GRATITUDE: HAPPINESS KEY #2

The first key I talked about was to live in the here and now. Key #2 is to be grateful. Happy people focus on what they have and not on what they don’t have or what they would like to have. Happy people are grateful for what they have and receive and recognize that their life is already blessed.

You can’t be happy when all you do is focus on what you don’t have. When you focus on what is missing from your life you can’t help but make yourself depressed.

We are and we become what we think about and what we talk about most. Pay attention to what you don’t have and you become negative and unhappy. Pay attention to what you already have, to how blessed you already are and you will not only stay positive and happy but you will also attract more of the good “stuff” into your life. Why is that? Because, when you are happy you are more motivated to do more and to try different things which gives you a better chance for more happiness and success.

To change your focus from what you don’t have to what you do have, do this exercise every night for the next 30 days. If you do it in writing, it will work for you.

Get a notebook and every night before going to sleep write down three things you are grateful for. Try to make them relevant to that day. Don’t just write the same three things every night. Writing I am grateful for my parents, children and my nice house every night for 30 days will not change you. Put some thought and effort into it. Next, write out why you feel grateful for each item you chose. Then, close the book and go to sleep. Your positive, grateful thoughts and feelings now get to percolate all night in your subconscious mind. After 30 nights of this, you will find yourself feeling more positive about your life and you will be happier.

LOSE WEIGHT - EAT HEALTHY

One of the easiest and quickest ways to lose weight involves starting to eat healthy. Healthy eating includes eight servings of vegetables and fruits every day. If these eight helpings substitute for other fattening foods you will lose weight. You will become healthier because you are adding the fiber and cancer fighting antioxidants in fruits and vegetables.

If you are one of those people who don’t like eating vegetables or fruit (as many of you don’t), start by adding just one helping a day. For most fresh or cooked vegetables and fruits, one serving is one-half of a measured cup. That’s right, eat healthy and lose weight by adding just ½ cup of healthy food to your meals. After one week, add a second helping of a different food to a different meal. Do that for a week. Each week, add ½ cup of a different vegetable or fruit to one on your meals. In eight weeks you will be there, eating healthy. As you are adding these healthy foods to your meal plan, eat less of the fattening foods and you will be losing weight in the process.

By going slowly, you allow your mind and body to get used to your new behavior. Healthy eating and weight loss will become easier and less stressful.

Weight Loss Tip Of The Day

When it comes to losing weight, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It makes no difference what time of the day it is. Breakfast is that first meal after you wake up. So, if you work the night shift and wake up at three in the afternoon, your breakfast is the first meal you have after waking.

While we sleep, our metabolism slows down to a crawl. It doesn't start up again after we wake up. It doesn't start up again until the first meal that you eat. That means if you skip breakfast, your metabolism is set on "crawl" all that time. Eat breakfast to wake up your metabolism and get your stored fat burned off faster.

Research also shows that people who eat breakfast eat fewer calories during the day and lose weight faster.

For fastest weight loss, eat breakfast within one hour of waking up and you will speed up your metabolism faster, burn more calories and it will give you greater energy throughout the day.

Lose Weight Now

How To Become Happy, Part 1

Are you happy? I mean really happy. Or, are you just faking it? Are you trying to look happy so others won’t know you are down, depressed or sad? The first step to getting honestly happy is to acknowledge how you are really feeling.

When you are alone with just your own thoughts, do you recognize what you are feeling? Is it happiness or is it sadness, loneliness, anxiety, resentment, anger or some other negative emotion? These negative emotions eat away at your being able to be truly happy.

If you don’t know where you are or what you are feeling, give yourself permission to get in touch with your real self. It may be scary but it is the first step toward becoming a happy, healthy individual.

Work on getting to know how you are really feeling about the different things that are happening in your life. That will start you moving toward being happy.

There are at least six qualities that are common to most people who are happy. I’m going to discuss them as separate characteristics but, in reality, they are interrelated with each other.

The first characteristic of a happy person is that they live in the here and now – in the present. If you get up in the morning and focus your attention on what you have to do to make today a wonderful day you will be happier than if you focus your attention and energy on the bad things that happened in the past or all the possible things that could go wrong in the future. Strive to make each moment good, as happy as possible and your life will turn out happier than anything you could ever imagine. I’m not saying not to make plans for the future or not to work on future projects. As you work on them, keep the current moment happy by focusing on the good that is coming out of whatever it is that you are doing.

