“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.”
Doug Larson

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.”
Susan J. Bissonette

Spring is finally here in Sweden. Well, kinda. I guess it’s more of a feeling of spring in the way that Doug Larson so awesomely points out in the quote above.

But still. After an unusually long and very cold winter it’s great to have some warmth, a few birds singing and see more smiling and enthusiastic faces as you walk the streets.

So I thought I’d share a few of my favorite sayings about spring that can help us to make this year the best one yet.

Make decisions at the right time.

“Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”
Robert H. Schuller

I think this is a very good tip and something I wish I had thought about a few times in the past. When you are in the low time or a bad mood you can’t really see reality in an accurate way. Making important or negative decisions when you are in that headspace isn’t a good idea.

Nowadays I have a learned to just be still and wait out those angry clouds. Even if it feels like there is an urgent decision to be made (which isn’t always the case even though your clouded mind may fool you into believing that).

Then, when the mind is clearer it becomes a lot easier to make a good decision.

Be consistent to get some real results.

“One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day.”
Aristole

To live a happier life and make a real change you can’t just take action or do things on a day when you feel inspired. Sure, the spring may give you a boost of energy and inspiration right now.

But what will you do with that? Just surf on those good feelings for a day or a week? Or let it be a start to consistently taken action each day, even if that inspiration and initial enthusiasm may dissipate (which it pretty much always does)?

To take action more consistently here are a two of my absolute favorite tips:

• Use a morning ritual. I have mentioned this many times, both in my e-books and in various articles. The reason for that is that this is perhaps the most powerful tip I have found so far in this area. You simply set up a ritual in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. As humans we have a strong tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. That’s one big reason why a bad start often leads to a bad day and a good start often leads to a good day.
• Don’t hurt yourself. This is a very important reason for me. When you disappoint yourself and don’t think and do as you really deep down want to you hurt yourself by lowering your self esteem. Whatever you do during your day sends signals back to yourself about what kind of person you are. Do the right thing like being effective, kind or go to the gym and you feel good. Get lazy, negative or just plain mean and you tend to feel worse after a while. You don’t get away, there is no escaping yourself. And there is always a price to pay. This is a powerful motivator to become a better person.

Keep going.

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
Hal Borland

Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use.

If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off, learn what you can from what happened and try again. If the success you are looking for won’t come that quickly – a pretty likely scenario – then you have to persist.

Persistence is one of the most useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there in a less competitive playing field as a lot of other people have given up and gone home. But also because developing persistence will enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had hoped for. But if you keep going, if you refine your approach based on what you learn from experience and other sources then better times will come.

Winter makes the spring so much better.

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
Anne Bradstreet

The winter of life is often in retrospect a gift. It makes you stronger. More empathetic and understanding. It helps you out in some way and guides you. You can always look back at it when you feel down and be happy that you aren’t in that place anymore.

Your winter and adversities expands the spectrum of human experience, understanding and emotions for you. Your capacity for genuine gratitude increases because of it.

The sad times make the happy times even sweeter.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/insomnia90/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Though I might travel afar, I will meet only what I carry with me, for every man is a mirror. We see only ourselves reflected in those around us. Their attitudes and actions are only a reflection of our own. The whole world and its condition has its counter parts within us all. Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change.”
Kirsten Zambucka

Improving your attitude and living a more positive life overall can take a lot of time and effort.

But a part of it can also be simple. You can spread positivity around you with small actions.

This will not only make you and other people feel better today. Over time you tend to get what you give.

You will make it easier for yourself to live a more positive life in the long run too.

Smile.

Smiling puts you and the people around you into a more positive mood. It even works when you don’t feel much like smiling.

Just try forcing a smile for 30 seconds if you are feeling a bit negative and see what happens.

Give a genuine compliment.

Compliments are awesome. But make it a genuine one. Make sure you really mean it or it may have the opposite effect as your insincerity shines through.

Find something a bit unexpected – like great taste in old soul music rather than looks – and something that is important to the other person and make a positive, appreciative comment about that.

Hugs.

