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11 Great Things to Love About The 1980s

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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There are so many things to love about the 1980s. It’s a sweet time gone by, but just what is it about the past that makes life seem simpler? Ask your parents to revisit the past and they might wind the conversation down with a statement like, “Life was so much better back then.” Well, of course, it would seem that way.

Challenges, uncertainties and setbacks from that time have been watered down or erased by the mind. Only the most rewarding, joyous, loving and sweetest memories pop up when you revisit the past.

Money, Retirement, Rents and More

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Do that and any time period could seem like the best time in history. The one decade when that just might be different is the 1980s. Vibe during the 1980s was more laid back. And, children actually played outside in the 1980s. There wasn’t a fear of children feeling inadequate because they didn’t have as many followers or likes as their peers. Should a fight break out, those fights often involved no more than fists – not that fighting is ever good.

But, parents didn’t have to worry that their kids might be shot at school the way that school shootings have become more common today. Even more, the 1980s were a time when you could work toward a pension. Put in 30 years with the same company and you could retire with a pension, potentially living comfortably off your pension and a small part-time job. Or – depending on what you earned over your career, the pension could afford you a comfortable retirement all by itself.

According to CNN Money, “The percentage of workers in the private sector whose only retirement account is a defined benefit pension plan is now 4%, down from 60% in the early 1980s.” That was a good path to a happy retirement. Of course, people living in the 1980s may not have realized how good things were.

News, Music and Videos

For example, rent was lower in the 1980s. Check out what Apartment List shares about 1980s rent. Median rent during the 1980s — and this rent is adjusted to 2014 dollars – was below $700 a month. That’s median rent across the United States. Some parts of the United States saw rents that were below $500 a month. Add in the “real” possibility of a pension and the 1980s might start looking even better.

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CNN was just launching (it started June 1, 1980), so people hadn’t yet become addicted to watching the news day and night. Cable television played a whole lot of music videos. Back then, it wasn’t enough for a song to have solid lyrics and a great sound, artists had to tell a visual story with their songs. And it’s this that brings us to the list of 11 great things to love about the 1980s. Ready? Let’s go!

  • Music – Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, New Kids On The Block, Prince, New Edition, Run DMC, Madonna, Guns N Roses, Fleetwood Mac, Alanis Morissette and U2 are just a few of the many artists who produced great work during the 1980s. Music was fun, putting out hits like “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, “I Want To Dance With Somebody”, “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life”, “Let’s Groove” and “Walking On Sunshine”.

Great Things To Love About The 1980s

  • Working Out – Who doesn’t remember those gym memberships? Looking back, it seems like large public gyms took off during the 1980s. You could get a monthly gym membership for less than $20. Fitness instructors taught dance and aerobics. Remember? Jane Fonda came out with hit aerobics videos. And, who can forget those leotards, headbands and thick roll-down socks.
  • Ice Cream Truck – The 1980s were a time to start saying “so long” to the ice cream truck. Not sure if this is a great thing, but if you loved running out to the ice cream truck, the 1980s may have been your last chance to enjoy this neighborhood treat.
  • Mobile Entertainment – Okay. Admittedly, this equipment is not as robust and easy to carry in your pocket as – say – an iPhone or even an iPad. But, mobile equipment from the 1980s was a start to what you can enjoy today. Rewind the clock, and you’d have boom boxes for music, hand-held cassette players, video recorders and DVD machines. Blockbuster was the joint back then.
  • Waterbeds – At its top end, the waterbed market comprised 20% of the mattress market. People who owned a waterbed often talked about how comfortable and relaxing the beds were. There was just that one downside. Every now and then, a waterbed would burst, spilling water all over the floor.

More Great Things To Love About The 1980s

  • Hairstyles – Can you think of a time when there were more popular hairstyles? There was the fade, jheri curl (don’t miss that one), mullet, cornrows, buzz cut, mohawk and big curls. You could do nearly anything with your hair and look cool. In fact, it was almost as if nothing was off limits as long as you were authentic and rocked a style that highlighted your personality.
  • Movies – Gotta start with Al Pacino in Scarface. Didn’t you catch that movie back in the 1980s? The first Batman came out in the 1980s. Stand By Me, Dead Poets Society, The Color Purple, Rain Man, The Untouchables, Flash Dance and Fatal Attraction are a few other hit movies from the great 1980s. What were your favorite movies from the 1980s? Some of these movies are classics today.
  • Games – Let’s just start with Pac-Man. I knew people who spent their entire check playing this game. You could walk to a community recreation center or an arcade and play one electronic game after the next. Later, there was Rubik’s Cube, Tetris, Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, Zelda, Star Wars, Donkey Kong and Super Mario.

So Many Great Things To Love About The 1980s

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  • Cabbage Patch Dolls – Couldn’t leave this one out. I worked at a retail store in the 1980s and couldn’t believe how people actually fought over Cabbage Patch dolls. They were immensely popular. People collected the dolls. Kids loved to play with them, and then, just-like-that, it’s as if they went away. But they were so popular during the 1980s.
  • Family Meals – Back then, families at delicious homecooked meals around the kitchen table.
  • Books – You didn’t think I was going to leave this one off, did you? I was less than 10 years away from publishing my first novel – Portia – in the 1980s. Popular 1980s books included The Joy Luck Club, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Color Purple, Beloved, Patriot Games, The House On Mango Street, Lonesome Dove, The Bonfire Of The Vanities, Matilda, Sister Outsider and This Boy’s Life.

What are your favorite things about the 1980s? Or is that a time that is so far back to you, it’s hard for you to think of anything that was cool then? Fortunately, the great music, movies and books are still around.

Speaking of books, Love Pour Over Me is a book that takes place during the great 1980s. You’ll get the music, movies, intrigue and fun from the 1980s while reading this romantic suspense novel. Treat yourself! The 1980s was such a great time!

13 Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Give Up

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Fiction Books Author Denise Turney

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Are you at a life intersection, on the verge of major life changes? You know. It’s one of those not-meant-to-be-comfortable places where you absolutely know that you can’t stay where you are. Sounds simple. The rub is, you also don’t know where you’re going next. If you’re especially lucky, you don’t even know what to do right now. The fact that you’re about to enter the wonderful unknown is just one of 13 reasons why you don’t want to give up.

