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You’re Too Close to Winning To Quit

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By Freelance Writer and Novel Author Denise Turney

archery target face in close up photography of someone close to success
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Winning is a lot about commitment and tenacity. You need an unexplainable desire to succeed. Why? There are countless shifts, challenges, setbacks and surprising advances, not to mention totally unexpected industry trend changes, on the success path.

Spending months, even years, studying the industry or market you want to develop, sell and distribute products or services in is admirable. However, it’s not enough to insulate you from disappointment and rough patches.

Desire Has Real Affect

After years of pursuing novel writing, as well as freelance writing, one thing I have learned with certainty is that pursuing a dream brings a slew of uncertainty into your life. This is where desire has real effect.

Desire what you are pursuing deeply enough and can press your way through any obstacle, any setback. The key is to mix desire with tenacity. Refuse to quit, simply refuse to give up.

If you need motivation to keep going, consider:

  • What you will forfeit if you quit (e.g., chance to pass a successful family-owned business that you founded down to future generations, realization that you can succeed, a deeper knowing that you are a champion)
  • Why you started pursuing a dream in the first place (remembering why you want what you want will play a key role throughout your life)
  • Your purpose for being in this world. A deeper part of you, perhaps your core, could be guiding you toward a goal, down a path. Although it might feel like a goal or dream was birthed at your mind’s conscious level, your Higher Self could be calling the shots. Quitting would move you away from your purpose.

Someone Is Watching You

Someone is watching you. Think about it. Have you ever caught yourself watching someone?

Perhaps you were admiring the way they build effective teams, resolve conflicts, take creative ideas and mold them into enterprises that hold up for decades. Or you might have caught yourself admiring someone for the way they effectively juggle a busy family and operate a nonprofit organization that helps hundreds of people a year, all while maintaining optimum physical, mental and spiritual health. Well, just as you watch others, someone is watching you, perhaps admiring you and mimicking you.

You Could Be Close to a Breakthrough

More importantly, you could be an hour or days away from a huge breakthrough. Let’s say you have already put in 10 years of work, honing your craft or enhancing a product. For me, that’s writing novels, fleshing out characters, editing-editing-editing and then turning a manuscript over to a professional editor, then marketing and promoting daily until the story I wrote finds its readers. What’s the dream you’re working on?

Back to the 10-year example, throughout these 10 years, you’ve seen your share of trouble. Each time you felt inspired or motivated, believing that you were going to finally win in a big way, an unexpected setback appeared. The setback (e.g., economic shift, health issue, relationship breakup) might have demanded your attention to the point where you couldn’t focus on anything else.

What If Your Dream Is Closer Than You Think?

Ten years of that type of back and forth is a lot to keep pressing through. It’s understandable that you feel like quitting, but what if your huge breakthrough is closer than you think?

Other reasons not to quit include:

  • Quitting robs you of experiences. These are experiences that you will only enjoy after you accomplish what you set out to achieve.
  • Lessons that you learn on the success path can last a lifetime. You can also pass what you learn to your friends, family and beyond. But you have to succeed first. After all, people might not listen to you as fully as they can until after you succeed.
  • Your success motivates other people, shows others that they too can succeed. This is a powerful outcome. And you might not meet or become aware of all the people you’re accomplishments motivate. As an example, the fact that you didn’t quit and did yield the success you desired could encourage someone not to give up on their children who might be struggling with an issue right now. It could also encourage someone to exit an abusive relationship, trusting that a better life does, indeed, await them.

Become a Difference Maker

Regarding how your success motivates others, if you persist and commit to your dream, you could become a difference maker in your family. Nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings might dust off their own dreams, stirring up their courage and go on and step into a better life.

Yet, perhaps most importantly, by not quitting you open yourself up to bigger and better experiences. From where you are now, you cannot see just how far you could go. Right now, you can’t see every door that will open if you keep going. Neither can you see the many people who will come into your life, people you would never meet if you don’t succeed.

And yes, you will learn life lessons as you travel from success to success. Pursuing success will also change you. It’s been said that this may be one of the greatest success rewards.

Go Get It

You might have heard that even if you don’t fulfill your dream, you’ve won because, by pursuing your dream, you changed in rewarding ways. As comforting as this might sound, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that, deep down, you want more than the inner change and the life lessons that come to you as you continue to pursue your dream.

What you want is to experience, breath and feel, what it is like to live with the success you may have started desiring when you were a kid. Simply acquiring life lessons and shifting internally is not what you got on this path for.

Good for you for wanting all of what you started on the success path to gain. The last thing you want is to come up short and be told “at least you tried” or “look how much you learned along the way”.

Keep going. Pivot. Make changes. Continue to learn. Be persistent, tenacious and committed. Don’t quit. You really can fulfill your dreams.

Are You Trapped in Success Illusion?

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

person climbing on mountain real or success illusion
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It’s easy to fall into success illusion. Desire to succeed, all by itself, could fuel the error. A history of getting what you want without having to work for it or knowing how the goal was met could also attract you to an illusion.

Success Illusion Signs

The unfortunate thing is that a success illusion feels good, but it’s not real. Signs that you’re in this type of illusion include:

  • You’re proud of how much work you do, how busy you are, without knowing if your efforts are paying off.
  • Fantasy is a mind trick you invest a lot in, spending hours each day dreaming about living at certain success levels without doing any work to really get there.
  • Defining achievements as “luck” – experiences that only happen to “special” people has become common for you.

Rewards of being trapped in success illusion are linked to emotions. If you’ve ever fantasized that you were in a relationship, working a career, fulfilling community or social goals, the types of actions that improve your and other people’s lives, you know how good it feels to imagine you’ve already accomplished a long-term goal.

Stop the Fantasy Rewards

You might even start rewarding yourself based on how strong the fantasy (and emotions linked to the fantasy) is. Let this happen and you could slip into a cycle of fantasy-reward, the very cycle that could keep you from actually taking smart actions to produce real success.

An example of this is of a gambler believing that, this time, she’s going to hit big. Should she have won $1,000 or more just once, she might convince herself that she’ll win big again, maybe even scoring a six-figure win. That belief could create “good feeling emotions”, propelling her further into debt.

Family and friends telling her that she’s trapped in an illusion might not work. At some point, all these loved ones might be able to do is to watch while she sinks deeper into debt feeding the illusion.

