I am a firm believer in the great mental and physical benefits of meditation. If you’ve never tried mediation before then you are really missing out on a very simple yet potent tool that enables you to give your mind a break so that you can refocus with clarity on your life’s goals.

I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did.

Ever been in a situation where you’re so consumed by negative emotions that you feel like throwing a complete tantrum, or worse, giving up completely on someone or in life in general?

You’re not alone. We all experience situations where we can hardly keep a lid on our negative emotions. But you know what? You know that tantrum won’t help. Furthermore, giving in to negative emotions and retaliating in anger or despair will lead you to say or do things you will most likely regret later on. So what do you do?

The number one thing to do is to train yourself to be a POSITIVE person. When you achieve this, you will realize that turning your back at negative thoughts will be easier. Following are ways you can develop this.

Prioritize and take care of yourself.

A healthy mind and body does wonders for one’s way of thinking. When you’re healthy, you’re always upbeat and less prone to succumbing to negative thoughts.

Focus on the things you’re grateful for in life.

Every morning, sit down even for just a few minutes and meditate on what’s good about your life. This will put you in the right positive frame of mind at the start of the day and makes you focus on the grand and beautiful things, rather than on the trivial, negative stuff.

Help others.

Helping others is really a way to help yourself. We all feel good when we help others so go out and be a help to someone. Do volunteer work in a group or simply focus on one person in your neighborhood that you can help and visit every few days.

Take a look at ‘negative thought triggers’ you may have and address these.

If you take a step back and evaluate what makes you mad or sad, do you see any triggers? When I asked this question to someone I know, she realized that she gets easily annoyed at work when a certain ‘friend’ joins the discussion and dominates it. However, instead of brushing the experience off, she seemed to be ‘collecting’ all these moments till it reached a point where anything related to the other person would set her off.

Realizing this, she has made it a point to avoid the other person completely. You might think that this is something you should address with the other person but let me ask you this? Is the energy spent worth it?

My message is this: don’t complicate things for yourself. If someone is not really important in your life, not somebody you can rely on or see yourself being a friend of… then why spend the energy if you feel it’s not going anywhere.

Cut the ties and live and spend time on people and things that actually matter in your life.

Most people do not fully realize that the state of their healths has a direct affect on their thoughts processes. The thing is, being unhealthy can be both the cause and effect of unhappiness.

For instance, if you’re unhappy, you might emotionally eat and thus be unhealthy. The case may also be that you’ve let yourself go so much that you are now unhappy with the way your health has gone.  See, what I mean?

All this points to the benefits of leading a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle. I’ve covered dieting and exercising a couple of times in the past and will probably do so again if I come across something I know will benefit you, but for now, I’ll just focus on a few things that will help you snack in healthier way.

Drink water.

We’ve already discussed the benefits of increasing your water intake but this time drinking water also helps you get rid of any ‘cravings’. Further, even if you do give in, you will most likely not snack to much as the water has helped make you feel full.

Brush your teeth.

Brushing your teeth is so routinely done just before bedtime that it’s a mental signal to your brain that you’re done eating for the day!

Wait a bit…

Consider calling someone just to talk. Don’t talk about the craving but just catch up with family and friends. This will put any craving or hunger pangs at bay. After a few minutes of talking, you may find that you’re not in the mood to eat anymore.

If you must have something ‘bad’, make it at least a good choice.

One of the worst things you can do is to completely deny yourself certain food items. So if you must have something to snack one, try to eat healthier alternatives to a bag of chips. You can try freshly popped popcorn, a warm cup of vegetable soup, a handful of nuts, yogurt ice cream, veggie sticks with a humus dip, and more!

Stock your ref and pantry with these healthier alternatives so that even if you do crave a bag of chips, you can’t have them!

When things go wrong in life, you either go to your mother for help and comfort or to your gang of friends. Your mom will, mostly likely anyway, accept you all the time. And if you have great friends, they will too. However, are YOU a good friend to them?

Be there.

Don’t be type who calls on everybody when you have a problem and then disappear or become suddenly ‘busy’ and ‘unavailable’ when your friends need you. Whatever the problem – big or small – be there when your friends call.

LISTEN.

You know it when people are not listening to you. You sense it and it’s frustrating, isn’t it? As such, don’t do the same to your friends. Really listen and understand what they are going through.

Mutual respect is important.

Friendship, just like any relationship, is about acceptance so don’t go about trying to constantly ‘improve’ or change your friends. Respect the difference from you and if ever you come across someone whose values and beliefs really don’t reconcile with your, then end the friendship. This is far better than faking one.

Be his/her advocate.

