Achieving Personal Fulfillment and Well-being Through Mindful Practices

By: Dr. Anjali Mehta, Kundalini Yoga instructor and holistic sexuality expert

Introduction

There are many aspects of our lives that help define who we are and how we feel. One of the largest areas of our lives is related to the work that we do or our profession. Therefore, this aspect tends to form the most important part of our personal development.

There are some simple questions that you need to ask yourself regarding the current job you do. Do you enjoy your work, or do you just slog away to earn the money you need to survive? Does your work leave you with a sense of fulfillment, or does it seem to suck the joy out of your life? You may be surprised to know that a large percentage of people work just to earn money and take no pleasure in what they do.

This in itself is not always a bad thing because money earned can be used to buy some enjoyment such as funding holidays, hobbies, etc. On the other hand, people who work only for remuneration may not know what they are missing. True fulfillment can really only be achieved when all areas of your life are balanced and complement each other.

Enhancing Work Life Satisfaction

Keep in mind that most of the hours of every day are spent working. If you are truly unhappy in your job, you may spend this time thinking about other things you could be doing or where else you could be. This means that not only are you making yourself unhappy going to work every day, but that you are not giving your job the focus and attention it may deserve.

Finding yourself in this position does not mean that you should just quit and find something new to do. In some cases, for some people this may be a good option, but losing an income in the current economy may leave you worse off than you are now.

There are, however, other actions that you can take to improve your work life. Find what it is about your job that you do like and focus on these areas. The parts of your job that you don’t like are not going to go away, but you may spend less time thinking about the bad by focusing on the good.

Find out more about moving into a different position within the organization you are working in. This may not be a better position than you are currently employed in but could be a happier position. Take a training course or find a mentor to help improve your skills.

You will be amazed at how much better you feel about the job you are doing if you are better able to do the job. A life coach or personal development manager can also help you with more ways in which you can improve your work life. In any aspect of personal development, it is important to take your happiness and well-being into your own hands.

So, take control of your work life by making better choices that leave you more fulfilled.

Being Kind to Yourself

A lot of people don’t realize how important it is to be kind to themselves. They think it is a silly, immature notion, but they don’t realize that being kind to yourself is one of the best things you can do in your life.

Think about it, you are probably not that kind to yourself when you are in deep thought. At least once this week, you may have called yourself an idiot, fat, crazy, or some other negative adjective. And the truth is this: when we are not comfortable with ourselves, no one else is going to be comfortable with us either.

That is why it is absolutely imperative for you to make sure that you are being kind and gentle with yourself. Here are some tips to help you do that. First, monitor the thoughts you are thinking. Everyone is unkind to themselves sometimes, but you have to think seriously about how you talk to yourself on a regular basis.

When is the last time you thought something nice about yourself? If you’re like a lot of people, you simply cannot remember. That is unfortunate. Make a conscious effort to have more positive self-talk. This sounds very strange, but it works: start with an “I love you” in the morning to yourself in the mirror.

It seems silly at first, but over time, you will find that it feels more comfortable to you to say that. You will find that you are happier over time, as well. Do something you like to do each day. All of us get caught up with problems and work and life, that many times we don’t get to do something we enjoy for days or weeks.

Treat yourself like you would treat anyone you care about, and allow yourself one fun thing every day. It doesn’t have to last a long time, but make room for it each day in your life. Make sure that you surround yourself with like-minded people.

Don’t spend time with people who tear you down. That will put your mind on a path it doesn’t need to be on. Keep your mind positive by spending time with positive people who are kind to you. Start a notebook and write in it good things about yourself.

People are reluctant to compliment themselves, lest they seem conceited, but it’s a good idea to go down the list of your virtues every now and then. Writing them down is a helpful thing to do, so when you feel that you’re a mess, you can simply look back over the notebook and see that you are fantastic.

You might be out of practice being kind to yourself, but the suggestions in this article are going to hopefully help you if you put them into practice. It is important that you take the time to try each of these tips. Even if you get just a little relief from life by being good to yourself, it’s worth it.

