’ll be free to start practicing a new resolution.
The good old “one at a time”.
That’s the secret to accomplish your resolutions – and so your best year ever.

Want a Shortcut?

Do you want a shortcut?
Maybe you’re wondering “what if I carry two of my new year’s resolutions at a time, instead of one? I can double my results!”
No, it doesn’t work like that. There’s no shortcut. It isn’t just what you read up to now in this article…it’s also practical experience.
Look, I’ve coached hundreds of people and I’ve seen a common pattern: no matter how smart/tough/determined you think you are, trying to establish more than one habit at a time is a surefire recipe for failure.
It isn’t because you are not enough, it’s because life can be tricky: suppose that you have a hard day at work/university/family and this will consume a lot of your brain energies. You may still find some energy to keep one resolution…but if you have two resolutions you’ll lose both of them.
Now, think on how likely it is to have just ONE tough day in 21 days…it’s very likely! Which means that the most of the time, you’ll end up breaking your habit-forming cycle.
And once you break it, you have to start from scratch…and 21 more days to go.
Does this sound like a good plan?
No way. Stick with one resolution at a time and you’ll end up in a very good situation.

Conclusion

Now, if all of this sounds good, I encourage you to start by implementing a good habit: reading a life-changing book, for just 10 minutes a day. It helped me transform my life and can do the same for you.
It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Be the best version of Yourself!

Tuesday 27 December 2016

Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

Don’t allow the challenges of life to break you. Don’t allow these difficult experiences to derail you from pursuing your dreams. When life pushes you to the ground, force yourself back up again. Keep fighting the hardship and make one tiny little step after another. Moving forward during times of hardship is incredibly difficult and challenging. But after some time, you’ll notice that by taking one step after another, you’ve eventually overcome the struggle. This article is all about moving forward. It will show you what it really means to keep moving forward during times of great difficulties. It will also address what you can do to navigate through hard times. At the same time, the article will present you the most common obstacles that prevent people from moving forward.


The willingness to continuously keep moving forward is not only important during tough times. It’s just as important in many other aspects of life as well.

Moving forward in life helps you to avoid stagnation. It allows you to maintain your pace, without being lured away by the various temptations of life. Similarly, the willingness to move on helps you to explore new opportunities where other people see only problems. By doing so, moving forward helps you to stop complaining about the struggle and makes you actively do something about it.

Especially during difficult times, it seems tempting to hide away and to quit fighting. It’s always easier to give up and to fantasize about someone who will come to your rescue. At the same time, none of these things will help you to overcome the issues you’re confronted with. Giving up will only make things worse.

Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

Life can be a tough ride. Sometimes it knocks you down for no good reason. There will be strokes of fate and deep hits that will suck the zest for life out of you. It may even get so difficult that all hope seems lost.
When you’re confronted with these incredible difficulties, it’s important not to lose hope. Similarly, it’s important not to give up during these times. Life can hit you as hard as it will, if you always get back up again and continue pursuing your goals, it cannot stop you.
As you can see, it doesn’t matter so much how unfair life treats you. What matters is that you have the willingness to keep going despite the great challenges.

Thursday 22 December 2016

If you’re tired of starting over, DON’T QUIT!

How many times have you quit?

How many times have we been right around the corner from success but we  threw in the towel and quit before we got there? Look briefly at your past. (Just look, don’t stay there).
How many times have you quit a promising relationship, perhaps even a marriage? At the time you thought you had a valid reason  for leaving but later it proved to be false. You realized you’d made a very wrong decision that you still regret. You simply quit too soon.
How many times have you quit something that you wanted to do—an interest that you wanted to develop? Perhaps it was harder to learn than you anticipated and so you put it down and said,  “That’s enough.” Later you realized that if you had continued with it you could have turned it into something really enjoyable or profitable but you can’t go back now. The opportunity has passed you by. You quit to soon.
For those of you who are entrepreneurs, how many times have you started a new business that you walked away from too soon? Now you see those who “made it” and you realize you could have been successful if you had just persevered.
Many of us have done that.

Times to Quit

Don’t get me wrong. There’s times when you have to walk away. You have to walk away from abusive relationships and from projects you said “yes” to when “no” was the best answer and you realized  later it was absolutely wrong for you. You have to quit when you are in a business that you don’t have a passion for and find yourself and the business in a state of stagnation. You dread waking up to another day with it and you go to bed exhausted because of it.

Before you quit

Before you quit your relationship, a project, a business or whatever it is, you need to ask yourself some questions and be brutally honest with yourself.
  1. Did I give it everything I had?
  2. Did I learn everything I needed to learn  to do it right?
  3. Did I supply myself with the tools I needed to make it successful?
  4. Have I looked at the pros and cons of quitting? Have I written them down and reviewed them later?
  5. Have I sought the advice of someone whose judgement I trust in these matters?
  6. Will I be happier if I quit or if I stay and make it successful?
  7. What would it take to make me stay with it?
  8. IF I knew that success was right around the corner, would I do “whatever it takes” to make it or would I still make the decision to quit?
And we’ll end with the statement we started with, only this time in the form of a question: “If you’re tired of starting over, why quit?”

It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Be the best version of Yourself!

Wednesday 21 December 2016

The Secret of Starting Over

Many of us are not happy with our present circumstance, some are disappointed, and frustrated with the way their life turned out, others are full of regrets and wished they could have done something to make the situation better. But, there are those who just gave up the idea of a better life, and settled with whatever they have.

In starting a new beginning, you may have some questions if it’s even possible. Don’t doubt your ability to change and let the Law of Attraction guide you to your quest for change. Take a look at your life and the life of others and you will see a big difference in your situation. Starting a new life is not easy. It requires a huge amount of patience and determination on your part. You will need to reassess your goals, the dream you would like to fulfill, the life you would like to have, and the things that are important to you. If you have your mind set on what you want to accomplish use the visualization process to help you hold on to those thoughts. Visualize yourself living that life and don’t allow anything or anybody to distract you or make you think differently.

Once you have completed your visualization, you now need to start on the creative process. Where should you start? First, you need to let go of your frustrations and regrets. You need to have a clear mind and positive emotions for you to move forward. Your positive thoughts and emotions will transmit a signal to the universe and the universe will reflect it back to you by manifesting your desires into your reality.

The processes may sound easy but it’s not. Programming your mind to always think positive thoughts is difficult since you will always be faced with situations that may change your train of thoughts and emotions. You may even grow impatient and become skeptical with the whole process but if you do, know that the universe will rearrange itself to give you negative circumstances to justify what you feel. The idea is to start over and you can’t expect it to happen overnight so be patience.

Free yourself from guilt. Forget your past mistakes but don’t forget their lessons. Let go of your emotional baggage and pain because you deserve a new life and believe that you can have it. You need to understand that it is never too late to start over and always remember, that in every passing day, there is a chance for you to turn things around. Learn more by visiting:
http://givemefreeknowledge.blogspot.com/
It is up to you to decide. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do to increase your odds of growing and increasing your contentment levels, I’m going to help you in every steps. 
Don't forget to follow me to Keep Learning and Keep Growing.
                                       Be the best version of Yourself!