Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

Here you go, 98 and a half ways to change your life, or at least nudge your butt.

Nudge as in ‘hey, you, you okay? C’mon, let’s do it’ friendly ‘kinda nudge.

They aren’t hard, they aren’t asking you to make huge changes, they are teeny, small little behaviours that can be changed in a moment.

Enjoy.

See you at the end.

 

 

 

#1 Become Your Own Best Friend

Would you hang out with you?  Would you talk to your nearest and dearest the way you speak to you?  Become your own best friend; give yourself the respect and dignity that you give to others.

2# Hang Out With People Who Are Good For You

Are there enough people in your life who are assisting you to become all that you want to become?  Are there enough people in your life who are ‘good’ for you?

3# Watch Your Thoughts

Have you heard the phrase you become what you think about most?  The way you think about you becomes you’re current reality.  Learn how to manage your thoughts for personal growth: eliminate the negative Inner Critic.

#4 Learn a ‘New’ Language

Develop the habit of using language that is successful, empowering and which builds your confidence and self-esteem.  Negative language patterns tear you apart and may stop you becoming all that you can become.

#5 Positivity Is Not Weak

You can choose to think positively or negatively:  No news is good or bad, it’s only news.  Find the good in everything, even the challenges; you cannot create a problem that you cannot resolve!

#6 Never Ever Quit

There is a difference between changing your direction and quitting.  When you are making massive changes, prepare for the unexpected and you are smart enough to know when you’re just quitting.

#7 Create and Implement Massive Plans of Action

Nothing was ever gained from standing still.  The best plan in the world is nothing without massive action.  Plans don’t create, you do.

#8 Make Decisions

Life is going to happen whether you like it or not.  You can choose to decide what’s right for you, or let others choose for you.  It may be the best decision, or that worst.  What’s important is this: you made it.

#9 Adopt a Different Language

Allow positive words, phrases and successful language to become your guide.  There is power in the words you use, choose words that work for your personal growth and build your potential.  They may seem strange at first, perfectly natural, they will become habit.

#10 Take Care of the Caretaker

Look after yourself, sleep well, eat well and exercise.  Energy creates energy.  If you’re unwell, lacking vavavoom and mojo, or living at ‘half empty’ it’s almost impossible to live each day to it’s fullest and to give it you’re best. YOU are important.

#11 Aim For Beyond the Moon (Metaphor!)

We can sometimes set our goals that are beneath our actual capabilities.  Shoot for past the moon; go two steps beyond what you find comfortable.

#12 Gain Momentum

A wheel going down a hill will pick up speed, no matter how many rocks, potholes or obstacles in its way.  Set off, start what you need to start.  You’ll quickly pick up speed, too many people wait for the ‘starters gun’, and they may wait a long time.

#13 Acknowledge Your Fears

The first step to change and breaking through fear is to acknowledge it exists.  Be smart.  At least admit it’s there.  Bringing it out into the open will allow you to look at it and then create the opportunities to get rid of it.

#14 No Fear Is Bigger Than You

There is no fear that you cannot overcome.  None.  How it got so BIG is irrelevant, you can crush a fear in seconds: stand tall, face it and go through it.  That is the shortest, most effective, quickest way to break personal barriers.

#14 Make Change Your Ally

Change happens whether we like it or not.  Create your own change or allow it to be done to you, you have a choice.  Take ownership of the present moment, it will become the tomorrow you.

#15 Have Hard Conversations

Say what needs to be said, when and where you need to say it.  Conflict is a part of life; keep respect and honour for yourself and others.  Conflict is not anger.

#16 Do What You Fear The Most

Break your own barriers: you can read about doing it, see others do it, but until YOU do it, the fear will always hold you.  Fear is false evidence appearing real.  The shortest route to conquering all fears is ‘do it’.  Simple, time served truth.

#17 Learn Assertive Behaviours

Say what you mean and own what you say.  Repeat your message if necessary and understand that confidence is not the same as arrogance.

