A change in the world starts with you.

Will this New Year’s Day ring in the end of the worst decade ever?

That’s the claim made by Time Magazine, which recently featured an eye-catching cover of a crying baby in a party hat with the headline “Decade from Hell.”

According to Time, some of the worst events of the “worst decade ever” began with the disputed election of George W. Bush as President, which was followed by the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.  There were continuing military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and a series of major natural disasters, including a tsunami in the South Pacific, Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. South, and major earthquakes in India and China.  As the decade ends, we have double digit unemployment and a global economic crisis.

Granted it was a tough decade, but hardly the worst ever.

Those who are familiar with history can think of rougher decades, such as the 1930s, which saw the Great Depression, or the 1940s, when World War II brought worldwide chaos.  The 1860s were another rough decade in the U.S. due to the Civil War.  And then there were the 1340s, when the Black Plague led to the deaths of almost half the…

Give and Watch Your Soul Ignite

When asked to describe their ideal holiday season, most people don’t put shopping for gifts at the top of the list.

Instead, they list spending time with loved ones, having fun with friends, enjoying holiday food and taking some time away from work to relax.

Unfortunately, the reality is often something quite different.  The pressure to shop, spend money and entertain leaves many of us feeling both exhausted and tapped out.

According to a poll taken by the Center for the New American Dream, 75% of Americans would like to have a less materialistic Christmas or Hanukkah holiday.  More than 85% feel that the holiday season should focus on family and taking care of people in need rather than on shopping and giving gifts.  The survey also found that 4 out of 5 people wish for a simplified holiday season.

If the majority of Americans say they would like a simpler and less materialistic holiday season, why don’t they just make the change?

Unfortunately, many of us feel pressured to spend more than we can afford on gifts and entertaining.  It seems too hard to tell family and friends that we would like to cut back.  This doesn’t have to…

Napoleon Hill reading his book 1937.

“Going solo” is a popular term that describes the decision to become an entrepreneur.

Striking out on one’s own has always been an attractive alternative for people who are dissatisfied with working for a large company.  In today’s economy, it has also become a survival strategy for people who are unemployed or for people who have a job but need extra income to cover the mortgage or pay the bills.

Everyone who goes solo wants success, but many people don’t have a clear vision of how to achieve it.

No one plans on failing when embarking on a solo career, and yet some do.  Besides luck and being in the right place at the right time, what are the factors that cause one person to succeed while another fails?

Knowledge is an important part of starting a business and passion is the fuel that keeps an entrepreneur going when times get tough.  But perhaps the most important component of success is daily attitude.  A positive and happy attitude will provide the inspiration, motivation and self-belief that are required to keep going when times are tough.  If you’d like to go solo or have recently made the leap, you need…

Luck may be around the next turn.

Do you have a dream that sometimes seems unattainable?

Do you feel discouraged because you haven’t succeeded in realizing your goals?

Do you ever consider giving up?

Being passionate about your goals isn’t the only determiner in whether they’ll come true.

Persevering in pursuit of a dream, no matter what the obstacles, can be just as important to success as passion and talent.  Without a dream and a plan to achieve it, even a person with great talent and intelligence can end up unfulfilled.  There are many stories of successful people who have had doors slammed in their face before things fell into place and their dreams were realized.

The 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil tells the story of a heavy metal band that never really made it.  Despite being known and admired by other musicians, including Slash of Guns N’ Roses, this Canadian metal band never broke through to the big time.  Formed by two high school friends in the early 1970s, the band released a dozen or so albums in the 1980s and 1990s but failed to realize significant commercial success.

Forced to take other jobs to survive, they continued to tour and take…

Step out of fear and into confidence.

Learning how to build self confidence is both simple and complicated at the same time.

It’s simple because there are some very easy exercises you can do and changes you can make to see an improvement in how you feel about yourself.   In fact, this article will offer you a step-by-step approach to your day that will help you do just that.

It’s complicated, however, because we hold so tightly to preconceived notions about ourselves that it can be difficult to let go of previous behaviors, even though we really do want to see results.

