By Logan Lindabury

Maybe you’re a football fan, maybe you’re not, but one thing is certain, you need to watch the Superbowl.

Why? Because some of the commercials are hilarious! I know I usually get a good laugh out of them. I’m sure you have too.

Why should this matter?  Well, for starters, Laughter Is Great™. Also, laughter leads to living life like nothing else. When you laugh, you let happiness overwhelm you.

When happiness overwhelms you, that’s when you’re really living life. Who wouldn’t want to feel happy?

So, take some much needed time off and laugh a little. Even a little laughter can go a long way at making you a livelier person. Don’t believe me?  Try it for yourself and tell me I’m wrong.

If you missed the Super Bowl you now have something to do this time next year.  In the meantime, you can see all the Super Bowl ads here: Superbowl Ads

I hope you have an amazing time laughing and living. Until next time!

This has been another contribution from Logan Lindabury of Laughtub.  Laughter Is Great™ is the slogan for Laughtub.  Just in case y0u didn’t know, Laughtub is a website where anyone can spread, share, and obtain laughter and happiness. Why? Because laughter improves lives!

Technorati Tags: laugh, laughter, self-help, personal development, self-improvement, superbowl

If your current results in life aren’t as good as you would like, you need to put yourself on a mental diet.

Brain Input = Physical Output

Most of us are aware of how important it is to eat healthy foods if we want to have a healthy body. There is similar relationship between what you feed your mind and the results you have in your life.

The majority of modern folks tend to have a mental diet that consists of news, television, modern music, gossip, mindless online entertainment, video games, and magazines.

While all of these things have the potential to give your mind a positive message, the sad truth is that most of them do not.

• Video games are often violent.
• The news is often negative and full of fear.
• Many popular magazines offer mindless entertainment and gossip.
• A lot of music contains either mindless or negative messages.
• The vast majority of television, movies, and online media is also mindless, negative, or violent.
• Many social circles are focused around gossip, complaining, or activities that don’t serve to improve your life.

Take a look around you. How successful and happy are the majority of people out there? Debt, stress, mental illness, suicide, and relationship problems are becoming more and more prevalent every year.

If you want your results to be better than average, you need to stop feeding your mind the same things that everyone else does. f you want to have different results than everyone else, you need to do things differently than everyone else.

Focus On A Mental Diet That Will Benefit You

What do you think would happen if you started taking some time every day to read or listen to something that was educational, uplifting, or inspiring? What would learning a new skill or talent do for your career or business? Everything that you invest in your mind today will benefit you as you move forward through life.

• If you regularly feed your mind books and articles on time management, you will tend to become very good at managing your time.
• If you regularly feed your mind books on spirituality, you will tend to become a more spiritual and loving person.
• If you regularly feed your mind with stories and techniques related to success, you will start becoming more successful yourself.
• If you learn a new skill, you become more valuable to your employer or your customers.
• If you hang out with other people who more positive and successful than you currently are, you will start to become more like them over time.

Whatever it is that you want to change in your life, decide what it is that you want instead, then start immersing yourself in it.

• Read books on the subject.
• Hang out with others who have already achieved what you want.
• Take a course on the subject.

Conclusion

By feeding your mind the right mental diet, your life will automatically begin to be influenced by ideas of greatness and excellence.

I think Mark Twain hit the nail on the head when he said:

The man who does not read great books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Put yourself on a healthy mental diet today and watch the results in your life start to change almost automatically.

How Your Self-Esteem Affects Your Life

Self-esteem is simply how you judge your own ability to deal with the challenges of your life.

When you have low self-esteem, you are always worried that you won’t be able to succeed. You worry about what others might think of you. You worry that you lack the skills and abilities to deal with the problems and challenges that life might throw your way. In short, you are scared of life and other people and this fear holds you back from living life to the fullest.

Conversely,when you feel confident in yourself and your abilities, you are willing to take more risks in life. You believe in your ability to handle any challenges that life might throw your way and you rarely worry about what others think of you. This fearlessness allows you to take full advantage of everything that life has to offer.