Confidence Is the Key

Let’s face it; if you want to succeed at anything, you need to have a certain level of confidence. This doesn’t mean that you need to boldly and fearlessly attack every aspect of life. There certainly may be areas where you lack confidence.

You need to identify, however, the areas of life where you need to be confident in order to succeed. The first thing you need to do is to identify where you need more confidence, and where you don’t. Let’s say, for example, that you are afraid of public speaking, and you need to get over that to succeed.

In this case, you need to gain confidence in speaking in front of people. If you lack confidence in cooking a good meal, that certainly won’t matter to your speaking ability. You need to identify where you need to gain confidence, and where lack of confidence doesn’t matter.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t gain confidence in other areas, though. One of the dangers of a lack of confidence is that it can fuel failure. Failure then leads to decreased confidence, which leads to failure, which leads to… well you can see it’s a vicious circle.

Lack of confidence and failure feed on each other, and they will drag you down. So, the first key to gaining confidence is to succeed rather than fail. Your first successes do not need to be major successes. You just need to succeed at something to start lifting yourself up, and break out of the failure-lack of confidence cycle.

Choose a small goal to achieve. This needs to be a goal that you cannot achieve at this time, but it also needs to be achievable with a little bit of work. Set your mind on achieving this goal. Set yourself a realistic time frame, and then determine what you need to in order to succeed.

Once you achieve this goal, you will start to see that you can succeed. Keep setting yourself goals, and work towards achieving them. Success will lead to confidence, which will lead to more success, and so on. Before long, you will be able to attack the critical areas where you lack confidence.

If you fear public speaking, you can now start working on that lack of confidence. Find mentors to help you along. Find groups and organizations that will help you to build confidence. Do not confuse confidence with arrogance. Being confident is a good thing, being arrogant is a bad thing.

Confidence is the idea that you can achieve something that you can succeed. Arrogance is the idea that you are better than others. Confidence is the key to succeeding in any aspect of life. Whether you want to succeed in business, creative endeavors, fitness, weight loss, or family, you need to have confidence.

Start by setting yourself small goals, and find small successes. Build on those successes and you will find yourself gaining confidence in all areas of your life. Once you have confidence and success, then you can start helping those who lack confidence themselves.

Developing Yourself

Personal development comes in a wide variety of activities, but it has been my experience that you have to actively want to change yourself before anything can be done. From there, you are able to grow and learn from your experiences.

This will aid in all aspects of your life, from the home to the workplace. The ability to look in on oneself and see where you fall short is a hard thing for most people to do. It took me years to figure out that I needed to change and even longer to actually make the change a set reality.

Oftentimes, the need for change comes from a dark part of your life, but you may be lucky enough to have insight or others helping you to know where you need to improve. The path to personal development can be long and hard, but that isn’t to say you won’t have fun in the process.

If you enjoy reading, there are thousands of books that can help you for whatever aspect of development you want and need. You may not realize it, but the books HR speaks about to staff often have great truths hidden within them, as long as you are willing to accept the advice.

It has been an ongoing process for me to develop, both personally and professionally. In fact, it even involved a bit of therapy early on to learn self-coping skills after a long stretch of depression. Hearing about my faults wasn’t easy, but ten years later, I understand what my therapist was telling me and that helped, at least for a while.

Like in anything, you stagnate and think that everything is better even if things are worse. This happened to me as well, as I’m sure it has happened for many others. The key is to always reflect on yourself whenever things are both going well and badly.

This combination of reflection gives you a solid look into what happens in your life, and more importantly, it shows how you react. Take these reactions and build on them. If you are too angry, try to find a way to dissolve your anger before it blows up.

Some cry too easily, and you can take this observation as a wake-up call to toughen yourself up. These skills will help with your spouse, coworkers, and your boss during the tough times. If you’re having a hard time tapping into your emotions, and don’t have the insurance for a therapist, finding a nonjudgmental friend might be good for you.

You two can speak about what problems you are having, and they might be willing to help. Just be careful not to overburden them, and strike a balance of give and take before pursuing this option. With the right mindset, humans are able to move mountains.

If your boss or a loved one sees a change in you for the better, you will want to continue to try and grow, and the cycle will continue. Don’t be discouraged, and allow yourself a better life.