Navigating Life Changes – Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Give Up

It’s like existing in an invisible space, a place where nothing feels right. This could be why it’s so tempting to march in-step, run away from hard times enroute to rewarding life changes. But you know that won’t work.

In fact, keep doing what you’ve long done and you might afford yourself a feeling of safety. Yet, that safe feeling will only last so much longer. Examples of this include continuing to work a job you know (not think, not wonder – but know) isn’t working for you anymore. Or you might stay in a relationship that’s been bankrupt on love and honesty for years.

Because you’re more than a body, staying stuck will eventually put you in conflict. Your inner and outer selves will clash-clash-clash. Doesn’t matter how much you meditate. It’s hard to reach the center of peace this way.

Genesis of Dreams

As a matter of fact, that type of conflict hurts after awhile — hurts every single day. As easy as it may be to see how this could happen with relationships, work, your health or finances, there’s a critical focal area where you might miss the cost of standing at an intersection for far too long.

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That critical area is the genesis of your deepest dreams. This dream may have nothing to do with your parents’ or partner’s expectations of you. For instance, if you want to be a biologist, it’s not because your father taught biology for more than 30 years at a renowned university. To continue, it’s not because you’re motivation is to mimic your father because you believe that it’s a shortcut to earning your dad’s approval.

Reflect back on your earlier experiences. Did the dream that you carry reveal itself while you were a kid? Or did you have an adult experience that made it clear to you what you’re in this earth to do?

Reflect on Your Deepest Desire

The fact that it was revealed to me that I was a writer when I was 10 years old has served as great motivation during hard times when my books weren’t selling like I wanted. Even more, the way that my gift was revealed to me has seen me through heartbreaking life changes, like hard good-byes and scary career shifts.

So, as you consider 13 reasons why you don’t want to give up on your dreams, reflect on why you started to pursue your dream in the first place. For once, don’t think about the missteps, the frustrations, failures and hard learned lessons.

Reasons Not To Give Up

Instead, invest 15 minutes in thinking about why you started pursuing your dream. Your answer is the first reason why you don’t want to give up. Here are more reasons why you don’t want to toss in the towel:

  • Remember why you started (see above)
  • Your true self knows that you can do it! The part of you that’s connected to all that is in truth already knows just what you should do right now. Quiet your mind and seek that guidance. It’s always there, making it a key reason why you should never give up.
  • Believe it or not, you’re waiting to experience the fulfillment of your dream. Can’t you feel the longing?
  • Dreams impact more than the dreamer. You may be amazed at how many people your dream fulfillment touches.
  • Someone is watching you. Yes, you. As tough as that might be to believe, there are people watching how you respond to what occurs. They’re watching how you recover from setbacks. And they’re watching how you treat yourself and others during hard times. If you use determination and persistence, including strong determination, you might inspire another person who’s at a crossroads to keep pushing forward.
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More Reasons Not To Give Up

  • Strong determination can lob you over the toughest challenges.
  • Success is waiting for you and you know it.
  • Shifts in mindfulness, rest, diet, lifestyle and exercise could offer the types of motivation to get you through periods of success drought, frustration and fear.
  • Fulfilling the next dream could propel you toward your larger destiny.
  • Doing what you came here to do is empowering.
  • Nothing can stop you once you make up your mind to succeed.
  • Fear is a four-letter word that represents powerful illusions – things that aren’t real.
  • It’s time you showed yourself that you really are the creation of the most powerful force alive.

Focusing on success quotes, positive quotes and components of the self determination theory could fuel your forward motion. Yet, reading encouraging quotes might not be enough to get you through hard times. Alongside these resources, you might need to regularly reflect on why you started pursuing your dream in the first place.

As iffy as it may sound, you also might have to alter your diet to energize your body and keep your brain sharp. After all, the greatest dreams may not manifest if you don’t have the energy to take the right physical actions.

Mastering Life Intersections

Certainly, you’ve heard it before. Birds of a feather flock together. Another way of saying this is be careful who you keep company with. Pay attention to who you allow into your inner circle. After all, the people closest to you will influence your thoughts, your beliefs.

People in your inner circle could also use their influence over you to entice you to trade your dreams for money. Another thing that could happen is someone close to you may fuel you with the belief that you’ve reached the top or gone as far as you can go.

Let this happen and you could find yourself at another intersection. You could find yourself facing hard times as you face the choice of following your inner guide that mapped out your dream or following anything else.

Here’s to trusting that you never reach this intersection again. Use strong determination, daily motivation and reflection to keep advancing in the right direction. Somewhere inside yourself are the exact steps to take. Tap in. Right inside of yourself you already know what to do. You already know which way to go.

How to Adjust to Change with Grace and Goodness

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Don’t you think it’s time to adjust to change with grace? After all, looking at approaching change through the lens of goodness could prepare you for real success.

Albert Einstein is quoted as sharing, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” This world will give you lots of practice at adjusting to change, whether or not you cause the shift. Change is certain. If you pause and consider it, you’ll see that change happens all the time in this world. But here’s the thing. You’re experiencing change even if your body’s eyes can’t see it. Those pimples, wrinkles, expanding chests, grey hairs and achy joints that reveal themselves during adulthood don’t just show up.

Adjust To These Changes

Akin to a seed germinating underground, changes occur while it seems like nothing is shifting. You don’t have to be obsessed about your physical appearance to be shaken when your hair grays, you spot pimples on your face, you gain weight, your voice deepens or your skin starts to sag. Even absent bodily obsession, you’ll have to adjust to these changes.

And, it might not always be easy. As a first step, consider how you felt, thought and behaved before you knew that change was happening. Did you experience fear? Were you struggling with hopelessness, anger or stress? Or were you going about your days as if nothing new was up?

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Raising this point to show that change may not be what shakes you. After all, if you don’t get upset while the seed is germinating (in the process of creating great change), could it really be the revelation (actually becoming aware of the change that was taking place below the surface) that spins you into fear, excitement, depression, anger or hopefulness?

Spot the Humor in Change

So, consider what may really be causing upset that you experience. To adjust to change, also accept what has occurred. This applies whether you’re experiencing change due to an organizational realignment at work, a home move, becoming a parent, getting married or aging. Encourage yourself with the truth that you can adapt to the change.

