AMY HANSEN

Living life to the fullest is setting goals and going after your dreams.  It’s living life without fear and regret.  It means not holding yourself back due to self doubt and lack of motivation. It’s doing the things you love and being surrounded by those you love.

Living life to the fullest is not sitting back and watching life pass you by.  Rather, this is someone who has lost their passion for life and desperately needs clarity on what to focus on.  Not knowing what direction to move in, it becomes easier to just simply do nothing.  Do not be the boat floating aimlessly in the ocean without a captain.  Know that you are the captain of your life.

In order to live life to the fullest you must first get clear on where you are.  Think about your life right now and how you feel. Something may feel off or missing. Perhaps you simply feel lost. You’ve lost yourself, your drive, your ambition, and you...

Everyone gets into a funk from time to time where something just doesn’t feel right.  Perhaps you’re unhappy about something or just feeling a bit off.  Learn how to get out of that funk and back on track with these six tips.

1. Acknowledge You’re In A Funk

The first step is to acknowledge when you’re in a funk.  Take note of your attitude and mood.  If you seem agitated, sad, or angry, it’s time to get yourself out of that funk.

Nobody likes feeling down or under a cloud of negativity.  Life feels so much better when you’re happy and in positive mood.

2. Know Your Triggers

You may want to take a moment to think about what may have triggered you to go into that funk state in the first place.  Maybe it was something someone said or did.  Perhaps things didn’t go the way you planned and it made you feel bad. Whatever it may be, recognize it and know that this may be a trigger for you...

Everyone has heard the phrase be yourself.  Sometimes that can be hard to do when you’re trying to be a people pleaser.  The fear of what other people will think of you can make you act differently.  You think that if you do things this way that these other people will like you more. But you can’t fully be yourself and be comfortable with who you are when you’re trying to please others.

When you are yourself, you’re the happiest.  You’re not trying to please other people.  You’re living life for you.  You’re doing things that make you happy.

Trying to live up to someone else’s standards can be hard.  The pressure of expectations set by other people is no way to live. You’re in constant fear of doing something other people will not approve of.  When this happens you feel like you’ve disappointed them which only makes you feel bad about yourself.

You beat...

The goal in life is simply to be happy.  But, the truth is, you can’t be happy about everything in life.  If that were the case then you should be happy when people die, get hurt, or when terrible things happen in the world.  That’s just impossible.  Mentally you can’t be happy about those things because they’re awful.  Yet, you have this expectation that life should be happy. 

In order to make life happy you decide to take control and work hard to fix the world that you live in.  You think if nothing is wrong then you can be happy.  Unfortunately, life doesn’t happen that way.  There are things in life that are out of your control.

The best you can do is work with what you have.  Make the most of your current circumstance.  Be happy and grateful.  Realize that you’re not supposed to have everything go perfectly all the time.

Take a moment to think about the...

If you were to think back a few years ago, would you say that you’re the same person as you are now or have you changed?

Hopefully you’ve grown and become a better version of yourself.

As life throws you curve balls and things to overcome you become a stronger person.  You’ve learned things that you didn’t know a few years ago and you’ve experienced things that you’ve had to work through.  All of these things allow you to grow as a human being.

When you’re working towards a goal you have your current bag of tools from what you’ve experienced and learned in the past.  These tools help you take steps toward achieving your goal.

When you visualize achieving your goal, the person standing there in appreciation and awe of what they’ve just accomplished is different than the person who just began working towards that goal.  Each roadblock and misstep along the way has built...

Growing up you are not taught to make mistakes.  In school, the goal was to get answers right in order to get good grades so that you could advance to the next grade level.  Mistakes were seen as bad.  Your class paper would come back all marked up in red ink with a grade that didn’t reflect the hard work that you put in.  But, outside of school, messing up can be an incredible learning opportunity.

As an adult, putting work out there that is messy or not quite ready doesn’t sound like a good idea. You may find yourself paralyzed by this fear of not having everything “right” just yet.  So, you hold off on putting your work out into the world because it’s just not quite ready.  You think to yourself this doesn’t sound good or it doesn’t look right so you keep working on it.  One day it will be ready to put out into the world.  But these projects never see the light of day because they are...

The definition of a comfort zone is a place or situation to feel safe or at ease without stress.  Every experience you have is determining what feels good and safe versus what feels uncomfortable.  You use those experiences to determine what goes in your comfort zone and what goes outside of it.

If you were ever made fun of, felt judged, or criticized for what you were doing, you immediately placed those things outside of your comfort zone.  You never want to feel those feelings again so you deem those situations as uncomfortable and push them out of your comfort zone.

Things that just sound scary because you’ve never done them before are outside of your comfort zone too. You’re so afraid of the unknown that it’s better off to remain with what you do know for sure is safe.  Who knows what will happen if you step outside your comfort zone.  You decide not to risk it and take a chance that it could be uncomfortable.

Your thoughts become your reality.  It is said that if you’re driving a car and you tell yourself don’t hit the curb, don’t hit the curb, you inevitably hit the curb.  This shows that your thoughts have a lot of power.  Your subconscious mind goes to work to make what you’re focusing on a reality.

The principle here is what you focus on becomes your reality.  If you’re focusing on all the negative things in your life this will only draw more negativity to you.  For example, your day goes from bad to worse simply because you stubbed your toe in the morning and made a big deal about it.  Or perhaps you were stuck in traffic on the way to work and this just put you in a bad mood.  You start living in negative energy since your mind is consumed by negative thoughts. This vicious cycle only continues because the negativity is getting sent out into the universe which is only circling back to you.

You must...

Ever wonder why some people achieve success while others don’t?  Here are the top ten traits that successful people have in common.

1. Have Ambition

 Successful people are ambitious about what they want to achieve in the future.  They aren’t afraid to dream big.  They have a clear vision for the future and what they want to achieve.  Ambition drives them to constantly work on achieving goals.  This allows them to grow as people and live a more fulfilling life.

2. Have Confidence

Confidence is key for successful people.  Successful people must have confidence and a strong belief in themselves in order to achieve their goal.  Without that confidence it would be almost impossible to achieve their goal.  A strong belief gives them the confidence to keep going and working hard on achieving their goals.

3. Do What They Believe In

Successful people not only believe in themselves but they also believe in their...

Everyone has goals that they work towards.  Some achieve them while others don’t.  It makes you think, what’s the difference between these people?

The following five step process will help you become one of the success stories and stay motived toward reaching your goal.  It all starts with simply believing.

Believe It Is Possible

You must believe the goal is something you can achieve.  You may not have any evidence that the goal is possible, but you must believe it anyway. This belief gives you motivation to keep going, even when things get difficult.  Other people may tell you it’s impossible.  This is when you have to believe even harder.  You have to believe in your goal more than anyone else in order to achieve it.

Believe In Yourself

Not only do you have to believe in your goal but you have to believe in your ability to make it happen.  Again, other people may put you down saying you’re...