#18 Gratitude

Say thank you more often: to you, others, the universe, God: whatever it is you believe needs to be thanked. Acknowledge the smaller details and what you have now.  Gratitude indeed costs nothing.

#19 Try New Things

We are creatures of habits.  Develop yourself by trying new things, going new places, speaking to people who you ‘think’ you have nothing in common.  We learn the lessons we need the most in unexpected places.

#20 Volunteer

For no other reason than ‘giving back’ and expect nothing in return.

#21 Take a Risk Every Now and Then

Ask yourself ‘why not’? Or ‘what if I…?’ You may be surprised at the results.

#22 Practice Human Touch

Someone, somewhere needs to feel loved, wanted and craves the intimacy of others.  Do it with congruence and genuineness.

#23 Goal Getting

Write them, visualise them, see and feel them working, before they appear real.  Setting them is not the same as going and getting them and you’re brain will believe whatever you tell it – true or not.

#24 Listen Well

Focus your attention on the whole person, what they say with words and what they say with their body, tonality and expressions.  To be listened to is a wonderful gift to give a fellow human being.  You don’t have to agree with all that is said.

#25 Build Meaningful Relationship

With everyone you meet.  You may meet strangers who can open the windows when the doors were shut.  Give value first, ask how you can serve this person, not what will they give me.

#26 Delete What No Longer Works

What is in your life that is a) causing you pain and b) no longer serves you.  You perhaps had a need for it once but all things change if it’s doing you no good, delete it.  We have a tendency to hold onto to what we no longer need way past its sell by date.

#27 Know Your Core Values

Who are you?  What do you stand for?  What must you have in your life?  Are you living your life in alignment to what you value most? Need help? Download the core values worksheet here.

#28 Stay Curious

Curiosity is one of the most powerful skills from childhood to hold onto and develop.  Never stop asking why, when, how, what, where and why?  You could discover an answer you’ve longed for.

#29 Stop Apologising For Things That Are Not Your Fault

Do you end your sentences in  ‘sorry’ all the time?  When you make a request do you apologise for speaking your mind or saying how you really feel?  Have conviction in what you are saying.

#30 Environment Check In

Take a look around your environment (home, work, play) is it in balance?  Is it working for you?  Is it a reflection of what is going on inside?  Clear up, clear out or live with.

#31 Rid Yourself of Shoulds, Oughts and Musts

Become a like to, want to, love to and choose to person.  You’ll get it done quicker, easier, in half the time and with more fun.  We fight against ourselves when we have to do something.#32 Don’t Wait

BE, NOW what you are becoming.  You don’t have to wait to feel what you want to feel, do you?

#33 Develop Personal Boundaries

The best boundaries are fluid.  Know what you will tolerate and accept and what you won’t, and what you will do if they are crossed over.

#34 Say No to Unreasonable Requests

And stick with your decision.  You always have the right to say no.  Set your boundaries and decide what is unreasonable for you.  Learn to accept you are not responsible for how other people feel when you are maintaining your boundaries.

#35 Say Yes to More Often

We are too quick to jump to no, especially when we are unsure of the outcomes.  Choose to say yes to that which requires you to step out of your comfort zones — they’ll  s-t-r-e-t-c-h. 

# 36 Make Time for You

You were born alone and you will depart alone.  All the relationships we have are a bonus, however you may need alone time.  This is not selfish.  It taking care of you’re own mental, spiritual and physical well being, make time, no excuse.

# 37 Manageable Roles

Consider all the roles you play in your life.  Are they well managed?  Do you need to play all the parts?  Can you share a few?  Allow an understudy every now and then?  Must everything fall on your shoulders?  Do you need to ask someone else to step up?

#38 Get Up and Show Up

Stick to you commitments you have made to other people.   Keep every appointment.

#39 Maximise Your Strengths

You will excel at many things, develop what you’re good at, you’re weaknesses are someone else’s expertise.