As Harvard Business Review shares, also spot the humor in the shift. Specifically, “Trying to find a funny moment during an otherwise unfunny situation can be a fantastic way to create the levity needed to see a vexing problem from a new perspective.” Even more, sometimes looking for humor in the change helps others to feel better about the change too.

Seek Good Solutions

Next, seek solutions. For example, you might set aside time to review what caused the change if the change produced negative results. Following that, you could start writing down actions that you could take to avoid experiencing or causing a similar outcome again.

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Of course, the same applies if the change is good and you want to repeat it. What you don’t want to do is focus tirelessly on emotions that you experienced after you noticed the change. In fact, Harvard Business Review shares that, “research shows that actively and repeatedly broadcasting negative emotions hinders our natural adaptation processes.”

On the other hand, don’t dismiss emotions. Talk about what you’re feeling. Just don’t stop there. Map out specific actions that you will take to enjoy experiences that you truly want. These are experiences that cause you to feel peace, loved and joy.

What You Can Do

And, take account of what you can do. Spending too much time being upset that someone else hasn’t changed or being upset about an organizational, family, community or cultural shift could cause you to feel stuck. It could also take your sight off of the most important factor, the most vital key, in your environment – YOU. Leo Tolstoy said it well when he said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” 

To adjust to change with grace and goodness, accept that any type of change could create stress. This happens, in part, because change can shift your perception of who or what you are? Depending on the change, it could also shift what you had long believed that you were capable of.

There are also times when change shifts what you had long believed that you wanted to do with your life. In those instances, change can feel like a loss. It could feel like you have to start over, building anew. This raises another way to adjust to change with grace and goodness.

Build and Strengthen Confidence

Build and strengthen your confidence. You can do this by practicing daily self-love techniques. Make it a daily practice to do what it takes to prove that you do, in fact, love yourself. As mentioned in the book, Awaken Blessings of Inner Love: Shortcuts to Self-Love and Success In A Busy World, proving that you love yourself (only you can do this), is a great confidence booster.

Confidence works like a good energy. It fuels your efforts to do what it takes to move toward good change. While you’re adapting to change, keep anchors in your life. Anchors are activities that you do each day. Examples of anchors include meditating in the morning, going for a walk outside during midday and reading a good book in the evening.

Psychology Today shares, “The more change that is happening, the more important it is to stick to your regular schedule—as much as possible. Having some things that stay the same, like walking the dog every morning at 8 am, gives us an anchor.”

Shift Away from Trying to Figure Things Out

Writing in a journal can also help you to adapt to change. Why? While writing, you can increase neural activity in your brain. It’s also important to get enough exercise, drink plenty of fresh water and eat a healthy, balanced diet.

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Also, take breaks and set times when you free yourself from worrying or trying to figure things out. For instance, you could tell yourself that you won’t try to figure out how you’re going to complete a rush project after 6pm each day. Top it off by telling yourself that you won’t focus on the project one entire day during the weekend.

Should you start to drift into worrying about the project, remind yourself of your promise and stop. Instead, focus on three things that you are thankful for. Write someone an appreciation note. Call a friend. Play with a pet. There are boundless things that you can do in place of worrying.

Adjust to Change with Grace and Goodness

As you adjust to change with grace and goodness, it may also help to read life changing quotes about change. See if these resonate with you.

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” -Maya Angelou and “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” -Jimmy Dean. Finally, consider, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” -Socrates

Talking About Inner Blocks – Are You Afraid of Failing?

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Inner blocks make it hard to advance. Low expectations are inner blocks that can be hard to get through. If you’re feeling stuck, it might be time to ask yourself this simple question – Are you afraid of failing?

If you’re afraid of failing, you’re not alone. After all, failure doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t matter how confident, hopeful or positive you are. Failure comes with a hard, gut punch that can make you feel like you’ll be stuck in an unwanted experience forever.

Are You Afraid of Failing – Hiding Won’t Help

Another element about failure is how it can find you thinking that, just because you slipped up once, you’ll get tripped up again and again. This is how failure can seem powerful. Yet, the key isn’t to run from failure. In fact, if you hide or run from failure you might:

  • Convince yourself that an unchallenging, listless life is what you came to this earth to experience (And I’m betting that you know better than to believe that’s the truth.)
  • Turn down offers to take on higher levels of work (For instance, you might turn down the chance to get promoted into a people management role at work or you might turn down the opportunity to lead a social or community organization.)
  • Criticize others, accusing them of not supporting you enough, if you do accept greater responsibility and fear that you’ll fail (In this case, it’s as if you want someone to map out what you need to do. Or you might want someone to coddle you so that, if events don’t turn out good, you can blame the other person.)
  • Jam your schedule with “busy work” so you’ll have a ready excuse as to why you can’t accept a new challenge.
  • Paralyze yourself with fear or dread and make it painfully hard to make good choices and advance. Furthermore, this could cause you to stay stuck in unrewarding jobs, financial situations and relationships.

No Fun Living The Safe Life

As with other safe life choices, running from failure might feel comforting. But, if you keep it up, you could find yourself slipping into boredom. You could find it difficult to feel engaged with life. So, what can you do?

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How can you start to move beyond a fear of failure? To begin, admit that you are believing you have failed. Admit that you are feeling as if you dropped the ball. These feelings may come in the form of embarrassment, irritability, agitation, shyness or anger. For me, when I think that I’ve failed or that I am failing, I tend to experience feelings of agitation, fear and anger. If I don’t start overcoming failure, I can struggle to sleep. On top of that, I might replay a recent area where I think I failed over and over in my mind. Talk about irritating.

After admitting that you think and feel as if you’ve failed, accept that success is not final, and that failure is not fatal. Consider this. Your greatest achievements are experiences that came and went. For example, you might have been an academic, creative or athletic standout in high school. Fast forward 20 years and you might be struggling to drop 15 pounds and get back in shape.

Failure Is Not Permanent

That or you might not have continued to learn or engage in creative arts. Whether you noticed it or not, you lived out the fact that success is not final failure is not fatal. It also helps to realize that failing forward could find you enter the very experiences that you’ve dreamed about for years.

In other words, changing the way that you perceive failure could help reduce your fear of failing. You might discover that failing is a part of trying new things and learning. Here are more actions that you could take to start overcoming failure beliefs.

