The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Bruce Lee

How do you keep yourself on track? How do you not let your goals get lost in the daily hustle and bustle?

One way is to use something outside of your own leaky memory. In my article Change your environment to change your life I wrote about how you can more quickly change who you are by changing your surroundings.

Using handy objects like external reminders is one good way of doing just that. And they come in a few different forms.

Written notes.

This is of course the simplest and most common form of external reminders.

You just write down what you want to keep in mind on a piece of paper and then put where you can’t avoid seeing it.

You can, for example, make a to-do list of three things you want to get done today and then put that note in the pocket of your pants.

But you can also use written notes to keep more long-term and less physically practical things in mind. You may, for instance, write down a very meaningful and inspiring quote and tape it on your wall, fridge or bathroom mirror to keep your motivation up and your focus on what is important.

Or, if you taking some kind of challenge – like the Positivity Challenge – or doing a 30 day trial to change a habit – like only checking email and RSS-feeds once a day – you can put up many notes in your surroundings with some quick reminder to keep yourself from forgetting and slipping up.

Paper is a useful for your notes, but not the only alternative. You can write down a reminder and use it as your screensaver. Or you can program your computer and cell phone to remind you about things with a beep and a small text a few times a day.

One suggestion for such a message, if you are trying to improve your effectiveness, is to program your tools to ask you: is this useful? If you find that what you are doing isn’t that useful, try to get it done quickly or drop it completely and move on to your most important tasks.

Using your hands.

If you are doing the Positivity Challenge then you need to be reminded of it often or your mind is likely to fall back in to old and negative thought patterns. If you are changing something that you have to keep in mind most of the day a piece of paper may not be the best solution.

One thing that you see a lot during the day is your hands. So a reminder there can be helpful. One great idea for your wrist is the No-complaint bracelet. It’s a simple purple bracelet with “a complaint free world” inscribed. Over 4 million of these bracelets have been sent out to people who want help to stay away from complaining for 21 days and form a new and more positive way of thinking. You can read more about the project at this website and order bracelets, the book “A Compliant Free World” and other stuff.

If you have some other goal of challenge you can still stick to the bracelet idea. You can buy a cheap, simple and distinct bracelet to remind yourself. Maybe you can even get a small inscription. Or you can create and design your own bracelet just the way you want it. A super-frugal approach is simply to use a thick, brightly coloured rubber band on your wrist.

Here are a few suggestions for thought habits to change and words to use:

• Positivity!
• This is not a rehearsal. (i.e. you will die. So take more chances and courageously live how you want to live).
• Relax.
• Do you need to buy that? (when going for a more frugal lifestyle).
• Is this useful? (for becoming less busy and more effective. Am I just being busy? is a good alternative reminder.).
• Focus on one thing. (for improving your focus and reducing multi-tasking).
• Now. (for developing the habit of keeping your focus on the present moment rather than some memory or some future scenario).

You can also use a ring to remind yourself of your goal. If you are using long sleeves a ring may be a better alternative since you’ll probably see it more often during the day. On the other hand, making your own ring or writing a reminder on it can be a bit trickier.

Your clothes.

A classic. How you dress can affect how you feel and how you see yourself.

Emotions work backward too. So the emotional associations you have to different pieces of clothing can change how you feel. It’s not exactly a secret that people often feel cooler, more attractive and more enthusiastic when they wear a new awesome looking piece of clothing.

So you may want to take a look at what you wear and what your shoes, shirts, pants etc. tell you and how they make you feel. And then think about how a change in how you dress could help you change your thoughts and behavior. Imagine how you would dress in the future, when you have reached your goals.

If you, for example, want to become more organized and disciplined then you might want to have wear more structured and professional clothes. If you experiment a bit you can probably find a good style of clothing that is comfortable but also projects an image to yourself of who you’re becoming.

Try to match your clothes to the new self-image you are developing. This will reinforce your new self-image and can help achieve the change you’d like more rapidly.

One source for pretty reliable advice is what has been repeated. Not what’s been repeated throughout your life but throughout history. Time-tested advice, advice that has survived and been rediscovered over the centuries often has a good deal of practical value.

