An Overdue Update: How Do You Achieve What You Want In Life?

It's been a long time since I've written and I'm going to keep this relatively short. A lot has been going on in my life recently and I've been working very hard on my fiction writing! The novel I've been writing is nearing completion and I'm feeling more than a little excited about the fact that my characters are coming alive on the page—and are finally getting their stories told. Sometimes it's really nice to escape into that fantasy world and delve into scenarios that you almost wish you could see happen in real life.

The fact that I'm almost finished with this novel has led me to re-evaluate the things I would like to receive in life, though. For the most part, I can honestly say that I've achieved a lot of dreams which I wished for—and life is falling into place pretty perfectly. There's still a couple of aspects which I'd like to achieve and a few projects which I'd like to complete though—and it's made me think a lot about people's success stories.

I'm a curious cat and I'd like to know what you do to achieve the things you want in life? How do you go about reaching your goals? What kind of mindset do you have? I've found recently that the things I want often seem to come to me when I've let go of the situation completely and have stopped despairing over how everything can be achieved. Is positivity the key to your success or do you set yourself small tasks and work your way up to receiving your big goal? What is the secret to any dreams you've achieved over the last few years? You don't have to share your success stories with me but take a moment to consider them. Perhaps there's a pattern which might be the key towards unlocking your future desires.

Whatever you do, have faith and stay positive. You can achieve everything and anything in the world if you put your mind to it—and I have absolute faith that one day your dreams will manifest in a way which is even more wonderful than you first imagined.

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
~Napoleon Hill

Have a wonderful day. x

How to Become Emotionally Independent in a Relationship - Part 2

Last time, I started to explain how to become emotionally independent in a relationship. I really want to help anyone struggling with this so today we're going to go through a few simple exercises that will help keep you grounded in the present time. By living in the moment, you should feel more relaxed and less worried about what might happen in the future with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Your thoughts will be absorbed in what is happening in the present moment, rather than on concerns about what might happen in the future.

So, how do you live in the "now" and stop worrying about the future?

I've outlined a few techniques and exercises below which I hope will help teach you mindfulness and distract you from worrying about what's going on in your relationship.

1) Connecting with the people and objects around you:

If the weather is fine, take a few minutes out of your day to go for a walk outside. Focus on what's around you, paying attention to any road signs you see and making an effort to notice the tiny details e.g. the different types of flowers in a hanging basket, the windows above a tatty shop building, the golden name plate on a park bench etc. By doing this, your thoughts should quieten and you should find it easier to enjoy living in the moment.

Whenever you feel that your thoughts are becoming chaotic with worries and concerns about your relationship, place your hands down on your thighs and focus on the weight of them. Notice how each finger feels against the fabric of your clothing and keep focusing on that until the thoughts quieten.

To help you further, have a quick look at the people around you when you're outside. Remind yourself that—just like you—those people have laughed, cried, smiled and known a lot of the emotions that you're experiencing. This will help connect you more with the people around you and take your mind off of your current worries.

2) Breathing techniques:

Meditation and breathing techniques are really helpful for easing worries. Whenever you start to panic or feel insecure, calm yourself with relaxing meditational music and good breathing techniques. 

Breathing Technique: Hold your breath for the count of four seconds, inhale through the nose for seven seconds, and then exhale through the mouth for eight seconds. Repeat until you feel calmer.

3) Resist the urge to check in on your partner all of the time:

I know it's hard when you care about someone and are itching to hear from them...but try to stop yourself from texting your partner all the time for reassurance. Even more than that, if you do send a text, do not follow that up with another text if they fail to respond. Give them some space and do not chase. It can be quite emotionally draining to receive text messages from partners who are constantly seeking reassurance so try not to fall into that trap.

If you think that you might struggle with this then have a "go to" group of friends who you text whenever you feel yourself itching to message your significant other. Your partner is much more likely to respond if you don't chasing him/her for an answer.  

4) Believing in yourself

It's really important that you try to build up your own self-esteem. You have to believe that you are worthy of your partner. The fact is that he or she chose you for a variety of reasons. You have to trust them and have faith in your own self-worth. If you trust their decision and value yourself then everything else will fade away.

5) Make time to do something you love or develop a new hobby:

A little space in a relationship is healthy. You and your partner both need a few hours where you can do something separate from each other—something you both love. It also means that you both have more  things to talk about when you come back together. If there was a hobby that you enjoyed doing before you got with your partner then I suggest taking that up again.

Above all else, remember that your partner is in love with you. Love isn’t about needing proof or evidence—often it’s about having the faith and courage to believe that your partner truly loves you. Trust that your significant other wants you.

How to Become Emotionally Independent in a Relationship - Part 1

Alright, so Valentine's Day is coming up and I've decided to tackle something a little bit delicate today. The fact is that it is very easy to become overly reliant on a partner and depend upon them a little too much. You enjoy their company, you love them a lot, and you want to spend every minute of your time with them.

Great. What happens when you overdo it though? You might find that your partner is pulling away, paying less interest to you, and showering you with less affection than you used to get. In desperation, you inundate them with more loving words and make the effort to spend more time with them. You literally reschedule all of your events so you can be around them. However, this is only met once more with your partner pulling away further and seeming more disinterested than ever.

Why is that? Well, the truth is, by trying to keep your partner close to you...you're actually pushing them further away. That's because you're not giving them the space they need to grow and to think. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is a human, too, and the truth is that they have their own life and their own dreams. They want to know that they have the space and support to do the things that they want to do some of the time.