#40 Practice Visualisation

Play mental movies. Make them colourful and see yourself taking part.  Slow them down, speed them up.  Add sound, backdrops, and scenery.  Get the result clear and keep replaying over and over again, until the pathway is formed.

#41 Live in The Present

Realise that the past, being over, is unreal: that the future, is not yet created doesn’t exist either.  Only the present is real.

#42 Know Your Emotional Triggers

We all have ‘hot buttons’, once pressed they can release negative emotions and affect our states.  The best plan is to let go of the emotions of the past.  The second is to be fully aware that you create the reactions to the actions of others.

# 43 Become a Creature of (Good) Habits

It takes between 21 – 28 days for new Neuro pathways to be created, formed and wired.  Create new habits one day at a time then maintain for another 28 days. If you falter, just start over.

#45 Step Out Your Own Way

We can screw ourselves pretty good up without the help of others.  Learn to look at your life from a 30,000ft view. Watch you go about your life.  Look at the movie, not play your part.  Do you need to direct yourself differently?

#46 Set Your Intention

Many people start a new project or begin a new idea with the intention it ‘won’t work’, this is doom talk.  Set clear your intentions of what is going to happen.  You may still not reach the exact desired result, however you WILL have a better chance of it, set the intention to modify if necessary!

#47 Learn What You Need

We don’t stop learning when we leave formal education.  We may become bitter that what we were taught has not served us.  Stay committed to being a learner of life, lessons are given daily, and will you attend the classes? Take notes and use?

#48 Practise Becoming a WOW Communicator

Listen to understand, show empathy, turn from judgement, be genuine, present, congruent, and treat everyone with respect.

#50 Re Programme Your Brain

You’ve probably heard the brain is like a computer: garbage in and garbage out.  Everything you have ever experienced through your senses (from before you were born) is stored, filed, and locked away.  Your brain is not fixed.  At anytime you can choose to switch the channels, change the pictures, provide new programmes to follow.  We update computer programmes don’t we?  We can’t run new software on old platforms!

#51 Screw Up It All Up

Once you have a ‘picture’ clear in your head of what you think you are like.  You develop patterns of behaviour in alignment with your thoughts.  Not happy with the current pattern?  Play with the memories, screw up the pictures: scramble limiting patterns so your brain cannot hold the dominant picture any longer.

#52 No Matter How Intelligent You Are…

Filling your brain is not the same as using it.

#53 Read and Implement

What can you learn from people who have a similar story?  Most people write their story because they have something to share, some thing to say.  If you are addicted to personal development books, implement one thing from each for 28 days, otherwise why are you reading them?

#54 No More Blame

When things go wrong, it’s natural to look for the culprit or to lay blame at someone else’s’ feet.  Why blame others for your present moment?  You can change it.  Blaming others is a wasted lesson and depletes your personal power.

#55 Pay Attention

Some people wander through life with blinkers on their eyes.  Everything you need for now is already here; you only need to pay attention and see it.

#56 Create Your Mission Statement

It’ll change, it’ll grow, and it’ll develop.  Start with plan of where you are going, what you stand for, what your mission is, give yourself a purpose.

#57 Keep a Journal

Not a diary or a ‘daily events’ log.  Find peace and write.  Ask questions and see what comes up: what answer you find. Write it down.  It’s not the time to question who is writing, or edit what you put down.

#58 Affirmation

Write them down.  Keep them close.  Repeat them often.  Attach emotion and feel that the affirmation already exists. There purpose to help you reprogramme your brain.

#59 You See With Your Brain Not Your Eyes

Your reality is created by beliefs, perceptions, conditioning and programming.  You’ll see what you want to see whether it’s true or not.  What we don’t understand is not yet wired.  Ask yourself, is this the truth or is this only truth as I see it?

#60 Get In The Flow More Often

When you’re doing what you love and paying attention, time does not exist.  When you are doing what you hate and watching the clock, time is wasted.  1. Do what you love 2. Doing the necessary ask yourself ‘how can I make this moment count’?

