When asked the question “How are you feeling?” most people will answer, “I’m fine.” But truthfully, deep down inside most people are really feeling confused, disappointed or frustrated.

Here are a couple of things you can do to help alleviate those types of feelings:

• Feed your creativity. Immerse yourself in gardening, painting, craftwork or drawing and enjoy the creativity you possess.
• Listen to your thoughts. Visually challenge thoughts that are counterproductive by writing them on paper.
• Speak kindly, but honestly with everyone.
• Experience the vitality of life. Give your body freedom of movement in dance, games like Twister or sports. Learn a new physical skill such as CPR or self defense.

In general, many people have a difficult time learning how to say no. Most of the time, we want to please other people or have others like us.

But when you agree to do everything others ask, you put their feelings before your own. And that can lead to frustration and unhappiness on your part. So, let’s work on it together. It really isn’t that difficult to say no if you don’t’ have the time to do something or you’re not interested.

Here are some ways to say no:

1. NO.
2. I can’t take this on with my present commitments.
3. I must say no, I’m too busy now.
4. I’m in the middle of something else; I don’t have time for that now.
5. I have other commitments, I just checked my calendar.
6. I could not do an adequate job right now, so I must say no.
7. No, I don’t have any spare time.
8. I can’t.
9. You didn’t give me enough notice, so I’m too busy now.
10. Try to find someone else if you can.

There are hundreds of ways to say no without being rude. It requires some time and creative effort, but it is possible to do it without hurting people’s feelings.

Remember that it won’t always go well. There are some people that feel you’re obligated to help them whenever they ask.

In fact, I can remember a friend I had about 20 years ago. She would get angry with me whenever I refused to lend her money. Can you believe that? She actually believed that because I had some extra money and she didn’t that I was obligated to lend it to her.

Notice that I said I “had” a friend. Friends like that don’t last, so don’t worry about offending them.

If you can’t do something for someone else or just don’t want to, you don’t have to. Learn how to say “NO”.

I like to think of myself as someone who knows where I’m going and doesn’t let old habits and reactions get in my way. But the more I think about it, there are certain things that seem to run through my brain on autopilot. And, for the most part, these thoughts are very limiting.

I’m on a quest to eliminate those negative, limiting thoughts.

In other words, it wouldn’t be a problem if “Wow, you’re great - you can accomplish anything” ran through your brain 10 times a day. But if the memory of your mother scolding you and the words “I can’t believe you did something so stupid!” are running through your head on a constant basis, there’s cause for concern.

I couldn’t find much online about changing your thoughts, but I did find an excellent article about changing your habits at Scott Young’s blog “Get More From Life”.

It seems to me that we can take the same habit changing steps and apply them to changing thoughts. At least that’s what I’m going to try.

Here are the 4 steps:

• Analyze
• Form a Strategy
• Prepare
• Act

This helped give me some good ideas about what I can do to “burn” some new and positive images into my brain.

You can read Scott Young’s article here:

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2006/04/03/how-to-change-a-habit/

Developing good communication skills is essential in all walks of life and with all kinds of people. If you have good communication skills, you’ll hve all the skills you need to deal with almost anyone.

Most of us have to deal with difficult people at some stage or another in our personal and professional life. Through effective communication, you can mend relationships when necessary and communicate effectively with anyone.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Avoid the subjects of politics or religion when making light conversation
• Realize that you can’t change the other person
• When someone reacts negatively to you, refrain from coming back with more negativity. It’s amazing what you can create when you treat people with polite respect
• Try seeing the situation from the other person’s point of view
• Keep your sense of humor

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea. Keep yourself focused on clear communication and positive interactions with other people. You’ll be pleasantly suprised with your results.

Want to be a success? Well it’s not going to happen if you just sit around all day and think about what you want. You’re going to have to get out there and take some risks along the way.

Taking risks doesn’t necessarily mean something is dangerous, it just means that you’ll need to be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone and do things you’ve never done before. Things like public speaking or speaking to a group on a moment’s notice, presenting yourself as an expert on a certain subject or pushing yourself beyond your current physical limits.

It takes a constant effort to achieve your goals and get what you want out of life, but it doesn’t have to be difficult.