If you’ve talked with someone who has seemingly hit bottom and listened to them tell you about their past victories, even as they struggle to get through the day, you know what the end result of being trapped in a success illusion can look like. Once you believe that you’ve already done your best or that you’re winning when you aren’t, it can be challenging to pull out of the fantasy.

Free Yourself from Success Illusion

Add in the belief that it’s up to something else, a force, to map out your life and make what you want come true and you could end up sitting on the sidelines, watching you life (and opportunities to really succeed) pass you by. This might be a reason why scams work.

Fortunately, even if you find yourself trapped in a success illusion, you can get out. You can go free of the fantasy. There’s no way to con yourself about this. Honesty and truth have to be at work to free yourself. To begin:

  • Write down where you are and where you want to be. For example, if you’re $20,000 in debt, write that down. Then, write down how much you want to have in your savings, checking and retirement accounts. Later, you’ll identify smart actions you’ll take to get from where you are to where you want to be. For now, get clear about recognizing and accepting where you are now and where you want to end up.
  • List actions you took to get to where you are. The more clearly you see your role in where you are, the more empowered you might feel to create the good change in your life you want to experience.
  • In bulleted form, write actions you can take to change your course. Do this free of judging whether you think you’ll succeed at these actions. Simply brainstorm and bring steps you could take to achieve your goal to the front of your mind.
  • Identify resources and tools you can use to achieve your goal.
  • Get clear about why you want to achieve the goal. Sounds simple, but the why can keep you going, serving as powerful motivation.

Digging Deeper

Next, dig deeper into the process, mapping out detailed actions you’ll take. Commit to taking these actions. If you don’t, you could slip back into fantasy. To commit, you’re agreeing to be resilient and persistent.

Quitting can’t be on your list of things to do, not if you really want to succeed. Stay on track by creating a spreadsheet that list where you want to be, the actions you’re going to take and the actions you are taking.

But don’t just list actions you’re taking, list the results of your efforts. You need to see which actions are working and which actions you might need to change or stop.

In fact, if you’re serious about success, review results daily, weekly and monthly. Because this an ever changing world, you’re going to have to make adjustments as you continue on your path. Tracking the actions you take and the results of those efforts can make it easy to spot just where you need to make an adjustment.

What If Success Isn’t Sexy?

Another thing that your tracker might show are approaching trends. That’s another reason why reviewing the tracker daily, weekly and monthly is smart.

You might have figured out that achieving success is generally so un-sexy. But if the why of your goal is strong enough, each step you take can yield tremendous reward. In other words, you might feel on top of the world because you can clearly see that you are making progress.

A growing confidence and faith that you can gain success in other areas is a by-product of sticking to your goal and making continual progress. Keep in mind that, depending on your goal, you might have to continue advancing for the remainder of your physical experience.

Careers in the arts, scientific explorations and commitment to a community or your family are types of success goals that may not have an end date. So, keep going, stay focused, review your tracker and celebrate your milestone successes.

Doing so might not feel as cozy-good as a fantasy or an illusion. All things considered, it’s much better because it’s real.

Successful Book Marketing: Knowing When to Shift

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By Books Author Denise Turney

person holding book from shelf in book marketing strategies
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Book marketing is not magic. Books don’t sell simply because you want them to. It doesn’t matter how passionate and sincere your intentions are. To sell your books, you have to take smart actions. You also have to recognize change. This article covers actions you could take to finally yield the sales you’ve been wanting and waiting for, perhaps for years. Knowing when to shift is a part of that success.

Book Marketing Keys – Consistency and Spotting Change

After publishing and marketing books for more than 20 years, I have discovered that consistency is key to successful book marketing. Another key is recognizing and adjusting to change in smart ways. Regardless of the marketing strategies that you employ, consistency and recognizing and adjusting to change play a role.

  • As a beginning step, to gain more sells, get clear about the number of books you want to sell each day, week, month and year. Write it down. Clarity is a huge part of success. You’ll see this more and more as you continue marketing.
  • Use a spreadsheet or another tracking system to build book marketing analytics. If you think this ties into clarity, you’re right. Details to add to the tracker include date, the number of books sold each day and the sales source (indie bookstore, Cushcity, Amazon, Mahogany Books, Harriet Bookstore, Barnes & Noble, etc.). Other details to include are the advertising and/or marketing resource used to gain these book sales. Book marketing resource examples are BookBub, Amazon Ads, AALBC ads, book festivals, speaking events and cultural fairs.
  • Identify book marketing resources you will try. This is where your spreadsheet increases in value. As you monitor your marketing results, you’ll notice which resources are working and which need change. For instance, you might need to adjust ad spend on one resource or you find that you need to run a marketing promo using a different resource on a different day of the week.

Pay Attention to Book Marketing Spend

Consider completing free online trainings that book marketing resources (e.g., Written Word, Reedsy, Amazon) offer. If you join discussion forums at these sites, you can gain valuable insights and tips about ways to get more from these marketing resources without increasing your spending, which brings up an important point.

Pay attention to how much you spend to meet your book sales goals. Strong book marketing resources have sales spend analytics embedded into their reports. By adding these analytics to your main spreadsheet, you can spot trends and times when you need to shift fairly quickly, maybe within minutes of reviewing the data.

Really pay attention to your spend versus book sales. To experience successful book marketing, you (or someone you hire) needs to accept facts. This is no time for magical thinking. As shared at the start of this article, it’s not enough to want to sell a lot of books. You have to take the right actions, and generally not just once, but again and again.

It’s Time to Change

Let marketing spend head in the wrong direction for too long and you could start to feel frustration, anger and even hopelessness. Yet, it doesn’t have to go this way. And even if you already are in a situation where you’ve spent more than you’ve earned, you can turn the tide. You can choose again, making smart decisions, setting yourself up for better outcomes.

Should your marketing analytics show that you’re spending $50 a day on marketing but only earning $20 a day in royalties from your book sales, accept what you see. Shift. Adjust your spend, focusing on marketing resources that yield the best return-on-investment (ROI).

Add more free marketing strategies to your sales plan. This includes speaking events, book signings and handing out postcards, bookmarks, brochures and flyers at events that attract your books’ target audience. Just don’t continue digging a hole; shift. It’s a part of the book sales process.

More Book Marketing Strategies That Work

Here are additional book marketing strategies that work. Choose three to four when starting out, noting which strategies yield greater gains for you.