Look out for your friends. This can be as simple as ensuring you drive when he/she has had a few drinks to something more serious such as being his/her health advocate when your friend is feeling ill and doctors can’t seem to find out what’s wrong. In short, be the one fighting for your friend!

Don’t count the ways…

Of course, don’t be a push over but do restrain yourself from counting and tallying up favors all the time. For instance, not calling your friend because he/she doesn’t always call you is just downright childish. If faced with this dilemma just ask yourself this: do you want to talk to your friend or not? If so, pick up the phone and call. If not, let it be.

I haven’t heard from a friend in a long time and so I called him one day. The sad news was he has lost his job. He worked in the travel industry, which took one of the hardest hits during this financial crises that’s sweeping the country.

I was of course concerned about him as he has a wife and two kids but I was very pleasantly surprised at his attitude about it. During our long talk we discussed the things that has kept – and is still  keeping – him going and he’s allowed me to share some of those thoughts with you today.

Evaluate your financial situation TODAY.

Some people say what you don’t know won’t hurt you. In this particular instance, if you don’t know your financial situation, it will. So don’t delay the task; make money matters crystal-clear to you and your family.

My friend was actually a little bit more ahead. He didn’t wait to get fired to check on his financial situation. The minute the first round of lay-offs were announced, he sat down with his wife and they went through their financial situation together.

It’s important to make your partner fully aware of what’s going in. This way, you get the support and understanding required to tide the coming months better.

After you have a clear picture of your financial situation, start making plans. List down the things that you or your family don’t need and start offloading stuff. Try to live simpler. Discuss if your partner can take on the financial load, and so on.

De-stress… breathe.

Look, you cannot deny being angry or even being depressed after being fired. These are absolutely normal emotions to have even if you were not really happy about the job you had to begin with.

So allow yourself to grieve so to speak. Be mad, be a bit sad but after a few days start to de-stress. Why? Because you cannot think clearly about your next steps if you don’t do this.

Think about where you REALLY want to go from here.

Look at job loss as an opportunity to evaluate what you really want to do in life. If the job you had was simply to ‘pay the bills’ before and you weren’t really happy doing it, then now’s the chance to do something you will be happy about.

Let’s go back to my friend. He was a manager at a travel bureau and he say’s it was ‘OK’. So after the anger and downed beers, he asked himself what would really make him jump out of bed to work everyday? The answer: writing and working from home. What’s your answer?

Align your resources with your goals.

No, you’re not going to lie on your resume or anything, you’re just going to ‘highlight’ the skills you have that support your new goal. For my friend, he first started writing for friends at a low cost, got the experience, and that’s what he has been highlighting on his resume.

Move on.

Accept now that your old job will not come back. It was good while it lasted. Now’s the time to LIVE the life you want… so go for it!

You may find today’s topic a bit odd. Normally, I talk about motivation in the deeper sense but then again I realized what is water? Isn’t it one of the fundamentals of life?

Furthermore, not drinking enough water is linked to so many health illnesses and body issues today! So that for me was enough to look into this topic more. In fact, the more I discussed it with my friends, the longer the discussion about how important water  became!

So, without further ado, here are a couple of ways to motivate you to drink more water during the day.

Start the habit bright and early.

Before you sleep, put a glass or small bottle of water beside your bed. When you wake up, grab it and drink a mouthful of water. Now some people say that this makes them gag in the morning and to be honest, I felt the same way too… for just about 2 days.

By the third day, I was actually kind of looking forward to the drink! Also, keep in mind that you don’t need to down the whole glass. Just a sip or two will do. It’s just to start your day with a healthy habit.

Water… the next fashion statement.

Nowadays, water is FAR from boring. It’s almost a fashion statement really. But I don’t mean that you should spend a lot buying premium bottled water. Oh no, just buy one and refill!

A friend of mine didn’t even purchase bottled water. She bought one of those nice juice bottles or sport bottles and simply chugs that around and refills it with water each time it’s on ‘empty’.

Put it right in front of you all the time.

I know, it’s hard to tear yourself away from your work desk sometimes. But who says you have to keep running for the tap. I put a 1.5L water-filled bottle in front of me on my desk and even I was surprised at how I just automatically reach for it all the time.

‘Eat water.’

Water does not need to come in liquid form all the time. A lot of food items have a lot of water content too. For instance, snack on watermelon and cucumber now and then. They contain lots of water your body can benefit from.

An here’s one final tip: never exercise without water nearby. You may feel ‘ok’ during your fitness routine but dehydration will hit you soon enough. So if you don’t want to suffer from dizziness or headaches or even cramps later, drink water as you exercise!