I think this applies to tips on improving your social skills. Society may have changed but people are people. So what worked a couple of hundred or thousand years ago can still be useful today. Here are eight tips on social skills that have been told over and over. Maybe you’ll find them helpful.

1. Listen

“Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus

“The less you speak, the more you will hear.”
Alexander Solshenitsen

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Ernest Hemingway

This is probably one of the most underappreciated social skills. People are often centred on themselves. Nothing surprising really, but it doesn’t mean that they are selfish jerks either. But because of this a lot of people are just used to talking about themselves or waiting for the other person to finish so they can start talking again. I know I have done this many times and still do from time to time.

How do you get past it?

One useful way that I have found is to just forget about yourself. Focus your attention outward instead of inward in a conversation. Place the mental focus on the person you are talking and listening to instead of yourself. Placing the focus outside of yourself makes you less self-centred and your need to hog the spotlight decreases.

If you start to actually listen to what people are saying it also becomes easier to find potential paths in the conversation. By asking open-ended questions – the ones that will give you more than a yes or no answer – you can explore these paths and have better and more fun conversations.

And this ties into the next tip…

2. Actually be interested in the other person.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.”
Dale Carnegie

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
Henry David Thoreau

If you become more interested in people then you’ll naturally become a better listener since you are actually interested in what’s on their minds.

And it becomes easier find out what someone is really passionate about and to dispel negative assumptions that can mess up the communication.

If you listen to what someone has to say then you may find that s/he for instance isn’t as boring or different from you as you may have guessed when you were first introduced.

And as Carnegie says, it’s a lot easier to create and improve relationships if you focus on the other person than on yourself. Why is that?

Well, for one, as I wrote just a few paragraphs ago, people often don’t listen that much. So you’ll be a pleasant exception among the others that are waiting for their turn to talk again.

But the big reason is simply that you make them feel good because of your attention, validation of them and their interest and the connection that is made.

3. Don’t listen too much to criticism.

“If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.”
Epictetus

“When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.”
Unknown

Well, Epictetus got this one down. Listen to criticism. If you feel that there is some relevance to it explore how you can change yourself. But also recognize that lot of the time criticism is mostly about the other person.

Maybe s/he has had a bad day. Maybe a pet or child is sick. Maybe s/he is jealous of you or angry at someone else. Since people often are centred on themselves it’s easy to make a mistake here. Someone may criticise you but is actually focused on something in their own life. And you are probably also focused on yourself. And therefore you draw the conclusion that the criticism must have something to do with you.

But the world doesn’t revolve around you. Which is bad if you want more attention and validation from others.

On the other hand, it can be liberating since people don’t seem to care that much about what you do. The big problem of not daring to do something because you’re afraid of what people may say becomes a smaller obstacle.

4. Don’t babble on and on.

“The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.”
Sir Francis Bacon

“The more you say, the less people remember.”
Francois Fanelon

This one’s connected to listening. If you talk and talk there will be little time, energy or focus for listening. But if you start to focus outward then your mind will become more focused and you’ll spend less time babbling for too long about something.

5. Treat others as you would like them to treat you.

“The people with whom you work reflect your own attitude. If you are suspicious, unfriendly and condescending, you will find these unlovely traits echoed all about you. But if you are on your best behaviour, you will bring out the best in the persons with whom you are going to spend most of your working hours.”
Beatrice Vincent

“It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate. It takes guts to be gentle and kind.”
Morrissey

The Law of Reciprocity is strong in humans. As you treat someone else s/he will feel like treating you. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But over time these things have a way of evening out.

One of the most important things in relationships and conversations is your attitude. It determines a lot about your interactions and how you treat other people.

The attitude you have, the lens you hold up and view the world through determines what you see. And the thoughts you keep in your mind control how you feel. Your thoughts and feelings direct how you say something and what your hands, eyes, posture etc. says through body language.

So even if you say nice words you may create an different feeling in the person you are talking to because your thoughts, feelings, voice tonality and body language aren’t aligned with your words. And words are only 7 percent of communication. So the attitude behind your words is absolutely crucial.

