Imagine you’re in a dark room. It’s pitch black. But it’s OK; you’ve got a flashlight. And in the darkness that flashlight projects a beam of light illuminating everything in its path. Unfortunately you know that there’s lot of things you can’t see in that darkened room – not without moving that beam of light from one place to another.

I love using the darkened room analogy to explain how some people can be optimistic and filled with gratitude and others are pessimists and always on the look out for the next impending disaster. I’m fascinated by the difference between those two types of people – not because I’m a natural optimist, but because I’m not.

You can become more optimistic!

Science has estimated that around 40-50% of our personality traits, such as introversion/extroversion, optimism/pessimism and so on, are fixed which leaves the rest open to our experiences and our choices.

So yes, some people are born with more of a tendency towards optimism BUT for the rest of us there’s a lot we can do to increase our happiness quota. Which brings me back to that darkened room…

Our thoughts are a bit like that torch beam and what we choose for focus on is like the beam of light. Optimists, whether born that way or through training, focus their flashlight on the good things in their lives. They’re more likely to focus on what they already have and appreciate those things, big and small.

Pessimists on the other hand are more likely to notice the negative things in their lives along with what they feel is missing. The really good news is that us glass half empty folks can train our minds to be more like our glass half full friends!

Here’s a simple way to train your mind

Get a notepad and write down 5 things you have in your life that you’re grateful for. You could include anything you like – big and small. That’s it! Then tomorrow, do it again, then the next day, and the next. In fact, do this every day for 2 weeks.

Here’s my list for today:

1. I’ve got a warm house; I don’t have to beg for change on the street.

2. I’ve got 2 great kids; even though they might drive me mad, cost me a fortune and have robbed me of my sleep I love ’em!

3. Today was one of those bright, sunny yet cold autumn days. The colours on the trees outside my window are fantastic.

4. I made a kick ass turkey and sage soup for dinner; it’s on the stove right now and smells fantastic!

5. I could afford to buy the ingredients for the soup; no one in my house has to go hungry unlike the 852 million on the planet who do. (How’s that for a statistic to make you appreciate what you have?)

Researchers found that when they got people to do this for 2 weeks it increased the happiness of participants and reduced their stress levels. What’s really cool though is that when the researchers followed up with those people 6 months later their levels of happiness were still high.

So what are you waiting for? Make your own list and start shifting your focus to the glass is half full way of viewing the world!

This is a Guest Post from Jo Casey

Jo Casey’s motto is ‘Work Happy’. She helps people beat stress so that they can LOVE their work. Whether you’re a freelancer, business owner or work the ’9-5′ your work should be a source of joy and enrichment but so many people are stressed out, overworked and feeling unhappy. Jo teaches practical ways to increase resilience, reconnect with your purpose and rediscover the joy in your working life.

You can connect with Jo at www.jocasey.com

The most important thing I’ve learned about social confidence, coaching people to develop this quality over the past few years, is that your level of social confidence is primarily determined by your mindset. 

How confident you are socially has little to do with how smart you are, how funny you are or how good looking you are, and it has a lot to do with your personal system of beliefs and perceptions.

In time, I realized there are 3 powerful mindsets that, if you practice and take in, will help you significantly in boosting your social confidence…

Mindset No. 1: “I am good enough.”

A lot of people who lack social confidence don’t see themselves as good enough for others the way they are. Many of them have a poor self-image or they suffer from an inferiority complex. As a result, they go into social settings expecting for others to not like them. So it’s only natural for them to feel anxious and not be very social.

But the truth is that almost every time, their belief that they’re not good enough is false. It’s something they came to believe for the wrong reasons, and it has little to do with reality. This is why it’s important to adopt the mindset that you are good enough.

When you’re in a social setting, try to think of yourself as good enough, and to hold this mindset. You’ll notice that you’ll be more relaxed and more social. And interestingly enough, if you think you’re good enough, others will tend to reach the same conclusion about you.

Mindset No. 2: “The world is a friendly place.”

Another common trait for people who lack social confidence is the inclination to see the world as an unfriendly place. They think others are rude and unsympathetic, and they just want to exploit them or make fun of them. It’s no wonder that they often have no friends whatsoever or just a couple of friends they’re not particularly fond of.

However, for the most part, this assumption they have is untrue. They only think this way because they’ve just over-generalized from a few bad experiences with people, often without even realizing it. There may be some mean people out there, but most people are actually friendly and eager to talk to others.

So it makes sense to adopt the mindset that the world is a friendly place. This will encourage you to be friendly with others, and typically they’ll respond in kind. This in turn will confirm that people are generally friendly, and it will make it even easier to be friendly yourself.