#61 Change Your State

States of minds are not fixed.  They can change in a heartbeat.  Choose your states and if you recognise you are in an unproductive state, change it.

#62 Clarity and Focus

Contrary to opinion we cannot multi task and give all actions 100%.  We can do many tasks and reduce the success rate of that task.  This may be fine for small tasks that have become habitual and are unimportant (talking on the phone and making a coffee).  For larger plans with bigger outcomes, stay focused.

#63 See The Bigger Picture

When you are creating pictures of what you would like your future to be.  Start with the big picture.  Your brain likes to see the finished result, it can understand the larger picture much more than we give it credit.  Then break it down into ‘do-able’ and manageable ‘chunks’.

#64 Pay Yourself Compliments

It’s not bigheaded, it’s not arrogant.  You have the right to internalise what a great job you have done or are doing well.  You may be waiting for external approval.  It may never come.

#65 Get Passionate

Get paid doing something you love, or spend more time doing what you are passionate about.

#66 Practice, Practice, Learn More, Practice

It’s written that to become an expert takes 1,000 hours of practice.

#68 Learn These Secrets of Success

Secret 1 to Infinite:  There are no secrets.  None.  If you want success: define your definition, create a plan and go for it.

#69 Get Specific

When you say ‘they’ are like this, or ‘I am like that’, or  ‘that’s just me’, you’re generalising and distorting.  Making up your mind about the way things are without enough evidence.  When we generalise we miss vital pieces of information, be specific.

#70 End Procrastination

Do it or don’t.  Ask yourself why you aren’t doing what you know is good for you?  What are you achieving at this moment by doing nothing?

#71 Laugh at Yourself More Often

Not ridicule, but see yourself as this…‘human’.  Share laughter and humour.  There is nothing you cannot handle that is in your life right now.  You may not like it, but you can get through it.

#72 When In Overwhelm…

Take time out.  Stop and go and do something for you.  Speak to someone.  Regroup your thoughts. Overwhelm is stress-related.  We accomplish nothing of much value when in overwhelm.

#73 Reframe Events

We can place experience and how we feel about the event of the past into ‘boxes’, this can then create a ‘picture’ or generalisation of how we think all similar experiences are played out.  Change the frames.

#74 Dare Yourself to Dream Big

Everything starts its life as a seed: a thought, an idea, a picture of what could be.  Start your ideas, take initiative and make something of them.  Demand the best of your self, go for it.

#75 Treat Yourself to Living

There is a massive difference between life and living your life.  Turn off the television an hour every night and you’ll have an extra 15 days in a year.  Where else are you just in existence?

#76 Create Your Own Rules

Trust your own judgements, you are the expert of you.  You may have to follow the ‘rules’ others set once in a while.  Pursue and create what’s right for you, but remember all things are equal.

#77 When Things Don’t Go As Planned

Fall down 6 times, get up 7.  Plans are not the final outcome.  There is no proof that the journey you set sail on will be storm free.  Change your plans and direction as needed, life successes are setting sail in storms or calm seas.

#78 Swayed By The Minds of Others

When you start some of your new journeys there will be those that think you’re insane.  When you make progress there will be those that wish you’d turn back.  When you go further than anyone has been before you may be criticised.   When you reach the other shore you’ll be too far away to hear the comments anyway.

#79 Priorities

Rise and meet your own standards, not those of others.  Focus on the one main goal and commit to working on it every day.

#80 Follow The Course

Rivers run from source to sea, you however are limited to only seeing to the next bend.  What lies beyond may be uncertainty, but the sea is always reached in the end.

#81 Know Your Value

We all have value to add.  Life is strange; we don’t know our value when we begin.  Knowing you’re value, where you can contribute most builds and enhances self esteem.  Set out to add value.

#82 Beware of Energy Vampires

Do you have any ‘energy vampires’ in your life? Sucking at your soul, your dreams and aspirations? Depleting your reserves? Diminishing your goals? Time to make them extinct? Or at the very least find ways to protect yourself.

