Six Ways to Increase Your Clarity

Having clarity is important to achieving goals and attaining any significant measure of success. With clear goals, you know what you want and how to go about getting there.

But what if you’re not feeling much clarity? What if you can’t make up your mind about what path you should choose, and your decision-making seems muddled? This is actually a very common challenge and happens to the best of us from time to time.

Fortunately, moving from a sense of uncertainty into full clarity isn’t particularly difficult.

All you need to do is take few simple actions, and clarity will follow:

1. Take responsibility. The power in taking full responsibility for anything is that you give yourself the power to change it. If you believe that something is inside of your control, you can always find a way to have what you want. You’ll never be stuck.

• Clarity is something that you ultimately create, not something that happens to you. If you’re currently not as well practiced at creating clarity as you would like, resolve that you’re going to work on this.
• Start by making a decision and then sticking with it until success is achieved. Since you get better at making decisions by being aware of your priorities, you may need to spend some time contemplating what’s most important to you.
  

1. Use your past. Your past is a tool that’s always available. Your level of clarity hasn’t always been constant. There have been times in your life when things seemed much clearer than they are right now. There have also been times when you felt more uncertain.
   
2. Visualize. You may think that things have to be a certain way before you can feel clear. Having everything “just so” can make focusing easier. However, even when things aren’t perfect, you can still choose to make a decision and stick with it.

• Instead of waiting for the ideal circumstances, visualize what your life would be like if they were in place. What would you know that you don’t know right now? How would you feel? Visualization can help you make decisions as though things are actually already the way you want them to be.

1. Write down your goals and review them. Having a written objective will help you stay clear. First of all, you have to make some decisions to even have a goal in the first place. Second, by reviewing that goal every day, you’ll keep reinforcing that objective. As you do this work, your clarity will become a little greater each day.

• Reviewing your goals first thing in the morning and last thing at night should work well for you.
  

1. Believe that an okay goal is better than no goal. Many people get stuck making a goal because they believe they have to come up with the perfect goal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t spend too much time or energy creating the goal. Just pick something that feels good to you and start working on it.
2. Focus on one project at a time. Having a high level of clarity is easier if you’re only focusing on one thing at time. After you’ve achieved several goals, then you can try working on several goals simultaneously. Avoid spreading yourself too thin, especially at first.

As you can see, you can do many things to increase your level of clarity. The best news is that you don’t have to wait; you can get started today. As you increase your clarity, your life will seem easier and easier. Before you know it, you’ll achieve goals you never even thought you could set for yourself. Now that’s progress!

Identifying Your Potential

Discovering what makes you tick is integral to identifying your own potential. Knowing what you’re good at and what you want to do in life will make your life more satisfying and fulfilling.

If you’re struggling to figure out your strengths and ability to accomplish things, perhaps it would be helpful to take some time to get in touch with your own potential.

Consider these questions and suggestions to help you identify your potential:

1. What do you love to do? Write it down. Include tasks such as “make my car shine” as well as activities like “complete a 10-page quarterly report on my project at work.”

• Your passion in a specific area will enhance your abilities to achieve in related activities. If you love to listen to guitar music and you’re taking lessons, you’ll no doubt be motivated to try to play your best and produce lovely music.

1. Listen to what others say about you. Although you’ll have your own concept of who you are and what you’re good at, paying attention to what others say to you about you will offer insight into some of your talents and skills you might not have considered.

• What other people see as your strengths will most likely be areas that you perform well in. You gain valuable information by listening to others’ comments about you and to you.

1. What is your dream career? Throughout life, you’ve perhaps thought about more than one or two careers you’d enjoy. Maybe as a child, you wanted to be a doctor. During your adolescent years, you loved archeology and thought you’d go in to a related career. But now, you’re an adult in the working world. Is this the job you truly want?

• If you’d rather be doing something else, what would it be? Let your mind go. You want to work on a cruise ship that travels from one Caribbean island to another. You dream about working in the fashion industry. Maybe you’ve always wanted to own a restaurant where you cooked for everyone.
• The point is that when a particular idea has stuck with you over the years, you’ll no doubt be highly motivated to make it happen and fulfill your potential.

