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When faced with criticism, judgment, or blame, how do you maintain your composure and speak with quiet confidence? In this post, you'll learn how... * Have you ever been in a situation where you feel criticized at the same time that you're being asked to perform? * Have you ever had a moment where you're called upon to explain yourself, back up a point, or tell your side of the story... and you know you're in front of people who have no intentions of believing or supporting you? * How, in those situations, do you find a way to still talk with quiet confidence? Confidence is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. - Unknown There is a way for you to speak with quiet confidence... even when you are in difficult situations. Here's a 3 step process you can use to talk with quiet confidence under any circumstances: 1. Breathe Especially when you're under serious pressure or in a situation where you are not being supported, the first and best thing you can do to talk with quiet confidence is take deep breaths. Literally breathe in through your noise to a count of 5 and breathe out through your mouth until all of the air is out of your diaphragm. Ten deep breaths will get you centered. If you're in the midst of a discussion, taking as many of those breaths as you can in between responses will also help you get centered whenever you feel rattled. Your breath will help you stay calm and centered and that goes a long way to talking with quiet confidence. 2. Speak your truth and own its validity. One of the biggest mistakes people make when speaking in tense situations is discounting their experience by focusing on what other people think and feel. You have no way of knowing what other people feel. You are perceiving their words and actions and, while your perception won't necessarily be reality, your perspective on how you feel, on what you know, and on what you need in this situation are not up for debate. Speak from the perspective of "This is my experience. This is how I feel. This is what I need. Can we meet in the middle?" None of that is up for interrogation or debate. However, the moment you go into the space of "What you did was..." or "You made me feel like...", you are asking for trouble. Stand your ground on your experience of the experience and clearly state what you need in this situation. Your needs and experiences are not up for debate and knowing this will allow you to talk with quiet confidence. 3. Show, don't tell. People who pretend to have confidence but aren't actually confident do a lot of telling without showing. They talk about what they do, how they are, and who they are but they spend way more time taking about things than actually demonstrating who they are with behavior. If you want to talk with quiet confidence, a big piece of that quiet confidence comes from knowing that you walk your talk. When you walk your talk, you don't have to baffle people with bullshit. You don't have to say "I'm a confident person. I'm smart. I'm a go-getter." You never have to say any of those things because your life and actions speak for themselves. Talking with quiet confidence means you say only those things that need to be said and you let your actions do the rest. In cases where you want to 'convince' people to see you in a certain way, stop talking and focus on demonstrating who you are... and accept that even when you do this, some people will be so convinced in seeing you in a negative light that even the truth of your actions will not change their minds. That's okay. You don't have to convince anyone of anything. You do have to live the life you are meant to live which requires being who you KNOW yourself to be. Show, don't tell... #confidence #selfesteem #liveyourlife #confident #speakyourtruth

It's time for you to live your best life. Here are 5 secrets to doing that... Your best life is not a myth. It's not some faraway dream that you have to spend years fighting to earn. You can start living your best life now... and it doesn't have to be perfect and you don't have to earn it... But you do have to be willing to allow yourself to have it and here's the reality of the situation: Your best life CAN start now... Make yourself a priority. At the end of the day, you're your longest commitment. - Unknown The question becomes: Okay... how do I live my best life? I'll give you 5 ways to do that... Here are 5 secrets to living your best life: Secret #1: Focus on YOUR work... Mark Groves (@createthelove on Instagram) has said "You can never do enough work for two people. Ironically, our desire to heal another is usually the avoidance of healing ourselves. Turn within so you can model the behavior they need to heal themselves too." You have no ability to help others until and unless you have helped yourself first... and your best life will only result from you making YOU your #1 priority. Do your work and your best life becomes the natural result. #doyourwork Secret #2: Pursue your biggest dreams now... So many of us live with the "I'll do this when..." syndrome. We have all of these dreams, plans and goals... and hold ourselves from pursuing those goals "until" and the problem with "until" is that the conditional way of life signals a self-worth issue. Any time you indicate that you have to wait to experience your highest good "until" you do A, B, or C, what you're really telling yourself and the Universe is