  • Meet book buyers in person. Attending book festivals, writer conferences and cultural events are great ways to achieve this. To connect with book buyers face-to-face, you could also schedule speaking events. These are events where you are the keynote speaker. Looking for places to start speaking at? Colleges and universities, as well as social organizations, are places that seek speakers. In addition to teaching about a topic that your books are related to, you could read from your books or give a spoken word performance. Check online and offline event calendars, contacting organizers of events you’d like to speak at.
  • Sell and sign your books at the end of the events. To continue book marketing efforts, encourage attendees to sign-up to receive your newsletter.
  • Pass out bookmarks, flyers and brochures at events you attend. Add your author website URL to these marketing tools.
  • Send postcards and snail mail to local booksellers, asking if you can schedule in-store book signings. After you schedule an appearance, start telling your family, friends and book supporters about the event, encouraging them to attend. You’ll see that the more you help businesses, book buyers, organizations and other retailers get what they want, the more they may assist you.

Surprising Way to Sell More Books

This next book marketing strategy might surprise you, although it shouldn’t. However, it took me years to fully grasp the impact of this strategy.

To continue selling books, keep writing and publishing quality books. This may be the single most important step in gaining more book sales. Similar to how recording artists have to keep coming out with new music, to enjoy a rewarding book writing career, keep creating and publishing new quality books.

Want a long, rewarding writing career? You’ll have to shift here too. Write enough books and you’ll discover that each of your books might not be a hit with readers, regardless of how much you market them. Instead of moaning about a book that’s not well received, shift. Start writing in a different genre, about different characters or in a different style that readers prefer more.

Stay Motivated, Stay Focused

And learn to spot trends and industry changes. Learn to recognize when a marketing resource or strategy is no longer working. Depending on how long you’ve been writing and publishing books, you saw this change when e-books first came out. Amazon and large bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders (remember Borders?) created change too.

If you refused to shift even while facing these changes, you might have seen your book sales drop, if not stall. To steer free of this, check your spreadsheet analytics daily. Just reviewing your analytics daily can help you know when to shift. It’s also a great way to avoid slipping into magical thinking (believing that you’re going to sell a lot of books simply because you want to).

Stay motivated through the changes and shifts by reading books that inspire and encourage you. Also, listening to tapes that help keep you focused on your goals is a way to win.

Set Your Intention for Success

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

black and white dartboard as intention for success symbol
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

You need a target to hit. Without a clear goal, you could spend way too much time circling the mountain. It’s not enough to just want something to happen. To gain success, you need to know exactly what you want and why. Get specific.

What Do You Want

For example, do you want to feel the emotion “happiness”, lose weight or be wealthy? At first glance, those goals may sound clear. However, they are broad. As it regards feeling “happiness”, you could want to feel happy all the time. Aim for this and you might not come to know what shortcuts your path to happiness. You also might ignore signs that you’re headed off path as it regards key life areas.

That’s right. Although frustration, anger and sorrow are emotions that don’t feel good, they can serve as great guideposts. Think of it this way. If you were driving your car and hit a guard rail, you’d know that you were in a danger zone. Keep going, and you could suffer damages.

The same applies with emotions. Sadness, frustration or anger could alert you to the fact that you’re not working the job that you really want to work. Or those emotions (especially if they linger) could alert you to the fact that you’re in a relationship, etc. that you don’t want to be in.

Get Clear About Your Intentions

Additionally, as it regards getting specific about what you want, if you want to lose weight, narrow it down. As an example, instead of going broad with “I want to lose weight”, get more specific and develop a goal to “lose 15 pounds within three months.” Regarding the goal to be wealthy, consider narrowing that goal down into something like “I want to pay off both of my credit cards by end of the year, then grow my savings up to $10,000 or more by the end of next year.”

Those are specific “intended” goals. To stay encouraged as you pursue those goals, align rewards to the intentions. Make sure that you set rewards at markers along the way toward the goal fulfillment. For instance, you could reward yourself with a day off (actually take a vacation day) after you pay down a quarter of your credit card debt.

Of course, it would be smart to avoid using credit cards as a way to reward yourself as you work to eliminate debt. Yet, that shouldn’t be a problem, as there are so many things that you could do that don’t call for spending money. There’s fishing, hiking, bike riding, visiting local arts centers, stopping by a museum, checking out a local bookstore, hanging out with family and friends and so much more.

You Should Be Rewarded

Reward yourself by engaging in activities that you truly love and enjoy. Not only could this encourage you to continue moving forward, it could reinforce the message that you love yourself. And that’s a powerful message to get across to yourself.

After you set clear intentions, think about the reason/s that you want to fulfill the specific goal. Believe it or not, this might be where the rubber meets the road. The why of your aim and your actions might turn out to be your biggest payout.

Check out these whys as it relates to weight loss, wealth and artistic success. See if any of these whys resonate with you.

  • To live with high physical energy and to feel vibrant, hopeful and joyful
  • To enjoy physical strength and top health, opening myself up to more and more fun activities
  • To live debt free for the rest of my physical experience
  • To live debt free and build financial wealth so that I can explore experiences that bring me joy
  • To gain success creating artwork that I love to create, enough success to earn an entire income creating and selling my artwork
  • To make doing what I love, as it regards art and creativity, my life’s work

Create Powerful Whys

Keep going. Create a list of powerful whys. Connect those whys to your goals/intentions. As a note, the more powerful your whys, the easier it may be to map out a clear path or a strategy to achieve your goals and start receiving the rewards that are directly linked to your whys.

This brings up another important point. After you identify specific goals, set reward markers and establish clear whys, you need to outline actions that you are going to take to fulfill your goals. Again, you’ll need to get specific.

Here’s an example of specific steps that you could take to gain wealth. Remember to align this and other goals with one or more powerful whys to stay encouraged and motivated. If you want to gain wealth, consider taking the following actions:

  • Create a line-item budget (add mortgage, rent, utilities, credit card payments, entertainment, etc. to the budget)
  • Identify expenses that you could forego temporarily or permanently. Eliminate these purchases at least temporarily.
  • See which expenses you could substitute for lower costing items. For instance, instead of eating out for lunch, cook enough fresh food over the weekend to easily bring lunch into work.
  • Pay $100 or more extra a month on the credit card with the highest fees and interest rates
  • Complete online consulting or freelance work. Put 60% money earned from this extra work in an interest-bearing savings account. Consider investing the other 40% of this money into regulated low-risk mutual funds.