  • Revisit a time when you took a huge leap forward after you learned lessons that popped up during a perceived failure.
  • Break at least three routines each day. For instance, you could brush your teeth at the kitchen sink, eat breakfast on the back porch or take a shower in your guest bedroom.
  • Raise your hand to work on a new project. Be willing to learn, make mistakes and grow.
  • Speak with someone new once a week. A simple “Hello” could help strengthen your confidence and make you more open to failing forward.

Face What You’re Feeling

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  • Approach a large project in parts rather than looking at it as one huge “thing to do”. This way, you could see mistakes as recoverable and not as definitive or lasting.
  • Enjoy being outside in nature. Give yourself time to unwind and not worry about new, challenging situations that appear in your life.
  • Talk about your fears around failing and taking on new challenges with a trusted friend.
  • Pray and trust the Creator for inner vision to see that you are greater than anything you could face.

The sooner you start dealing with a fear of failing, the better. After all, being afraid of failing can take a strong swing at your self-esteem. A dipping self-esteem could cause you to think that you don’t deserve good relationships, to keep trying to advance or to realize or dreams.

Look around and you may spot people who’ve fallen into this trap. They live inside the shell of routine to the point that they appear to be living the same day over and over. Take this route and you could feel like you’ve only lived 10 original days over the course of two years.

That’s not what you want.

Dream Big and Soar

So, start identifying the emotions and beliefs that you associate with trying and learning, also known as “failing”. Remember how you tried, failed and learned when you were a kid. In fact, some of your biggest lessons came to you while you were growing up.

Revisit the courage that the child in you is so familiar with. After all, it was through trying, failing and learning that you started to walk then run. Had you not seen the joy in trying, failing and learning, you wouldn’t have learned to read, play fun games, create art pieces and so much more.

Don’t live stuck in routine and fear. Dream big and dare to fail. However, don’t seek to fail. Instead, seek to learn and grow.

Books That Help You Gain Deeper Relationship Connections

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl and A Belle In Brooklyn by Demetria Lucas are books that explore what it takes to gain deeper relationship connections. Among the other books that take this focus there’s The Cinderella Complex by Colette Dowling and The Greatest Salesman In The World by Og Mandino. Whether taking a deeper examination of the human mind, relationship beliefs, the single life or marriage, each of these books invites readers to accept truths that they may have spent years turning away from.

Discovering Books to Gain Deeper Relationship Connections

It’s this acceptance that encourages readers to do the work to cultivate deeper relationships. Yet, as much value as good books offer, it’s not always easy to find a relationship path that’s made clear in a book. Why? A book that focuses on a relationship path isn’t always a bestseller. In fact, these books might be hidden at the bottom of a discount books rack.

Or they might be at the back of a bookstore in the faraway reference section. The good news is that discovering books that offer techniques that help you gain deeper relationship connections may be destined to happen, especially if you’re an avid book reader.

If you’re not up for either of those ways, here are more, proven ways to start discovering books, including fiction, that include the material you need to gain deeper relationship connections. To begin, check out local book clubs that discuss nonfiction and fiction books that explore deep life meanings.

Book Clubs and The Local Library

It shouldn’t take long. A good place to start is your local library. Local bookstores host book club meetings too. Ask a librarian or bookstore clerk if book clubs meet at their facility. Find out the name of the book club.

The name of the book club might reveal the types of books that the club reads. If not, ask the librarian or bookstore clerk if she has details on the book club. At the least, get the contact information of the book club president. Contact the president and find out the titles of the last five to six books that the club has read.

You’ll soon know if this is a book club that discusses books that explore the science of the mind and relationships. Even if the books are fiction, they may be so well researched that they read and feel like nonfiction, offering real-life relationship benefits.

Another Path to Discovering Good Relationship Books

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Another path to discovering books that share practical techniques you could use to gain deeper relationship connections is to read at a slower pace. For example, while reading nonfiction books on the brain or the role that emotions play in relationships, consider reading one chapter a day. Give yourself time to process what you read.

Actually, allow yourself to be impacted by what you read. Even more, while you’re taking your time reading these books, highlight texts that resonate with you.

What To Highlight While Working to Gain Deeper Relationship Connections

And yes. It’s sort of like being back in school. But if you recall school, you know how highlighting text can strengthen memory and make parts of a book jump out that much more for you. Don’t be surprised if you have dreams that are related to what you read and highlight. Pay attention to these dreams. They could clue you in on changes that you want to take to gain deeper relationship connections.

This includes romantic relationships and non-romantic relationships. It’s good. Because, when you think about it, non-romantic relationships make up the bulk of your relationships. For this reason, a book that attempts to show you how to develop a deep relationship should show you how to cultivate deeper friendships.

More ways to find these books is to join online Meetup book groups. As a tip, you may get more from attending in-person book club meetings. It’s during in-person book club meetings that you can start to build quality relationships with other book lovers. Talk about a way to learn how to sharpen communication skills and gain deeper relationship connections.

Take a Deeper Dive

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Check out these ways to find books that offer solutions to help you gain deeper relationship connections. None of these ways take a lot of time. What can certainly help is a strong desire to learn, grow, awaken and actually enjoy deeper relationships.

  • Ask friends to share details on good relationship, psychology or human development books that they are aware of
  • In a similar approach, join social media book groups. Goodreads, Poets & Writers, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Google Books are good starting places. You’re bound to learn about books that focus on relationship development if you’re active in literary groups.
  • Attend book festivals. You can find these festivals online and in-person. Additionally, attending book festivals is like diving into a literary gold mine.
  • Follow your favorite authors at sites like AALBC.com, Book Bub, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When these favorite authors release a new book, you can be one of the first people notified about the new titles.

Find a Path Toward Deeper Relationship Connections

For nonfiction, a good way to find a book that helps readers gain deeper relationship connections is to check the reference section at the back of the last relationship book you read. Nonfiction books lean on a lot of research, including surveys, the results of laboratory work, interviews and individual and group studies, all which may be listed in the book’s reference section.

However, the true test of a book’s impact is the changes that you experience while you’re actually reading a book. A good book will guide you toward positive, long-term relationship changes. Here’s another benefit. Unless you loan your books out, you can return to good books for years, putting relationship insights, techniques and advice at your fingertips.

