Live Your Best Life!

Do you check in on your emotional wellness? You go to your doctor to get checkups and you bring your car in to get tuned up and if something is wrong with either, you likely make a plan and get the support you need to fix.  Most of us are pretty good about these things, however, when was the last time you checked in on your emotional health? If it was recently, congratulations and keep doing this. If it has not been for a long time, let this serve as a reminder that your emotional health is critical to your overall well being. The quality of your life is impacted by your emotional health, so having good emotional health results in a better life overall. 

Emotional wellness is about what we think and feel. When you have good emotional wellness, you are able to control and express emotions appropriately. When you have good emotional health, you experience more positive relationships and social interactions. When you have good emotional health, you have coping strategies that allow yo...

If you are reading this, you are likely someone with goals who wants to improve their life in some way. One thing I’ve noticed with goals is that many people spend a lot of time thinking about them, dreaming about them, and mapping them out…and then never achieve them. Believe me, I have been there many times my friend. Why is this a common experience for so many of us?

It is because dreaming and doing are two very different experiences. Thinking about your goals and what you want in your future is exciting, energizing, and can bring about a lot of hope surrounding what is possible. These are all feelings you want to experience, and therefore thinking about your goals is reinforced by the positive feelings you experience when you do this. On the other hand, doing what it takes to achieve your goals, especially if they will stretch you or challenge you, can be uncomfortable and create feelings of uncertainty. While pushing yourself to achieve your goals, you may question yourself, e...

Why is it that some people are optimistic and assume things will work out or turn out well, while other people are mostly pessimistic and focus on all the possible negative outcomes? It has to do with how our brains are wired. Based on human nature, we are wired to focus more on the negative things. That is because they typically bring about “negative” emotions and human nature is to want to avoid these negative emotions. Because of this, our primitive brains think that if they keep us focusing on past negative things, or potential negative things, then we can somehow protect ourselves from them, however, as you and I both know…this often just leaves us feeling bad anticipating negative things that will likely never happen

People who are optimistic choose to be that way. It may be easier for them because they have some real-life experiences that have gone well for them which help them consider more positive things happening in the future, however, they are choosing to direct their a...

Do you tend to see and focus on the negative aspects of a situation? “Disqualifying the positive” is what is referred to as a thought distortion, or a cognitive distortion. What this means is that your brain observes a situation and filters in the negative aspects of the situation and ignores, or discounts any of the positive aspects of the situation. If you are someone who experiences this, you are not alone. Our brains have what is called a “negativity bias” which causes them to highlight the negative things around us, while bypassing positive things. 

The reason it does this is because, typically when you are experiencing negative things, you also experience negative emotions. This can raise an alarm with your brain because with negative emotions comes discomfort. Your brain does not want you to experience this discomfort, and it thinks that if it continues to focus on the negative thing that somehow it can prevent it from happening again and therefore avoid future discomfort. Ho...

Many people are great at figuring out what they want to achieve and mapping out their days, weeks, or months so that they can get done what they want to. The problem comes when the days, weeks, or months go by and there has not been much movement towards what they wanted to get done. They tell themselves something is important and that they want to get something done, however, they end up feeling unproductive and like they are not making progress.

Can you relate to this, at least on some level? You said you were going to make ten calls to potential customers at work, and you only made five. You said you were going to workout 5 days this week, and you only worked out twice. You said you were going to finish your project a day ahead of its due date, and you didn’t get it done until the last minute. You said you were going to organize your closet, but it is a month later and it is not done. You said you were going to make a budget and get on track with your finances, however, another y...

Do you ever find that you keep moving things on your “to do” list from one day to the next? From one week to the next? From one month to the next? How about from one year to the next? I can relate to this. I like lists and I like crossing things off lists, however, I recently realized that I was carrying over more things from one list to the next instead of crossing them off. When I looked into this further, I realized that two things were happening. First, the items on the list that were just for me, and did not involve others, were the items getting bumped. Second, I realized that of the items just for me that were getting bumped, they were the hard things, the boring things, or the things I not confident would turn out exactly as I wanted them to.

The tasks that involved me getting something done for someone else, showing up for someone else, or involved someone else in any way were getting done. It was the things that were just for me, about me, or that did not directly impact ...

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’ll believe it when I see it”? Often, we are waiting to “see” something to give us evidence that something is possible, or that something will happen in our lives. Maybe you are waiting for a certain financial status. Maybe you are waiting for a relationship to improve. Maybe you are waiting for something to improve with your health. The problem is, when you say, I’ll believe it when I see it, it will likely never happen.

The reason for this is because with this kind of mindset, you are telling your brain you don’t believe it will happen or that it is possible, and therefore, you think and act as though it is not possible. You tell yourself that only when you see evidence of it happening or of it being possible that you will believe it. When you do this, it results in you not consciously, or unconsciously, doing anything that would make it possible. You are resolved to the fact that it is not possible, and therefore do not spend any energy on crea...

How often do you take time to challenge your beliefs? Unless you are very intentional, my guess is that you rarely do this. The majority of us don’t challenge our beliefs because they have been around for so long. They are what we know. They are comfortable (even if we don’t necessarily like them). They inform how we operate, what we think is possible, and the overall success and quality of our lives. Yikes! If they are that influential, shouldn’t you be checking in on yours?

Your beliefs form because you have certain thoughts about yourself, those around you, and the world in general that have been playing on repeat in your mind over time. They may be the result of something you heard someone tell you when you were young. They may be the result of something you witnessed happen to someone else. They may be the result of what kind of media or social media you have consumed over time. Whatever it is, you “digested” some form of information, put it on repeat in your brain (likely unco...

This is a good question for you to ask yourself and chances are that when things get hard, sometimes you give up, and sometimes you get up. There is no judgement either way, however, having a process that helps you get really clear about whether you want to give up or get back up, can be helpful.

Typically, when we stop working on something or have thoughts of wanting to quit it is because things are not going according to plan and/or things get uncomfortable. It is human nature to avoid pain and discomfort, so this makes perfect sense from a human evolution perspective. Our brains are wired to alert us when something is making us uncomfortable and will try to tell us to stop because its job is to keep us “safe” and comfortable. This is really helpful when we are in physical danger, however, that is not the experience of most of us today. Instead of highlighting physical danger, it highlights anything that causes us to feel difficult emotions, that challenges us in new ways, that m...

Don’t underestimate the power of your mind. Even those thoughts that you don’t consciously see are impacting how you feel, what you do, and the results you get in your life. When you understand this, and intentionally take charge of your thoughts, you not only change how you feel, you also change your life. While this sounds simple (and it is), does not mean that it is easy.

You have two parts to your brain. The conscious part, and the unconscious part. What is stored in the unconscious part of your brain matters. This part of your brain is designed to protect you. It keeps track of the things you tell yourself about yourself and the world in general. If you frequently tell yourself that you are “less than _____ (fill in the blank)” or that you are “not enough _____ (fill in the blank), or that you “should _____ (fill in the blank), or that “you will never be successful, happy, or loved”, these thoughts will be stored in your unconscious brain. Your unconscious brain does not know,...