A hug is, just like smiling, a simple physical thing that can make anyone feel a little better. People love hugs.

Encourage someone.

There is much discouragement in the world. You may hear from people around you, you may receive much negativity from the TV and newspapers.

Many will back down from doing something they want because of that atmosphere of discouragement.

So instead, be an exception and encourage people to believe in themselves and what they want to do.

Change the way you feel.

Emotions are contagious. So to spread positivity, know how you can create and sustain a positive attitude and optimistic mood. Know how to pick yourself up out of slumps.

Besides smiling, you can also appreciate life more, change your physiology, act as you would like to feel, ask better questions and recall positive memories to make a quick emotional shift.

Help someone out in practical way.

Maybe it’s not encouragement that is needed. Maybe it’s a practical solution.

So lend someone a hand when they are moving. Or give them a ride in your car. Or if they need information, try to find a solution via Google or by asking the people you know.

Just listen.

Sometimes people don’t want any help. They just want to vent or for someone to listen as they figure out things. It may not seem like much but it can be an immense help for someone who needs it.

So be there fully – don’t sit there thinking about something else – and listen.

Put things into perspective.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in a problem and to make a mountain out of a molehill. But you can help out by adding your perspective.

The two of you can talk about it, perhaps laugh about it and even find the hidden opportunity within the problem that in one person’s head may have almost seemed like the sky was falling.

Play positive music.

Uplifting music is of course a great way to boost your own mood. You can do the same for people around you.

Put on a really positive song when you are hanging out. Or send them an uplifting playlist for Spotify or a link to a video on Youtube.

Perform a random act of kindness.

Just holding up the door or pointing out the way for someone who seems lost can be a way to spread a little bit of positivity.

It’s always nice when someone you don’t even know does something kind for you.

Pay it forward.

If a friend or stranger spreads a bit of positivity to you then in some way pay it forward. Spread the positivity on to another person and let an upward spiral of positivity grow and expand in your world.

One good way to reduce the stress in your daily life and save time for something more enjoyable and/or more important is to cut down on the time you spend on email.

Here is how I have done that over the past year or so.

Effective spamfilters.

My regular email service provider here in Sweden did some changes. This meant that I got a lot more spam every day. So I switched to using Gmail instead and these days I receive extremely few spam emails. This does not only save me from a lot of deleting but also makes it easier to quickly get an overview of new emails.

Shorter replies.

In many cases you don’t have to write a lot in a reply. I try to stick to just writing 1-5 sentences if possible.

Check emails just once a day.

I check my email inbox just once a day. Usually during the hour before dinner because that is not a peak hour for me. I reserve my peak hours each day – the hours when I have the most energy and is able to focus the best – for doing my most important tasks (usually creating and writing).

I understand that checking just once a day may not be possible for everyone. But if you can then it’s a helpful choice and if you just can cut down on the checking a bit then that can help too.

Checking your email too often can, in my experience, create an emotional need where you get hooked on digitally checking the world around you to get validation (as in attention, a feeling that you are important and that you are in the loop). This can lead to sort of compulsive need to check inboxes, Facebook and Twitter 10 times a day. Not a great way to spend your day as stress levels tend to go up and you get too little of what is most important done.

Add a FAQ section or page.

I have a short section of frequently asked questions just before the contact form on this page. By using this I get extremely few of the questions I used to get a few times a day before about for example guest posting and swapping links.

This has saved me quite a bit of time and energy and I highly recommend adding a section or page like this if you have a website to cut down on the emails you get.

Ready to send responses.

It can be useful to save drafts of information that people need from you often in your email program. Then you can just paste that template into a reply and change it a little to suit that reply and what the sender is asking for. I have used this, for example, for information about the advertising options on this site where I included prices and other relevant info.

Think about what questions you are asked a lot via email. If possible add answers to a frequently asked questions section or page. If that is not possible for some questions then type your response and save an additional copy of that reply as a draft in your email program. This will save you time the next time you get that question or a similar one.

Delete.