Here are some specific examples to help illustrate…

10 Benefits of Having High Self Esteem

1. You are more resilient to life’s difficulties because you are less likely to give in to despair or defeat.
2. You are more confident in your abilities, so you are more willing to risk being creative. Higher creativity leads to more success and higher pay.
3. You are more ambitious in all areas of life because you believe you can achieve your goals.
4. You will enjoy more nurturing and supportive relationships. We usually hang out with people who are like us. If you are confident in yourself, you will also attract confident, healthy, successful people into your life.
5. You will treat others with more respect and love because you do not perceive them as threats that could hurt you. When you treat others with respect, they will treat you in the same manner.
6. You will feel better in general. You will wake up feeling confident and expectant of good things for the new day.
7. You will worry less since you are confident in your ability to deal with adversity. This will allow you to use your time and energy for constructive purposes instead.
8. Fortune favors the bold. When you feel confident in yourself, you are willing to take more risks because you know that you can deal with whatever comes your way. People who are willing to take more risks end up being more successful in life.
9. You will enjoy a fuller social life. When you feel good about yourself, you don’t hesitate to talk to new people. Each new person you talk to is a potential new friend, business partner, customer, or romantic interest.
10. You will be better at using criticism to improve yourself. Because your self-image is strong, being criticized is no longer an emotionally crippling event. You can objectively listen to the criticism and decide if there is any truth to it or not. If there is, you can use that truth to improve yourself.

Conclusion

Too many people are struggling with the debilitating effects of low self-esteem. If you are one of them, don’t despair. It is possible to feel better about yourself!

By following a few simple exercises, you can start enjoying the benefits of high self-esteem. Don’t hold yourself back any longer. Get started today!

Well, you can, and it really isn’t difficult when you know how.

However, before we talk about how to boost your self-esteem, it would be helpful if you first understand why you have low self-esteem in the first place.

Why You Have Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem develops as a result of long-term negative reinforcement. Constant, ongoing reminders of our failures and dissapointments from both others and ourselves.

As a child, If you were being good, you heard very little from your parents. But if you were being bad, you were punished. This type of parenting tends to leave a child with an unbalanced impression of themselves since they only ever heard bad things about themselves.

Unfortunately, children usually pick this habit up and they end up ignoring their own successes and berating themselves for their failures as they grow up.

If you’ve just spent your whole life hearing and saying mostly negative things about yourself. It’s no wonder your self-esteem is suffering!

If you want to boost your self-esteem, you need to start balancing your perspective. Start acknowledging your achievements and successes in life. Here are 3 ways you can get started today.

3 Easy Ways To Boost Your Self-Esteem

1. List Your Past Successes

Start by remembering and acknowledging your past successes. We all tend to remember more of our failures and forget about our achievements as we go through life.

To correct this, take some time and write down a list of at least 50 things you’ve accomplished in your life.

Think of things like hitting a home run in little league, getting an A in a difficult class, graduating from school, saving up enough money to buy your first car. All of these of things are accomplishments that you deserve to be acknowledged for.

Once you have your list completed, keep it and review it any time you feel your self-esteem lagging.

2. Keep A Victory Journal

Focusing on the past isn’t enough, you need to start acknowledging the success of your present life as well.

Keep a daily victory journal where you write down all the successes of your day. You can use old fashioned pen and paper, or you can keep an electronic journal on your computer.

Keep track of everything that you are proud of yourself for accomplishing that day. Nothing is to small. If you took the time to eat a healthy meal that day, feel free to recognize yourself for it. You deserve it!

By writing down your successes, you will tend to remember them better. A mind that is full of images of your achievements will go a long way to boosting your self-esteem. And just like the successes of your past, you can also refer to this journal any time your self-esteem needs another boost.

3. Surround Yourself With Reminders Of Your Success

Another great way to remind yourself of your accomplishments is to surround yourself with visual reminders of them. You should put your trophies on display and frame that newspaper clipping about yourself. Hang your diplomas and certificates in a prominent spot. If you have pictures from award cermonies or other events where you were being recognized at, hang those up as well.

Every time you see these things, they will serve to remind you of just how successful you really are.

Conclusion

Doing these three things on a regular basis will reinforce your mind with positive thoughts and images of yourself. As the positive thoughts grow, the negative ones will be crowded out and will slowly disappear. While this process is happening, your self-esteem will see a steady improvement. The longer you keep it up, the better you will feel about yourself.

Don’t waste any more time. Take action now to boost your self-esteem and start enjoying a happier, more successful life.

PS – Join us for our next post where we will be discussing the benefits of high self-esteem.

