Tiny Bites of Wagaliciousness

You know that wonderful feeling of being in love? Want to feel more love? Be love because you are love. You are made of love, and love is who we are. You don’t need to find self-love – all you need to do is love. Look around you – there’s so much to love. Love the sun sparkling on a drop of water…love the bird calling out in the midday air…love the fact that your heart beats with no effort at all...

Comparison is the way you dig away at your self-esteem. Ouch – could that be true? Yep, and research into social comparison theory finds that, while a small level of comparison can be motivating, most people spend way too much time measuring themselves against others and feeling “less than.” Nearly 10% of our thinking time each day is spent comparing ourselves to others in one way or another. If y...

When babies learn to walk, they make hundreds of balance mistakes before they finally manage to string a few steps together. When students take their college boards, most of them feel very anxious, and sometimes over-think things, creating mistakes where they wouldn’t have been. When babies fall they don’t chastise themselves. When students get a bad grade on a test, they do chastise themselves. W...

Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure. Stephen King said that and I agree – do you? When you try to do something and it doesn’t turn out quite like you planned, what’s your usual feeling? Do you beat yourself up? Try to cover the failure up? Or do you find a way to see the problem more clearly so you can solve it more easily next time? When you can teach yourself to be optimistic...

Focus on your strengths, not where you think you are weak. Oh, we can be so hard on ourselves!! For years I thought I was clumsy so didn’t go out for sports, go out on dates or put myself out there, for fear people would see how clumsy I was. News flash – I wasn’t clumsy, I just thought I was! How do you sabotage yourself with negative self-talk? Think about one weakness you believe you have and t...

You know how someone gives you the willies? You know that one thing that when you eat it, you don’t feel good the next day? You know there’s that one street you avoid driving down and you don’t know why? Trust those feelings. Gut reactions – knee-jerk responses – intuition – no matter what you call feelings like that, trust them. Your brain and body are picking up on something that you may not und...

Don’t spend your time trying to make people like you. When you’re around someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate you, understand that’s their issue, not yours. Move on. Seriously – move on! It took me a long time to realize that, the same way I don’t like every single person in my life, it’s perfectly ok for others to not like me. And once I really understood and internalized that, it was one of th...

Strength comes from moving through life’s tough moments. Most people wish they had an easy life – plenty of money, no problems in their relationships, lots of free time to do as they please. But it’s in life’s tough moments that humans gain their strengths. When you learn to make do, when you learn to make up and when you learn to balance your working hours with your leisure hours, you become stro...

Did your parents encourage you to learn from your mistakes? Mine did, and that’s good advice. Unfortunately, sometimes I got in trouble for making mistakes, which taught me how to deny them. It’s hard to learn from mistakes you’re not owning up to, so if you learned the same lessons from your parent as I did, here’s a tip – own your mistakes. Yep, you’re a grown-up now, so no one is the boss of yo...

Think about successful inventors and creators. Michelangelo. Thomas Edison. Bill Gates. They changed the world because they saw visions of what could be and focused on those visions instead of on the world in front of them. They used their imagination to create things most other people would have called crazy. It’s not our big brains that made us a successful species – it’s our ability to imagine...

Think of the most positive person you know. They may be so positive that sometimes they annoy you with their sunny outlook. Now, take this in – that person has negative thoughts, just like you. Neuroscience research has documented the brain’s negativity bias – it’s a survival trait that we don’t really need anymore but it still persists. Even the most positive people have negative thoughts. They j...

Even if you avoid dousing yourself regularly with news coverage, you still know what’s going on in the world. And you understand that a lot of what happens around you and sometimes even to you isn’t perfect. Heck, sometimes it’s downright horrible. There is darkness that sometimes happens to you, but the darkness isn’t you. You are the light that refused to quit shining in spite of the darkness yo...

Do you let your imagination run free at least a few times a day? Imagination is allowing your brain to consider the possibilities, no matter how outlandish they may be. It’s very easy to get caught in the rut of doing things the way you always do them, and reacting the way you always react. Today, try to give your imagination free run of a few decisions and see what happens. How did it feel to get...

There’s so much wisdom on Facebook – have you noticed? A friend posted a meme that said “Stop tending other peoples’ gardens at the expense of your own.” Think about that for a moment – how often do you help a friend when you really need to be doing something else? How often do you stay in a conversation that makes you feel bad just because you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings? How o...

Do you often feel self-conscious around people you don’t know well? That’s normal, and trust me, as you grow in self-confidence you’ll lost some or most of that uncomfortable feeling that others are judging you. You are the center of your universe – and you are not the center of anyone else’s. People don’t focus on you as much as you think they do, because they’re busy focusing on themselves. That...

Judy Garland said, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” What does that quote mean to you? To me, she was talking about self-confidence – about being the best you, the boldest you, the kindest you and the most confident you. When you try to be like someone else, you’re trading self-confidence for a need to fit in. A great way to start the d...

You look at the world through the sum total of your life experiences. Your partner looks at the world through the sum total of their experiences. Every person you interact with looks at the world through their own life experiences. No two humans have the same experiences, so all of us will react differently to the same things. We’ll see things differently – even things that we watch unfold as we a...

Are you facing something that looks like a big decision or a big problem? Wait. Wait. And then wait some more. Time and flexibility of thoughts will often bring you the path to follow. When you are very conflicted about something and don’t know which way to go, do what I do – give it to the committee in the back of your head. That’s my name for it – you might choose something else to call the proc...

Sometimes people who are older than you will say “these are the best years of your life.” They may be trying to help you put something into perspective, they may be remembering their life at your age, or they may just be parroting the same old k-r-a-p that was said to them when they were your age. They don’t mean to be dismissive of your problem, they probably think they’re helping you. If you can...

Want to know the secret to stress relief? It’s not having a stress-free life, it’s having a stress-free outlook. What happens around you happens. You’re not in control of red lights, gridlock traffic, rude clients – none of it. You can’t control what happens around you – you can control your response to it. Your brain makes it challenging to choose a new reaction, though, because for years you’ve...

An author known for writing deeply frightening books, Stephen King, said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” He was talking about writing a book and could have been talking about anything. Beginning something new is always filled with at least a little bit of dread or trepidation or even fear. That is normal, and if it was felt and acknowledged by the king of fearful fiction hi...

Where do you find happiness? How often do you actually look for happiness? There are people who tell you that life shouldn’t be about being happy all the time, and it might surprise you to know I agree with them. Life isn’t about being happy all the time – it’s in the setbacks, heartbreaks and wanting more that we learn to stretch ourselves and grow. And it’s in the happy moments that life is trul...

How do you feel when something or someone you wanted doesn’t become yours? Maybe it was a new work situation, a new house or even a new spouse? Well, that question seems stupid, doesn’t it? Rejection hurts. Rejection is disappointing. And then there’s this - rejection is good because it shows you that you tried. Failing at anything is a bit of a gut-punch at first, and that’s to be expected becaus...

Focus on what you love, not what you fear. Have you heard the phrase “you are what you eat?” Work in neuroscience and neuroplasticity is proving that you are what you think, too. People who focus on what they dislike are constantly aware of what they dislike. The neighbor’s barking dog – red lights – people who cut in line or cut them off in traffic. What you focus on is what you’re paying attenti...

I ran across this quote from Pema Chodron – “You are the sky. Everything else is the weather.” Do you love that as much as I do? It’s a great reminder of your vastness, your calmness, your value and your beauty. It’s also a reminder that, just like the weather, difficulties will pass and you can remain vast, calm, valuable and beautiful. Whether or not you recognize your vastness, your calmness, y...