Dealing with Toxic People

We all know them. Everyone has at least one toxic person in their lives. They may be close relatives or friends, which is why it may be impossible to get away from them. They can be draining, upsetting and make you feel bad about yourself. However, there are some things you can do to deal with these toxic people.

Keep reading for more information. The first thing you can do, if at all possible, is to cut down time that you spend with these people. They usually are the ones calling you all the time and trying to be in your company a lot of the time. You need to be able to tell them no.

If they call more than once a day, let their calls go to voicemail. If they want to see you multiple times a week, cut that down to one. If you can’t avoid them altogether, do your best to restrict interactions with them. The next thing you might want to do is to examine why they are so toxic to you.

This is something you can do on your own. You need to ask yourself why they trigger your bad feelings. Are you afraid you will end up like them? Are you sad that they are that way? Getting to the root of why you feel the way you do toward them, you can better find ways to cope.

For instance, if you are afraid that you will turn out like them, before you see them outline all the ways you are different. You can also talk to the toxic person. There is a big chance that they will not even realize that you find them to be toxic.

That is why you owe them a chance to sit down and talk. Do not call them toxic, because they will likely become upset. Instead, choose a few specific actions that they take, which you don’t like. If they are willing to change, that is a good sign.

If they become belligerent and start attacking you, back off. Do your best not to get into an argument with a toxic person. Toxic people like to argue. This is generally because they want to be in control of something, and when they can’t control you, they don’t like it.

However, you don’t need to get into every argument they want to have with you. Simply take a few deep breaths and think about peaceful things. When they see you are not going to argue with them, they will stop. Find new friends to spend time with.

In order to make sure that you can move on, start finding supportive people to talk to and do things with. This can be a great way for you to forget about the toxic people in your life. If you are spending time with good friends, you won’t have that much time to deal with any toxicity.

Toxic people are everywhere, and we all have to deal with them. Use the tips above to help you cope. Soon you’ll feel much better.

Reaching Your Goals

Everyone needs goals in life. Goals can help us improve our personality, our way of life, and our relationships.

Setting goals is easy enough, but the real challenge is reaching them. How can you reach your goals? The first step in reaching your goals is to overcome fear of failure. If we start out thinking negatively, we likely won’t get very far in our efforts to reach our goals.

In fact, we may not even set goals in the first place. Fear of failure can sometimes prevent us from doing this. Negative thoughts or past “failures” may overwhelm us. But if we keep thinking back to past “failures,” were these really failures after all? Did you learn something that you can now put into practice or avoid the next time? The second stage is to identify what goal you want to set.

You can start by brainstorming potential goals. Some possible goal ideas are: learn a foreign language, stop smoking, make more friends, climb a dormant volcano or mountain, travel out of the country, learn a traditional dance or to play a musical instrument, show gratitude every day, lose weight, eat healthier, or spend more time with your family.

You are the one that knows what appeals to you and what doesn’t. Try to come up with 10 to 20 ideas for possible goals. You may find that some of these will be interrelated and can help you reach your bigger goals. Next, analyze your list and ask yourself questions like: Which goal seems the most exciting? Which one is the most challenging? Which one will make me proudest of myself if I achieve it? The best goals for you are the ones that mean the most to you.

You might select goals that touch all aspects of your life. After analyzing your list, now prioritize it. First, select a few short-term goals that you could reach in just a few days. Then choose some long-term goals that will take weeks or months to reach.

Now number them in the order you would like to achieve them. The third stage is the planning one. Without a plan, you may as well give up. It helps to write everything down on paper. Start by listing your goal. Then set a reasonable deadline by which time you hope to have accomplished your goal.

Next, plan the steps involved in reaching the goal. Be sure to anticipate possible obstacles and how you will work to overcome them. Finally, make a commitment to yourself by signing and dating the paper. After doing this, get busy! Try to think of something you can do each day that will bring you closer to your goal, no matter how small.

Be sure to track your progress and celebrate each step accomplished along the way. If something goes wrong in your plan, adapt to the situation and reevaluate your goal if necessary. And finally, imagine yourself once you have finally accomplished your goal and the satisfaction you will feel.