Your life purpose is doing something that you find fun, exciting, and fulfilling. It’s something that provides value to others, so that you can earn a living by doing it.

In short, your life purpose is living a life of service doing something you love.

So how do your discover what your life purpose is? Start by asking yourself the following question.

If Money Didn’t Exist, What Would You Do With Your Time?

If money didn’t exist, and all your needs were being taken care of, how would you spend your time?

Don’t be to quick to say that you would do nothing but sleep and watch TV all the time. That might be fun for a while, but eventually even that would be boring for most of us. Our lives need to have a bigger purpose than just lounging around all day.

What are some of your hobbies and passions.

• do you enjoy working with wood?
• do you feel a deep connection with nature?
• do you have a deep desire to help others? If so, what groups of people specifically?
• do you absolutely love video games and could spend hours and hours every day playing them if you had the chance?

It really doesn’t matter what it is, you just need to identify what you truly love doing or something that truly has deep meaning for you.

If you’re having a hard time figuring it out, keep listing things until you write something down that really makes you feel excited or deeply emotional. Once that happens, you can be pretty sure that you’re on the right track. Keep fine tuning your answers until you write something down that really strikes a cord with you emotionally.

“How Can I Help You?”

This is the other half of the equation of discovering your life purpose. Turning what you love into something that will benefit, or be of service to, others.

This is how you can earn money while pursuing your life purpose.

Here’s a few examples…

1. If you love working with wood, maybe you should start a business as a carpenter or furniture maker? Your love of the work will come through in what you build. People will see the love and craftsmanship in the things that you make for them. Your reputation will grow, and so will your business. You will be providing something of value to other people by doing something that you love.
2. If nature has a deep meaning to you, maybe you should get involved with some sort of environmental work? You could be at the front lines cleaning up the environment. Or maybe you’re blessed with a good intellect and you could educate yourself and become a scientist that works on clean technologies that do not harm the earth. You’re sure to find this type of work satisfying because it has deep meaning to you. And all living beings on this planet will benefit from your work.
3. Do you have a deep desire to help others? Maybe helping to ensure that everyone has enough food to eat is important to you. Why not try to get a job with a charitable organization that does that type of work? If there aren’t any that you really respect, start a non-profit organization of your own. It’s ok to pay yourself a salary for running this organization. You deserve to eat too right?Either way, you will still be helping to feed the hungry people of this planet, and you’ll be helping yourself as well because you’re doing something that has meaning to you. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
4. Maybe you are one of the few that really do love playing video games all day. How can you turn that into something of service? Maybe you could start a website where you write game reviews, walk-throughs, hints, and more. Your passion will show through in what you write and in what you share. You will be providing a valuable service to other gamers that aren’t sure what games to spend their money on, or maybe they’re stuck on a certain level and your advice can help them through it. It doesn’t matter if there are other similar websites out there already. You can do the same thing, just put your own unique spin on it somehow.

This is truly the secret to having a fulfilling career or business. How awesome would it be to wake up in the morning knowing that you’re off to go get paid for doing something that you love?

Getting Started

Once you’ve gone through the above exercise and you’ve figured out what your life purpose is, the easiest way to get started is by figuring out what your first step should be.

• If there are skills you need to learn, start reading books, taking classes, or learning from somebody else.
• If you are going to start a business, start it. Even if you start doing it part-time and start doing something small out of your home,  just get it started. You can always grow it slowly and go full time with it later once business picks up.
• If you want to find a specific type of job, start searching for it. Let everyone know what type of work you are looking for, do online searches, call the organizations you want to work for.

Your life is passing you by, don’t wait any longer. Start living your life with passion and purpose. Take your first step today!

Society and the media have been trying to tell you what your life purpose is, but I’m here to tell you that they’re lying to you. There is another path you can take.

What Society Wants You To Believe Your Life Purpose Is

Society teaches us that acquiring money and stuff is the purpose of life.

We’re constantly bombarded with advertisements showing happy people who just bought some new gadget or service.

People we meet always seem to be checking out what kind of car we drive. Or they’re often comparing jobs, houses, and clothing with us.

It seems like money and stuff are how we are judged in today’s society. So to deal with this, we spend much of our time trying to acquire more of both. The problem is that neither of these things offer any lasting happiness or fulfillment.