6. Keep a positive attitude.

“I am convinced that attitude is the key to success or failure in almost any of life’s endeavors. Your attitude – your perspective, your outlook, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people – determines you priorities, your actions, your values. Your attitude determines how you interact with other people and how you interact with yourself.”
Carolyn Warner

“Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”
Frederick Langbridge

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.”
Albert Schweitzer

If your attitude is so important then what can you do about it? One good tip, that has worked for very long, is simply to keep a positive attitude. And by that I don’t mean that you should just react in a positive way to events in your life that may be seen by society as positive. For instance, getting a raise in salary, an A on an exam or winning a competition.

But before I continue with that train of thought I’d just like to say something about negativity. I wouldn’t say that it is all bad. I wouldn’t say that people want to get away from negative people all of the time. Sometimes you can find camaraderie in complaining about your boss, job, salary and the government. But overall and long-term I think that going positive is the more useful and fulfilling approach.

Now, what I mean with adopting a positive attitude is choosing to stay positive regardless of your external circumstances. You may not be able to do this all the time, but being positive is habit just like eating well or doing your daily exercise. It can be hard to get started and slow going at first. But when your mind gets used to this new behaviour it becomes almost automatic. Your mind just starts to interpret reality in a different way than it did before.

Instead of seeing problems everywhere it starts to zoom in on opportunities and what’s good about just about any situation. Instead of sighing and feeling like you’re working in an uphill rut you’ll find reasons to be grateful and happy.

Yeah, I know, it might sound like wishful thinking. But it really works. The problem is just that it is difficult to see this – and to realise that you can actually change – from a current worldview and attitude that may be a bit more negative.

7. Use silence.

“A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence; which costs us nothing.”
John Tillotson

“Be silent, or say something better than silence.”
Pythagoras

“It’s good to shut up sometimes.”
Marcel Marceau

There are several good reasons to learn to be more silent. It will help you to develop your listening skills. And instead of saying something you wish you didn’t you can learn to keep your piehole closed. This can help you avoid unnecessary arguments and reduce the hurt you do unto others by, for example, criticising.

Sitting in silence day in and day out while your inner pressure builds up is of course not good. Then you may need speak up, take charge and change whatever it is in your environment that causes the problem. But often a great deal of negative things can be avoided just by calmly staying silent.

8. Communicate with more than your words.

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Carl W. Buechner

“I speak two languages, English and Body.”
Mae West

“We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

The words you use are just a small part of communication. How you use your tone of voice and your body language is over 90 percent of what you are communicating.

To become a better communicator these two areas are ridiculously important. You can for instance improve how you say something by loading your words with more emotions. If you use tip # 6 – Keep a positive attitude – this often improves kinda automatically. You’ll naturally convey more enthusiasm and positive emotions through your voice.

Your attitude, as mentioned before, also has big impact on your body language. If you feel relaxed, open and positive this comes through in how you use your body.

You may want check out these additional 17 body language tips though. Just to be on the safe side. And to not repeat and reinforce some old and ingrained body language habits.

Manually correcting your body language can be useful. When you for instance are listening, you can lean in and keep eye contact to reinforce that you are actually listening. If you keep your body language interested you’ll also be able to keep your focus and interest longer since emotions can work backwards. As your body is “interested” your mind becomes interested and focused on what is said.

What are some of the most common mistakes that people make when trying to improve their productivity and manage their time better?

Here are some of the crucial mistakes I have made over and over again. I think many of them do not just apply to me. They are challenges I think many of us have faced at one time or other.

1. Taking on too much.

You can increase your capabilities and capacity. But don’t overdo it. At some point you may be taking on too much. This can cause a lot of stress and decrease your effectiveness.

You can at least do tree things to help yourself if you feel you’re taking on too much:

• Learn to say no. Set boundaries and limits. If you don’t there is also risk that people will keep hoisting more work your way since the they think you have the time and energy to spare.
• Ask for help. Just as learning to say no, this can be hard. But if you are buried in work it may be necessary.
• Declutter. Perhaps you don’t have to do all that work you are doing. Use the 80/20-rule and find out what your most important tasks are. Consider spending more time with them. And less or no time at all with some of those tasks that aren’t that important anyway. Just like when decluttering your closet, decluttering your to-do list can reward you with a surprisingly large amount of free space.