1. Surround yourself with people you love. People whom you love and who love you inspire you to go for what you want in life. They nurture, support, and encourage you.

• Ensure you have plenty of loving, caring people around you to provide inspiration to fuel your potential.

1. Can you find a mentor? A mentor is someone who’ll help you cultivate your greatest joy, interest or talent. They’re usually a person who excels in the area that you’re interested in pursuing. An effective mentor can help you identify and even fulfill your potential.

• When you have a role model who thoroughly knows about a subject that’s close to your heart, you’ll push yourself to learn more and excel in your chosen area.

Once you know what you love to do, you’ll be closer to identifying your potential in life. Also, being in touch with your own strengths and having supportive people, including a mentor, around you will help. Focus on discovering your own potential to create the life you desire.

Discovering Inner Strength

Even though life can be a fantastic ride, sometimes it can also knock the wind out of your sails. When tough times trigger your insecurities, you can discover an inner strength that will get you through practically anything.

Try these ideas to get started:

1. Reflect on the tough times you’ve had before. Ask yourself how you got through it. What did you do? What did you think? What did you tell yourself? Your resilience will become evident as you do this exercise and give you real hope for the future in dealing with other obstacles.

• Recognize that you’ve made it through those difficult situations. Then think about what you’re experiencing right now. Is the current situation similar to or much different from your other tough times? Use what you’ve learned from your past challenges.

1. Learn to talk to yourself in positive, encouraging ways. This will help you build up your inner strength.

• As if speaking to your own best friend, tell yourself what will most help and encourage you. What do you most want to hear? What do you need to hear to help gather your strength? Is there something specific you’re hoping will happen?
• Practice providing yourself with encouraging, uplifting messages. The messages you give yourself can be less than helpful or they can propel you through the roughest of circumstances.

• Talking to yourself with respect, care and positivity builds your inner strength so it’s there when you need it. When the going gets tough, you’ll have yourself to fall back on.

1. Allow yourself time to think through whatever the situation is. It’s okay to feel confused.

• What are your ideas about how to weather the storm? Examine all the solutions you can come up with. Explain to yourself what you’ll do and how you’ll do it.
• A sense of your own resourcefulness can be found in your ability to problem-solve through challenging situations.

1. Consider who you regard as role models or mentors. You selected those people because you respect and admire them. They’re strong enough people that you want to emulate them.

• Think about their strength of character. How do you know they have it? What does that strength look like? How does it manifest?

1. Reflect on what you’ve done or been through that you’re most proud of. Was it making it through college although you had to work while you attended classes? Maybe it was moving out on your own for the first time and figuring out you could take care of yourself.

• Even though you might have felt afraid, uncomfortable, lost, or confused, you discovered your internal resources and made it through those experiences.
• When you examine what you did to handle those situations and how you made it through, you’ll recall your inner strength.
• You can get in touch with your own resourcefulness by re-visiting those events that bring you pride.

1. Sometimes, you’ve just got to “fake it till you make it.” You can probably recall a time when you felt afraid or weren’t sure you could succeed, but you stood up and met the challenge head on.

Discovering your inner strength is possible, even in the toughest of times. Following the steps above will help you discover your courage and resourcefulness. And with this self-understanding, you can handle anything!

Developing a Healthy Body Image

You’ll receive many great benefits from appreciating, respecting, and learning to love your natural body shape.

You can love yourself just the way you are while still working on becoming healthier and moving toward the size and shape you prefer.

Try these strategies to increase your comfort with your body:

1. Appreciate everything your body can do for you. Consider that your body can climb, run, walk, dance, sleep, laugh, dream, and myriad of other things. That’s impressive.
2. List the top 5-10 things you love about your body. It might be your hair, eyes, skin, bellybutton, and feet. You know what parts you like. Take a few minutes to think about it or ask your friends.
3. Acknowledge that physical beauty is only skin deep. That applies to certain physical attributes. However, the physical beauty caused by vibrant health – from eating nutritiously and exercising – is inside and out. The beauty of your personality can also cause others to see you as a great beauty, even if you notice flaws.
4. Keep your thoughts positive. We all have the power to choose our thoughts. Think positive things and avoid letting the internal criticism creep in.
   