Go Get What You Really Want

Start taking the actions and see if you don’t begin to feel empowered. Choose goals and whys that are rooted in love. Also, when you break goals down, set powerful whys and intentions as well as reward yourself along the way, you could feel energized enough to tackle two to three goals simultaneously.

That’s not all. You pursuing and fulfilling your goals could inspire other people to go after what they really want. In fact, don’t be surprised if colleagues, relatives and friends start noticing a positive change in you. They also might start to ask you how you changed.

This is a great time to share the power of setting an intention for success, including how setting clear goals, identifying clear whys and outlining action steps offers amazing energy to your pursuit. A strong why, rewards and clear intentions and action steps can fuel you throughout this world’s ups and downs.

Take Advantage of the Temporary

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By Journal Writer and Novelist Denise Turney

temporary colorful bokeh lights
Photo by Andre Moura on Pexels.com

Love for happy times to last forever in this world? Wish that those sweet, loving moments in your romantic relationship would go on and on, without an end? Oh, if the good times lasted forever. If your favorite emotions and experiences stayed with you permanently while you journeyed through this world.

Most Of Your Journey

Yet, that’s not how it goes. Good times don’t last forever in this world, but neither do challenging times. That’s very good news. What do you think?

To make the most of your journey here, start taking advantage of the temporary. As a first step, approach situations with the mindset that, despite how much you like or don’t like an experience, it -won’t go unchanged. Accepting this could keep you from jumping from relationship to relationship, job to job, worship center to worship center and so on.

Admittedly, it took me years to learn that nothing last forever in this world. Here, everything changes. Look back over your life and you might see that, although you suspected this was the case, you didn’t really believe it.

In fact, you might have thought that there was a special person, great job, best town, etc. that you could connect with and enter a state of permanent bliss. Of course, you could keep looking. Over time, you might start to notice that you’re moving in circles, looking for a permanence here that doesn’t exist.

Options

Here are some ways that you could take advantage of the temporary. Whichever options you go with, keep an open mind. There may be nothing that helps you to stay in the flow better than an open mind.

  • Wake with a spirit and mindset of appreciation. A very simple way to pull this off is to raise your hands as soon as you wake and simply say, “Thank you!”
  • Consider the people who helped develop experiences that you enjoy. For example, before you head to an amusement park, concert, festival, etc., pause and think about the event organizers, promoters, ride builders, artists, etc. who helped bring the event from idea stage to reality. Let yourself appreciate how these people, whether they know each other or not, worked together to create an experience that you are about to absolutely love.
  • Be fully present when you are wherever you are. You will never be in that exact place in the same exact state/perception again. Even if the walls, ceiling, sky, grass and trees look the same, so much has changed since the last time that you were there.
  • Pause before you eat a meal. Instead of only speaking grace, actually see the farmers working the soil, planting seeds and tending to crop. And see truckers delivery produce and other food to stores. Visualize grocery store stockers and cashiers stocking shelves and checking you out of the grocery store line. All of this and more may have occurred before the meal you’re about to enjoy made it to your plate.
  • Give thought to doing the same as it regards other areas of your life. For instance, you could think about the engineers, technicians and factory workers who designed and built the automobile that you drive. Allow yourself to see the many different people who work hard to help you gain the experiences that you treasure and enjoy.

Appreciate Temporary Experiences

The above actions can help you to see more clearly how temporary experiences are. Additionally, the above actions could help you to live with much deeper appreciation. Keep at it, and you might start to marvel at what’s happening in your life.

Also, to take advantage of the temporary, coach yourself. Teach yourself that you won’t have forever in this world to take advantage of opportunities. This doesn’t mean that you go through every door you see. It’s smart to pause, pray and wait for Higher Guidance before you walk through an open door.

Once you receive an internal “green light”, take smart action. In other words, don’t stall and sit back and try to talk yourself out of what you want. Go for the right things! That open door you’re looking at right now might not stay open.

Life Without Regrets

This brings up an interesting point. Among the things that people say they regret when they are facing the end of their physical journey is the fact that they didn’t do what they really wanted to do while they were here. The end of the road is not the time to realize you didn’t live your own life.

It’s also not the time to finally accept that you spent your days sacrificing (doing what you thought others wanted or needed). If joy is your strength, you’re going to have to consider what causes you to experience joy. Then, you need to allow yourself to have these experiences.

Because joy and love go together, these will be experiences that are rooted in goodness. So, take advantage of good open doors, knowing that those opportunities might only be temporarily available to you. Athletes might get this lesson more frequently than others. Smart athletes know the importance of taking advantage of good opportunities as soon as they appear.

Look Up

On the flip side, taking advantage of the temporary means that you don’t get bogged down with focusing on challenges. You don’t let undesirable experiences shift your focus off of love. Another thing, you don’t live as if you expect a bad time or a challenge to last forever. As someone told me at a worship center years ago, “trouble don’t last always”.

Did I ever gain lots of encouragement from hearing her say that. It’s true; trouble doesn’t last forever. But neither do good times stay exactly the same forever here. You might be doing yourself a favor as you practice appreciation and steer clear of believing that trouble will last. Set yourself up for greater success by moving from opportunity to opportunity, refusing to bind yourself to a current or past “good experience”.

Strength for Your Journey: Moving Through Life Phases

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By Writer Denise Turney

a woman moving through life phases on a path between trees
Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

Pay attention and you may notice that you are moving through life phases. There is no way to avoid these phases. Shifts and phases are part of this world’s journey.

Read enough autobiographies, memoirs and biographies and you can spot how other people shift through phases. Even more, you might discover strategies to help you when you approach a phase that someone else found profoundly challenging (but got through) as you read autobiographies, memoirs and biographies.

Just What Are Life Phases?

When one phase ends, it is as though a part of you knows there is an approaching ending. The phase may or may not align to your biological age. It is worth paying attention to, because if you are struggling, it could be due to a phase ending.

