The Road To Happiness



We always think that the life will be easier after you finish studying, get married or find a good job…. But when you’ve already accomplished that, you’re controlled by so many worries again and again… We are usually unsatisfied, when our life is not the same as what we wanted. For some reason nothing can make us truly happy or happy enough…

Are there many people who recognize that the happiest time in their life is the moment we are living in? Life contains many challenges and difficulties, troubles and losses… The way to adapt ourselves to the life we have – is accepting it the way it is and believing in ourselves. Anyone knows what happiness feels like, and it’s a great feeling! So why don’t we let it in our hearts?

Don’t wait for any miracle or anybody to bring the happiness to you, don’t wait until you are graduated, don’t wait until you can earn more money, get more success, get married or retired to see what happiness is. Feel happy now. Why not?

Happiness is a road, an itinerary… Let’s enjoy each moment on that itinerary. Let’s spend the time to take care of other people and ourselves.  It’s never too late to start feeling happy for no particular reason. Start with the knowledge that you are alive, healthy and have some loving and caring people around you. Embrace these thoughts and all the good in your life. If you think about it, you will probably find a hundred and one reasons, why you should feel happy right now.

Let’s love and live with all our hearts today, right now and focus on this very moment. 

You will sure find true happiness if you learn to enjoy every day of your life no matter what it brings.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. - Helen Keller

Get on the right path to achieve your full potential! Focus on personal development to improve your life. Book a free strategy session at http://www.denisedema.com

Professional Development is a Lifelong Activity.



How often do you set aside time to learn new skills? Chances are, not as often as you'd like! If you're like many people, you're keen to learn, but you struggle to find the time. So, how can you make this time, develop your knowledge, and increase your value, both to your organization and to future employers? 

Why Make Time for Professional Development?
If you're a manager, you'll know how important it is to ensure that your team members are given plenty of training and development opportunities. However, it's just as important to focus on your own learning and development. To do this, it's essential to set aside enough time. 

There are several reasons why you might not make learning a priority. Volume of work is the most obvious reason: with work and personal responsibilities competing for your attention, it can feel impossible to find room in your schedule for learning. 

As well as this, you may feel guilty about taking time out for personal and professional development; after all, this could be used to work on urgent or important tasks, or even to be with your family. 

It can also be difficult to make learning part of your routine. In the course of a busy, hectic day, tasks like "Read leadership book," and "Complete online course" can easily slip to the bottom of your To-Do List.

This can lead you to feel disappointed about not living up to your own expectations, which can affect your self-confidence and make you feel less positive about your career. You can also suffer if you don't stay up-to-date with changes to your industry or profession. For instance, you might miss opportunities to make a greater contribution to your team or organization, and other people may become more effective than you in the workplace.

However, when you make learning a priority, you increase your value to your organization. You're more marketable as a professional, and you're in a better position when you apply for a challenging project or seek a promotion.
Continuous learning can also help you develop expert power. If your boss, team members, or clients see you as an expert, they're far more willing to respect your opinion and follow your lead. This can make it easier to win support for your projects, negotiate a contract, or manage change.

Personal Learning Strategies
There's no doubt that it's important to make your own professional development a priority. But how do you find time to do it?

1. Set Learning Goals
If you don't recognize the importance of what you're doing, it will be easy to give self-development up whenever you're pressed for time or lacking energy and motivation. 

So, your first step is to identify your learning objectives, and visualize how these will help you achieve the other professional goals that you've set. So, what do you want to get from your learning? And why are you making time to learn? 

It's important to set smart, realistic goals from the beginning, and to break these down into long- and short-term goals that you can add to your daily to do list. 

Then, write down why you are devoting time to this activity and how these learning activities are going to make your life better.

2. Identify Obstacles
Next, identify possible obstacles that might make it difficult to stick to a learning schedule, and come up with strategies to overcome them.

For instance, imagine that, over the coming week, you've committed to spending half an hour reading a book when you get home. One possible obstacle is that your kids may want to play with you as soon as you walk in the door. To overcome this, you'll need to explain to them why you need time to study alone. Promise them time as soon as you're finished, and then sit in a quiet room, so you won't be disturbed.

Go through the possible obstacles that might prevent you from spending time on your learning, and write down the strategies that you'll use to overcome each one.

3. Think Small
Many of us assume that we'll need large chunks of time to devote to learning. However, short blocks of time can be just as effective, if you focus.

The key to learning effectively is to maximize the impact of every moment that you have available. Look at your To-Do List, and see what you can achieve in the time available. Make sure that you minimize distractions, even if you only have just 10 minutes free, and concentrate on what you're reading or learning. 

