5 Steps to Overcome Apathy

1. We often feel apathetic when we’ve picked the wrong goals or when have no goals or direction for our life. So, look at what motivates you, or makes you feel alive.

2. Stop listening to others and their views on success. Success really is doing what’s important to YOU.

3. Try to think of some small accomplishment that will improve how you feel – and just do one small thing, and note how good it makes you feel!

4. Look for someone who could function as a role model for you – who didn’t have advantages but made something of life. If they can do it – it means that you can, too!

5. Visualize how great you’ll feel if you keep persevering, and get what is important to you, and the affect it will have on your life!

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7 Tips for Dealing with Stress

1. Make a list of the most important things to do each day, in order of priority. Think of exactly how you’ll get these done – and don’t think about all the other extra things.

2. Be aware of the triggers that cause you to feel stressed and then imagine coping successfully with these, so you stay in control and can keep getting on with life.

3. When you notice your stress rising, try to focus on your breathing, and make sure that this is slow, even, deep and regular.

4. Take some time out to recover and invest in yourself so you feel you’re being supported, and allowed to take your time – instead of feeling pressurized, controlled, or else boxed in.

5. Learn to say “no” and to set some boundaries. You only need to do what’s best for you right now. You don’t have to please others, or to do what others say.

6. Don’t run away from problems. Avoiding them only makes things worse. It’s better to be brave … and then to do what should be done. In the long run, it will help you, and you’ll feel a lot less stressed.

7. Talk to other people to see if they can help. Sometimes it makes a difference if someone else is there, and can listen, and support you, when your life is difficult.

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You Are NOT A Leader If:

You’re waiting on a bigger staff and more money to accomplish your vision.
 
You think you need to be in charge to have influence.
 
You’re content.
 
You tend to foster division instead of generating a helpful dialogue.
 
You think you need to say something to be heard.
 
You find it easier to blame others for your circumstances than to take responsibility for solutions.
 
It’s been some time since you said, “I messed up.”
 
You’re driven by the task instead of the relationships and the vision.
 
Your dreams are so small, people think they can be achieved.
 
No one is following you.    


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7 Questions to Help You Change Your Life

1. If you had all the money in the world, how would you choose to spend your life? 

2. What makes, and when do, you lose yourself…and later realize that you lost all track of time?

3. What lifts your spirits on a dark day?

4. When you are old, and you look back on your life, what things will matter to you the most?

5. What are 3 things that you really hope to achieve in life?

6. What kind of person do you want to be?

7. Who would you say is a role model for a life well-lived?

 

 

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10 Qualities that can make your personality attractive

Someone with an attractive personality:

1. Is warm and friendly towards others

2. Is open and real

3. Knows their own strengths and weaknesses - and neither boasts nor puts themselves down

4. Looks for the good in every situation, and is generally positive and optimistic

5. Doesn’t gossip or pass on others’ secrets

6. Doesn’t gloat when things go wrong for others

7. Is secure and has a healthy self–esteem; is not self-centered and narcissistic

8. Is not highly critical or argumentative

9. Is not possessive and jealous in relationships

10. Makes time for the people they care about

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Anxiety!!!

The origins of GAD, panic disorder, phobias, PTSD, and OCD can be bio-psycho-social. They all tend to be fear/anxiety based. For the most part those fears and anxieties cause significant impairment of the person’s day to day functioning privately as well as socially. With PTSD being the exception to the rule, most of these anxieties begin early in life with GAD and phobias tending to grow for less acute beginnings. Most of the disorders are prevalent in younger populations, but GAD is most commonly seen among the elderly. 

Combined statistics show anxiety disorders to affect less than 13% of the population. OCD seems to affect the least number at 2.6%, while social phobias run close to 13%. Public speaking is thought to be the number one social phobia. Now for the interesting part of this study, it appears as if women are disproportionately affected by anxiety disorders. However, I would like to do a study using different variables because, in my opinion, the average man is much less forthcoming about his emotional wellbeing than the average woman. I personally believe the numbers may be skewed for several reasons. 

Among those reasons might be that men tend to try to put on a macho image that will usually manifest itself devoid of fear. Women tend to be much more honest about their fears. Both of these ideas are based on the social norms within our culture. Finally, all of the disorders mentioned respond best to cognitive-behavior therapy. Meds can be used for some, but the relapse rate upon ceasing the medication is high for all of the disorders.

I have often been told I have OCD. Hopefully those comments are in jest. Like most people I worry was too much about things I cannot control. Here is a great illustration I have used from time to time,
One morning Death was walking into a city when a man stopped him and asked what he was doing. Death answered, “I’m going into the city to kill 10,000 people.” The man replied, “That’s terrible that you would kill 10,000 people.” Death responded, “Taking people when their time has come is my job. Today I have to get my 10,000.” Later, as Death was coming out of the city, the man met him. Again, he was furious. He said, “You told me this morning that you were going to take 10,000 people, but 70,000 died today.” Death answered, “Don’t get mad at me. I only took 10,000. Worry killed all the rest (Robinson 1991).
As far as my misconceptions about dissociative disorders go I have been amazed that they exist in such a small portion of the overall population. Spending as much time with large groups of people as I have done through the years makes me wonder if I don’t know a disproportionately large percentage of the stated percentage! Christians seem to worry as much, if not more, than people I know who do not know Jesus Christ. Personally, I link that fact to “works theology,” which is a faulty theology at best, and a sinful yoke at worst. Christians believe that God is a cosmic kill-joy with mountains of rules. The Bible teaches just the opposite by telling us that there is nothing we can do to earn Heaven, and we should lay our worries at the feet of the Lord.

After this study, I will be less inclined to move to this type of disorder so quickly. With so few people in this category it would be prudent to entertain more options for a diagnosis. These disorders, mentioned in chapter 4, would be very easy to use as quick fixes to problems that could be much deeper.
Final Thought:
The poet Robert Frost (1874–1963) wrote, “The reason why worry kills more people than work is because more people worry than work.”
Do you believe this?
What do you think he meant by “work?”
Haddon W. Robinson, What Jesus Said About Successful Living (Grand Rapids: RBC, 1991), 221.
"Virtus, non copia vincint"
Courage, not multitude wins