Mindset No. 3: “Everything is a learning experience.”

When you talk to people, you will make mistakes. You will say something inappropriate, you will be weird at times, or you won’t make that good of an impression. The most important mindset to adopt in order to keep going instead of withdrawing into your shell is that all of this is a learning experience.

Your social intelligence and social skills develop as you interact with others. Any mistake you make is an opportunity to learn and take your skills to the next level. And if you’re willing to go through a lot of learning, you can reach a skill level that few people ever reach.

This is why it’s crucial to think of any social interaction as a learning experience. Take the lessons you can from it and keep walking. As you learn and your social skills develop, so does your social confidence.

Adopt the right mindsets, and you can reach any degree of social confidence you want. And the more confident you are, the easier it is to build great relationships with people and have an amazing social life. I’m sure that you’ll love it.

Eduard Ezeanu is a social confidence coach and the creator of People Skills Decoded. He helps others to identify and overcome their limiting beliefs, in order to develop rock-solid social confidence, as well as a fulfilling social life.

When it comes to manifestation and making purposeful changes in your life, there’s no better way to make it work for you than being able to get yourself into the zone. You will have experienced this before at some point in your life, and you probably haven’t realised it.

The zone is that phase in your life, when everything just goes right. The feeling is simply awesome! It’s when everything you touch just seems to turn to gold. However, for most of us, we don’t have that luxurious life of having it all of the time. That’s why learning to access the zone more often is a valuable thing to learn.

One of the best ways to access the zone is using “intent” for manifestation. Put simply, intent is the deepest form of concentrated focus you can have. When you master your intent, amazing things will happen in your life.

The Principle Of Intent Explained

The point of building your intent is to give you enough manifestation power to achieve your goals. It means focusing intently on your dreams and other aspirations and living your life a certain way so that your intent builds automatically.

One way that helps this process is meditation, but there are many other tools you can use. For example, imagination exercises (which are different from visualization), self-image tools, no-self exercises and so on.
As the saying goes… “An empty mind is a powerful mind.” and there are so many diverse things you can do to enhance your success higher.

So, as your intent builds, your ability to get into the zone will also improve.

The Subconscious Mind To Access The Zone

Another reason you want to build your intent is to access the subconscious mind. In this state, your goals will be passing through from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind and being charged with manifestation powers. This is exactly why the zone seems to feel so good. You’re in a state where your manifestation energies are flowing in total unison and harmony.

Your subconscious also knows your innermost dreams and can make better decisions than your conscious mind can. So, getting at this level is you becoming more effective as a person and doing the right thing when you need it.

The Zone Gives You Intuition

When you start to access the zone, intuition will also come to the surface. This is when you have to listen to your gut instinct and move quickly so you can get maximum results.

Intuition is also helped with mind-calming exercises. The Laws Of Mind talks about this and its importance, but basically, the calmer your mind is, the better chance you have of being able to listen to intuition when it comes.

A lot of the time we have thoughts in our head but aren’t able to tell which thoughts are more important than others. If we learn to silence our thoughts and access the true silence inside our minds, enormous levels of manifestation will come about. You’ll notice an increase in creativity and positivity that will motivate you further for your goals.

The Energy Around You Builds Intent

Another powerful force that helps get into the zone is the energy around you. If the environment around you is cluttered and messy, your manifestations and ability to access the zone is also cluttered. Its essential you live in a place where the environment is operating efficiently so learn to do this now.

This is exactly why busy, efficient offices in big cities and business environments have people accessing the zone so many times. The nature of the place with so much going on makes people efficient, releasing manifestation energy.

There is so much more that can be said here and this is just a very small introduction.

This is a Guest Blog Post from Kads Adams

Kads runs the popular law of attraction resource “Manifestation Intelligence” – this week, actually right now, he has just released a BRAND NEW free manifestation ebook – it’s called Laws of Mind in which you can learn more about how to access the immense powers which lie within you. As you start to unlock your power, the life you truly desire can once and for all be achieved:

Laws of Mind Free eBook

The truth is, we all have dreams, yet very few of us are able to live the lives we’ve always dreamt of. On the other hand, we learn manifestation secrets but sometimes it doesn’t work as well as we would have liked.

The beauty of Kad’s Laws Of Mind System is that accessing the subconscious mind is fun. It’s exciting, rewarding and gives you a feel good factor. All the while, you are actually going to be working to train your subconscious mind to be working for you.

Download Manifest & Mind and learn more about it