7 Things You Must Leave Behind To Get Ahead in 2016

To move forward, you have to leave some things behind.

1.Beliefs That No Longer Serve You: If you want to move forward, you have to be willing to shed the old beliefs that you hold but that no longer serve you.

2. Your Willingness To Rationalize: It’s easy to find something external on which to place the blame for the areas where your results aren’t what you want them to be.

3. Your Willingness to Procrastinate
You are not a procrastinator because there is no such thing. You are a human being who happens to procrastinate.

4. Making Small Choices: Most television is a small choice. Spending time arguing about politics is a small choice.

5. Your Desire for Comfort: Once you reach this point, you’re comfortable. And comfort is a dangerous state. You were born hungry.

6. Your Fears: This is a big one. The one thing most likely to keep you from success is fear. You might be afraid of what other people will think.

7. People Who Don’t Support You: There are some people that can’t be happy for your success.
If you want to transform yourself, you are going to need to leave part of your old self behind. That’s the price you pay for transformation, and the price you pay for becoming the person you were born to be.

Love Allison💛

10 Signs of Walking Depression

 

Do you suffer from walking depression?  I read this article by Alison Gresik. While she talks about walking depression in writers and artists, I found it profoundly relevant to many everyday women I work with and coach.
On the surface, people might not know anything is wrong. You keep working and keep looking after your families.

But you’re doing it all while profoundly unhappy. Depression is negatively impacting your life and relationships and impairing your abilities.

Walking depression can be hard to recognize because it doesn’t fit the more common picture of severe depression. But it can be just as dangerous to your well-being when left unacknowledged.

1.Nothing is fun. You root around for something to look forward to and come up empty.

2. You can’t find flow. Working on your creative projects feels like a grind, but you keep plodding away. There is research that shows that neuroticism (the tendency toward negative moods) is associated with lower rates of flow.

3 Your energy is low. Maybe you’re not getting enough rest because you’re too anxious to sleep, or you’re trying to cram too many tasks into a day, or you’re punishing yourself by staying up. Whatever the reason, you are effin’ tired.

4. You feel worse in the morning and better at night. I remember explaining this to a friend, who found it mystifying. In the morning I felt the crushing weight of all the things I had to do that day. In the evening I was temporarily free from expectations and could enjoy a moment’s respite.

5. You have simmering resentment toward others. Sure, you’re still doing what everybody asks of you, but you stew in anger the whole time. You are jealous of and bitter toward people who look happier than you feel.

6. Your self-talk gets caustic. You say nasty things in an effort to shock yourself into action. You use shame as a motivator.

7. You feel distanced from people around you. It’s hard to have genuine, intimate conversations because you have to keep up this front that you are alright.

8. You deprive yourself of creative work time. This helps you exert some control and stirs up feelings of suffering that are perversely pleasurable. Also, taking on new projects that prevent you from writing or making art lets you prove to yourself that you’re still strong and capable.
9. You notice a significant mood change when you have caffeine or alcohol. A cup of coffee might make you feel a lot more revved-up and optimistic. A glass of wine might make you feel really mellow and even ~ gasp! ~ happy. (That’s how I finally realized that I was depressed.)

10. You feel like you’re wasting your life. Some people have a high sensitivity to the inherent meaning in what we do. If our daily activities don’t carry enough significance ~ if they don’t feel like a worthwhile use of our talents and passions ~ then soon we are asking ourselves,  “What’s the point? Why should I keep going?”

Why is it hard to admit that you have walking depression?

You may recognize many of these signs in your life but still be slow to admit that you are depressed. Why is that?

Because it feels presumptuous to put yourself in that category when you’re still getting by. You feel like it would be insulting to those who are much worse off than you. You may feel like you have no real reason to be depressed.

Because your pride and your identity take a hit. You have to admit vulnerability and allow that you are not the all-conquering superhero you thought you were.

Because you realize that you and your life need to change, which feels like more work piled on your plate.

Because you are admitting your own responsibility for your unhappiness and that can trigger self-judgment.

Because you might uncover grief or anger at those around you for not seeing and taking better care of you.