2. Not thinking things through and planning before getting started.

This can cost you a lot of time and energy. Take out a piece of paper – or create a fresh and clean document on your computer – and start thinking about how you will go about what you are about to do.

Do some research online or through books to educate yourself. Or ask someone who has been where you want to go.

Try to find out where possible stumbling blocks may lie. Spending an hour planning or some time sending out emails/asking questions on the phone before getting started can save you countless hours and a lot frustration and problems down the road.

Things will probably not turn out exactly as you planned along the way, but some knowledge plus a plan is certainly better than nothing at all.

3. Overcomplicating your time management system.

You may have a complicated time management system. If it works for you, then that’s great. If it doesn’t work, if you spend a lot time to keeping your system in order or slipping while trying to get things done then it might be time for a change.

Try decluttering and simplifying. Take it back to basics so you don’t have to spend half your time managing your system, trying to optimize it with more and more tools and feeling defeated when you can’t keep up. Simplify and you’ll save yourself a whole lot of energy, worries and mindclutter. And you’ll probably get more done in a more enjoyable way.

Simple time management tips can also be found in Tim Ferriss excellent 4-Hour Workweek.

4. Being busy instead of effective.

How you spend a normal day? What you do actually do with your hours?

Keeping yourself busy with low-priority activities that won’t have much payoff can become a big problem. One way to keep yourself on track and your attention on what’s important is to ask yourself questions a few times a day. I ask myself: Is this useful? If I find that what I’m doing is not useful then I move on to something that is.

But how do you remember to actually ask yourself the question above? Write it down. Use it as a screensaver or write it down on a piece of paper and put it where you can’t avoid seeing it throughout your day.

Sometimes you still need to do boring stuff or low-priority tasks. When you do, try to bunch them. You can also bunch your more important tasks to keep your flow going and get a better performance and more done in less time.

5. Multitasking and getting less done with more stress.

I’m sure that multitasking works great for some people. For me it doesn’t. I just get less done, feel more stressed and I’m more prone to procrastinate.

If you feel the same way give singletasking a try. Just focus on one task at the time. Do it until it’s completed. It will be hard at first. But over time, just like with any other skill, it becomes easier and you can complete tasks quicker.

One thing I’ve found to be quite helpful while singletasking is to work in a cone of silence. What this means is that you create a zone where there are few things to distract you. Or tempt you to veer off course and procrastinate. So I, for instance, clean my workspace and desktop. I shut the door and shut down and unplug what is not needed. That may include various phones and the internet cable.

Then I work in silence and tranquillity.

You may not be able to remove that many possible distractions when and where you work. But try your own variation and see if it improves your focus and clarity of thought.

6. Not writing everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine it’s like a leaking bucket. And there are many great reasons to write everything down.

• You’ll have your ideas safely saved away instead of having them lost somewhere in the depths of your mind. If you don’t write things down you’ll forget many good and some great ideas.
• You’ll free up your mind to analyse and create based on your ideas instead of occupying it with trying to remember everything. You’ll feel more relaxed and be able to think about your ideas and what you have to do with more clarity.
• As described in mistake # 4, you can use paper or a screensaver as an effective reminder to keep yourself on track and away from just being busy.

7. Not taking breaks.

You can’t keep working non-stop. Well, you can. But if you do that there’s a good chance your effectiveness will drop. And at the end of the day you will have kept yourself busy for most of the day doing low-priority tasks instead of working on and completing the most important ones.

If you’re tired and feeling down that may just mean that you need to take a break. Taking a few minutes to eat something, to go for a quick walk a get some fresh air or just to relax can make a big difference. Rewarding yourself with an icecream or some funny YouTube clips or doing a bit of meditation – I prefer the guided kind – are also good ways to lift yourself up again.

How and when to take breaks is something everyone have to experiment with for themselves to find a good balance and a feel for when you a breather.

Some factors that play important parts in how much work you can get done and when you need a break are your motivation and your ability to focus. But more basic stuff like how much sleep you are getting, what and how much you’re eating and the shape you’re in can make a dramatic difference.

Creativity is a strange, elusive creature. Sometimes is flowing like a river. Sometimes it’s all dried up and nowhere to be found.

Here are some thoughts and ideas that I like and have found useful to spark or improve my own creativity.

