What A Difference A Smile Makes

No matter what country you’re from or what language you speak, everyone understands a smile.

 

Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People said of a smile, “It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive it, without impoverishing people who give it. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.”

 

Here are eight reasons why you should make smiling part of your daily routine:

 

1. You’ll live longer and be in better health. It’s a proven fact that optimistic people are healthier, have stronger immune systems, and live longer. Those with a positive attitude tend to take better care of them selves. They eat healthier, drink in moderation, and exercise regularly. When you smile it also boosts the level of serotonin, which plays a role in regulating mood, sleep, sexuality and appetite. It also releases endorphins which are the body’s natural pain killers.
2. It’s easier to smile than to frown. Someone once said that it takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. I’m not sure if the numbers are accurate, but you get the point – being miserable requires more work than being happy.
3. It makes you more attractive. There’s a reason everyone makes you smile before taking your picture. Everyone looks better with a smile on their face.
4. Smiling makes you look younger. Not only do you look better, you look younger. Forget the face lifts or Botox injections; just smile more often.
5. Smiling makes you seem more successful. People who smile are assumed to be more successful. If you’re always frowning, people automatically assume that things aren’t going that well for you.
6. People treat you differently. If you are smiling, people are more likely to start a conversation with you. People want to be around people who smile.
7. You’ll spend less time in jail. Studies have shown that judges give lighter sentences to people if they are smiling.
8. You’ll have a more satisfying relationship. Studies show that intense happiness is a key ingredient to maintaining a satisfying relationship.

 

There are four things you can start right now to put you on track to a happier life:

 

1. “Fake it till you make it.” Dale Carnegie said it about enthusiasm, but it applies to smiling too. Put a smile on your face and, even when things aren’t going so good, you can’t help but feel better.
2. Find the humor in situations. Who can forget the last scene of Monty Python’s “Life With Brian” when Brian, sentenced to death by crucifixion for his part in a kidnapping plot, joins in with 140 other doomed men and sings “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life?”
3. Smile at least five times a day for no good reason. Make smiling part of your daily schedule. Make a point to smile at yourself first thing every morning when you look in the mirror.
4. Sing a song that makes you smile or listen to a piece of music that makes you smile. There are certain songs or pieces of music that just make you smile. One of the more famous ones is “Put on a Happy Face” from the musical “Bye Bye Birdie.”

 

No matter where you are, if you are feeling less than stellar, you can’t help but feel better if you just smile. If you have to, fake it till you make it. Your brain doesn’t know you are faking it. Pretty soon your brain will be releasing serotonin and you will really be happy.

 

Smile! It is so much easier to be happy.

Invite Adventure

As a culture we are aching for adventure. We spend our time on roller coasters, extreme sports, and action movies. We create drama in our lives by engaging in careless spending, wrong relationships, meaningless arguments, or by choosing addictions of one sort or another. Infusing our life with healthy adventure is a way to make sure we don’t “borrow trouble.” It is also a way of making us feel courageous.

To decide what kind of adventure is best for you, take a look at your personality. Are you the kind of person who would rather jump out of an airplane or is riding in an airplane adventurous enough. Determine where you fall on the adventure spectrum. Are you providing yourself with enough challenges and opportunities to push your boundaries?

First, recognize your boundaries. What are your fears? What kind of activities will expand your boundaries, help you face your fears, and make you grow as a person? I read a book many years ago called Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jaffers. This is an incredible book that teaches people to understand their fears, look them in the eye, and take action in spite of being afraid.

Many of our fears are self created. We frighten ourselves by focusing on negative outcomes. Therefore, we hesitate to move into new activities for fear of failure. The key to overcoming our fear of failure is not to focus on outcomes. Stay focused on the process.

Successful people also feel fear. Yet they don’t let it get in the way of anything they want to do. They are the master of their fears. They trust that no matter what occurs they are strong enough and smart enough to gain something positive from the experience.

Whether we like it or not, the universe has a way of making us face our fears. We can make fear busing an adventure or a struggle. Choose adventure and have some fun.