Prison Break Action Steps:

Rest.
Make use of medication and other physical treatments.
Do therapy.
Practice gratitude.
Make connections.
Reduce your responsibilities.
Spend time creating.
Change your thoughts.
Develop a meaning practice.
Change your life.
These steps are simple to say, not easy to do, so make sure you get as much support as you can.
As a young adult, I longed to make my mark on the world and be successful. But life got in the way, I started to sabotage my own happiness. I got sidetracked by all the demands of an ordinary life.

Soon I joined the ranks of the walking depressed. I was working and looking after my family, but I was also desperately sad.

I found the path out of depression by following my desires—to write, to travel, to support criminal justice issues and became a certified life coach. Eventually I left ordinary life behind.

Find and follow your path of desire! Walk out of walking depression and into an extraordinary life!

 

Love Allison 💛

How To Move Beyond Your Past To Create An Ex-traordinary Life

The Nicest People Have Suffered The Most Damage In Life

 

Life tests people every day. And for reasons we don’t know, everyone gets a different test.

Some struggle with calculus; others are dealt basic math. Either way, we all have to deal with what we’ve been given. Ultimately, what we’re given is all random. Genetics, location and financial status — it’s all one big luck of the draw.

Yet whatever circumstance life throws, you get to decide if you’re going to be a victim or a survivor. You have complete control over whether life makes you sweet or sour.

And those who choose to be sweet – the survivors – are strongest.

Swiss psychiatrist and author, Elisbeth Kübler-Ross, once eloquently stated:

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

In other words, nice people weren’t born nice — they made themselves that way

1. Nice people bring light into the world because they come from dark pasts.

In the world of darkness into which they were born, nice people use positivity as a lantern to create more light.

2. Nice people have often been dealt a significant amount of bad luck. They’ve been thrust into harmful situations and gripped by destructive circumstances, like toxic family members or poverty.

And they have learned not only to succeed. They’ve learned to overcome. They’ve kicked off their crutches and somehow done the impossible: They’ve taught themselves to run and catch up to everyone else in a world that does not wait for anyone.

When everyone else was gifted a 200-count Crayola box set, you might have gotten a broken Rose Art crayon. But you used that poor excuse of a wax pastel to live a colorful life anyway.

3. Nice people love the hardest  because they’ve been hurt the most.

People will probably treat you better if they’ve been hurt by a former lover.

Why does this happen? Well, people who have had their hearts shredded know what it’s like to tape the torn pieces back together. The brokenhearted never want to inflict emotional paper cuts on anyone else.

4. Nice people have learned the hard way that disadvantages are opportunities for growth.

It’s more than possible that a few nice people used to be pessimistic. But over time, they usually learn — the hard way — how to be positive.

Perhaps they came to realize that every little thing that seems to pull them down in life eventually becomes a stepping stone to success.

Perhaps dealing with an alcoholic brother taught someone the empathy and patience to deal with recovering addicts. Many therapists learned from a young age how to relate to people who are in pain.

In this way, nice people construct staircases from quicksand.

5. Nice people don’t want others to hurt in the way they’ve been hurt.

Nice people might have been teased for having freckles, big ears or acne. Maybe a physical disability makes them feel invisible to other people. Maybe an invisible disability itself prevents them from getting the care that they need. And because they know what it’s like to feel tormented, they’d never want to cause anyone else that same kind of pain.

In this way, kindness emerges from those who have only known cruelty.

Instead of harassing others, nice people break the cyclical nature of insensitivity. They give compliments and words of encouragement. They want others to feel truly beautiful and confident instead of ugly and hurt. They already know what that’s like, and they wouldn’t wish it on their worst enemies.

6. Nice people choose to be survivors who help others stay afloat.

Nice people can deal with any situation thrown their way. They know they can survive anything, because they already have. All of their scars are simply evidence that they can heal from new scrapes.

If anything ever knocks them over, they just shoot right back up and keep going. Knowing that they can endure, these nice people try to do what they can to help others pull ahead.

In the race of life, most runners usually only look out for and focus on themselves. But people who have suffered look out for people who might be going through similar struggles.

They cheer friends on, share their water bottles and motivate others to run with them.

They become the helping hand that they wished they’d had for themselves.

 

Love Allison 💛