How Personal Development Can Benefit You

Have you ever used personal development before? These methods can help you accomplish a lot, including becoming a better person or fulfilling some of your dreams. You should read the following article for some useful information on personal development.

Take the time to think about your current situation and about the things you would like to accomplish. A lot of people focus on their careers or on their other obligations without taking the time to think about what they really want to do in life.

Start a journal to write down your thoughts and figure out what you want to do with your life if you are not sure yet. If you already have some goals that matter to you, establish a detailed strategy so you can work toward these goals. It is best to work on a step by step strategy rather than focusing on the larger picture.

You should also establish a time frame to accomplish every step of your plan. If you fail, give yourself more time and look for new strategies you can use. Try becoming a better person. If you feel that you need to improve some aspects of your personality, work on it.

Find friends or relatives who can be honest with you and give you some advice on what you should improve. You will feel a lot better about yourself if you challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone. Becoming a better person can be as simple as giving your time to others or traveling around the world to expand your horizons.

Find a balance in your life. If you often experience stress or feel that your life is not very fulfilling, it is time to find some new activities. Perhaps a new hobby or a fitness program could help you relax and adopt a more balanced lifestyle.

Some people find a balance by exploring their spirituality while others find that activities such as yoga or tai chi help them manage their stress. Try different things until you find something that helps you stay in control of your stress.

You should get help if you need to. Do not feel bad if you cannot accomplish your goals on your own. Talk to your friends or relatives about your projects to see who can help you. You can also get help from many different professionals. You could, for instance, get some help from a career counselor if you want to find your dream job or meet with a life coach if you need help with organizing your team.

Make good use of the resources available to you and always look for additional resources you can use to achieve your goals. These personal development tips will help you become a better person and find happiness. You should apply them so you can start working on achieving your goals or start by figuring out which goals you want to work on.

Do not hesitate to get some help if you need to.

Controlling Your Thoughts to Avoid Depression

Depression can become all-consuming. It begins your day and jumps on your back and directs your thinking and feelings. I fought depression and panic attacks for more than 10 years.

It got so bad that for over a year I only left my bedroom to go to the doctor. My panic attacks multiplied until I was having five to six attacks each day. It took many years, but I eventually came to appreciate that my thought patterns were contributing to my depression.

Let me explain. Panic attacks are sometimes referred to as “fight or flight attacks”. It is the body’s defense against danger. When you are faced with an intruder or some other external danger you will experience a revving up of your body’s defenses as a form or protection.

Reasons for panic attacks are many. For me, it was the lack of control in my life and my decision making. For others it may be fear of other things in their life. My therapist gave me some suggestions to help. She suggested that I attach grades of one to ten to my panic attacks.

When I have an attack I tell myself: “This feels like a three” — and then I start utilizing calming techniques. To do this you must first learn your body and what tenses up. Notice how your shoulders, neck, arms and stomach all tighten up.

Then begin exercises that clench and release each muscle group. These exercises will help you recognize how you tense and how to relax. If you hyperventilate during a panic attack the best thing to do is exercise. Climb some stairs, go for a fast walk, or, if else is nothing available, just breathe into a paper bag and relax.

My therapist emphasizes that stress and depression are often caused by worrying. Worrying can be habit-forming so if you are a worrier it is important to change your routine and to guard your thinking. This will be very difficult to do and will take time.

You must retrain the way you think and what you think about. At first this will be a full-time job. Every time you BEGIN to worry, you need to stop immediately and discard the thought. Constant worrying can be compared to a hamster who runs in a wheel — he keeps running and running until he is exhausted but never gets anywhere.

Constant worry will exhaust you but not solve anything. Make sure to get enough sleep each night. If you need medication, see a doctor. Eat right. Include lots of lean protein and fresh fruits & vegetables. Lack of sleep feeds depression so go to bed early.

To some extent you can even “bank” sleep — when you have a bad night try and make up for it the following night. In my experience it really boiled down to asking yourself: “Do I really want to get better?” If you do, you must fight depression and negative thinking patterns.

Live life one day at a time. Accept that whatever happens in life happens — you have no control over it. If you have no control over it, it will do no good to worry about it.