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6 Lessons On Letting Go

Photo by Hannes Caspar
Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself. ~Deborah Reber

All my life, I have relied on goal-setting to achieve results.

Whether it came to school work, or even just taking time to hang out with my friends, I would plan the entire day out on outlook or use one of many goal setting techniques that I had learned.

For example, I would stick a piece of paper on the ceiling of my bedroom with my goals written on it so it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up.

And while all this helped me achieve great results, I noticed that I was always chasing the next big thing or the next goal I set for myself. I noticed that I never felt genuine contentment in my life.

It wasn’t just with goals. When it came to my social life, I cared too much about being popular and tried too hard to maintain a good social image by pleasing people. And I constantly felt like I didn’t know who I was, and I definitely wasn’t happy.

How to Make Your Dream a Reality

Photo by Gala Darling
There are seven days in a week, and Someday isn’t one of them.

To me, these two seemingly innocuous words, “some” and “day,” when put together are the most empty and depressing seven letters in our language.

They are a synonym for “never” and “ain’t going to happen.” They are the lie we tell ourselves for a dream that we will never ever, in our lifetime, accomplish. It is belied in the tone of voice — faithless and empty — this combo of words usually parenthesized by a pair of audible sighs.

Sigh, “Someday I’m going to …” Sigh.

Once again we have deceived and cheated ourselves. Whatever happened to carpe diem? Seize the day? Yesterday I was reminded again of the danger of someday.

5 Life Lessons from World Travel

Photo by HANNES CASPAR
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. ~St. Augustine

I’ve spent the last year wandering around the globe and exploring this wondrous thing called life. Through 26 flights, I’ve managed to circle the globe twice and touch five of the seven continents.

The journey led me to scuba diving for a month straight with whale sharks on islands in Thailand to hitchhiking my way through an African country to being paid to make sand castles on the beautiful Australian beaches to almost having a foot amputated in Asia.

It’s been a hell of an experience. I’ve learned more about the world and myself than any book, teacher or person could tell me.

I’m not claiming that this has made me a superior human being. Maybe a bit wiser, but I’m just as much human as you are. I still have trouble putting my own insights into practice.

5 Tips for Having Hard Conversations

Photo by Shannon
Difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values. ~Douglas Stone

My friend, author and artist Christine Mason Miller, once wrote in her book Ordinary Sparkling Moments that communication between people is like a ball — you have to throw it so that the other person can catch it.

If you don’t? Someone’s going to get whacked in the face, really hard. That’s not going to promote communication.

Most people spend a lot of time just trying to work up the courage to have a difficult conversation with someone. This is a tough space, isn’t it?

No one likes to initiate a conversation in which they know that they need to communicate that there’s a conflict between them.

After you’ve checked to make sure that you’re not manipulating the work when you decide to speak your truth, here are a few guidelines to more successfully throw that ball so that someone else can catch it.

How to Date Authentically: 4 Lessons

Photo by The 10 cent designer
I will have a loving, committed, and fulfilling romantic relationship.

I created this affirmation several months ago to remind myself that the type of relationship I want is possible.

But, to be honest, sometimes I wonder if I will ever find someone. I wonder if maybe I have too many issues or if my standards are too high. At times, I even question whether I am capable of having a healthy relationship.

Whenever I’m feeling particularly hopeless, I look back over the experiences I’ve had and remind myself that I have grown tremendously and have learned so much about myself through my dating experiences.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that ultimately, dating is about me: my behaviors, attitudes and beliefs about love. As I’ve learned more and more about myself, I have started to attract others who mirror the qualities I value most.

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