Most of them are pretty obvious, like so much advice, but I have found that if I actually use them they can be quite helpful.

Also, I find it useful to – as much as possible – have a notepad and a pen around to quickly jot down the new ideas before they disappear.

1. Generate a boatload of ideas.

If you haven’t had any it may because you haven’t had enough ideas yet.

2. Take a trip outside your personal bubble.

If you just have the same input every day it may be hard to come up with many new ideas.

Take some input from outside own your little bubble. Meet new people, read book about something you don’t anything about, take up a new hobby, listen to music you normally never listen to. Do something different and get some new input into your mind. This can set off a creative spark and generate fresh ideas you hadn’t thought about before.

3. Get rid of all the distractions.

Shut of your phone. Close the door. Close your IM-programs. As best you can create a space where you can be creative and focus without having disturbances or having to worry about them.

Consider decluttering this space so your mind don’t have to focus on unnecessary things. And decorating the space in a way that makes you feel relaxed, centred or however you want to feel to improve your creativity. You may also want to experiment with music and silence. I have found that music sometimes boosts my creativity – wordless music seems to work best – but that more often silence is the way to go for me.

4. Criticize later.

Or some part of your mind may feel threatened and shut up and withdraw. Just let ideas flow out, don’t try to censor yourself or worry about how silly the ideas may be. It’s important to keep an atmosphere of openness when trying to generate ideas and being creative, either if you do it alone or in a group at work/in school. You can sort the ideas later and determine which ones may be of best use.

5. See yourself as a creative person.

Everyone is creative. Not everyone think they are. If you do not see yourself as a creative person this can seriously limit your creativity, stop the flow of ideas and make you not believe in the ideas that do surface. Even though the ideas might be good or just what you need.

Allow yourself to be a creative person. And think back to instances when you were creative and let those memories be proof that you really are a creative person. Don’t focus on the memories of when you had troubles being creative.

6. Build it.

Like so many things in life creativity is bit like lifting weights (or doing your sport/exercise/game of choice). You can’t go into the gym and lift the heavy weights when you’re there for the first time. You have to start with smaller ones. Then consistently and progressively work your way up. Over time you’ll, if you train and work at it, build your creative muscles.

7. Sleep less.

Here’s something that works pretty good for me once in a while. When I feel a little groggy and sleepy because I’ve slept too few hours it’s like words start flowing out of my fingers when I sit down to write.

I think it’s because when you’re a bit groggily tired you don’t think too much. Your mind doesn’t have the energy to criticize and halt your creative outflow. It’s like more doors than usual are open in the corridors of your brain and thoughts can run around more freely.

However, what is poured out when you’re in this state isn’t always pure gold. So you may want to go back and edit on a day when you are more well-rested to cut down and rewrite the sometimes nonsensical ramblings of your sleep-deprived mind.

8. Relax and play.

This is very useful and a great use of your time. Go out and do something with your friends or family and just relax and have a lot of fun. Doing this for a day or an evening can recharge not only your creativity but also your motivation and general sense of well-being for days or weeks to come. Working non-stop and never playing will not.

How do you change how you feel?

There are many ways. Some of them need work over a longer time period.

If you for instance do what you set out to do from day to day your self-esteem will, over time, go up.

However, on some days you just fall into a slump. You feel a bit negative.

Or just not that motivated or energetic. You don’t care that much really.

I have found that certain actions can work as a new starting point on days like that. A starting point that you can build upon and that leads the day away on a more positive note than you may have predicted.

Here are six of my favorite/most effective ways to pick yourself up and turn a bad/boring mood, morning, afternoon or evening into a more positive one.

All of these suggestions are things you can do pretty quickly. Some of them can radically change how you feel in just a few minutes.

1. Work Out.

Whether you go out running in the forest or head inside to pump iron in the gym, getting some exercise is one of the most effective ways to add energy and a more positive outlook to your regular day.

Personally I prefer free weights most of the time because I can use them at home and because such a work out provides me with an energy boost topped off with a nice jolt of testosterone.

And that boost always sharpens my focus and lifts my spirit.

The interesting thing is that sometimes it will be enough to exercise for a few minutes to improve your mood.

For instance, you can try to do 60 sit-ups. This micro-workout usually changes how I feel.