I don’t use the delete button that much. But I get a lot of pitches for products or other things that people want me to try or write about and quite a few of them are things I have no interest in. Or it may not be relevant to my readers. So I delete.

I like constructive criticism and even though it may temporarily bruise my ego a bit it can also helpful. But harsh attacks is something I have stopped responding to. Because in my experience during these four years that I have been doing this is that they do not want to talk about things but simply lash out. I have tried sending constructive replies but never get any replies back. So nowadays I read and then delete such things.

“All I can do is be me, whoever that is.”

“He not busy being born is busy dying.”

One of the most successful and enigmatic musicians of the last hundred years must be Bob Dylan. Throughout his career, albums and awesome songs he has constantly redefined himself and both confused and enthralled listeners.

Here is some clarity though, some of my favourite words of wisdom from Dylan.

Find what you love to do.

“A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.”

I think this is a first step that many of us have a big problem with. Or just forget about. Because when you find something you really love to do it doesn’t seem like work that much anymore.

When you do something you love you don’t have to push yourself so much. You keep going because you like doing it, not just because your want to reach some goal (although that can be exciting too). Taking action also becomes natural when you doing something you really want to do. A lot of the time you can’t wait to get going with it.

So the problem many of us encounter may not be that we don’t know enough tips to keep ourselves motivated to keep going. The problem may be that we are working on the wrong thing all together.

So do you find out what you really want to do?

I certainly don’t have all the answers for that one, but one tip is just to explore life.

To just try things out and see what you love. It’s easy to have theories about what you or may not like. But you never know until you have tried it for a while in real life.

Understand that success is today too.

“A person is a success if they get up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

When you read about success it often seems like something you should work towards. Something there in the distant future.

This way of thinking can lead to many ups and downs. Sometimes you feel really good and are working towards what you want in an effective way. Sometimes you feel like doing nothing. It can become a rollercoaster.

But one of the most important parts of success in area of your life is simply consistency. To get up in the morning each day and do what you know is right in your life.

Working out instead of coming up with excuses not to. Being kind and open instead of closing up and gossiping or trying to put someone down or making them wrong in an interaction or just in your head simply to feel better about yourself. Pushing a bit outside of your comfort zone instead of staying inside it and feeling safe.

How you live today and each today is very much connected to the most fundamental goals people have in life. To be healthy. To be effective and get the most important things done. To raise self esteem and self confidence and keep it at a high level (things that to a large part come from taking responsibility for each day in your life and doing what you know is the right thing to do).

So success is not about what you do in a few inspired rushes towards the goal. Things take time. Often more time than you might think. So keep an eye on where you are going. But keep your focus on the process instead of that alluring goal. Do it by making today and each day a success.

Life is change.

“There is nothing so stable as change.”

As humans, we often want to feel safe. We want certainty. And for a while we may think we have it. And then something always comes along to knock that feeling out of us.

So there is a superstition of safety. This is not just something negative though. It’s also created by your mind so you can function in life. No point in going all paranoid about what could happen a minute from now day in and day out. But there is also not that much point in clinging to an illusion of safety. So you need to find balance where you don’t obsessed by the uncertainty but also recognize that it is there and live accordingly.

As you stop clinging to your safety life also becomes a whole lot more exciting and interesting. You are no longer as confined by an illusion and realize that you set your limits for what you can do and to a large extent create your own freedom in the world. You are no longer building walls to keep yourself safe as those walls wouldn’t protect you anyway.

If you want to grow and move forward it’s not only essential to get used to the thought of life as changing and unknown but also to let go of the past. When you let go of the past then change becomes so much easier to handle. And growing becomes easier too.

Because if your goal is to get fitter, then when you let go of a self-image of being unhealthy and instead stick to the one where you are healthy you stop working against yourself. Your actions, thoughts and self-image are now aligned. And so doing the right things by eating healthy food and working out becomes the natural thing rather than something you have to push yourself to do every day.

Image by nattu (license).
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Today I would like to share three of my favorite tips for making it easier to establish a relationship with someone. Maybe in a new class. On a date. At work or in a job interview. Or at some party next weekend.

Assume rapport.