Happy Thanksgiving Blessings to Love and Share

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By Novels and Books Author Denise Turney

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The best Happy Thanksgiving blessings to love and share work wonders year-round. After all, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to focus on your blessings, people and experiences that you are thankful for. Focus on what you’re thankful for and you could shift into a better mental state, at any time of year. Even more, you could alter your energy enough to attract more good into your life.

Focus on Thanksgiving

Zoning in on appreciation is a quick to-do. For example, you could write down 13 relationships, experiences and successes that you’ve had over the last 12 months. This is how my early morning unfolded. And I’m grateful for it. This morning, I paused and considered my family.

Gifts of openness, honesty, trust, care, presence, love and more are what I’m blessed to receive from my family. For you, it might be family that enriches your life too. Or, it could be the fact that you earn your entire income engaging in activities that you love. That is a situation that’s worth an expression of thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving Blessings

Here’s a quick start on other life experiences that you could hold appreciation for. However, you might be so busy that you don’t take the time to think about these blessings. Today, consider changing that habit. Instead of overlooking what you’re thankful for, invest two minutes into each day to zone in on what you can “thank” someone, the Creator, the universe or nature for. You might appreciate:

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  • Physical health that fuels you to travel, spend time with family and friends and do work that you love
  • Mental balance that makes it easy for you to feel loved, cared for, valued and loving
  • Housing that offers shelter, reliability and comfort
  • Fresh water to drink
  • Access to physical, psychological and emotional support (even if you don’t need the support now, it’s a blessing when support is easy for you to access should you need it in the future)
  • Ability to travel to destinations that excite you
  • Colleagues who appreciate and support you
  • Supportive customers and clients
  • Creativity
  • Pets who are excited to see and be around you
  • Rest and a good night of sleep
  • Skills and talents that have opened doors for you
  • Living in an area that gives you easy access to the theater, restaurants, libraries, bookstores, worship centers, nature or other things that you enjoy being part of

Benefits of Practicing Appreciation

This year on Thanksgiving Day, focus on your blessings in the morning. At the end of Thanksgiving Day, think about your blessings again. In less than eight hours, the list of experiences that you’re thankful for will have grown since morning. Whether you spend Thanksgiving Day alone or with family, friends or at a shelter, you may be able to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

That alone is an experience to be thankful for. Consider getting into the habit of counting your blessings. Get into the habit of looking for more people to appreciate. Doing so could open you up to more loving relationships. An Emotion study found that, “thanking a new acquaintance makes them more likely to seek an ongoing relationship.”1

Studies have also shown that living with thanksgiving improves physical health. People who practice appreciation, have been shown to experience fewer body pains, according to Psychology Today.1 Start living with a spirit of thanksgiving every day and you could also sleep better.

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Improved mental and emotional health have also been linked to active appreciation. In fact, the more frequently you practice thanksgiving, the deeper the benefits may be for you.

There’s also a link between being appreciative and self-esteem. Psychology Today shares that, “Other studies have shown that gratitude reduces social comparisons. Rather than becoming resentful toward people who have more money or better jobs—a major factor in reduced self-esteem—grateful people are able to appreciate other people’s accomplishments.”

Happy Thanksgiving

Furthermore, looking for experiences and people to be thankful for could make you stronger psychologically. Not only could searching for things to appreciate improve your self-esteem, it could steer you away from depression and feelings of isolation.

Additionally, you might become mentally strong to the point where you navigate through an unexpected challenge without feeling like you’re falling apart. If you think back to instances when you counted losses and challenges instead of looking for experiences to be thankful for, you might discover that it was during those times when you felt at your lowest.

So, consider using this Thanksgiving Day as a launch pad into a lifetime of appreciation. To kick it off, I truly thank you for supporting my writings and my books. You are a part of my thanksgiving. When I think about how much I love to write and create stories, the chance to use this passion to connect with awesome book buyers and book readers is a huge-huge blessing. I am so grateful for you and your support. Happy Thanksgiving!

Resources:

  1. 7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude | Psychology Today

Let’s Talk About the Path to Healthy Mental Discipline

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By Writer and Freelancer Author Denise Turney

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Your happiness is linked to healthy mental discipline. Spend one day ruminating and you know how fast you can seemingly lose control of your thoughts. Before you know it, you’re doing more than thinking about a deadline, situation or project. You’re replaying a conversation or upcoming event over and over in your head. And getting back on track is not as easy as just thinking happy thoughts.

Healthy Mental Discipline – Keep Your Thoughts from Holding You Hostage

To keep your thoughts from holding you hostage, you need to discipline your mind. Start small. Choose a school assignment, work project or relationship situation that doesn’t trigger anxiety, fear, anger or distrust. Set a day and time that you will think about this school assignment, work project or relationship situation. As an example, you could set aside 15 minutes on Monday at 12 noon to think about how you’re going to apologize to your sister for dropping your kids off at her apartment last Saturday with no notice and not returning to pick your kids up for four hours.

Or, you could spend 15 minutes on a Friday morning mapping out how you will prepare for a 45 minute presentation that you’re slated to give in a month. To stay free of rumination, stick to the time limit that you set and definitely limit this time to no more than 30 minutes. Remember. You’re setting the date and the time when you’ll invest energy on the topic. As you become more experienced at living with a disciplined mind, you could invest the majority of your mental energy on what is occurring right now, rather than focusing on past or future events.

Also, as Forbes shares, to develop a disciplined mind, get rid of temptations. Ways to pull this off include turning off your computer at 5pm, 6pm or a set time each night. Once you shut down your computer, stop thinking about work. If you don’t explore the disciplined mind path, you could physically leave work but remain at work mentally all day and all night.

Stop Ruminating and Gain Healthy Mental Discipline

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You could even ruminate about work on weekends, holidays and vacations. There may be fewer easier ways to stumble into burnout. So, engage the disciplined mind and set healthy limits. Remove temptations in order to make it easier to make smart decisions.

Another way to discipline your mind is to start breaking up a few of your routines. Breaking routines is a great way to get your brain off autopilot. Dangers of your brain being on autopilot include slipping into bias, missing data that you could use to make good decisions and getting into accidents. Keeping your brain on autopilot could also cause you to slip into mental, dietary and lifestyle ruts.