The Vacation Principle

Sometimes we find ourselves dissatisfied with the experiences in our lives. We feel bored. I used to find myself in this situation all the time. I thought, “if only I lived someplace interesting.” Because I wanted to be “anywhere but here,” I couldn’t see all the adventures and excitement happening all around me.

 

 

Imagine that you are a tourist in your town. You only have three days to experience all that your town/city has to offer. Go exploring. Find the best coffee house, the best book store, a historic building, a museum, a quaint little store. Because you’re on vacation, you expect to find things of interest.

 

 

Wherever you go on vacation, you know you won’t be there forever. You know there are things that you don’t want to miss. Everything becomes vibrant and exciting. You don’t want to miss a minute of it.

 

 

Think of your life as an extended vacation. Explore all of the possibilities. Take the long way home, explore a side street, visit that little shop you have always wanted to go to, take a stroll in the park. Be a tourist in your own hometown and in your life. When you do this, even every day events can become exciting.

 

 

Try it! You’ll be amazed.

 

 

I’ve started applying the Vacation Principle with my daughter as well. Whenever she says she is bored I pull out the community directory that lists all the activities in our town. If we look hard enough, there is almost always something happening. If not then there are the craft shops. At one store she can paint pottery to give as birthday or Christmas gifts. At another she can make jewelry. We discovered a mine just outside town where she can search for jewels. We discovered so many things to do in our area that it will take us the rest of the year to do them all.

 

 

It is truly amazing what we will find within our field of vision if we just open our eyes, minds, and souls to all of the possibilities that await our discovery.

 

 

Here’s to your journey, and ours.

Time Management tips from Denis Waitley

Begin each day with this question: “What am I going to do today that will make the best use of my time and energy, and lead me a step closer to reaching my goals?”
During the day, each time you are faced with a decision, ask yourself: “Does this action substantially help me toward achieving my goals?”

Before you leave your workplace or before you go to sleep at night, make a list of your most urgent priorities for the following day in order of their importance. You might consider dividing your activities into A, B, and C lists:

A is for action immediately
B is before the end of the day
C is can wait until tomorrow

Become aware of interruptions and distractions that block your success. Constant telephone calls are the most common. Spending too much time reading and answering personal e-mails is another problem. Chatting with co-workers eats up more time. Messy files, disorganized scheduling and cluttered desks are roadblocks. Take an objective look at your routines and habits. And then take action!

Until next week, keep following your A, B and C’s!
– Denis Waitley

The Power To Create

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird sleeps in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities…”        –James Allen

Our “waking angel” is our unlimited capacity for creating. Sometimes we feel a “fluttering” desire; a vision of the life we were destined to lead. Instead of letting it pass, latch onto that vision and explore into it’s depths. What are you really destined to do and to be? What is your vision of the “ideal” you?

As I began to reconnect with these questions in my own life I realized that I first needed to balance all aspects of my life. I drew a circle and separated it into four quadrants. Each quadrant represents a core value in my life. My quadrants are family, spirituality, business, and community/contribution. In choosing these quadrants, I kept in mind my vision of the ideal me or my ideal life. I envision an extremely successful business, being 100% available for my daughter, being able to show my daughter the world and how other people live, teaching her the importance of helping others – especially through childrens outreach projects – and doing all of this within the context of having a spiritual, well balanced life.

In order to begin creating our dream/vision, we have to first bring our thoughts and habits in line with our dreams. Catch those negative or limiting thoughts and change them to thoughts of possability, or potential. Remember, you get what you think about whether you want it or not so think thoughts that are in line with your dream.

Since you are the co-creator of your dream, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your dream is on it’s way and do everything in your power to help it arrive. The position of co-creator implies action. What actions are you going to take to create your dream?

For me, creating my dream seems to be pretty simple. I have developed the following guidelines:

Love – Laugh – Dream – Work – Give – Be

Love like a child (unconditionally)

Laugh like a child (uninhibitedly)

Dream like a child (with no boundaries)

Work so you can

Give to a child and allow them to

Be all that they can be.

 

 Children are my inspiration (one of them anyway). It is my intention to help as many children live a happy, healthy life as possible. One project I support is Smile Train. You can find information at www.smiletrain.org