Tip:
Think about how you can use your mobile device to learn when you're on the move – by using appropriate apps, by listening to podcasts, or by storing information that you want to memorize on the device's notepad. 

4. Learn at Your Best
Many people schedule their learning for a time when they've completed everything else. However tempting this may be, think about how you feel when you've accomplished everything on your to-do list. You're usually exhausted, right?

Everyone has different peaks and valleys in their energy levels. It's important not to schedule learning, which requires a fresh, open mind, for the time of day when you have the smallest amount of energy. Explore how you can better schedule learning to take advantage of the changes in your energy throughout the day.

5. Make Learning a Habit
You'll only be able to sustain your learning if you make it a habit. Developing any habit takes work and self-discipline.

To build a habit, look at your schedule and see how you can work time for learning in every day. Could you get up an hour earlier, or learn on your lunch break? Could you study after everyone else has gone to bed? Take into account the energy levels we mentioned earlier.

Think of a reward that you can use to motivate yourself through, say, the next two weeks. This will help to keep you going when you don't feel like studying, or when you're tempted to skip a day because you want to do something else instead. 

Once you've made it through the first two weeks, take time to congratulate yourself! That first step is always the hardest. Next, commit to spending the next 30 days learning every day. Reassess the time slots you've carved out for yourself: are they working? If not, what tasks could you move around to make learning more practical? 

Remember, habits start out as little daily activities that you force yourself to do. They only become habits with time and persistence. 

6. Choose the Right Learning Style
Do know how you learn best? For instance, some people learn and retain information best when they can read and take notes. Others are active learners; they need to learn by doing something themselves. Still others learn best when they're presented only with the facts and with none of the theory.
It's important to identify your personal learning style so that you can tailor your learning to fit what works best for you. 

7. Collaborate
It's often easiest to learn in collaboration with others; after all, if you know that there are people who are always available if you need help or advice, you're more likely to turn to them instead of giving up. When you join a community that makes learning a priority, these people can also hold you accountable for your learning goals.

One of the best ways to do this is by joining a class or doing a course with others. However, you can also network on LinkedIn and Twitter to find other professionals in your industry who are interested in learning. You can also talk to colleagues to see if they routinely devote time to learning. If so, perhaps you could form a study group, or simply spend time reading or learning together? 

8. Delegate Tasks
Your day is likely full of tasks that you're responsible for. So, how are you going to fit learning in?

Look at your professional and personal responsibilities to see if you can delegate any tasks to someone else, for example by giving new tasks to team members, or by hiring someone to clean your house. If you can clear even a half hour from your schedule, you can use this time to work on your learning goals.

Tip:
See this time management article for tips on managing your time. 

Key Points
Lifelong learning is essential if you want to stay "in demand" in a changing business world. However, many of us feel that we don't have time to devote to regular learning, in spite of the many benefits it offers.
Start by setting small goals with your learning; commit to devoting time daily for the next two weeks. Identify your learning goals, so that you know why and what you want to learn.

Try to delegate activities to open up your schedule, if you can. And consider forming a support group with others who are also interested in learning.

Get on the right path to achieve your full potential! Focus on professional and personal development to improve your life. Book a free strategy session at http://www.denisedema.com

Learning To Forgive



It’s time to consider letting go of the things that don’t serve you well to make room for good things to come into your life. Forgiveness allows us to let go of the pain in the memory and if we let go of the pain in the memory we can have the memory but it does not control us. When memory controls us we are then the puppets of the past.  

One of the things you should consider doing is forgiving those who have wronged you—whether you’ve experienced rejection, ridicule, deception, or abuse–, and clearing out the mental clutter that comes from holding on to grudges and resentments. After all, the person that you hurt the most by holding on to resentment and anger is yourself.

Forgiving someone who has mistreated or wronged you is hard, isn’t it? So, how do you forgive someone who has hurt you? You can embark upon the journey of forgiveness in order to release yourself from past hurts and rid yourself of any emotional baggage which may be weighing you down and holding you back.