this: "I'm not worthy of my highest good. I need to hustle for my worthiness until I can even attempt to create the life I say I want." How's that working out for you? It's not... So the second secret to living your best life is to stop putting your biggest dreams on hold. Pursue them now. Go after them now. You are worthy of the best NOW. Believe and live into that... #goafterwhatyouwant Secret #3: Stay away from negative people... Nobody's neutral. If you want to live your best life, you have to ditch people, places and experiences that wreak negativity. Remember: a little negativity goes along way. Being friends with a complainer may seem harmless. Hanging around family members who are jealous of your success may feel normal because you've known these people your whole life. However, if your want to live your best life, keep in mind that all toxic people in your life are taking up space in your life that could otherwise be held by positive, happy people. To level up, you have to let go of anything that's holding you down... and negative people (no matter how positive a person you are) WILL hold you down and hold you back. Let those people go... #releasetoxicpeople #nonegativity #negativityfreezone Secret #4: Make Lots of Mistakes (and don't be afraid to) Any time you're creating a new life (or redesigning some area of your life) you are bound to make mistakes. Get used to it. Look forward to it. Give yourself, as John Maxwell in a book called Failing Forward, calls it a 'failure quota' and insist upon trying enough new things and making enough new decisions that you make lots of mistakes. Why? Because failure is the master teacher (not success). Making mistakes is the only way to get better. If you aren't failing, you aren't evolving so get over the idea of being perfect (no possible) and give yourself the creative space to try new things, to take risks and, yes, to make mistakes. #failforward #makemistakes #overcomefear Secret #5: Experience pleasure daily... Pleasure is an experience of joy, passion, and satisfaction that you can have at ANY moment in your life... so why are you waiting to allow yourself to experience pleasure UNTIL you get to a certain place or achieve a certain thing? Don't wait. Pleasure is a key way to live your best life and whether you derive pleasure from a piece of chocolate, a walk on the beach, a weekend getaway, reading a great book, or spending time with a loved one, give yourself both permission and sacred time to experience pleasure on a daily basis. Life is short and there's no reason to postpone pleasure. Experience pleasure today... (#pleasure #satisfaction #joy #lovinglife Your new life is going to cost you your old one. - Unknown At the end of the day, you have every ability, right here, right now, to start living your best life. Will it be perfect? No. Will you wake up every single day happy and joyous and never feel sad? No. This is life and real life has great and tough moments, whether you are living your best life or not. Here's what you will get when you decide to start living your best life: you'll be free to experience the life you want, the life you deserve, and the life you were born to have- the good, the bad and the in between of it. We didn't come here to have life be perfect; we came here to live it fully... and that is living your best life...

Play is at the heart of creativity and creativity is at the heart of success. If you're taking yourself (and your goals) too seriously, in this post, you'll learn how to incorporate more play into your life and work... As children, we played with ease. The world (and every aspect of it) was brand new to us. Everything was awe producing and anything was possible... so we played our way through life. But somewhere along the way, we learned that play wasn't a 'productive' use of our time and play went out the window... and there's a really BIG problem with that: play is at the heart of ALL success. Play is the highest form of research. - Albert Einstein Play is KEY to your success at anything. From health to wealth, if you lack the ability to play, you lack the ability to think creativity, to take risks adventurously and to learn from mistakes and bounce back resiliently. So how do you bring play back into your life? At first, you have to be mindful about looking for and consciously creating opportunities for play. If you're brainstorming new ideas, pull out a sketch pad and colored pencils and draw your ideas (rather than write them). If you're working on your household budget, turn on music you love and take dance breaks as you figure out your finances. If you need to eat healthier and despise 'healthy' foods, get new cookbooks, find healthy food recipes that feel like an adventure to cook, cook food that looks way better than it tastes and make the movement into a new way of eating fun to pursue. Play allows you to think outside of the box. It gives you the room to take your time, invent new things, and use your curiosity to solve any problem. That's much more fun that taking a logical, 'productive', adult-like approach to the biggest goals of your life. Can you get there either way? Yes. But you'll get to your goals way faster if you make the process of getting there fun and creative. Play is the only way to do that. FINAL POINT: Even if you, like me, were never very child like or never really had a childhood, all the more reason for you to do the work of learning how to play. Just because you couldn't be a child then doesn't mean you have to rob yourself of the opportunity to play now. Play your way to success. At the end of the day, that's how it actually works. #play #dream #havefun