However, with the right mindset and care for yourself, you can release the phase that is ending and move with grace into the approaching phase. Depending on the source, you might hear that there are four or five life stages. For example, Learning Mind1 lists the four life stages as:

  • Stage One – Basics (this is where you mimic what you see, hear and sense others doing)
  • Stage Two – Discovery (you are starting to learn who you are)
  • Stage Three – Priorities (during this stage, you start to set life priorities)
  • Stage Four – Finding Meaning (it is a time when you are preparing to pass along your legacy)

Taking a Closer Look at Life Phases

CNBC reports that there are five life stages.2 Like the Learning Mind stages, these stages align to your biological age. You might enjoy reading the stages in depth to see how they differ and if any stage resonates with you. It could lead to the beginning of a new self-discovery for you. Here are the stages that CNBC shares:

  • Stage One – Dreamer
  • Stage Two – Explorer
  • Stage Three – Builder
  • Stage Four – Mentor
  • Stage Five – Giver

In this case, the fourth and fifth stages bring to mind wealthy businessmen like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. These men spent decades amassing wealth only to give it away during their latter earthly years.

Which Stage Are You In?

Depending on your life experiences, you might find yourself moving through life phases that extend beyond the above four or five stages. As an example, Institute for Life shares that there are twelve life stages.3 But again, these stages align to biological age which might not actually be what is happening (more on that later).

Here is a final look at another set of life stages. These are the twelve life stages outlined by Institute for Life:

  • Rebirth – Potential
  • Birth – Hope
  • Infancy – Vitality
  • Early Childhood – Playfulness
  • Middle Childhood – Imagination
  • Late Childhood – Ingenuity
  • Adolescence – Passion
  • Early Adulthood – Enterprise
  • Midlife – Contemplation
  • Mature Adulthood – Benevolence
  • Late Adulthood – Wisdom
  • Death and Dying – Life

Because culture has profound influence on you, moving through life phases with grace can align with culture. You will certainly learn about moving through life phases by watching your elders. From your parents to your grandparents, great aunts, great uncles and great-grandparents, you are learning.

Culture and Life Shifts

It does not matter what your biological age is. You never stop learning. And as you learn, you teach.

At its basic level, culture is a combination of social norms, beliefs, traditions, arts and expression forms shared by a group of people. Baraka is a film by Ron Fricke that offers up-close, snapshots of distinct cultures. Watching Baraka or a similar film can open your eyes, helping you to see that your culture exists among many distinct cultures.

The way you live and what you believe are not common across the globe. It can be humbling to accept this. Or you can allow it to enlighten you.

As you become enlightened, you will again spot how everyone, regardless of culture, is moving through life phases. Looking back, see if you can spot when you were shifting. How did you do?

Support Through Phases

Did you realize you were moving through life phases? Were you gentle with yourself? Following are actions that could help you when you find yourself in a shift.

  • Read about life stages
  • Explore autobiographies, biographies and memoirs (they hold clues)
  • Travel to experience diverse cultures
  • Accept that your perceptions are not global. Millions of people thrive but do not share your life perceptions.
  • Gift yourself with patience. You are entering new territory. Give yourself time to adjust.
  • Journal what you are feeling, perceiving and experiencing.
  • Dance
  • Include laughter in your daily diet
  • Pursue peace instead of the goal to always be “right”
  • Accept that you never lose anything that is real or true, regardless of the phase you are in
  • Spend time with people who are in the phase you are living in as well as time with people who are living in different life phases

Stay free of trying to fit your life inside someone else’s perceptions or beliefs. It really is your life.

Timing of Life Phases

Moving through life phases might not happen according to your biological age. Should your childhood force you to step into adult roles early or realize that you are fully responsible for yourself at a time when others your age continue to believe that it is their parents’ function to be fully responsible for them, your age might have much less to do with the phase you are in.

If you have been practicing awareness through yoga, nature walks, meditation and stillness, you may spot a shift early. For instance, you might feel uncontented with a living or working situation that previously you accepted or appreciated.

Now, the situation causes you sorrow, confusion or regret. Back to John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. During one phase of their lives, it may have seemed right to pursue money as if it were life’s singular purpose. While in another phase, this pursuit did not appear as valuable, wise or rewarding.

Strength for the Journey

Allow yourself to review how you are moving through life phases. Consider what you have learned. Think about when you thought you knew more than you did. How did letting go of the belief that you knew more than you did change your perceptions, impact those around you?

Did you become more open minded, or did you become angry, upset that the world did not stay the way it was when you were younger? Let go.

Life is big. You cannot control it.

Continue to move forward. As an eternal being, keep awakening and evolving. Invest in grieving the loss of a phase as it ends. And allow yourself to welcome and celebrate the new phase that you are entering. You may receive strength for the journey as you realize that countless others have been where you are.

Resources:

  1. 4 Stages of Life: Where Are You on the Journey? – Learning Mind (learning-mind.com)
  2. There are 5 stages of life—here’s what to do at every age ‘to minimize regrets,’ says life coach (cnbc.com)
  3. The 12 Stages of Life | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. (institute4learning.com)

Will Peering into the Future Improve Your Life Script or Scare You?

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By Mystery Suspense Books Writer Denise Turney

group of people standing looking at the life script
Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

If you’re feeling stuck, it might be time to improve your life script. First, just what is a life script and why does it have so much impact? Here’s a general way to look at a life script.

Building Your Life Script

Have you ever felt like you were living between hard boundaries, making it feel impossible to experience great positive shifts, limiting yourself to the same routines? If so, you might be adhering to a script. Beautiful Truth shares that a life script or storytelling is part of how we navigate the world. “Storytelling occurs at our most basic experience of navigating the world. But most of the time, we aren’t even aware of ourselves doing it.”1

Furthermore, “And here is the most exciting part. In realising how prone we are to tell stories, and more importantly – to believe them – we are able to create new ones. And when we change the stories we tell ourselves, we can change the way we see the world and ourselves within it. “1

Generally, by the time you’re seven-years-old, your life script is set. In addition to being made at the unconscious level, this script can play out seemingly to your conscious unawareness. Should this happen, you could be attracted to people who struggle with anger, lack of confidence, workaholism or gambling. But not only would you be attracted to a specific “type” of person, you might not know why you’re attracted to those types of people.

Who’s Part of Your Life Script

Also, as with many unconscious scripts, your life story consists of habits, statements, beliefs, etc. that you saw those around you engaging in, particularly people who you were close to as a child. Without meaning to, you could create a life story that causes you to mirror a parent, uncle, coach, etc. All by itself, this proves that you do have impact.

Not only have other people helped to make your life script, but right now you’re saying, believing and doing things that are helping to make someone else’s “story”. For example, if you curse and bang furniture whenever your laptop is slow and you have to wait for a webpage to load while your manager is waiting for you to send her a file, your niece could learn to react that way when she’s feeling stress and waiting for something, after she becomes a woman.

