Resistance builds strength...

Strength doesn't come from what you can't do. Strength is coming from the things you once thought you couldn't do and if you do them whilst overcoming fears, you'll find courage as well.

All new things that you will undertake will give you more strength, especially the things you are afraid of. Those things build tenacity and resilience. Building strength both mentally and physically requires always a level of resistance.

Due to a car accident I had to spent almost  a month in a hospital. All this time I stayed in bed and hardly used my legs. When after four weeks the doctor said that it was OK to leave my  bed, they had to stop me from jumping out of it right at that moment.  I couldn't wait to be active again. In the end it took me a few days before I could walk normally again and weeks before I had my full strength back. I learned  first handed that muscles will get weak very quickly when you don't use them. I used rubber bands and weights to gain my strength back.  I used rubber bands and weights to gain my strength back , in other words I used resistance.

My dad picked me up from the hospital and he said: son, you drive. I felt fear and anxiety but also an immediate mental resistance. My dad made me drive knowing that I had to push through this fear for driving caused by he accident.

My body and mind  pushed back on me not to stop me but to build strength.

You have the same feeling with 'new things' you initial feel an internal resistance. Sometimes it is because you are breaking from an old habit. At others times it is just fear, caused by an event in the past or just because you have to leave your comfort zone.  Remember growth and change is just outside your comfort zone. Hence resistance is necessary to grow and to change. Growth and change makes us more experience and more experience makes us stronger.

"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

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A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.

Dear...

"A good coach will make his students/athletes see what they can be, rather than what they are. "
- Ara Parasheghian

I think no one will dispute the positive effect sport plays in the development of a person.  In addition to improved physical health, active sporting has proven to lead to higher academic achievement, higher self-esteem, fewer behavioral problems, and better psychosocial. Sports contribute positively to the five 'C's: competence, confidence, connections, character, and caring. All these are considered to be critical components for personal development. The many facets of playing sport like: the discipline of training, learning teamwork, following the leadership of coaches and captains, learning to lose, can provide lifelong skills for athletes. Beside all this sport stresses the positive effects of participation in learning the important life skills of goal setting and time management combined with enjoyment; the development of a strong sense of morality; and the development of an appreciation of diversity.

Understanding the importance of sport combined with the fact that the majority of athletes see their coach as the number one influential element in the their competitive experience begs us to look closer at the role and responsibilities of a coach.

It is the coaches role to help their students to improve their skills, perform to their best ability, develop strong character, and build confidence. They can maximize the positive value of sport and competition, and they can enhance the intrinsic motivation to play sport. An athlete with the right intrinsic values of sport and the positive experience of mastery is more likely to apply fair play, good sportsmanship and is more likely to have a healthy attitude towards the sport, the fellow sporters and itself.  However when winning is overvalued it can create an environment in which unsportsmanlike behavior flourishes and it often breeds a mentality where one thinks that results justify the means.

Bad coaching can push the psychological, emotional, and physical limits of students to the point of harm, create a hostile and unfair environment, and turn athletes away from sport forever.
Even coaches who love the sport and have respect for their students can lose perspective in the quest to win. This is especially true when coaches are under incredible pressure to produce winning results.

What makes a good or effective coach?

The role of coach is a complicated one. Surveys show that coaches serve as instructor, teacher, motivator, disciplinarian, substitute parent, social worker, friend, manager and therapist. Ideally, coaches should understand the developmental stage and limits of their students in order to tailor practices and learning appropriately. In addition to these expectations, coaches are expected to have an in-depth knowledge of the sport they are coaching, including the rules and the skills and techniques needed to play the sport. At more advanced levels of competition, they need to understand basic kinesiology, sport psychology, nutrition, and basic first aid. It has to be said that at a higher level,  athletes are more likely to work with a team of 'specialized coaches' and to have access to a better 'support teams'.


This blogpost is partly an excerpt from "True Sport Report - Psychological and Social Benefits of Playing True Sport". You can read the full article at http://www.truesport.org

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

10 tips to manage your time better

Dear...