In short, our subconscious mind often works to sabotage our success.

The good news is that by simply realizing you want to make improvements to your self confidence, you’ve already taken a crucial step in overcoming some of the preexisting obstacles in your way.

For many people, there is no realization that they need to make changes; or they just believe that self confidence is something you’re born with, and there’s no use in trying to build it now.

While it does seem like some people are simply born with the gift of self confidence, most of us actually do have to work…

Want to feel great? Motivate!

One of the biggest struggles many of us face is a lack of motivation.

There are many reasons that we find ourselves in a motivational slump from time to time.  Maybe you are overwhelmed by the scope of a project.  Perhaps you just have too much to do and end up not doing anything.  And, of course, there’s our old enemy procrastination.

If you find yourself flailing just when you need motivation the most, try applying these techniques to get back in the swing of things.

1. Break Your Goals Down

Goals are a wonderful thing to have.  After all, it’s nearly impossible to get things done if you haven’t identified just what you want to accomplish.  On the other hand, many of our goals can be pretty lofty.  For example, let’s say that your goal is to find a new job.  It seems simple enough, but why then do we have such a hard time reaching that goal?

In many cases, it’s because the target is just too vague.

While “find a job” seems like a pretty clear-cut goal, the fact of the matter is that it’s so overarching that we often find ourselves getting overwhelmed.  The solution to this problem…

Stop thinking. Start doing.

There is little in life that holds us back worse than the habit of procrastination.

What starts off as an offhanded “I’ll get to it later” often turns a simple task into a monster that looms over us as a deadline draws nearer and nearer.  Most of the time we find ourselves procrastinating the most unpleasant tasks on our to-do lists, trading a more comfortable present for a stressed-out, time-starved future where we have to rush around to finish a task that we originally had plenty of time to accomplish.

Procrastinating affects us in all sorts of negative ways, from causing us to miss work deadlines to risking our health over putting off doctors’ appointments, to damaging relationships when we continually think we’ll pay attention to our loved ones “later.”  Still, many of us are stuck in a trap that keeps us from doing the things we need to get done.  To make things even more frustrating, we often look back and realize that the time spent procrastinating really wasn’t filled with anything valuable, either.

Was it really worth putting off your school project in order to watch some old documentary on a subject you weren’t even interested in…

Make your fears go...BOOM.

Fear can debilitate us faster than just about anything else in life.  It stops us from going after what we want and keeps us from growing and changing into the people we have the potential to become.  It can hold us back emotionally, physically, and even financially.

While a certain amount of fear is healthy, an overabundance is not.

When you find yourself fearful of making a change or trying something new, there are steps you can take to overcome your trepidation and get started living the life you want to have.

There are many methods that can be used to obliterate your fears, and I’m going to take a look at several of the most powerful and fastest.  Putting these ideas into action can truly make a difference in how you experience the world around you.

1. Listen to the fear. As I already said, fear can be a healthy thing.  It is what reminds us to look both ways before crossing the street or not to do something that will get us into trouble.  In some cases, that little voice that is nagging you not to do something is completely right.  Breaking through unfounded fears is important, but so is recognizing…

Bust free of your mental funk.

We all have times when we just don’t feel like we have the energy or inspiration to be creative.  Of course, it is during these times that we need that creative spark the most!

While there are certainly a number of factors that can lead to a mental funk, there are also just as many ways to break out of it.  The next time you find yourself feeling a bit “blah,” try some of these tactics…

1. Do something different. Routines are great for providing a sense of security and for getting things done, but they can hold us back, too.  Try doing something different, and you may just find that you are suddenly reinvigorated.  Chuck your agenda out the window and do things in a different order.  Or, substitute a boring task with something that really ignites your passion.

 

2. Borrow inspiration. Sometimes breaking out of a mental funk can be as simple as getting someone else’s point of view.  Spend some time perusing inspirational quotes or reading a book or article on a topic that you find particularly interesting.  This can get you thinking in entirely new directions and put some spring back in your step.

 

3. Challenge your thinking. Cognitive behavioral…