Fortunately, you can rewrite your life script. Psychology Today shares a story about a young girl who had been bullied while teachers seemed either not to notice or chose not to respond.2 The girl’s mother helped her to step into her power, even calling teachers and those involved herself, refusing to ignore what her daughter had shared with her. Those choices helped to change the girl’s script, also referred to as “story”.

Improve Your Life Story

In the Psychology Today article, it’s shared that, “We are the stories we tell—and we are compelled to create stories to understand ourselves.” Inner Self3 and Bestselfology4 offer suggestions on actions you could take to change your “story” or your life script. (See below link in our “Resources” section.)

Here are a few actions that you could take to improve your story:

  • Accept that your experiences are part of a “story”
  • Accept that you are more powerful than your “story”
  • Watch videos of people struggling, dealing with stress and low confidence who prove that you can improve your life script as you watch the people in the videos listen to a training, read specific books or watch shows that actually open them up to the point where they change their “story”
  • Listen to your inner dialogue. It’s there. Become aware of it and simply listen to what you say throughout the day and night.
  • Acknowledge that you can change your life script.
  • Meditate regularly to quiet your mind. Get in the habit of uncluttering your mind.
  • Pay attention to how you feel and see if your feelings are connected to a script.
  • Try something new every day. This is also a good way to get your brain off autopilot.
  • Give yourself options.

Support to Improve Your Life Script

To improve your life script, you might find it beneficial to work with a licensed, experienced therapist. An experienced, licensed therapist could access your subconscious mind and help you to rewrite your life story.

That’s good work. But what if you peered into your future and saw specifics around one or more events that were headed your way? In other words, what if you visualized an actual event before it occurred? Do you think you would be scared if you knew what was coming in your life?

Furthermore, do you think it’s possible to see the specifics as it regards sights, sounds and maybe even lighting and smells, about events that don’t actually show up in your life for 10 or more years?

Several times I have received details on an upcoming event that was 10 or more away. Based on research on life scripts, not certain if these experiences are related to a script or if a Higher Power preplanned the visionary experiences. Tammy Tilson’s daughter addresses these and other questions in a life changing way in the mystery book, Spiral.

Life Scripts in Spiral

She can’t ignore what she knows. What she knows is connected to other people’s life scripts that do not allow for good endings. Yet, if she doesn’t act, try to change the endings, she won’t be free and she knows it.

Her conscience will play and re-play a tape that could rob her of peace. She’s not willing to let that happen, and so she acts.

This all is worth asking, have the experiences you see already happened? Are you remembering a distant past, simply perceiving it as the present?

And, if so, do you have access to information that will allow you to make better decisions? That would be one way to effectively change your life, to really improve your life script.

Are You Willing to Improve Your Life Script

To know what is coming next and then to make decisions that cause the effect you truly want is a fortune. Should you choose this route, foreknowledge could prove beneficial. Yet, if your life is running, in part, off an internal script that you perceived and put into place when you were as young as seven-years-old, you might have forgotten what you put into place or why.

Is a first step toward improving your life script and opening up to more loving experiences a willingness to become aware of what you are thinking, becoming aware of what you have spent years focusing on? And is an early step toward changing your life a willingness to open up to change?

Resources:

  1. The Stories We Tell Ourselves — The Beautiful Truth
  2. Rewrite Your Script | Psychology Today
  3. How You Can Rewrite the Script of Your Life – InnerSelf.com
  4. What is your life script and are you happy with it? – BestselfologyBestselfology

How Reading Good Relationship Books Opens You to Love

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

man and woman sitting on the floor reading good relationship books
Couple Reading Good Relationship Books – Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Reading good books is a great way to escape the world’s rigors. You learn, grow, exercise your brain, enjoy virtual travel, are introduced to favorite characters and much more. If you read a lot of books, you can shortcut the time it takes to understand new material at work and school. One of the greatest rewards gained from reading books may have escaped you. When you read good relationship books, you can open to love more.

How so?

As you read fiction or nonfiction relationship books, your guard drops. It’s not like you’re reading a draft of your biography or autobiography. Fear of being criticized or judged is reduced, perhaps isn’t present at all while you read, allowing you to gain what is being shared more fully.

That’s a huge benefit.

Good Relationship Books Drop Your Guard to Love

After all, if you don’t retain what you read, it’s akin to looking at computer code you don’t understand. More ways that reading good relationship books opens you to love follow:

  • Novels not only help you drop or remove an internal mental guard, they show couples interacting and communicating with each other up close. Witnessing these couples engage can offer tips on what you could do to strengthen your relationships.
  • Of course, communication is key to healthy relationships. This is an area where nonfiction relationship books can yield a wealth of positive results. While reading nonfiction, you can learn communication techniques such as how to be an active listener and the importance of thinking before you speak. PsychAlive also shares that additional solid communication techniques include sticking to the facts when communicating with your partner, being honest and being sincere.1
  • Books make it easy to take in information together, keeping couples free of feeling as if one person in the relationship is offering most of the information or “telling the other person what to think, feel or do”.
  • You can learn about you and your partner’s attachment styles while reading good relationship books.
  • Even more, you can discover you and your partner’s communication style.
  • Opportunities to identify how couples express and receive appreciation is also unearthed through reading.

Relationship Books with Quality Research on Love

Fortunately, in today’s book market there are many relationship books that are built upon years of quality research. This is how you get access to volumes of survey responses and empirical science. In other words, you can quickly learn what works in healthy relationships.

To be healthy, relationships also require that each person in the bond love themselves and continue to evolve and awaken to love. Both fiction and nonfiction books dig into the importance of loving yourself. Should you be tempted to focus on your partner more than yourself, reading good relationship books could be a relationship saver, not only as a couple but for you, as an individual.

After all, you’re not just in a relationship with your partner. You’re forever in a relationship with yourself. Hopefully, the communion you have with yourself is loving, healthy and not dysfunctional. If that incredibly important union is dysfunctional, here’s to hoping that you are working to heal gaps or injuries in the union that you have with yourself.

Spotlight Relationship Love and Goodness

Today’s book market also has lots of titles, particularly fiction, that spotlight dysfunctional relationships. Bookstores and libraries, online and offline, shelve novels that focus on physically, psychologically and emotionally abusive relationships.