Breaking Mental Patterns

Now, imagine that your brain’s autopilot behavior included looping thoughts, where you repeat anxious thoughts over and over, similar to playing a record again and again. When it comes to finding happiness, that’s a mental pattern to break. Here are ways to get your brain off autopilot:

  • Eat a different healthy food for breakfast.
  • Get out of bed an hour earlier than normal. To avoid cutting back on sleep, go to bed an hour earlier.
  • Shampoo and condition your hair at night instead of in the morning.
  • Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed for several nights.
  • Sing a song first thing in the morning, even before you eat breakfast or brush your teeth.
  • Breathe deeply five times before you engage in an angry or fear-based conversation.

Another way to get your brain off autopilot is to write in a journal about a situation that you’ve been ruminating about. Actually, write down the specifics of the situation. Write about how you felt before, during and after the situation. Psychology Today shares that you also benefit from writing about what you learned from the situation.

Focus On What’s Happening

The key is to focus on what is happening. Start taking in data and new information that you may have been excluding while your brain was on autopilot. Other small actions that you could take to discipline your mind are to do three loving things for yourself each day.

And forgive yourself for mistakes that you’ve made and have yet to forgive yourself for or let go of. After all, forgiveness is a key part of the disciplined mind. That includes asking forgiveness of other people who you mistreated in word or deed.

Forgive once and you may come to know how freeing that choice is. Forgiveness frees up your energy. It removes the energy and mental space needed to “hide”. As a tip, forgiveness is an action that you may have to practice repeatedly over the course of your life’s journey.

But, when you experience the benefits of releasing energy that you’ve been spending to “hide” a memory, you may become eager to forgive others and yourself. It really is freeing.

Practice Forgiveness to Gain Healthy Mental Discipline

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While you practice forgiveness and break routines to get your brain off autopilot, explore new hobbies and activities to engage in. Traveling, taking a free or low cost community college course or joining a professional discussion group are ways to explore new activities. This is important because your brain is going to seek out new mental investments.

Throughout the day also take breaks. Treat your mind to rest intervals throughout the day. Should your mind work like mine, this may take a bit of practice. The key is to get started. The three loving acts that you engage in each day may prove to you that you’re loved and worth loving.

You’ve got it. Healthy mental discipline isn’t a one and done effort. Practice self-awareness to stay on course. However, for self-awareness to work you have to be honest. This means that you disallow yourself to engage in rationalization when it comes to getting to the core of why you made a mistake or mistreated someone, including yourself.

Path Of Healthy Mental Discipline

Instead of rationalizing, become aware of your emotions, thoughts and your behavior. Become aware of how you treat yourself and how you let other people treat you. In fact, you could come to see the way that you allow others to treat you as an extension of how you are indirectly treating yourself.

Even if it doesn’t appear to be, the way that you treat yourself and the way that you allow others to treat you is part of mental discipline. So, treat yourself to three things that you love each day, forgive, break a few routines and practice self-awareness to enjoy living on the path of healthy mental discipline.

Why It’s Important to Change Your Plans, But Keep Your Goals

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By African American Books Author Denise Turney

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Name one thing that feels better than achieving goals that you set for yourself. Really. Don’t you feel good when you get what you want? Celebrate your accomplishments. Acknowledge what you’ve experienced. What you might not see now is that, at some point to sustain success, you may have to change your plans, but keep your goals.

It’s worth it, because you want to feel joy. Heck. The reason that you even want to get or experience anything is because you think that the experience will make you feel good. Yet, fulfilling your goals can take work – lots of work. I’m talking working 10 to 14 hours a day six days a week. Admittedly, it may not feel that way when you start. But keep going.

Set Big Goals

If you don’t abandon your goals (and, I hope you don’t), you’ll come to see that there are a lot of twists, turns, bumps and lessons to learn ahead. These twists, turns, bumps and failures can knock the wind out of you. This may happen if you lose sight of the goal. It can also happen for other reasons, two which are covered in this article.

Before covering why pursuing what you really want could become exhausting (and sharing ways to avoid getting side swiped with frustration and fatigue while you pursue your goals), let’s discuss ways to keep your goals on track. This switch could make the difference between progress and giving up.

Sharing personal details with you, when looking back over my writing career, it’s obvious that, to keep advancing, I’ve had to change my plans. And, I’m not talking about just changing my plans once. I’ve had to change my plans too many times to count.

Don’t Overlook This

To keep moving forward, another thing that I’ve had to do is to celebrate the fulfillment of small goals. What I didn’t do was change the goal. But, how can you keep the same goal when nothing that you’re doing yields results that bring you closer to that goal?

Even more, how can you stay encouraged while pursuing the same goal over a long stretch, maybe over years? For starters, set big goals. For instance, if the goal is to launch your own organic skin care product line, you could set big goals to identify, secure and open a manufacturing warehouse. Another big goal could be to land in-store agreements with the top 10 beauty stores.

Keep Goals On Track

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Follow this goal up with the goal to generate more than $100,000 a month in sales. To keep your goals on track, set small goals. Taking the beauty products example, small goals could be to:

  • Create your first skincare product
  • Identify a name for your new product, and trademark that name and product ingredients
  • Set up meetings with beauty product buyers at three different stores each week
  • Develop a product proposal (you’ll use the proposal to negotiate large store sales)
  • Reach out to 3 organizers of health and beauty events a day and schedule time to discuss sponsorships, keynote speaking and vending opportunities
  • Contact a commercial real estate agent and start getting prices, availability by square footage, etc. for floor space that you could use to manufacture your skincare products

Use A Goal Planner as you Change Your Plans, But Keep Your Goals

When you set big goals, you keep the carrot in front of the horse, so to speak. Big goals keep you motivated. They give you something to keep targeting. Small goals increase your belief. Each time that you achieve a small goal, acknowledge what you’ve done.

Sound like a lightweight deliverable? Please don’t receive it that way. Instead of dismissing or overlooking small goals that you fulfill, celebrate these successes. Looking for celebration ideas? How about traveling to the beach and staying at a bed and breakfast for the weekend. Or, you could order yourself a bouquet of flowers, treat yourself to a live stage play or enjoy a meal at your favorite restaurant.