The secret to managing time successfully is being able to manage yourself, although we often think we don’t waste a minute of our time in reality this is far from true and there are many ways which we can manage ourselves more efficiently which ultimately leads to more successful time management. In order to successfully manage time there are strategies which you can use to stay more in control and relieve stress which plays a big factor in successful time management.

1. A lack of priorities. This is the single biggest cause of time wasting, in order to successfully manage time we have to know exactly what our priorities are for the day, by not prioritizing we spend too much time on the minor things and not enough time on the important ones.

2. Attempting to do too much. In today’s busy world, many people want things done yesterday and this only leads to rushing around and not doing a task properly, it also leads to mistakes and half-finished work with no real feeling of having accomplished anything with your time.

3. Interruptions: We all get interruptions in our day, this could be someone dropping in and asking if you have a minute to spare, which usually turn into a half hour or more. Knowing how to successfully deal with interruptions in your daily life is essential to time management.

4. Procrastination: thinking about what you have to do instead of actually getting on and doing it is one of the biggest time wasters in your day, reduce the amount of time that you spend thinking and this leaves you more time for doing.

5. Learn to say: “no”. Many of us just cannot say the word “no” when asked if we mind doing something, this is usually out of fear of upsetting the other person, but if you are taking on the responsibilities of others then you are taking time away from your own workload or tasks and essentially robbing yourself of that precious time which leads to stressing you out.

6. Clutter: Look around your desk or workspace, do you know where everything is? If you are asked for a file can you lay your hands on it or do you have to go rummaging to find it?  A cluttered desk or workspace is a time waster.

7. Set deadlines for yourself. Work out a reasonable deadline for a particular project and make sure that you stick with the deadline.

8. Manage your e-mails and phone calls. Where possible manage when you read your e-mails and take phone calls better, this was you are not continually breaking off to answer a call or reply to an e-mail. Set aside certain times when you check your e-mail and reply to them, the same applies to phone calls, it is surprising how much time can be wasted throughout a day by stopping and starting a project or task.

9. Use an activity planner. Setting your day into a planner can help you save time, a planner will allow you to allocate tasks to time slots and this way you can plan your day out and maximize your time more efficiently.

10. Avoid multi-tasking. Starting many different projects at the same time is not a very efficient way of managing time, try to complete one project before starting out on another, this gives you the satisfaction of seeing the project complete and knowing you have accomplished something with your time.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Progress yourself into mastery...

Dear...

Confident is when you fully believe in your own capabilities, when you trust that you can overcome any obstacle and that you can fight any fear.  Having confidence means that you are well set to achieve your goals, but it doesn’t stop there. You still have to do it and come into massive action. But now with confidence, with willpower you will follow through and achieve your goals, you will reach mastery and even then you don't stop.

Let's say you are learning new dance steps. You have full belief that one day you will be able to dance them. With confidence you practice and learn... And then the day comes that you are able to dance the steps that at first looked almost too complicated to perform. Your confidence is growing so you try new, even complexer steps and routines. You practice them with the same believe and confidence that one day you can dance these step as well. With each new step that you are able to dance, your belief in yourself will be reinforced and you won't stop their either. Your confidence and belief in yourself is growing and you are no longer afraid to push your boundaries further.

In this example, you have literally progressed yourself step by step into mastery, all because your confidence was high and you had full belief in yourself. Successful people will tell you that once they gained confidence they started to achieve goal after goal. It is like pushing through a wall, once the firs brick starts to fall, the rest will almost fall by itself. So if you go after your goals with high confidence and an unshakable belief in yourself you will achieve your goals and get what you want.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Is there meaning if we don't contribute?

Dear...

In life, we shouldn't only think of our own needs but also of the need of others. What we do, does affect other people, just as what other people do affect us.

It's a great thing that we are encouraged to strive for self improvement, not just financially, but also intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. It's a duty to ourselves to make the most out of the opportunities and situations presented to us. Besides striving to be successful and happy we also need to makes sure that we can give back and contribute to the people close to us.

We have to understand that nothing will ever stand on itself. Our development will have an impact on our environment, our culture and therefore the future of others.