This one can work quickly. That is, if you can suspend your disbelief for while and keep your mind open. It won’t work if you don’t think it will work.

So, what is assuming rapport?

Basically, instead of going into a conversation or meeting nervously and thinking “how will this go?” you take different approach. You assume that you and the person(s) will establish a good connection (rapport).

How do you do that? Just before the meeting, you just think/pretend that you’ll be meeting a good friend. Then you’ll naturally slip into a more comfortable, confident and enjoyable emotional state and frame of mind. In this state of mind the conversation tends to flow more naturally too, without much thinking. Just like with your friends.

I have used this small tip many dozens of times by now and have found it surprisingly useful and easy to implement. It’s a sort of variation of acting as you would like to feel.

This tip also helps you and the other people to set a good frame for the interaction. A frame is always set at the start of an interaction. It might be a nervous and stiff frame, a formal and let’s-get-to-the-point kind of frame or perhaps a super relaxed one. The thing is that the frame that is set in the beginning of the conversation is often one that may stay on for a while. First impressions can last for quite some time.

Now, meeting your best friend might not always be the best thing to think about before a meeting at school/work. In that case you may want to try to imagine a similar meeting that went well and your interactions with the people there.

But what if you come off as a weird person? Well, that is always a risk in the beginning when you start using this tip. But I believe that most of the time such thoughts are only in your head. No one likes awkward and uncomfortable interactions. So if you just assume rapport immediately then most people that may have been nervous/felt awkward will adapt to your more comfortable and relaxed frame.

This is also a quick way to reconnect with the mental and emotional state your friends might be referring to when they give you the classic advice to “just be yourself”.

See yourself in other people.

“Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”
Isa Upanishad, Hindu Scripture

The ego wants to divide your world. It wants to create barriers, separation and loves to play the comparison game. The game where people are different compare to you, the game where you are better than someone and worse than someone else. All of that creates fear in social situations. Doing the opposite removes fear.

That there is no real separation between beings, that we are one and the same, might sound a bit corny.

But one thought you may want to try for a day is that everyone you meet is your friend. You do this practically by using the previous tip.

Another idea is to see what parts of yourself you can see in someone you meet.

As I mentioned above, there is pretty much always a frame set in any interaction. It may make you and the others feel awkward or comfortable. But underlying such feelings is a frame of mind.

Either it asks us how we are different from this person. Or how we are the same as this person. The first frame is based in how the ego likes to judge people and create separation to strengthen itself (either through feeling better or more like a victim). The second one creates warmth, an openness and curiosity within. There is no place to focus on fear or judgement anymore.

Practise.

Although the two ideas above can be very useful, the most important thing – as with anything – is practise. By doing things and learning from mistakes, failures and successes you can improve any part of your life. Your social skills too.

But just reading some tips will not magically improve any of your skills or transform you in some way. You do that yourself by being patient and persistent.

One interesting thing I have discovered after having been interested in personal development, positive thinking etc. for a few years now is that over time you can improve what may be called emotional and mental flexibility.

What I mean by that is that you don’t become so identified with your current thoughts and emotions. You realize that they are just there right now but will not be there forever. You stop being so reactive to what happens in your surroundings and stop thinking that you need to feel/think a specific way in a specific situation.

What you feel and think becomes more of a choice. Just like you can choose to turn right or left while walking. I don’t use assuming rapport in the way I mentioned above that much anymore. I have slipped into that emotional state so many times by now I can just recall how it feels to be relaxed and comfortable and choose to put myself in that state. It doesn’t work all the time of course, but most of the time it does.

But if you have been totally identified with your feelings and thoughts for decades then it can be hard snap out of that. Choosing how you think and feel may sound kinda stupid or impossible.

That is why you need to practise. To convince itself and to silence your inner doubts your mind needs proof that this stuff actually works for you. The proof is the experiences you have.

And by practise I mean using, for example, assuming rapport a couple of dozen times. Not two or three times.

By being open and believing that this stuff works and by practising it over and over – just like a tennis serve – it become easier and easier to do it.

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