The key is to acknowledge each of your successes. Another way to stay on track is to use a goal planner. For example, when I’m developing a new novel and marketing my existing books, I fill out a weekly goal sheet. My weekly goal sheet is a running goal tracker.

Consider Weekly Goal Sheet After You Change Your Plans, But Keep Your Goals

On my weekly goal sheet, I track when I write on my new novel. Better yet, I track the names of book bloggers, radio show hosts, literary newsletter owners, etc. who I contact each week. Using this type of goal planner keeps me honest. It keeps me from thinking that I’ve done more or less writing and book marketing than I actually have.

You’re going to need these intermediate successes. Why? Should you set big goals, it could be years before you achieve even one of those big goals. Wait years to acknowledge your progress and one unexpected setback could derail you.

So, celebrate forward steps.

Now, this next part you may not like. If you’re like me, you probably make plans. For instance, you might plan what you’re going to do over the weekend. Furthermore, you might plan your vacations, holiday events and how you will achieve your small goals and larger goals.

Change Your Plans, But Keep Your Goals

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Sounds simple until you consider how many times your plans have had to be changed. Weather, health challenges, finances, relationship changes and other demands can easily change your plans. Therefore, to keep progressing toward the fulfillment of your big goals, be flexible.

Here are ways that you could have to change your plans:

  • Adjust your budget to meet marketing or advertising goals
  • Review marketing and advertising analytics, eliminating, reducing or increasing spend levels in smart ways
  • Transition virtual prospecting events to in-person meetings or vice versa
  • Reduce work hours from 10 hours a day to 6 hours a day for three months to avoid burnout
  • Partner with a new social media marketing company if the current company that you work with isn’t helping you to generate more sales
  • Enhance podcast interviews with offline radio and television interviews
  • Replace giveaways with 50% off products
  • Develop new products to keep interest in your company high
  • Relocate your brick-and-mortar office to a new, more profitable location
  • Conduct sales calls on Tuesday and Thursday instead of Monday and Friday
  • Co-partner with another business to introduce your products to new customers
  • Get relevant certificates to increase trust in your offerings
  • Redesign your company logo and brand colors

A Word Of Encouragement

In closing, set big goals to stay motivated. Add small goals in between your larger goals. But, make sure that all of your small goals lead you closer and closer to your big goals. And, celebrate when you achieve those small goals.

More importantly, remain flexible. Life is fluid, constantly in motion. There’s no way that you can see every shift that you’ll have to deal with. For that reason, be willing to change your plans that are connected to achieving your goals. Just don’t change your goals. Keep aiming toward your small goals and your big goals, all while you adjust your plans as needed.

How to Change Your Mind So You Can Change Your Life

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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It sounds too simple. Change your mind and you will change your life. Just the words sound so simple, it’s hard to believe that thinking differently could actually create new experiences. Yet, if you consider how your mood shifts as your focus alters, you may start to see the connection between thoughts and experience. But how do you change your mind?

Change Your Mind – Linking Thoughts and Experiences

Admittedly, it’s not a straight line and it doesn’t happen absent awareness and honesty. Even more, changing your mind gets harder if you engage in habitual thinking or repetitive emotional states. For example, if you focus on work as soon as you wake in the morning, you might teach your brain to feel stressed or overwhelmed early in the day.

If you don’t practice awareness, the next step you take might see you aligning strong emotions to specific days of the week, times of the day, people or places. Should this happen, you could convince yourself that Mondays are challenging, that long vacations are bad and that your in-laws are mean people. That’s how easy it is to train your brain to link emotions and people, places, days and experiences.

Here’s more. The University of Minnesota shares that, “Thoughts are mental cognitions—our ideas, opinions, and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. They include the perspectives we bring to any situation or experience that color our point of view (for better, worse, or neutral).” Furthermore, it’s shared that, “if you are aware of your thoughts and attitudes, you can choose to change them.”

Stop Habitual Thinking and Repetitive Emotional States

So, how do you stop habitual thinking and repetitive emotional states? For starters, stop being afraid of yourself. Stop letting your thoughts scare you. To do this, sit and honestly watch what you’re thinking.

As you observe your thoughts say, “I seem to be thinking about.” Clearly state the thoughts that are passing through your mind. For example, you could say, “I seem to be thinking about paying the rent. I seem to be thinking about mowing the lawn. I seem to be thinking about breaking up with my boyfriend.”

Let the thoughts pass, observing them as if they are no more than clouds floating across the sky. Notice if your emotional state isn’t starting to calm.

Do this for one to two weeks, investing two to three minutes in each sitting.

Then, observe your thoughts for up to three minutes. Afterward, repeat a positive statement about yourself and what you really want. An example could find you saying, “I am the Creator’s holy daughter. I am a limitless being, created to do great things. I am living in peace and joy, filled with love and managing a successful five-star restaurant.” These simple acts are effective ways to change your mind.

Reward Yourself When You Change Your Mind

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Rewards for changing your mind don’t generally just show up. In fact, it could take up to 30 days to shift, to start witnessing an external payoff. To notice the rewards, get clear about what you want.

In other words, discover your destiny. To do this, think about what consistently causes you to feel joy and peace. Also, write down activities that motivate you toward positive action. These activities come with their own built-in motivators.

Examples of these activities include singing, wood carving, painting, teaching, public speaking and conducting research. For me, it’s writing novels.

Your passions are linked to your destiny. To discover your destiny, you may have to spend 20 minutes a day meditating or quieting your mind. It’s so worth it.

Why Discovering Your Destiny Is Important

Why? Once you discover your destiny, the rewards of doing what it takes to change your mind become powerful motivators. More reasons to discover your destiny include:

  • Fulfilling your destiny brings you joy – Your destiny is not a burden. Joy, peace and love are hallmarks of destiny living.
  • Revisit your childhood – Remember what you loved to do when you were a kid. When you discover your destiny, you can let your inner child play, explore and thrive.
  • Removes confusion – Discovering your destiny gives your life an anchor, removing confusion about why you are here.
  • Direction – Although it could take years to fulfill your destiny, once you discover what your destiny is, it may be easier to know what to do next.
  • Purpose – Knowing what your destiny is gives your life a powerful feeling of purpose.