So when we define our vision and visualize our future, we also need to look at the value of our goals and the effect they can have on others. As we plan our achievements we have to consider what we can add to other people's development, success, well being and happiness as well.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Can we control our habits?

Dear...

We have and are forming habits every moment of our lives. Most of them are or will form unconsciously. Part of these habits are habits we desire others are habits we don't desire. Some, though not so bad in themselves, are exceedingly bad in their cumulative effects, and cause us at times much loss, much pain and anguish, while their opposites would, on the contrary, bring as much peace and joy, as well as a continually increasing power.
The question her is can we determine at all times what type habits we adopt or is habit-forming a matter of mere chance? I do believe that we can control our habits.

Our mind and thoughts are the underlying power of all. Every conscious act is preceded by a thought and in principle controlled by our mind. It is our thinking that determines our actions. At least that is how it should be. If our thinking is always responsible for our actions and therefore our habits, than it is first necessary that we know how to control our thinking. I have said this repeatedly in my blogs: we are and become what we think, therefore we have to be careful what we think.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

The positives of positive thinking...

Dear...

Positive thinking is not just a state of mind. It has some real benefits for your wellbeing as well. Positive thinkers or optimists have a different 'inner dialogue' than negative thinkers or pessimists. If you tend to think more negative and be pessimistic then you have to learn how to change your 'inner dialogue'. Use different words and thoughts and learn from more optimistic people.

• Positive thinkers are in general more productive and more healthy, they are more resilient and persistent. 
• Positive thinkers have a lower rate of depression, reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases. 
• Positive thinkers have in general a better physical and mental well being and bottom line they just have an increased life span.

So If you are a negative thinker, your first positive change would be to accept the fact that negative thinking can be unlearned and positive thinking can be learned.

• Change your attitude from seeing threats to seeing  opportunities. 
• Instead of thinking: "it will never work";  think: "let me give it a try". 
• Be someone that embraces changes instead of running away from it. 
• Surround yourself with positive people. 
• Stop yourself complaining about things that can't be changed like the weather. 
• Always think the best can happen and not the worst.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

How to reduce stress in 6 steps

Dear...

We all have faced and most likely will face stressful situations. Some people handle stress well where others are more challenged dealing with stress.

Now there are healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with stress. The unhealthy ways might reduce stress on the short term but most likely cause damage on the long run.

Unhealthy ways to reduce stress are: Smoking, Procrastinating,  Worrying, Eating too much or too little, Taking drugs, Taking it out on other people etcetera. All these ways of dealing with stress are in one way or another avoiding the situation instead of dealing with it.

More healthy ways to deal with stress are:

First of all a lot of stressful situations can probably be avoided. E.g. learn how to say no and speak what is on your mind.

Secondly see a situation for what it really is: something that we think is stressful is often blown out of proportions. Seeing a situation for what it really is put things back in perspective.

Thirdly learn to accept what cannot be changed: There are things that can't be changed, learn how to accept them.

Fourthly prepare yourself well: if you prepare yourself well, by looking at the facts, by practicing and  by learning. By preparing yourself well, you reduce hugely the uncertainty of what you are facing.

Fifthly rehearse and visualize: by going through a stressful situation ahead of time in your mind and visualizing  how you will handle the situation successfully, you can reduce the stress enormously.

Lastly some level of stress and tention keeps you allert and is often necessary to do a peak performance. Understand the difference between being too stressed and have a healthy excitement for an unknown situation.

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The beautiful gift of imagination

Dear...

It is more often our own mind that limits what we can achieve than the circumstances we are in or the means we have.

Recently someone asked me: can you achieve anything by just thinking of it? I said: no, but for sure you will not achieve it if you can't think of it.

Too often I hear: you have to be realistic and set only realistic goals otherwise you only will fool yourself and get disappointed. People who say such things in most cases don't dare to dream big and often seem to have lost their ability to imagine as well.

We are all born with an ability to be free in our mind and imagine anything we want, but as we grow older a lot of us lose that beautiful gift of imagination. Some people actually think it is a complete waist of time to dream and imagine.