By holding onto your man or woman tighter, you're effectively saying that you don't think you're worth as much as your partner. You are devaluing yourself when you're actually worth just as much. People want to feel like they've got a great catch (and your partner chose you because you are that great catch) so, by devaluing yourself, you're effectively telling them that you don’t think that you’re worth much. By devaluing yourself, you’re effectively telling them subconsciously that you don’t think they chose a “good catch”.  Men and women want to know they've made a good choice—that they've got something infinitely precious—and they definitely felt that for you at the beginning of the relationship. Put this way, your man or woman wouldn't have entered into the relationship if they didn't think they were making a good choice. To ensure they keep feeling that, you simply have to trust them and act the same way you did during the initial stages of your relationship.

It's more than that though. By clinging, although it's unintentional, you're creating an unfair pressure on your partner. They know on some level that you aren't happy and that you're struggling—and the pressure is on them to fix that. The trouble is, often your partner simply doesn’t know how to fix the problem and that can create an unfair situation. Your partner loves you; your partner absolutely doesn't want you to be sad...but he or she might not know how to make things better for you. To be honest, your happiness cannot solely rest on your partner’s shoulders anyway.

The truth is that only you can fix your situation. It sounds cliché but you have to work on yourself. Your partner was attracted to you for a reason and—in most cases—that doesn't change. The only thing that changes in a relationship is the way people behave. Perhaps something happened that triggered self-esteem issues within you and made you doubt yourself. Maybe that's spiralled out and made you believe you aren't worthy of being loved by your partner. This is false. You are worth that love. Your partner chose you. Nothing has changed.
 
I want to help you learn to detach from the chaotic thoughts and fears circuiting around your brain. I want to help you learn to have self-worth and love yourself. If you can love yourself, you make it so easy for everyone else to love you.

So, how do you do that? Well, first of all, please check out my previous posts '5 Tips on How to be Happy' and '3 Tips for Improving Self-Esteem'. These posts won't do the job for you but they will help you. The key is to build your own sense of worth up once more.

To save your relationship, you also need to take a step back. It sounds counter-intuitive when you're panicking about losing your partner...but try to give them a little breathing space. You might be itching to text constantly but you need to stop yourself. I know that might seem really hard and I know that it might panic you but this is for the good of your relationship.

Besides, don't you want to be able to breathe easily again and feel that same sense of confidence that you felt when you and your partner first got together?

You can do that. To help you, I'm going to do my very best to give you exercises which will improve your confidence and help you to be more mindful. If you're in touch with the present time and your current settings, you're not worrying about your relationship and its future. This should help to relieve some of the pressure you feel and help you learn to be a lot calmer.

This blog post has run on a bit too long. I'll cover mindfulness and give you some really helpful tips in my next blog. In the meantime, please remember that you are stronger and worthier than you think. Trust and believe in yourself.

F x

A Life of Regret or the Risk of a Sting?

Lately, I've been trying to follow my own advice and actively seek out my dreams. Dreams cannot be made into a reality if we only daydream about them every day, after all. To get anywhere, sometimes we need to be brave and take a leap of faith.

The problem, of course, comes when you take that leap of faith and everything falls apart. At the risk of being humiliated, I think it's fair to say that I've taken a few bold steps and done my absolute best these last few months to achieve my dreams. The issue still remains though and I feel further away from this dream than ever before―and more humiliated, too. Putting all of your cards on the table is a risky little thing to do and there is a part of me already regretting it. A wise person told me yesterday that they would do anything to make their dreams become a reality. They were quite right and you should follow your dreams...but I guess you should know when to stop, too.

At least I can honestly say I've done everything in my power now. It seems cruel that one can work so hard at achieving something and gain no ground at all. If a compromise or glimmer of hope could be given, it would be enough. Except that's not the way the world works―and that's okay. I've still done my best and I can hold my head up high. I didn't give in or give up; I kept trying to make things work. Maybe, in the end, I've been stronger than I ever dreamed.

I know I can be happy, no matter what happens, but building confidence in hope again is a tricky little project when everything seems to be driving in the opposite way. Thankfully, I'm scrappy enough to keep charging on even when the going gets tough. I'm not going to be afraid of stings, not when the only other option is to look back later in life and wonder if I could have done more. See, pain is temporary...but regret gnaws away at you if you let it.

The Christmas magic is still in the air. Perhaps things didn't quite work out for me on this particular occasion but there's still hope for you guys. Make it happen and be proactive. Actively seek out the future you want and make it happen. If other people in the world are finding happiness then there's no reason why you shouldn't be either. Live in hope and actively achieve your dreams.

It's your dream. Only you can make it a reality. Let go of any fear and expect the best for yourself.

Top 10 Inspirational Quotes

These are just some of the quotes that have helped to pick me up in the past when I've been flagging. I hope they inspire you just as much.

1. "I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all of the time."
―Anna Freud

2.  "In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome."

―William James


3. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
 ―Gandhi

4. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."
―Mark Twain 


5. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."
 ―Alice Walker 


6. "In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."
  ―Bill Cosby 

7. "So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings."
―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit


8. "It is never too late to be what you might have been."
 ―George Eliot 


9. "Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly."
―Langston Hughes

10.  "The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God."
― Mother Teresa