Distractions

When you’re on your deathbed, do you think that a bunch of money and stuff will really mean anything to you? I think a lot of people have figured this out to some degree already. They just haven’t been able to determine what other options they have.

When you don’t see any purpose or meaning to life, you are left feeling empty.

I strongly believe that this is why many people spend their time distracting themselves. Excessive television viewing, constant use of mp3 players, drug and alcohol abuse; all these things serve to take our attention away from how we feel inside.

Dare To Be Different

If you don’t wake up most mornings feeling a sense of meaning to your life, and excitement about your day, it probably means that you’re not pursuing your life purpose. You need to discover what you’re passionate about and find a way to make it benefit others as well. That is your purpose in life.

Nothing will provide you more happiness then living a life of service doing something you love. Just ask yourself, would your rather have a bunch of stuff, or would you rather feel happy and fulfilled?

Oddly enough, when you choose to pursue your life purpose, the money and stuff often end up showing up anyways.

Join us in our next post when we will be discussing finding your life purpose.

The story begins when I decided to visit a local Buddhist center where I live. Twice a week this center offers teachings and guided meditations which anyone can attend. I had never been before so I decided to check it out.

The evening started out with a guided meditation. After the meditation, the monk began a lecture on how to be happy. The lecture lasted about half an hour and I walked away some really interesting information.

What We Mistakenly Think Will Make Us Happy

If I asked you, “What would make you happy”, what would you say?

Would you tell me that you will be happy when:

• You get a pay raise.
• When you marry your soul mate.
• When you’re a millionaire.
• When you’re healthier.
• Once you’ve had a vacation.
• When you buy a new home.
• When your jerk of a neighbor moves away.

The common denominator to all of these answers are that they are all things outside of ourselves. This is what advertising and social proof teach us about how to be happy.

We’re bombarded with information everyday that tells us that in order to be happy you need the types of things we listed earlier. The problem with this type of thinking is that it gives your power away.

When you start looking to other people, places or things to make you happy, you’ve given your power to be happy away to everything around you. You end up spending all your time and energy trying to manipulate everything around yourself in order to make yourself happy.

This approach often doesn’t work because you have very little control over the world outside of yourself. And the odd time it does work, the happiness rarely lasts for any extended period of time.

Happiness Comes From Within

So if happiness doesn’t come from things outside of ourselves, where does it come from? It comes from within us. You have the power to decide whether or not you are happy.

We all seem to have an innate need to decide if something is good or bad. We pass judgment on things outside of ourselves. If the car breaks down, we judge that as a problem. If the noisy neighbor moves away, we judge that as a good thing.

The thing is, nothing is inherently good or bad on it’s own. We are the ones who make a decision on what is good and what isn’t.

How To Be Happy

The key to lasting happiness is to become a master of your mind. Learn to control your thoughts and stop placing judgment on things around as being good or bad. When you can do that, you attain an inner peace that nothing can disrupt.

So how do you do that? Two key things are needed:

1. Become conscious of your thoughts and learn to question them

You don’t need to monitor every thought that crosses your mind. That’s a nearly impossible task. However, you can use your emotions as a guide to show you which thoughts you need to examine.

If you are feeling any negative emotions, you can be sure that your thoughts are negative. Ask yourself; “why am I feeling this way?”. Then remind yourself that you don’t need to depend on anything outside of yourself for your own happiness. That person, place, or thing holds no power over you. You have the power to choose to be happy.

2. Meditate

Meditation is a tool that will greatly assist you in mastering your thoughts. It actually develops new neural pathways in your brain that will help bring a more balanced and holistic perspective to your thinking.

As these new neural pathways develop, more of the brain becomes active in your thinking processes.

As you begin to see things from new and different perspectives, the old preconceived ideas of them being good or bad begin to drop away and you begin to see things as they really are. These things are no longer good or bad, they just are.

When this happens, you begin to feel an inner peace and happiness that comes from within. This inside happiness cannot be shaken by anything outside of you.

Conclusion

If you want to know how to be happy, you must understand that happiness is an inside job. Stop trying to control everything around you. Learn to control your thoughts instead.

Question your negative thoughts and remind yourself that you decide whether or not you are happy. No one, or no thing, has the power to decide that for you.

Begin a meditation program. Meditation will help you to stop judging things as good or bad. Instead, you will begin to feel an inner peace and happiness developing that nothing outside of you can change.