William Arthur Ward was right when he said: "If you can imagine it you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it."

Don't limit yourself in what you want to achieve or want to become. At least, give yourself the freedom in your mind to do that. And if you discover that you have lost the ability to be free in your mind, go back to when you were young and feel how you used your imagination when you were playing. Discover the limiting beliefs that hold you from being free in your mind. If those limiting beliefs already have a grip of your thinking they for sure have a grip on what you will achieve.


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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Can you have too much confidence?

Dear...

I want to share a few additions to yesterday's post about lack of confidence. Some people asked me: when does confidence turns into overconfidence and is that's bad or not.

If you are overconfident you might take too much risks and stretch yourself beyond your abilities. Overconfident people are sometimes so optimistic that they don't follow through to finish something successfully.

So it's all about balance, under-confident people don't undertake enough out fear of failing and being too risk averse; overconfident people take sometimes unnecessary risks or don't think things enough through before they do something which often lead to failure.

But in the end it is in my opinion better to learn from your failures and to take too much risk than to avoid making mistakes and taking no risk at all. After all the biggest mistake you could ever make is being afraid to make one.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Signs that give your insecurities away

Dear...

What you don't want if you have lack of confidence is that people around you know that too. Unfortunately when you do have lack of confidence you send out clear signs, easy to read by the people around you. I've listed the four areas of 'signs' of insecurity below:

• Strive of perfection: Insecure people are afraid to do anything unless they are convinced it is perfect, which in most cases is not even achievable or hard to define. Confident people on the other hand are focussed on the goals they are after and less on the 'perfection' of the means to get them. Confident people look for things to do outside their comfort zone instead of being risk averse and wanting to play it safe all the time.
• Body language: This is another give away of your lack of confidence. Having your head down, not looking someone in the eyes and your arms folded doesn't exhibit a confident body language. 
• Communication: The way you communicate gives away that you are not very confident as well. Insecure people often feel that a discussion is about them in a negative way and they feel most of the times attacked. A defensive attitude exposes your insecurity. People with a lack of confidence also have a need to explain their actions and are over apologetic when they do something wrong. Confident people on the other hand don't explain their actions and are better in accepting and admitting failures.
• Behavior: Unlike confident people, insecure people base their behavior often on what other people think instead, of doing what you believe is right. Confident people will wait for appraisal of accomplishments where the ones with lack of confidence tend look for praise of their own achievements as much as possible.

Knowing these signs will not immediately make you confident and they might be even hard for you to accept when you recognize yourself in what's written here, but these signs can help you masking your insecurities and they offer you a good start to change if you want to overcome your insecurities.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Instead of asking: Why me? We should ask: Why NOT me?

Dear...

Janine Shepherd a cross-country skier hoped for an Olympic medal, until she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. Leaving the hospital after six months, barely able to use her legs, she quickly fell in a state of depression. After a period of constant pondering on the question "why me ?" she had a life changing epiphany. Instead of asking again "why me?" she asked herself "why NOT me?".

Janine Shepherd's story is as inspirational as it is motivational. Not only did she decide to learn how to fly a plane, but she became a flight instructor within 18 months leaving the hospital and after that she made to a trained aerobatics flying instructor. Despite the fact that her doctors told her that she would never be able to use her legs again, she learned how to walk and she was asked to be a torchbearer for the Paralympics in Sydney 2000.

We all have been in situations of which we felt we can't change; a situation in which we got stuck in asking ourselves why me and why did this happen? The story of Janine teaches us that we can change bad situation by asking ourselves: "why NOT me?" and "how can I turn this in something good for others and perhaps myself?"

Hardships often bring the best out of people, but I always hope that stories like the one I told in today's post motivate us to pursuit a life of excellence and do extraordinary things without having to go through ordeals first.

Watch Janine Shepherd telling her own life story at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX32U_hfri4


jeandorff@googlemail.com
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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

The meaning of everything is the meaning you give it

Dear...

Many spiritual learnings agree with the saying: "You are what you think".

