You would think that it takes a lot of effort to connect with another person, but all it really takes it just one thing in your conversation with someone else.

Without this one element, most conversation stop after “Hey, nice weather out there, don’t you think?” or “Where do you live?”

And don’t get me wrong, sometimes it is good that some conversations end there, because you don’t feel a connection with the other person. But in most cases, it is certainly worthwhile to dig a little deeper to see whether there are some common interests, traits or whatever you are looking for in that particular connection.

How do you currently go about connecting with people? [Read more…]

Today’s post is inspired by one of you! You may know that I regularly ask my newsletter subscribers whether they have any topic on their chest which they would like me to address in a specific post. So, today, I would like to thank Cynthia! She asked me whether I can help with an article about how to deal with fear and anxiety in particular, so here it comes!

Before we go in detail on how to deal with fear and anxiety, let’s have a look at what both of those terms really mean.

 

Fear

Fear is a negative emotion felt by a person who is responding to a known or definite threat. To make it more explicit, imagine you are in a supermarket. Someone comes up next to you. You sense danger. The stranger gets out a knife and threatens you to do you harm, if you do not hand over your wallet. That emotion popping up right in those moments is fear. You feel endangered. The threat of this person with the knife is as real as it can be. [Read more…]

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

When I was reading an online magazine the other day, I came across this famous quote by Oscar Wilde, and it immediately struck a chord with me.

It was not my first time that I had heard it, but it resonated with me. I guess it resonated particularly well with me at that given moment. Why?

I have been working on my limiting beliefs for quite some time now, sometimes I overcome one of them, others tend to creep up over and over again. Like the one where I tend to think that I need to be someone else to be happy. I think I need to pretend to be someone else, dress like someone else or behave like them to be happy.

This is complete nonsense. I get that. But I sometimes think that it is true. I am sabotaging myself. I am not being 100% me. I am pretending to be someone else to be happy? Time to get real!

This is why I work on my limiting beliefs from time to time. I probably should do it more often, but I am happy that I do it. Even little steps count towards that mile.

So, when I ask other people, I see that I am not the only one who thinks or wants to be someone else every once in a while. Due to various reasons, I guess. We all have our own reasons, personal reasons often.

People envy. People do not like themselves. Or something along those lines. So, the easiest thing for them to do (including myself), is to pretend they are someone else to make them feel better.

Does this relate to you? [Read more…]

Do you consider yourself a busy person?

Let’s face it who does not consider themselves as “being busy?“ Everybody is busy nowadays. Everybody. At least that’s what I perceive.

I see people rushing to work after they dropped off the kids at school. I see a lady eating a salad in the office, because she does not “have the time to go for lunch”. That could have been me a few years back. Seriously.

We have all been there. Or, in fact, we might be in this boat right now.

We might think that we simply do not have to time to go for a long walk with the dog, because someone is waiting for you at home, or this certain paper needs to be send out. We might think that we simply have too much on our plate to do certain things which we would like to. [Read more…]

When was the last time you failed?

For me, it was this week. In fact it was two days ago, when I was really angry at myself.

Really angry. Why? Because I had failed. And I do not like to not achieve, so I got angry. A natural reaction, I guess.

My book was supposed to come out today. Today. But it is not out, it is not ready yet. Because I failed.

And then I got carried away with this anger. All these things came up in my head. The nasty words I found describing myself. Everything from “Why did I not manage to do this?” to “I am really failing.”

Not fun.

I failed miserably, at least in my own eyes. That’s what I thought. [Read more…]

Remember the Space song going viral last year? The astronaut singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while being in ISS flying around the earth?

Well, this astronaut – Chris Hadfield – has been speaking at TED this month. The talk “What I learned from going blind in space” only got released this week, and it already has over 350.000 views!

I think I know why. I mean apart from the fact that Chris Hadfield is widely known.

Chris gives an amazing talk about his experience to confront fear, and danger. In fact he gives a recipe on how each one of us can not only address a fear that we might have, but also deal with it. It sounds simple in comparison to flying to space, in my view. [Read more…]

Are you a victim of self-sabotage? Think about this for a second.

Do you think you have to “yield” all the time and resist your negative emotions?

What is your answer?

Unfortunately, the chances are highly likely that you are a victim of self-sabotage. Maybe not on a daily basis, but we human beings are growing into this world filled with negative thoughts. No wonder, in school, we learned all about two things. Passing or failing. Not being good enough to finish school with good grades.

It is no surprise to me that there is so much self-sabotage around. As much as it is not a surprise, it disturbs me. It disturbs me when I realize that I am self-sabotaging myself, but in particular when I see the people around me suffering. Probably because they have a limiting belief. But do they know about it? Are they aware? Are they too scared to address it? [Read more…]