Your Life- Your Choice

by Carol Giannantonio


It's pretty easy sometimes to feel like a victim. There are "things" that affect our daily lives - work, friends, children, aging parents, health issues, loss of a loved one, a job even a pet.

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But these are things that happen around us. They don't actually happen to us.

It is our reactions to the things that happen around us that shapes our lives.
So how do you get started? Allow me to help. Here's a simple 5 Step Plan to creating a creating a happy and fulfilling life or as they say "a life that matters"

Step 1: Take a positive look at life. Change your thinking and change your attitude. Stop the negative thinking of poor me and start the positive thinking of wow look at all I have.
Develop a positive attitude about you. This will allow you to start using all your wonderful qualities to "starting liking you" and start creating a life you love.

Step 2: Make a choice. You and only you can make the choice to create a life you love. You and only you can make the choice to sit back do nothing and allow life to control you. Caution: Sitting back, doing nothing and feeling like a victim puts you in a "stuck" situation. When your stuck, you can't see things clearly, and you just cant seem to find the path to happiness. You feel trapped, sad, anxious and even fearful. Not pleasant feelings at all. The good news is you can change this. The choice is yours.

Step 3: Believe in you. You have the ability to create a life that matters. You need to:
A) Believe in you. B) Visualize your life as you like it to be and make it so. C)Have the courage to take the risk, look reality in the face and take action D) Stop feeling sorry for yourself- overcome the feeling of being the victim and start feeling victorious by taking control of your life. How can you do that? Just take action. Just do it NOW.

Step 4: Exercise your Freedom of Choice. The choice is always yours. Yet for so many of us--making the choice to live a happy life is difficult. Sometimes people find comfort in staying in a familiar, safe place. Change is scary. Once you realize and accept this fact you can start to act on CHANGING.

Step 5: Look Life in the Eye. Look at yourself in the mirror. What do you really see? The greatest challenge one can face is to look at life smack in the eye and say I am ready to do what it takes to create a life I want and love.

While looking in the mirror say this- "I have what it takes, I have the power." or "Look at me. I have so much going for myself." Now smile, doesn't that feel great? Like a 50 lb weight off your shoulders.

One of my clients burst into tears while doing this. She looked reality right in the eyes and said oh my God what am I doing to myself? I have so much going for me so I BETTER GET GOING.

We've had only 4 coaching sessions and her life has changed dramatically.

When you start believing in you everything is possible. Get unstuck and get going. That's when the real happiness begins.

Don't you deserve to be happy?

About Carol Giannantonio

For over 10 years Carol Giannantonio has helped individuals positively transform their lives and careers through her unique coaching and goals setting process. Carol's knowledge of and passion for coaching combined with her compassion and wisdom provide her clients with an enriching coaching experience. Her clients quickly see an improvement in their performance, experience positive changes in their overall quality of life and learn new and improved ways of thinking that allow them to reach their full potential. Carol is an Educator, Life, Business and Career Coach who specializes in helping people clarify what's really important to them, break through their limitations, and tap into their energy to have a life they want and love. Her guiding principle is, "Go The Distance to Reach Your Dreams. Please visit her Web site www.carolgcoach.com and sign up for a free consultation, her newsletter, daily quotes and much more. Contact her at carolgcoach@aol.com for a truly unique coaching experience.

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The Importance of Humor

by Robert Stuberg

Have you ever thought about how important humor is to your life? In thinking about the subject for the past few days, I found myself reflecting on how critical humor really is in our lives.

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I can't imagine going through a day without laughter. In fact, when I think about those times in my life that were the most difficult, I find myself remembering how somber things seemed. There was little humor and not much laughter. Conversely, when I think about those times from the past when I was most alive, I immediately begin to recall experiences that made me laugh.

Certainly one of the best ways to ruin your life would be to take everything too seriously, especially yourself. Have you ever noticed how really successful people are able to laugh at themselves? I don't think I've ever met anyone worthy of modeling who didn't make humor an integral part of his or her life.

While much has been written over the years about how to be happy and successful, most people shy away from talking about how to be unhappy and unsuccessful. But, of course, studying contrasts can be very enlightening.

When it comes to being unhappy or miserable, I think I've learned a formula that never fails. See what you think. It's simply this: Remove humor from your life. Don't laugh. Don't look for the humor in the experiences you go through on a daily basis. That'll do the trick don't you think? All you have to do to add unhappiness and misery to your life is to remove humor. That will undoubtedly help you find your way to total misery.

Luckily, the reverse is also true and I think we all know it deep down. So the question is: Why don't we laugh more? Why don't we look for ways to lighten up and find more levity and have more fun? I think like a lot of good things in life, we tend to forget what works and we need to be reminded of the simple truths.

Humor will make every part of your life better. It will help you through difficult times and it will help you make the good times even better. It will attract good people and good situations to you. You'll become a magnet for positive experiences. And it's well documented that daily laughter will make you healthier.

But, of course, there is a downside. You may start to lose some people in your life. People who don't have a good sense of humor will probably start avoiding you. They'll probably start to wonder if you've joined some kind of weird cult. And, of course, you'll have to decide how to handle this. Should you try to change them or try to get them to laugh once and awhile? Sure. It might help. But don't be surprised if they fail to see the humor and continue on with their sour way of looking at the world. Ultimately, we can't change others, we can only change ourselves.

Besides, have you ever noticed how some people wouldn't be happy if they weren't miserable? There may actually be something humorous about that.

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