#83 Get Informed

Become a smart sponge to finding and getting the information that you need, ask the right questions. Soak up knowledge you need, wring out what you don’t.

#84 Choose Your Attitude

Your attitude is everything.    Many feel it is influenced by external events and influences.  How you decide to react is your choice.

#85 Create A Fire In Your Soul

You had it as a child; everything you did was filled with it.  It’s the ability to give you fully and with pleasure to a task, cause, belief, principle, and project.  It’s a burning so great nothing can stop you.  It’s the driving force; it motivates, inspires, and rises for you time and time again.  Enthusiasm.  Still got yours, for your life?

#86 The Don’t Know Game

Refuse to play it: you always know what you want.  How you want your life to be, what you want in it, what you want to create, what you want to cease.  Playing the ‘I don’t know’ is a sure fire way to giving up your personal power.  No matter how bizarre, far out there, frightening to admit to others, you do know.

#87 Reasons or Excuses

Decide if it’s a yes or a no, do it or don’t.  Reasons and excuses are readily available, if you want remarkable, decide.

#88 You Are Always Part of the Story

It’s sometimes easier to see ourselves as not part of the story.  Where there is a problem in your life, you are part of the story.  Ask yourself what part have you played?  How can you finish the ending?

#89 Deal With Criticism

There will be times when it comes your way.  You can accept or ignore, but listen with an open mind.  If it’s unjust and unfair see #15 and #17.  The more visible you are, the more you will have.

#90 Bounce Back Quicker

When hurdles and obstacles are in your way, there may be times when you didn’t see them coming or hear their approach and they knock you over.  You can get yourself of the path or you can learn the power behind resilience. 

#91 Full Accountability

In your mind you can create a ‘court’ where you can indict others and persecute them for the way things are in your life.  There may be events that were absolutely not your fault and should never have happened.  Swear to yourself from this moment forward, you are accountable for all that is happening.

#92 Equality

Do not set yourself up as someone better than those around you. It will not endear you to anyone and is bound to bring you heart­ache and misery.

#93 Responsibility

Responsibility is the skill of accepting 100% you are aware of the choices you are making and the consequences that come with them, are yours and yours alone.  #See 54

# 94 Inspire Others

Become the inspiration for another, no one knows when they are making a memory or creating a lasting change: a kind word, a compliment, a hug.  Small random acts of kindness can change an entire life course for another.

#95 Set In Your Ways?

You are the final product of your programming, conditioning, experience, and environment.  Your parents, peers, friends, teachers, and ancestry forced the most of which is upon you.  The rest is your own doing.  Some learn that their ‘ways’ are not theirs and start opening their mind to other suggestions.  Others accept ‘this is it’.  Which are you?

#96 Wakey Wakey Time to Rise

Is it time for you to awaken from a sleep that has lasted too long?  Practice at being fully aware of all and everything that is coming to you through your senses and instincts.  Our brains have a natural inbuilt ability to keep out millions of pieces of information on a daily basis.  It’s a safety mechanism: if you saw, felt, tasted, heard and smelt everything the noise would be unbearable.  When you open your ‘eyes’ fully, you may discover the possibilities and opportunities you thought only existed in dreams.

#97 Hollywood Star?

Stop getting upset about trivialities and petty annoyances. Act your age and do not behave like a temperamental movie star. No one has to bow to you or pay special attention to you: no matter how good your dramas are.

#98 When You Need Help, Ask

There is nothing wrong in asking for help or seeking support.  Self-help has developed a ‘school of thought’ that we have to do things all alone.  Wrong.  If you’re washing machine broke down, you probably wouldn’t ask a local car mechanic to fix it.  If you need help, get it.

#98 1/2 Get Support

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Your Turn

What’s your No 1 simplicity tip to life change? A quote perhaps, what did it mean to you? A one-liner that someone said to you once and it stuck.