Gain from reading these books by focusing on what “not to do” in your relationships. Steer clear of believing that dysfunctional relationships are “normal”. Instead of reading books to convince yourself that every couple hits each other, curses one another or belittles each other, focus on what you want from a coupling.

Get clear about how you want to be treated. Then, read books that share effective techniques and strategies you can use to start treating yourself that way and how you can encourage your partner to treat you this way.

Reading to Gain Loving Interactions

Because experiences, including loving interactions, aren’t linear in this world it’s helpful to get introduced to couples who have overcome great odds. Nonfiction and fiction books have facts, stories and background information to help you pull this off.

You’ll probably spot the win early into the book. For instance, a character may have had a troubling childhood or a character might have gone through a challenging intimate relationship earlier in her life. In addition to giving you hope that you too can overcome childhood or past relationship challenges, reading these books could strengthen your belief that you can go on to enjoy being in a healthy, rewarding love connection.

Books Helping Readers Open to Love

Whether you’re reading fiction or nonfiction, a key is to commit to open up to love. In other words, make opening up to love more a primary goal. You could do this by:

  • Pick books that deal with forgiveness if you know you need to forgive to remove an internal block and open up to love
  • Join a book club to get diverse insights and perceptions
  • Complete worksheets in nonfiction relationship books. Talk about a way to learn, grow and awaken. Effective worksheets can help surface parts of yourself that greatly impact your relationship, parts of yourself that you had repressed or kept hidden out of your conscious awareness for years.

Celebrate successes that you have in your relationship with yourself and with others. Recognize that good relationships extend beyond marriage and dating. If you live alone, you’re in communication with neighbors, family, colleagues and friends.

Celebrate Relationships and Greater Love

Reading good relationship books that showcase personal and interpersonal connections can help you grow as an individual and as a relationship partner. At the end of each year, consider how much you have gained from the relationship books you read.

Continue the process of reading books that help you deepen your understanding, awareness and growth. This single decision saves you years of research and trial and error. Additionally, as you complete activities in nonfiction books that aim to remove internal blocks, you can open to love more each day.

Resources:

  1. Top 10 Effective Communication Techniques for Couples – PsychAlive

Power of Kids Seeing Themselves in Diverse Books

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

photo of girl sitting on sofa while using tablet to read diverse books
Girl reading diverse book – Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.com

Diverse books tap into the power of kids. Social skills, open mindedness, genuine acceptance of others and natural happiness are a few strengths common to kids. These strengths and others, including active listening, knowledge that there’s a lot for them to learn and a heart for the arts and creativity, empower kids. Seeing book characters who look like them put these strengths into practice opens up new worlds for kids. Even more, books with diverse characters do so much more.

Growing Up Without Diverse Books

Fortunately, the numbers of diverse books for kids are increasing. Growing up there were fewer than a handful of children’s books with characters from other cultures. Back then, it was a challenge finding books for young readers that had strong female characters.

Although I absolutely loved to read, starting and finishing dozens of books a week, I longed for stories with characters who reminded me of myself, my family, friends and neighbors. Years passed before I came across such a book which was Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. To say I was shocked to discover the book, is a huge understatement.

Simply seeing Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a book my father gave me, a smile lighting across his face, changed everything for me. Who knows? It might be a reason why I became a novelist.

Kids Finding Diverse Books

That’s the power of kids coming across books that have major and minor characters who resemble them, their parents, siblings, neighbors and friends. More ways that kids are empowered when they read books that have characters and core experiences that mirror theirs include:

  • Supports healthy self-esteem
  • Shows kids what they can do
  • Encourages personal growth
  • Fuels creativity and a desire to continue to develop and advance
  • Impacts a child’s sense of belonging in a good way
  • Makes it easier for kids to connect with what they are reading
  • Enhances learning as kids develop deeper connections with these books’ characters
  • Sends a powerful message that kids from all backgrounds are valued and immeasurably important

A path to getting more diverse books into schools and stores goes through school and retail book buyers. Wholesalers and distributors, including digital distributors, work with independent authors, indie bookstores, libraries, hospitals, schools and major retailers to get books on their shelves.

As parents, educators and caretakers invest in diverse books, wholesalers and distributors work harder to get these powerful books into more retail, school and library outlets. This is when the power of kids can go into effect.

How to Tell Kids Are Benefitting from Diverse Stories

And it should. After all, who better to choose the books they want to read, stories that motivate and inspire them, than kids, the people who are going to sit down and read the books? Once kids feel connected to characters, they might want to read every book in a series.

But what if a child isn’t that talkative, choosing to read more than engage in verbal conversation? There are still ways to tell if a child is getting a lot of positive gain from a book. Among these signs there’s:

  • Parents and caregivers don’t have to encourage kids to read the books
  • Laughter is often heard while young readers are enjoying these stories
  • Kids talk about characters in the stories
  • Acting out fun scenes in middle-school books might become common
  • Should kids have their own cell phones, they can be overheard sharing events written in books with their friends over the phone
  • Children’s confidence rises, allowing them to tap into inner strength and lead projects they had previously shied away from

Connecting Power of Kids Thru Books

The gift of connection aids kids at home, at school and in larger society. Reading books at school that have no to few characters who look like you, speak like you or who are growing up the way you are can send kids the message that they aren’t important enough to be written about, even if only indirectly.

That certainly isn’t the way to acknowledge the power of kids. Admittedly, this is where authors come into play. Increasing sales of children’s and middle school books that have characters from a range of backgrounds encourages more authors to write these types of books.

Furthermore, fueling kids’ reading interest further comes through the chance to meet children’s book authors in person. For instance, schools can schedule author appearances, especially during cultural holidays. Educators can also ask authors to visit schools to close out discussions about a book.

In-Person Meetings with Children and Diverse Book Writers

Several schools are already doing this. These visits are positive for kids in so many ways, including:

  • Allows kids opportunity to get answers to their questions quickly and directly from the books’ authors
  • Shows kids that it’s possible for culturally diverse people to create engaging stories and earn a living doing so
  • Makes reading and writing fun
  • Shifts learning from the page to the classroom
  • Opens children up to different perspectives
  • Builds connectivity among students as they see similarities in their questions, opinions and perceptions

Also, seeing and talking with authors in person makes reading feel “real”. Even adults love to meet their favorite authors face-to-face at book club discussions. These personal interactions bring a spark to fiction.