Yes, I know, it does seem that bad things do happen to us. The key is to deal with them in the here and now and then let them go. We can then go back to making our present moment as happy as we can. When we hold on to the negative thoughts and feelings, we are guaranteeing that we will be making ourselves unhappy. We do control how we think and feel so we are in control over how we deal with negative situations.

Hold on to the negative and make yourself unhappy or deal with it, let it go and move on to making yourself happy. It’s your choice. You are in control.

Come back often and watch for Part 2 coming soon.

Teenage Depression

I’ve had many emails asking about how a parent or teacher can tell if their teen or student is depressed.

Here are some signs you can look for. If they last more than two weeks you should take them seriously and consider seeking professional help.

1. Loss of appetite or sudden increase in the amount the child eats. This is only a symptom if the teen was a regular eater before.

2. Change in sleep behavior. Insomnia or wanting to sleep all the time may indicate depression. Nightmares and restless sleep can also be symptoms.

3. Sudden bad grades when the teen had been doing better.

4. Withdrawal. The teen withdraws from friends and family for no apparent reason.

5. Talk of death or dying. This is serious even if it’s done in a joking manner.

6. Change for the worse in personal habits. Wearing dirty clothes when used to be concerned with appearance. Quits brushing teeth or combing hair.

7. Teen suddenly starts giving away possessions that they consider important. This sign is very high on the suicidal indicator list and must be taken seriously.

Signs of depression are only signs if they cannot be explained by other reasonable events. For example, a sudden loss of appetite is not a sign of depression when the person is trying to lose five pounds so she can fit into her prom dress. Suddenly giving away possessions may not be a sign of depression or suicidal thoughts if the reason is to send them to others who have lost everything to a flood, hurricane or other type of disaster. Evaluate what else may be causing the behavior. If there are realistic explanations then you may not be dealing with depression.

If you are concerned about your teen, talk it over with the school counselor or seek private professional help for your teen.

Two sources for immediate help are:

National Depression and Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
Teen & Parent Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-3000

Build Self-Confidence Tip For Today

Today’s tip will help build your self-confidence and self-esteem. Do this exercise and you will get great results. Get a piece of paper and write down every single thing you have been a success at. Don’t just think about your successes. You have to write them down so as you remember more of them you can add to the list. Your self-confidence and self-esteem will grow as your list grows longer.

You may be thinking to yourself that you have never been successful or at least not really successful at anything important. If that’s what you are thinking, you are wrong. You have already mastered many, many very difficult tasks. During the first few years after you were born, you learned to speak, you learned a language, and you learned to walk. After that you may have learned to ride a bike or to roller skate. You went to school and learned to add, subtract and a whole lot more. You learned to name the capitals of all the states – well maybe not all of them. You may have learned to play a musical instrument. What about sports? Did you learn to cook? All those things you did since you were born are successes that you had. Maybe it’s been awhile but all those things you had to learn were not easy at the time you learned them. You have probably forgotten about them – but you must not let yourself forget. You HAVE been a success at many, many things in your life.

I recently thought that it would be fun to play the piano or a guitar but realized that I had no musical talent at all. When I started to write this piece, I did this exercise (It’s been a long time since I did it last) and discovered that I wasn’t as bad as I thought. In 7th grade I had to take up a musical instrument in music class so I chose the trumpet. It took a lot of practice but I finally learned to play one song. That was a success for me. I quit after the class was over because I was an impatient teenager. I didn’t sound like Louie Armstrong in 4 months so I quit. Next success, my children taught me to play chopsticks on the piano. So I guess I’m not totally musically illiterate. The real question becomes “Are you willing to put the time and effort into succeeding at whatever it is that you want to do?” Put another way, do you really want what ever the goal is? If yes, go ahead. If no, drop it and move on to something else.

Read over your list every day and remember how it was back then, back before you had command of what you were learning. Was it scary? How did you feel the very first time you got behind the steering wheel? Hopefully you drive better now then you did at 15, 16 or 17. Take pride in what you have accomplished. Focus on all that you’ve done, not on what you haven’t done. Add to your list every time you remember something new. Use your new found self-confidence, decide if your goal is what you really want and then start doing what you have been putting off.

Considering all you have accomplished growing up, you can allow yourself to feel proud, strong and confident. Self-esteem means feeling good about yourself. Accept your successes and you will have self-esteem and self-confidence. Now all you have to do is take action on the new things in your life.