If you master these two things, you have become a master of your own happiness.

Most of us spend much our time each day doing things we have to do. Working, chores, meetings, errands, and more, all take up our time and we have little control over doing them. Sure you could always call in sick, or say no once in a while. But for the most part, it’s safe to say that there are many things in life that we just have to do whether we like it or not.

There’s also those times when we face failure and struggle. Nobody enjoys life when they’re facing these things right?

What Determines How You Experience Your Life?

How you feel  in any situation is based on the story you tell yourself about it. The best way to explain this is by using a couple of examples.

1. You just finished a big meal with your family and they all had to run off to do something. Now, you’re left with a huge pile of dishes that need to be washed. Not an exciting thought right? The things you tell yourself about this situation might be something along these lines:

• There are other things I would rather be doing than dishes.
• That pile of dishes is going to take forever to wash.
• My hands are going to get irritated and itchy from being in all the soapy water.
• My back might start aching from standing over the sink.

2. You’re trying to break a habit like smoking or overeating, but you keep failing. The things you tell yourself might be something like this:

• I can’t do this.
• I’m a failure.
• The addiction is just too strong for me to quit.
• I might as well give up.

When you’re going through these types of experiences, it’s easy to get caught up in the story you tell yourself. Well, I’m going to share a technique that you can use to turn that story around so that you can enjoy your life more.

Asking The Right Questions Can Make Your Life More Enjoyable

By asking yourself a couple of questions, you can make something you’re doing or experiencing more enjoyable. You’ll be amazed at the type of answers you can give yourself when you ask the right questions.

By asking yourself questions, you set your brain on a path of trying to solve a problem. Brains love trying to solve problems so you might as well use this to your advantage. If you’re serious enough about wanting an answer to your question, you brain will give you one.

The types of questions you should ask yourself will depend on whether you are in an unpleasant situation, or if you are struggling or failing at something.

Make An Unpleasant Situation More Pleasant

There are two questions you can ask yourself when you end up in a situation you don’t particularly like.

1. Is there anything good about this situation?
2. What could I do to make this situation more enjoyable?

For example, let’s go back to the situation where you’ve just been left with a big pile of dishes that you have to do by yourself.

1. Is there anything good about this situation?
   • Maybe this is a good opportunity to have some time alone to clear your thoughts or ponder something.
   • Maybe doing it by yourself is a good thing because you can be sure the job is done to your liking.
2. What can I do to make this situation more enjoyable?
   • Would putting your favorite music on make it more enjoyable?
   • Would putting a scented candle on that you like make it more enjoyable?
   • Maybe calling a friend on speakerphone might be fun. You could chat with them while you work.

bonus hint – once you’ve answered #2, ask yourself “OK, that will make this situation better, but is there anything else I could do take make it even better yet?

Once you have your answers, implement of them as you can, and just watch how the experience changes for you.

Turn Struggles Or Failures Into Learning Experiences

If you’re facing struggles or failures and it’s bringing you down, there’s a good chance you’re focusing on the problem itself. Here are a couple of questions you can use to change your focus. These questions will help you change a struggle or failure into a learning experience that will make you a better, more succesful person going forward.

1. What caused me to struggle or fail?
2. How can I use what I’ve learned so that I’ll be more successful in the future?
   • Is there some way I can avoid what caused me to fail this time?
   • What could I do something differently next time that might help me be more successful?

By using failure and struggle as a tool to learn from, the failure doesn’t feel so bad anymore. The experience changes from something negative, to something that you can learn from so that you become better and more successful in the future.

The Right Questions WILL Help You To Enjoy Your Life More

Asking the right questions can help you make an unpleasant situation more enjoyable and they can take struggle and failure and turn them into opportunities to learn and grow.

Just to recap…

Here are the questions you would ask yourself if you find yourself in a situation you don’t enjoy:

1. Is there anything good about this situation?
2. What can I do to make this situation more enjoyable?

And here are the questions you would ask yourself if you find yourself struggling or failing:

1. What caused me to struggle or fail?
2. How can I use what I’ve learned to make myself better and more successful in the future?

If you seriously apply this technique of asking yourself the right questions, I know you will start enjoying your life more.

If you’re willing, why not leave a comment and share a situation you’re experiencing right now and how you might  apply this technique to it.