Without a road map, reaching goals is a hit and miss proposition.

The most important first step to knowing where you want to go (and grow) is to see it vividly in your mind’s eye.

Not just make more money.

What does more money look and feel like.  See it so you can feel it.

Not just you want to achieve recognition.

What do you want on your business card.

Not simply more happiness.

What does that happiness look like in color, in action.

When a sports team wants to win the ultimate trophy for being the best, players work hard to motivate themselves by seeing them holding or kissing the trophy, wearing the commemorative ring, the recognition they will finally earn, the things they can buy their families (not just money, but specifically what that money buys).

Working hard to reach goals can be a road to nowhere without first seeing vividly in your mind’s eye that which you want to achieve.

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Who do you admire most?

Say you could be that person.  You would still only be second best to the person you want to be.

Trying to compare ourselves with others is like taking away every gift we have that even our most admired look up to doesn’t have.

Comparing ourselves to others is so self-destructive because we are leaving ourselves with an imitation not an original.

Chances are the person you said you admired the most is an original and not an imitation.

Strive to be different and reward yourself for it.

Study the people you look up to and focus on how they overcame being the same as everyone else to become an original. 

We compare ourselves to others when we don’t have the confidence to stand tall as the person we want to be.

There is no one like you.

Try to be aware of that today and see how it empowers you.

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Athletes must prepare for mid-season trades that put them and their families in precarious situations.

They may not like the thought of being traded this time of year but they have to accept it.

And that’s the thing about things you can’t control.

It’s a reminder to focus on that which you can control.

Broke your leg, can’t walk without crutches for eight weeks.  Focus on making the upper body stronger. 

Just broke up with someone close to you?  What a great time to be more available to your friends and open to making new ones.

Losing your job in a layoff that is out of your hands?  Use this as an opportunity to discover if you are on the right career path in the right industry for you. 

What is so mysterious about accepting what we can’t control?

It’s more the uncertainty of what may follow.

So the solution is to let go and get going on that which is still clearly in your hands.

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There is now evidence in the study of animals that animals who are confident win and dominate more often.

It wouldn’t be surprising to learn the same thing about humans.

Except with humans we are the victims of changing momentum.

Your favorite sports team looks like it is going to win the game until out of nowhere the other side comes back and steals the victory.  It happens a lot.

We’re confident when we’re on a roll but when things start going against us – we’re human, not animals – us losing gets into our heads.

I love to remember that Ted Williams was the best hitter ever in baseball and yet he was out 60% of the time.

Maybe winning isn’t winning 100% of the time, but succeeding where it matters.

Where does it matter to you the most?

Focus on that area.

Then any success will be multiplied because it is more meaningful.

Confidence is strongest when it is based on how hard we are willing to work instead of how lucky we are feeling.

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Find something to celebrate and/or appreciate on days that are challenging.

A bad day gets out of control very quickly and often gets worse once we realize we’re having one.

There is no cure for making people nicer, employers and associates more civil or family and friends appreciate you the way you’d like.

But there is one thing that works every time and it has nothing to do with people who are giving you a hard time.

It begins with us.

Once our brains are stimulated to feel that things are going south rapidly, one way to halt it is to find something or someone you appreciate.

It can even be done like this …

My boss is insensitive to how hard we work for him/her, but my spouse always seems to appreciate me. 

My ex is driving me crazy.  But thankfully I have (name them) who are always there for me. 

I’ve got the flu and I feel awful but I’ll be over it in a few days so believe it or not I am grateful that I ONLY have the flu. 

Our world is immediate.

We hit “send” in more ways than one and that is not always helpful, so when you send a message of despair on challenging days, send a second one directly to your brain finding something or someone to celebrate.

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Part 2 of a recent American Psychological Association survey just released shows 43% are constant checkers of Twitter, email, social media or all things digital.

Social media use is up from 7% in 2005 to 65% now.

If you’re 18-29, it’s 90%.

But here’s the thing.

On a ten-point scale, constant checkers report a stress level of 5.3. For everyone else it is 4.4.