5. Wear clothes that make you feel good. We all have stuff we like to wear. Go with the clothing that makes you feel like a million bucks.
6. Realize that society’s role models for the physical ideal are impractical. Most of us could not look like a male or female fashion model regardless of how much work, time, and money we spent. It’s simply not possible. Those people are one in several million. It would be like the average person trying to play center in the NBA.
7. Think about the most impressive people throughout history. Ask yourself how much their body or appearance mattered to their success. Do you think it mattered at all? The most important accomplishments in history were not accomplished with beauty or brawn.
   
8. Ask yourself how you’re benefiting from disliking your body. Is it making you shy, miserable, or less effective? Is it keeping you from being able to focus on creating the fulfilling life you desire? Chances are, all the results of your disdain are negative. This realization can help put you back on the road to thinking more positively about yourself.
   
9. List 5 reasons why it is silly to believe that the more slender or attractive are happier. You can certainly think of 5 without too much effort. Every group of people has members that are unhappy. That includes the beautiful people.
10. Exercise because it feels good. Don’t exercise for the sole purpose of losing weight. Enjoy moving your body and lifting your mood by naturally releasing your endorphins with exercise. If you need to lose weight, the accompanying weight loss is a great bonus!

Take some time to implement these tips to help you enjoy and appreciate your body more. It’s important to keep the whole issue in perspective. Focus on the positives and avoid any negative thoughts about your body. Think about all the incredible things that your body does for you each and every day.

Once you’re able to stop focusing on whether or not your body looks “perfect,” you can move forward with things that are most important to you, like creating the life you desire in the here and now (not “someday when you look different”).

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Life More Exciting

If you find yourself spending too much time with the television remote in your hand or taking too many daytime naps, it could be that you’re simply bored with the life you’re living. Maybe you have a home that suits you and a job you like, yet you feel like something’s missing.

Perhaps, little by little, you’ve simply settled in to a hum-drum existence.

Wouldn’t you love to wake up, shake things up, and feel some passion again?

Consider these strategies to pump up the joy, interest, and excitement in your life:

1. Do at least one activity you enjoy each day. We’ve all heard the saying about all work and no play. Life can get pretty boring pretty quickly if all you do is work and come home, only to flop down in front of the TV.

• What are some activities that bring you joy? Indulge in doing something that makes you smile, brings out your creativity, or satisfies your yen for a familiar hobby.

1. Vow to read at least 10 pages a day. There’s great knowledge, wisdom, adventure, and joy in reading. Whether you enjoy finding out more about topics you love or getting lost in a great adventure, there’s something that will perk your interest.

• You’ll find yourself reading more than you ever thought you would. Feast your mind and intellect on the written word. You’ll like it.

1. Allow yourself to daydream. Maybe you want to travel to France or you’d really like to take a stab at writing the Great American Novel. Close your eyes and let your mind go wild.

• Where would you travel first? What do you want to see?
• What type of novel would you write? What would the characters be like?
• Indulge yourself in your dreams. They might spark ideas that you can start making concrete plans for.

1. Be honest with yourself about your strong points. When you do, you’ll be compelled to move forward to create a life you truly enjoy.

• Provide yourself with opportunities to engage in things you do well or even excel at. When you show a talent for something, it’s usually something you enjoy as well.
• Spending more time in these activities will enhance your confidence and help to banish boredom for good.

1. Return to doing something you did in the past. For example, if you used to take part in dance contests, yet haven’t danced in years, you might be interested in dancing again. Something that brought you happiness once before can vastly enrich your life again.

• You’ll challenge yourself and relish in all the things you loved about the activity all over again. Re-discovering your passion for something you loved before can spark new excitement now.

Take responsibility now to jazz up your life. You’ll build a fulfilling, enriching life when you turn your focus to your off-work hours. Immerse yourself in activities you’ve pined for, dreamed about, or loved in the past. The exciting life you deserve is just around the corner!