It is time to put YOUR dreams first. In this post, you'll learn seven ways to do that... Your dreams matter but ONLY you can make them count. If you've spent years putting other people's needs and wants before your own, you've created a habit of putting yourself last and nothing about achieving your dreams will change until you replace that bad habit with a new one. It is time to keep the promises you make to yourself... The most important person to keep your promises to, is yourself. - Unknown So how do you go from being someone who puts yourself last to someone who puts yourself first? How do you let go of the need to fix and save others so you can finally take on the task of saving yourself? It's simple; it's not easy... and here's how... Step 1. Identify your top YOU priorities. The first thing you have to do is identify your top YOU priorities. What's important in your life? What dreams really matter? If you could achieve only three dreams over the course of your lifetime, what dreams would you achieve and why? Put those three dreams in order of priority. Write those down in a journal. (#priorities #dreams #dreambig Step 2. Assess how you're using your time. Review your calendar and day planner. If you don't keep track of where you spend your time, get a day planner or use Google calendar or start using an app like toggl.com and track where and how you spend your time for a solid two weeks. Then review it. Where is the bulk of your time going? Whose needs are being met by how you're spending your time? Where do you fall on the priority list of how you've been using your time? Get real with what your life is actually being spent on. #getreal #ownyourtime #priorities Step 3. Reconstruct your schedule. How you spend your day tells me how you'll spend your life. If the way that you're currently using your time isn't in alignment with you achieving your top three goals, it's time to completely redesign your calendar. Turn down and get out of any obligations that are not required by you and for you. Tell people 'No.' Create and open up the space that you need to achieve your biggest goals and do all of this while laying down new, healthier boundaries with everyone in your life. No one respects a pushover and if you find that you've been acting as a human doormat for others, it's time to set a new precedent. There is no living your best life if you continue to live by someone else's agenda. #time #priorities #manageyourlife Step 4. Take care of your health. There won't be any putting yourself first if you're constantly running on empty. Big dreams require massive amounts of energy. If you find that your health has come last, that you're energy levels are poor, or that you don't sleep or eat well, it's time to take a detour and focus on getting your health and energy levels to where they need to be BEFORE you pursue your biggest life goals. Why? Because while you may be able to shuttle the kids around, do your 40 hours of work each week, and be there for everyone else on an empty tank, your biggest dreams will require a level of vitality and focus that can only be garnered if your health is in the right place. Can you still achieve dreams if your body is sick? Yes but you won't enjoy the results when your health is poor. Do whatever you can to take care of both your mind and body so you are ready for the journey to your biggest dreams. #health #healthiswealth #selfcare #takecareofyou 5. Create a doable plan. Spend as little time as you need (and, when I say 'little', I mean 2 hours to 2 days MAXIMUM) to create a one page, doable plan for achieving your FIRST big goal. Yes, you may have 3 big dreams but let's get the first one accomplished. Now that your calendar is clear, your mind is focused and you're taking care of your health, create a one page doable plan for achieving your top goal. Print out the plan and make sure you carve out at least 5-10 minutes in the morning and before bed to review that plan EVERY morning and night. Stay connected to your plan and avoid switching to a new goal. Shiny Object Syndrome is real and you need a written plan that will help you keep your focus. #plan #focus #onepage 6. Carve out 2-4 hours a day to work on your top goal. Your dreams require both time and attention. At minimum, you need 2 hours a day to focus on your top goal or dream. Ideally, I'd like to see you carve out 4 hours a day (6 days a week) to work on your dream. Remember: if you aren't spending time on you, you aren't truly committed to you. #focus #giveyourselftime #youronething 7. Be patient and enjoy the process. Achieving almost any dream is going to take you way longer than you think it will. So much of our lives is the process so it's important to learn how to focus on enjoying the process. It's also important to be patient with the process of achieving your goals. Staying the course requires that you commit to however long it takes to get there. Be patient. Find joy in the journey and don't give up... #dontquit #staythecourse #bepatient #enjoytheprocess To change your life, you need to change your priorities. - Unknown At the end of the day, the only person who can make you THE priority is YOU. Do what it takes to keep the commitments you make to yourself...