Change Your Mind to Interrupt Limiting Thoughts

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Another benefit of discovering your destiny has to do with limiting thoughts. Despite your best efforts, there may be times when you doubt yourself. There may be times when fulfilling your destiny seems too hard. This is when limiting thoughts could interrupt your progress.

Here are ways to interrupt limiting thoughts, catching them early. The sooner you become aware of limiting thoughts, the sooner you can change your mind with lasting success. Therefore, catch yourself early and start replacing limiting thoughts. Toward this effort, you could:

  • Listen to meditation tapes that affirm that you can receive and do what causes you to feel joy
  • Visualize yourself doing and having what you want, what is related to your destiny
  • Stay free of trying to figure out how you will fulfill your destiny step-by-step. Instead, focus on what you want and accept that you are worth receiving what causes you to enter into joy and peace.
  • Forgive if you are holding a past experience against yourself or someone else.
  • Get out of your head and into your life. Okay. This may sound like an oxymoron. Yet, it isn’t. To remove limiting thoughts and change your mind, don’t over think. In other words, don’t try to figure everything out. Good living calls for courage and trust, not constant planning.

Should you struggle to trust while you’re trying to change your mind to change your life, replay a time in your life when you exhibited courage. Replay a time in your life when you did trust and a situation turned out good. Give yourself proof that you can do it.

Your Life Matters

Additionally, take small actions toward what you want. For instance, you could apply to work for a research firm if doing research work is connected to your destiny. That’s a step of trust. Keep applying to firms until you land a gig. Then, keep applying to different jobs at the firm until you gain the research experience that you want.

Who knows?  You might end up starting your own research company and doing life changing work. The key is to keep trusting and to keep taking forward steps. Here’s another tip. Do yourself a huge favor and treat yourself and others with love and respect. Also reward yourself when you complete small actions that get you closer to fulfilling your destiny. Acknowledge the good that you’re doing.

However easy or hard each forward step is, keep going. Your life matters. You deserve to experience the life that you want. You should live the life that you came here to live. Most of all, you are so worth it.

7 Reasons Books Are a Top Entertainment Choice

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By Books Entertainment Writer Denise Turney

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It doesn’t matter the time of year or what’s going on in the entertainment world, books are always a winning choice. Remember when you read a story that kept you on the edge of your seat? While you turned the pages, your hands might have shaken or maybe you smiled, swiped a tear or laughed. You may have felt a myriad of emotions, ranging from peace to joy to sorrow to hope. Talk about a deep emotional payoff. This is just one reason why books are a top entertainment choice.

Books Are a Top Entertainment Choice Because They Build on Entertainment’s Core

Admittedly, it’s easy to miss. Yet, that doesn’t change how books are a top entertainment choice because they are built upon entertainment’s core — storytelling. Your favorite movies, television shows, live stage plays and popular songs and video games, rely on storytelling. Dance might even rely on storytelling. On top of that, the best books are written with a rare sincerity, a sincerity fueled by passion and not money.

Still, there are more reasons why books are a top entertainment choice. Some of these benefits may be hidden. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not getting a lot of gain from reading books. Check out these seven reasons books are a top entertainment choice:

  • Education – Reading good books doesn’t just teach you about the book’s topic, it broadens your vocabulary. If you read books written in your primary language and a secondary language, you could learn a new language. Nonfiction books teach you about a broad range of topics, including the brain, health, wealth management, inner healing, governments, cultures, history, science and geography.
  • Stress Reducer – As an avid book reader, you know how reading good books lowers stress. It may take 20 minutes before your brain shifts away from worrying into relaxation. Yet, once that shift occurs, you can settle into a story and, before you know it, you’ve forgotten what you were worrying about. Your mind will have broken free.

Good Brought on from Reading Good Books

  • Empathy Booster – The best fictional books dig into the human condition. Great novel characters confront issues that humans have been facing for decades, sometimes centuries. Furthermore, it’s for this reason that works by writers like William Shakespeare, Frances E. W. Harper, Olaudah Equiano and Edgar Allen Poe remain relevant near centuries after those stories were written. Learn what motivates characters to do what they do, and you could become more empathetic in your day-to-day life.
  • Brain Exercise – Here’s a benefit gained from reading books that crosses both sides of your brain. Read a mix of scientific books and great fiction and you can exercise both the left and right sides of your brain. Choose to read different types of books, and you can do more to boost your cognitive abilities. You might especially notice this when you read books that require you to complete worksheets.
  • Improved Sleep – Lower stress can lead to improved sleep. Similar to watching a riveting movie, reading a good book could lull you into restful sleep. As a tip, don’t be surprised if you have dreams about scenes you read in a novel, especially events similar to what you may currently be dealing with.

Benefits That Guarantee Books Are a Top Entertainment Choice

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  • Better Communication – Watching characters deal with challenges can help you learn better ways to communicate with the people in your life. Even more, as you read more books, your expanding vocabulary and deeper empathy can strengthen your communication. Here’s another way that reading can lead to better communication.
  • Continual Growth – Whether you’re reading books to be inspired, to be entertained or to reduce stress, as you continue to read books, you continue to learn. Reading books help you continue to grow.

Furthermore, reading books offers a great escape from life routines. It’s a good way to take a recess from watching news programs. And who doesn’t want a break from watching one negative event after another?

Lower Your Mental Defenses

If you’re a fan of self-help books, you could work through emotional or mental blocks while reading. Another takeaway you might get from reading self-help books is the inspiration and techniques to start practicing self-awareness.

This single change could see your life grow sweeter. After all, if you’re not aware of how you could be arresting your development or holding yourself back, you might not know what to change to break free. This reveals another advantage gained from reading good books.

Reading good books helps you lower your mental defenses. Get caught up in a story and it could be days after you finish a novel before you see links between a novel character and yourself. It might take that long before you notice the main characters in popular books you love struggle with similar relationship, childhood, sexual or emotional issues that you do.

Real Links Between Your Life and Your Favorite Books

Let the characters transition from surviving to transforming to thriving and you might, even if it’s only subconsciously, start to believe that you too can and will make these rewarding transformations.

So, enjoy reading good books, fiction or non-fiction. Let your inner light guide you toward books that speak to what you’re dealing with now. You may get a lot more than an emotional lift from those books. You might put those books down and realize that you’ve gained a lot more than entertainment.