A good place to start is to take an inventory of your life to see where you are right now. Then decide where you want to go.

The next part is the most difficult. It’s now time to plan your road to reaching your goal. Will you need skills that you don’t have right now to achieve your goal? Will you need to do things your not comfortable with? Talk to people you don’t want to talk to?

This is where the personal growth (and the risks) come in. In order to achieve the things you say you want, you’ll need to be willing to learn whatever you need to learn and do whatever you need to do.

Find someone who’s already good at the things you need to learn and model them. Ask them for advice or where to go for training. Get online and do your research. If your role model is a famous person or celebrity it may be difficult to meet them personally, but you should be able to find plenty of written material on the person’s background, schooling and mental disposition.

Start gradually on your road to success. Don’t pressure yourself to get there too soon, but stay persistent and focused. A big part of achieving a goal is all that you learn along the way - you don’t want to miss it!

If you want to be a success in any area of your life, the best way to get there is by focusing your thoughts and energy on positive things. Positive thinking puts you in the right mindset to achieving positive results.

Negative thinking will only make a situation worse. And, once we start down the path of negativity, it can be extremely difficult to pull ourselves out. One thing builds on another and before you know it, you’re up to your eyeballs in misfortune and difficult situations.

You really do hold the power of success in your own hands. Visualize the success you want, think of a positive way to achieve it and then get started. Keep yourself focused and on purpose and don’t let anyone deter you from your path.

In his day, Andrew Carnegie was described as “singleminded” and “relentness”. Nowadays these words usually carry a negative conotation, but think about it. If you decide on your goal and then are “singleminded” and “relentness” about going for it, don’t you think you’ll achieve it?

If you use Carnegie as your example, your success is a sure thing!

Did you know that running can boost your self-esteem? It can.

When you run, not only are endorphins released but with each pounding step you can begin to feel empowered. The ability to set a goal and reach it can build your confidence level tremendously.

It doesn’t matter if you’re running to the mailbox or running a 10K marathon, you’re going to feel better about yourself. The key is to set a goal for your training program and then work toward achieving it. The ability to achieve a goal is without a doubt the biggest self-esteem builder of all.

It’s important that you start any exercise program slowly and increase your level at a measured pace.

The idea is not to achieve your goal the first day, but to work towards something and then get there. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and neither will your running ability be. Look for improvements over time and celebrate your successes. Be patient with yourself and you’ll reap all the benefits - physical and psychological - that running has to offer.

Having a positive attitude is the beginning of experiencing a positive life. Pretty bold statement, but it’s true.

So what do you need to do to have a postive attitude. You either have one or your don’t, right? Wrong!

Saying positive affirmations throughout the day to yourself if the key to
having positive experiences. What we say to ourselves is without a doubt what we become. A positive attitude is key to leading a happy life.

Begin to take control of your thoughts by saying positive things to yourself. This is the first step in changing your life over into the positive.

A positive affirmation is simply a thought that you say to yourself over and over until it actually becomes part of you. When you say positive things to yourself, it not only builds your confidence and self-esteem, but you’re be amazed at how much you’re able to accomplish. Probably more thant you ever thought possible.

Carry around a list of positive thoughts and when you find yourself on the negative side, pull out the list and start reading. Keep reading until you feel your mood changing. I know this sounds silly, but it works.

Like all things, practice makes perfect. So practice these skills every day and they’ll become second nature.

Here’s a little something to help you get your Friday on track. You never want to waste a Friday (or any day for that matter) feeling bad, so here are some ways to get the day turned around and going in the right direction.

If you are having a bad day, instead of dwelling in everything that’s gone wrong, start thinking about ways to turn the situation around. There may be any number of things that are making your day go badly, but there must be something positive you can pick out to focus on instead. This will immediately improve your attitude and help you turn a lousy day into a better one.

Some other things you can do to change your mindset are go for a vigorous walk or some other exercise, reading or listening to music that makes you feel good.

You can also reach back into your memory and remember happier times and how good you felt. Thinking about times you’ve spent with family and friends doing things that made you feel good is a great way to combat a bad day.

Most importantly, don’t dwell on how bad today is, that will only make it worse. Get your thoughts turned around using some of the methods I listed above and things will start to turn around. You can count on it.