There's a time to move and a time to be still. Read this post and learn how to know which time it is... In the fast paced world we live in, it's so easy to discount the power of being still. Notice I didn't say 'standing still'; I said BEING still. There's a difference. When you're being still, you might be taking action. You might be meditating. You might be hustling like nobody's business. You might also be taking a nap or eating breakfast in bed. The point is simple: being still is a state of being, not a definite action (or level of inaction)... and there's power in giving yourself time and space in your daily and weekly schedule to BE still. Calm is a superpower... Every soul innately yearns for stillness, for a space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest, and by doing so come to a deeper sense of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence, not an emptiness but a repletion, a filling up. - Anne Leclaire Your ability to experience anything and everything in a calm and centered state is a superpower... and it's a superpower that has to be cultivated over time. You have to teach yourself how to be still so you can then show yourself that, under any circumstance, you can remain calm. The question becomes: How do you teach yourself to be still in a world that wants you to rush and hurry about? How to cultivate the habit of stillness... To cultivate the habit of BEING still, you need to get good with two things: silence and being alone with your own thoughts. Here are 3 ways that you can do that: 1. Make meditation a daily habit. Begin with 5 minutes. Use an app like Headspace or calm. Before you go to bed, lie down and listen to the sound of the heater or the air condition and set your alarm for 5 minutes. There are so many forms of meditation and ways to begin the habit. It doesn't matter which one you choose. Choose an approach and give yourself 30 consecutive days to practice. 2. Take yourself out on an artist date at least one time per week. Julia Cameron talks about the idea of an artist date in her book The Artist's Way. The idea is simple: " The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly "artistic” — think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration. When choosing an Artist Date, it is good to ask yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it." - Julia Cameron Going on a solo expedition gives you space, time and room to experience sacred time with yourself. No chatter from other people, no doing what other people want- no- you spend time with yourself which gives you time and space to reflect and listen to your intuition. 3. When in doubt, pause. One of my favorite quotes says the following: Practice the Pause... When in doubt, pause. When angry, pause. When tired, pause. When stressed, pause. And when you pause, pray. When life goes haywire, it's tempting to go haywire with it. As necessary as panicking, freaking out and throwing a temper tantrum may seem at the time, the best thing you can do when life storms arrive is practice the pause. Yes, in the moment, it will feel like you don't have the luxury of taking a break. Yes, it will feel like you have to rush to a decision and rush to take an action. That's emotion talking. At the end of the day, here's what's true: NO decision has to be made today. You have every right and should take to pause, especially in stressful situations. There's power in stillness. There's power in being able to stand in a space (in any given moment of your life) and give yourself room to get clear on what you want, what you need, and what to do next. Devoting daily time to stillness is not an option in this fast-paced world we live in. If you want to be at peak performance level consistently, if you want to make optimal decisions and live with vitality, energy and focus, you have to cultivate the habit of being still. If you don't create the space for stillness now, life will force you to do so later. Either way, you choose... #practicestillness #calm #meditation #peace #reflection #quiettime

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill outlines the 30 major causes of failure. Here's #15: 15. WRONG SELECTION OF A MATE IN MARRIAGE. This is a most common cause of failure. The relationship of marriage brings people intimately into contact. Unless this relationship is harmonious, failure is likely to follow. Moreover, it will be a form of failure that is marked by misery and unhappiness, destroying all signs of AMBITION. At first glance, this language seems EXTREMELY harsh. Here's the reality: it's true. Research shows that couples who continually argue over important issues are more likely to experience inflammation and weakened heart or immune function. But it's more than negative health effects. When you're living with a person who you don't want to be around, someone who brings negative energy into your living space, a person who either puts you down or doesn't support you in your life, you are sleeping with an enemy... Sit with that for a second. You're literally living with an enemy which makes your home environment a battlefield... which leads to you being emotionally, physically and spiritually in a state of suffering ALL OF THE TIME. How's that ever going to produce a successful life? It won't... Set high standards that operate in and outside of your marriage Whether you're doing this for the first time after ten years of marriage or you're about to get married and need to set up clear boundaries, it's important that you set high standards for how you will and won't be treated in your marriage. Have a clear, thorough conversation of what that looks like and means in your marriage. If the other person gets offended or disagrees with how you want to be treated, be clear about what you will and won't accept. Either the person will comply and have a happy life... or not comply and tank the relationship. At the end of the day, your marriage will either help you rise and hold you back. Nothing about who you're married to is neutral. Make the right decision for you... #marriage #partnership #goodmarriage #badmarriage #divorce #relationships