Highest stressors are for those who check emails on their off time and weekends.  In France, they have an after-hour law against companies expecting employees to answer emails in their private time.

35% say they are less likely to spend time with family or friends because of social media.

How about some help here?

Set times when you’re off digital media.

Don’t multitask, an evil habit made possible by digital devices. 

Try to do tasks slower (sounds crazy, but try it once). 

Prioritize – A’s, B’s and C’s. 

Balance online social contacts with an equal amount of in-person face time.

Have an end of the day. 

Don’t sleep with a screen. 

Digital stress is not going to go away any time soon because we have become addicted to our digital devices.

But the evidence is mounting.

Time to do something about it.

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Losing a job or a friend, a spouse, a pet is painful enough.

Add time and that pain festers.

Lose your youth, lose touch with your college friends ten years after graduating.

Or lose your health that can happen at any age contrary to popular belief.

Loss plus time to let it marinate is the formula for unhappiness.

We get stuck.

We feel empty.

A great way to look at loss is to replace every loss with some kind of gain.

A job with a better job and while you’re looking, the promise of a better job.

A long relationship is hard to replace, but more face time with friends reminds us that our personal loss is not permanent.

Even the loss of a loved one, although they cannot be replaced, can be augmented by dedicating yourself to the memories that made that person special.

Here’s the revelation.

A loss doesn’t even have to be replaced by an equal gain (say, a job for another job).  Maybe just entering a marathon or giving some of your time to the less fortunate will make you feel full for a period of time.

When we add to our lives at times when something has been taken away, it helps us not only get through it, but it’s a rehearsal for our future happiness.

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My wife was on the phone with an Apple service rep the other day and when she asked how is your day going, she was not ready for the response.

She said she was going to Walmart just before Valentine’s Day to get her kids a card and some stuffed animals when she encountered customers in the store fighting over the stuffed animals.

Then when she was attempting to check out, she saw fighting in line that was so intimidating that she walked out without the gifts.

It’s not just Walmart, it’s getting to be everywhere as people think that it is okay to dispense with common courtesy.

This kind of thing affects our mood, our day and often the way we feel about others.

In a stressed-out world, courtesy seems to have taken a back seat.

To fight against rude people, look to the people who are not rude.   They may be the quiet ones, the unnoticed.

It is important for me not to lose hope that most people care about being nice, they are just getting pushed aside by outrageous behavior online and in person.

Perhaps you feel the same way?

For every rude person, make it a point to look around and find at least one unnoticed person who is being kind.

Changing the world begins with one person at a time.

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Think about it.

When you post a picture or comment on Instagram or Facebook, you go back and check to see how many people liked it.

If that’s not you, you are not typical according to research.

More troubling is new information that social media is forcing users to put on a façade of happiness that does not exist.  Donna Freitas’ book The Happiness Effect – How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost contains sobering examples.

This is bad for any of us but especially for young people who are vulnerable to being accepted by peers.

Social media is fine for expression and communication but no substitute for face to face friends and living in the present to discover its many wonders.

The likes that are most important are the ones we have about ourselves not the ones others vote on through social media.

I like the way I conducted myself under pressure. 

I like that I had empathy for my friend.

Even though I messed up, I like the fact that I care to be better next time.

What do you like about you and the evidence to support it.

The man or woman in the mirror is the best “like” of all.

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A few weeks back Tiffany Trump (President Trump’s daughter with Marla Maples) was reportedly shunned at New York Fashion Week.

News coverage makes it appear that Tiffany Trump wasn’t being welcomed as other fashionistas were.

Pictures emerged of how there were two seats next to her in row one at Fashion Week, a place people kill to be in the first row.  Except, they may have been snapped at an inopportune time.

Well, liberal Democrat Whoopi Goldberg had about enough of this and spoke out on The View.

Goldberg told Tiffany Trump that she would be happy to sit next to her at the next show and talk fashion not politics.

The world is sadly becoming dominated with haters and how did it get to the point where an otherwise nice person is being shamed because of her father’s politics?

Dislike the deed and not the person and you’ll stop haters dead in their tracks.

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