What Are the Lifelong Rewards

Because reading books offers so many benefits, these interactions can carry lifelong rewards. Help with expanding vocabulary and understanding what has been read are two rewards. Additional rewards are:

  • Stronger empathy which helps kids relate to others
  • Improved writing skills
  • Ability to think through what they hear and read more fully
  • Exercises the brain
  • Inspires creativity
  • Opens kids up to the possibility of working in the arts
  • Enhances ability to communicate with different types of people, a skill that can help kids now and throughout their lives, especially if they step into leadership positions

Diverse Book Offer So Much Good

Whether you are a parent, caregiver, educator or youth worker, you can positively influence children’s lives, particularly middle school readers who might be at a crossroads as it regards deciding to continue or stop reading books for fun. You can power kids up, bringing diverse books that allow them to see people like them doing amazing things.

Look out for books to gift your kids with. Another step you could take is to read kids’ books yourself. See if they grab and hold your attention. If they do, they just might be a hit with your kids. Above all, encourage the kids in your life to appreciate good stories and to read regularly.

Books offer so much. There’s a wealth of information in good books. Make it easy for young readers to access this valuable information. And make it easy for young readers to have fun reading books that spotlight and celebrate characters like them.

Resources:

Importance of reading | Young Readers Foundation

Living Thanksgiving – Appreciate What’s in Front of You

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

living thanksgiving cup of aromatic cappuccino with thank you words on foam
Living Thanks Cup – Photo by wewe yang on Pexels.com

Living thanksgiving calls for appreciation. It’s an ongoing process that requires present awareness. When you were a kid, you may have practiced present awareness effortlessly. In fact, a sure blessing linked to a happy, loving childhood is the ability to live in the present.

When you feel safe, loved and wanted, you can become fully involved in what you’re experiencing right now. Gone is the temptation to daydream or to pretend that you are someplace else.

Living Thanksgiving in The Present

Even more, a blessed childhood can keep you from looking to the future. Experience a loving childhood and you might not fall into the habit of convincing yourself that good things are always in the future always “out there” somewhere. That by itself can bring more goodness into your life.

After all, as you enjoy living in the present, you can actually experience the happiness that is associated with appreciation. The more physically present the thing you appreciate is, the stronger the happiness you may feel.

Try it. See how you feel when you fantasize or imagine having an experience that you like, but the experience is always in the future. Then, give yourself an experience that you enjoy right now. Look around your environment and count 5 things that you appreciate about the experience that you’re having right now. Which way feels better?

How Daydreaming and Fantasizing Influence Thankfulness

Daydreaming about a future experience that’s always too far ahead of you to enjoy or entering a loving experience and appreciating it right now? Which feels better right now? Fortunately, you could learn to appreciate what’s happening right now even if yours was a troubled childhood.

Furthermore, as it regards a blessed childhood, this doesn’t mean that you never felt sad or angry as a kid. It means that you didn’t experience trauma, especially ongoing trauma when you were a child. Trauma that’s experienced during childhood could make you want to be someplace else. To read more about childhood trauma, check out this article.

Continuously daydreaming, fantasizing and telling yourself that situations are better than they actually are could be signs that you have unresolved trauma. The good news is that you can deal with trauma and get through it, even it doing so requires the help of a licensed and highly experienced professional who you trust.

Associated Benefits of Living Thanksgiving

Whether yours was a trauma-free or stressful childhood, it can take work to start living in the present. When you consider the blessings associated with living in the present, you might be encouraged to try.

woman surrounded by sunflowers
Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com

Living thanksgiving offers rewards. To start, when you are fully present, you notice more. You actually see colors, people, events that you might otherwise miss. Other benefits include:

  • Strengthening your intuition – the more you become aware of what’s happening right now, the more clues you can pick up about what’s coming. You also might start to notice slight shifts in your inner guidance which could allow you to pick up when something feels right or wrong.
  • Enjoy conversations more deeply – being present can help you to hear what people are saying more fully and more clearly. This, in turn, could lead to a deep appreciation for what’s being shared.
  • Dining may become less of an addictive action – live in the present and you might stop and only eat while you’re dining. This could allow you to taste your food and beverages more thoroughly. Keep it up and you might stop eating and/or drinking to feed an emotion or to avoid an emotion or memory. (According to Psychology Today, trauma can cause your brain to replay the traumatic event.)
  • Improved relationships – Hearing and listening to people better can strengthen interpersonal relationships. You also might pick up when someone is disrespecting you and choose to love yourself and ask the person to hold you in respect as you do them.

Exploring More Thankfulness Advantages

There are more advantages connected to living thanksgiving. It could take a while, but you’d eventually see that everything in this world is temporary. That includes traumas that you’ve experienced, if you experienced trauma. The key is to let the trauma go. Again, you might need help from a licensed and experienced professional you trust.

The more you realize how temporary everything is in this world, the more you might pause and enter living thanksgiving as you observe what’s happening in your life and around you. If you’ve ever seen a loved one transition, you know the power of being thankful for what’s happening now.

Delay living thanksgiving and you could encounter regret. For instance, you might not appreciate a person, a pet or an experience until after the person or pet transitions or the experience has ended. Just think about it. How much joy and peace would you allow into your life if you appreciated what was right in front of you?

If you’re in a challenging situation, look for something to appreciate. But don’t stop there. Also, seek a way out of the situation. Definitely gain lessons from the experience. Don’t leave an experience with empty pockets. Always walk away with a lesson, at the minimum.

Surprising Answers

Throughout your journey, focus on appreciating what’s happening now. This means appreciating the people around you now, appreciating a job that you’re in right now and appreciating your dwelling now. To repeat, this doesn’t mean that you don’t seek a better job or dwelling. It means that you find something to be thankful about where you are right now.

Living thanksgiving or appreciating what’s right in front of you can keep you free of a nagging sense that something is always wrong. It can keep you energized and hopeful. Just remember to be honest about what you’re thankful about. For instance, if you don’t like loud music, don’t say that you do. However, if you’re in an area where music is being played loudly, you might be able to appreciate the lyrics.

You might even discover an answer to a question you’ve been mulling in the lyrics. When you practice living thanksgiving, another takeaway is that you could become more aware. It’s no secret that appreciation and awareness are linked. After all, you actually have to practice awareness to spot things to appreciate.

Resources:

  1. 21 Common Reactions to Trauma | Psychology Today