Try to rethink your definition of forgiveness. You might think that forgiveness is about the following:
  • Condoning what the other person did.
  • Giving in.
  • Turning the other cheek.
  • Pretending that nothing happened or that it really wasn’t such a big deal.
  • Admitting that your anger isn’t justified or that you’re not entitled to it.
  • Forcing yourself to get along with someone who you feel may hurt you again.
If so, then you’re probably going to be very reluctant to forgive and with good reason. Instead, try changing your definition of forgiveness to the following:
  • Forgiveness is about freeing up and putting to better use the energy that is being consumed by holding on to grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing old wounds.
  • Forgiveness is about moving on.
  • Forgiveness is about choosing serenity and happiness over righteous anger.
  • Forgiveness is about refusing to replay past hurts in your mind over and over again, like a broken record.
  • Forgiveness is about realizing that anger and resentment don’t serve you well.
  • Forgiveness is about giving yourself a clean slate.
Have you ever thought, “My life would be perfect if this never happened.”  For many people, not forgiving provides them with an excuse for everything that is wrong in their life. That is, they use the fact that so-and-so did this-or-that to them to explain why they can’t achieve certain life goals. If only that hadn’t happened to them, their life would be much better than it is. That is, they use the hurt that they experienced to get off the hook. If they forgive and heal, then they’re out of an excuse.

Stop telling yourself that because certain things happened to you in the past, you can’t have what you want in the present or in the future. Instead, take responsibility for getting on with your life, in spite of anything that anyone may have done to you. You can do this by shifting from a Victim mentality, to a Creator mentality.

What if you don’t want to forgive? Is forgiving the only way to heal the hurt that someone else has caused you? What if the person who hurt you won’t admit what they did, or they just won’t show any remorse? Or what if you simply can’t get yourself to genuinely forgive the other person? You can heal yourself and clear your head of emotional clutter—such as anger, resentment, and thoughts of getting even—without forgiving. You’re free to decide who you will, and who you won’t, forgive.
So you basically have two options:
  1. Forgive, and release yourself from the hurt.
  2. Refuse to forgive, and be forever trapped in a prison of your own poisonous thoughts.
But there’s another option. It’s called acceptance. Acceptance helps you do the following:
  • Clear your head of emotional poison.
  • Be true to yourself.
  • Forgive yourself for any of your own failings which led you to allow yourself to be placed in harm’s way.
  • Choose to get along with the person who hurt you—even if you don’t love or even like them—if it’s in your best interest to do so.
Acceptance involves the following:
  • Honor the full sweep of your emotions.
  • Give up the need for revenge, while continuing to seek a just resolution.
  • Stop obsessing about the injury. You can do this by challenging your negative thoughts, using relaxation and meditation, and implementing a program of self-care.
  • Frame the offender’s behavior in terms of their own personal struggles.
  • Look honestly at your own contribution to what happened.
  • Take any necessary steps to protect yourself from further abuse.
  • Decide what kind of a relationship—if any—you want with the offender.

Here are a few methods to help people forgive. They integrate not only effective thinking and emotional processes of psychology, but also time-proven spiritual methods and perspectives.

One way is talking with the person who hurt you directly, if it would help you come to a better understanding of what happened. In particular, what happened from their perspective? Also, what’s their emotional intelligence?  Is there something in their background that led them to take this action?
Also, you can turn the situation around and ask yourself the following questions:
  • How would an impartial observer see this?
  • Have I done the same thing to another or to myself?
  • Is this similar to a pattern in my family?
  • Has something like this happened to me before? Am I reliving a situation I’ve gone through before, but with different players?
  • What can I learn from this?
  • Can anything positive come from this? Am I stronger or more resourceful as a result of this having happened?
  • What do I get by holding on to this resentment? Who benefits and how?
  • Am I keeping the situation alive by refusing to let go?

Try this Forgiveness Exercise. Here are the steps:
1. Make a list of all the people you feel have wronged you in some way; write down what each one did and why it’s not OK.
2. Acknowledge that those things did happen, and that they did hurt you.
3. Make a commitment to yourself to do what you need to do in order to feel better.
4. Recognize that your distress is coming not from what happened, but from the thoughts that you have about what happened. Your thoughts are within your control.
5. When you feel yourself getting upset over what happened, practice stress reduction techniques to calm your body’s fight or flight response.
6. Another thing you can try when you start getting upset about a past experience is to ask yourself, “What am I thankful for?” Ask this repeatedly until you feel better.
7. Put your energy into looking for ways to achieve your goals, instead of wasting your energy by continuously reliving the negative experiences in your mind.
8. Know that the best revenge is a life well lived. Forgiveness is about taking back your power.
9. Amend your grievance story to include how you moved on.

When you refuse to let go of hurts from your past, you’re keeping yourself imprisoned. The truth is, unless you let go, forgive yourself, forgive the situation and realize it is over, you cannot move forward. The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire. Inner peace can only be reached when we practice forgiveness.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Expand your knowledge and enlighten your mind with the tools you need to excel in your life! Work with a Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years’ experience empowering people to attain self-defined success in their professional and personal lives. Book a free session at www.denisedema.com today.