"For as he thinks in his heart, so is he": Proverbs 23:7
"All that we are is a result of all that we thought": Buddha

The way we process information coming through our senses is hugely influenced by our past experiences, our cultural back ground, our upbringing and our sensory preferences (e.g. visual people perceive information differently than auditive people).

Our emotional state is also a big factor of interpreting sensory information, for example: you look entirely different at food when you are hungry or when you have just eaten a copious meal; when you just bought a car of a certain make, it seems that suddenly there are more cars of the same make on the road.

It's a fact that people with more negative emotions tend to see the world around them more  negative, likewise people with more positive emotions see the world more bright, remarkably enough they live in the same world.

It was perhaps not in our hands what life has put us through, but it is entirely up to us how we look at our past experiences and how we let it influence our life today and in the future.

The meaning of a situation is only the meaning we give it, it is in our hands to change this if we want to.

In other words the way we see the world is hugely if not completely depending of our state of being. Change your state of being and you change te world around you.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Move forward in one direction...

Dear...

It's quite common to be very enthusiastic at first when pursuing a goal, unfortunately doubts start to kick in often already after a short period of time. To achieve anything worthwhile, it always requires a personal change away from what we already know. Most people tend to gravitate to the known, trying to stay from the unknown. Our mind perceives unknown territory as areas of risk, doubt is our inner warning system for risk and our character determines how we listen to our doubts.

The shortest way to get somewhere is to make sure that all your steps are in the direction you want to go. The same is true for your thoughts. The best way to achieve your goal is to keep focussing on it. Doubt makes us hesitate, stop and sometimes turn around, it makes us go back and forward and we get pulled into multiple direction. Achieving your goals demands going forward and staying focussed despite your doubts.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Life is a test...

Dear...

Why does it seem that some people are tested more in life than others? To me that's one of the big life questions, maybe too big for me to answer in a blog post, but I can at least try to give you some perspective. 

I believe that we all get tested in life and it is through these tests that we'll shape our characters, find our courage and ultimately fulfill our destiny. It will help you to accept this as a universal truth. People having a hard time to accept this fight more with their tests instead of making them. 

Life tests are like school tests if you fight them you have a hard time to pass them; if you undergo them without perpetration you'll find yourself getting an F as well; but if you embrace them, prepare for them and even seek them out, tests will become stepping stones of your life. 

Seeking out tests will not only help you to understand your limits but it will push them as well. It is like a muscle, it only gets stronger if you train it. This is true for any skill you want to develop, both physical and mental. 

There is perhaps one difference with school tests and tests in life. In school a lesson get taught before a test, in life the test is often the lesson you have to learn. 

The above might not give us an answer to the question I started today's post with, but  hopefully it will give you a good starting point to cope differently with your tests in life. 

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

Dear...

Fear lives in our mind as an emotion and not in real life. Fear is always about something that possible could happen in the future, but without a certainty that it will happen. In a good way fear is a survival mechanism in response to stimuli that threatens our health, safety, status or anything held valuable (tangible or non-tangible). Fear is felt about something realistically intimidating or dangerous and is an appropriate response to a perceived threat.

Therefore fear used as a warning system is a good thing. A simple analogy is driving a car in fog, you can proceed but you should proceed with greater care, it's healthy in this situation to be more cautious than in clear weather circumstances.

However when fear becomes anxiety it can lead to overreaction and panic. When fear and anxiety start to cause that situations are avoided they eventually stop any progression or change. One could say that anxiety is the irrational fear for common things necessary to progress in life: like school tests, meeting people, travel etc. Most anxieties can be generalized as the fear for change or the fear for something new or unknown.

The best way to overcome fear is not to avoid fearsome situations but to look them in the face. If you do that you will find that everything you want is on the other side of fear.

Jeandorff@googlemail.com
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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Be like Scrooge...

Dear...

I already told you that I'm a sucker for the holidays. I like it all: the decorations, the food, the get together with family and friends, but mostly I like The Christmas Story after all that's what we celebrate.