2. Listen to/watch inspirational material.

I have found that this one of the best ways to start your day. Instead of reading the paper and getting hammered with negative news and views on the world try watching or listening to one of your favorite personal development products.

Reading works too, but listening and seeing creates a more three-dimensional experience – with room for the always important body language and voice tonality to be included – and adds emotional power to the information.

Some of my favorites at the moment are the audio version of The 4 Hour Workweek, just about any tape with Brian Tracy or watching a video by Eckhart Tolle.

If I feel a bit down I just consume one of those sources for 15-20 minutes. After that not only has my mood changed.

I’m also just about always reminded of some useful tip that I can use to improve my life.

3. Change your physiology.

If you change how you move and use your body your mood will change. If you for instance want to feel happier, force a smile for about 60 seconds.

You’ll feel happier. If you want to feel confident stand up and walk around for few minutes in a confident way (slowly, head held high, posture relaxed but not slumped).

You’ll feel more confident. You can do these things for the specific effects.

But a better way to use your physiology to change your mood is to just combine everything at once. Smile while you’re walking around in a confident and relaxed way.

Get it all in there to maximize the effect.

One key to better use of this technique is to focus on your body and changing your movements but to then turn the focus outward, into the world around you. Doing that has recently given me more dependable and consistent results.

I think that may be because if you focus outward you don’t become that self-conscious.

If you on the other hand keep your focus inward – on what you are doing – while you are moving around with a changed physiology you become self-conscious.

And that self-analyzing and nervous self-consciousness counteracts much of the positive emotional effect that you can create by changing how you move and use your body.

4. Appreciate away.

Perhaps the corniest suggestion in this bunch.

It’s often seen as cool – or funny – to go around complaining and being a bit negative about everything.

Going around appreciating isn’t that cool. But generally I’d say that almost everyone likes and finds a positive person to be cool.

And a very effective way to become a more positive person and to enjoy your life more is simply to develop a habit of appreciating more. If you want a few suggestions, here are a few of the things that I like to appreciate:

• My food.
• The weather.
• My health.
• Friends and family.
• This blog and the opportunity to write about what I want.
• You, the reader.
• My roof and the heating. Especially since it’s been raining constantly for the last few days. :)

The funny thing is that if you just start appreciating something you can very quickly start jumping around with your attention and appreciate just about anything around you. You may start with the food you are eating right now.

Then move your attention to the phone and appreciate that you can contact anyone – and be contacted by anyone – you’d like.

You might then move your attention outside, through the window and see the wonderful sunshine, then kids having fun with a football and then a really attractive person walking by. And so on.

Try doing that for 5 minutes.

Try to come up with all the things in yourself and your world that you can appreciate. Move your attention around from appreciation-point to appreciation-point like when you are jumping from stone to stone while crossing a stream.

Before those 5 minutes are up your mood will be a lot more positive and enthusiastic.

5. Act as you’d like to feel.

Ask yourself: what would a very positive person do in this situation?

Do that and then you’ll feel positive.

Make a call or answer the phone in a positive way. Write an email in a positive and enthusiastic manner.

Instead of thinking that a situation will probably be boring and not so beneficial think of it as something that will be exciting, fun and useful.

By acting as you’d like to feel you just do things in a less common order.

Just like when you change your physiology.

Instead of being a positive person/having a positive mood for the day and therefore acting in a positive way when something happens you flip it around. You start by acting as you would in a situation if you were in a positive mood.

And then you’ll create a positive mood and consequences both in the world around you – via the positive action – and within yourself.

It often doesn’t take that much to change how you feel. And acting as you’d like to feel make everyday situations a lot more interesting and can open up new possibilities and opportunities in your life.

6. Just do it anyway.

If you have a hard time doing something, a hard time getting started, a hard time changing your mood with the suggestions above just do what you need to do anyway.

You are not your thoughts and emotions.

They aren’t your boss or parents. You don’t have to obey them.

You are the observer of your thoughts and emotions. Sometimes you listen to them. And sometimes you just see them as blabbering going on and on in your mind and body. And then you just go. You do what you want to do anyway.

If you just jump into action and just do it soon your mood will change to a more uplifting one.