Today however I would like to talk a little about another famous christmas story, the one about Ebenezer Scrooge. The main character in Charles Dicken's tale is portrayed by countless actors in countless plays and movies. My favorite one is George C. Scott.

Charles Dickens wrote his story in 1843, but hasn't lost any of its beauty and profoundness. On hindsight of the story you can see that Scrooge was fortunate to get first a reflection of his past and present and then a preview of a possible future.

Wouldn't it be nice if once a year we were visited  by our ghosts of the past, present and future so that we can make a course correction as Ebenezer Scrooge did? We are not able to see into the future, but we can do a reasoning whether a continuation on the line of our past produces a preferable future or not. After all the past leaves traces. There is a saying: "if you want to know some ones future look at his or hers past". This is however only true if you don't make any changes when the results of your past and present advices you to do so.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

The struggle to find a life's purpose...

Dear...

Imagine you were born a few thousand years ago, you didn't have to make a choice what job you were going to do or what profession you have to learn. You would live in a time where you had to take care of everything yourself, hunt or gather your own food, prepare your meal, you made your own entertainment, fixed your own housing and was your own medical service. You would not be stuck in a role that wouldn't fit you, because there was only one. There were no specialists only generalists.
Society, especially in first world countries, have changed dramatically. You can be a general thinker, but there are almost no real 'general jobs' anymore. Just some decades ago, when someone asked you what do you do for a living, a simple answer like I work at an office, I work in a factory, I work on the land was sufficient.  Everything was more general. I think its great that nowadays we have so many specialists in so many areas. But what if you are not wired liked that and you are stuck in a "specialist's job" but your nature forces you to always look more at the bigger picture of things. There is no education for that and there are no jobs like that either.

If people like this grow up in an environment where this 'general' way of thinking is recognized and stimulated they will often be very successful in life. However when people like this grow up in an environment where this thinking is not taken serious and even suppressed, they will often live a life full of struggle and in many cases lead a life of depression, obsession and  addictions.
People who recognize themselves in this tend to look different at the world. They have a natural drive to seek answers to the bigger life questions like: where do we come from, what is the meaning of life, is there a purpose of life etc. If life philosophy was a common profession then that's probably where you would find these people. Most other people would call them dreamers with less sense of reality. The truth is that these 'dreamers' just look different at life feeling they can only be happy when finding their life's purpose.
In my to be published book I'll paint the picture of such a dreamer and his life long struggle to find his purpose in life.

Jeandorff@googlemail.com
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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Can you ever be too positive?

Dear...

Some people say that you can be too positive. They think that if you are too positive you are naive and you will have more disappointments because it is impossible to succeed in everything.

Well, that last part is probably true. Positive people tend to do more then less positive people. Positive people don't think they succeed in everything, but since they take on more, they succeed more. That in my mind is a good reason to have a positive lifestyle.

An other reason is, positive people have less fear of disappointment. In fact positive people pick them selves up after great disappointment and go on with equal or more energy. Churchill said: "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm".

This makes positive people more resilient with every 'failure' they have. Now here you come to the third thing that distinct the positive from the negative. Failure is not failure in the mind of the positives, failure is a point of learning and brings them just one step closer to success.

If you believe you can do it you are right and if you believe you can't do it you are right too.

Jeandorff@googlemail.com
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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD

Perception is everything

Dear...

Everything is a matter of perception. This means that no one sees anything exactly the same way someone else does. Perception is influenced by an almost endless range of factors like culture, personal character, upbringing, religious background, etc. What in one culture is considered as delicious might be in another culture horrible to eat. What during one period in time is seen as modern and hip is a few years later old fashion.

As a young boy I was disgusted by the taste of olives, now I think they are one of the best things to eat. Time changes the way you perceive things. But things can also change in an instant. Can  you recall a situation where you at first had a different opinion but after knowing some new facts your views changed radically?

You cannot change the way someone else look at you,
but you can change the way you look at someone or something else. This insight gives you truly the ability to change just about anything you want. You don't see the world as it is, you see the world as you are. You see the world as unique as you are. By changing yourself, you can change the world.

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"Be inspired and you shall inspire." ~ JD