Have you ever found yourself holding back from pursuing what you want in life because you’re questioning your significance?

What about when you’ve stopped short of giving your two cents because you’ve felt as though your thoughts couldn’t possibly matter?

I’ve seen so many people who seem to sleep walk through life because they’ve somehow come to believe they simply don’t matter!  I’m sure you’ve noticed the same thing as people slip into depression or simply can’t find the motivation because they just don’t believe they are destined for greatness.

I’m here to tell you that YOU MATTER!  Not only do YOU MATTER, but so does everybody else who inhabits this planet!

I’ve had recent events that have occurred in my life that have made me realize how important it is to let others know that they matter, and I’d like to encourage you to notice the “small accomplishments” other people around you make.  As you notice these seemingly “small accomplishments,” take a second to imagine how different it would be if those acts weren’t taken.

Whether it is the waitress delivering your breakfast with a bright cheery smile on a day that you don’t feel so smiley yourself, or when your 14 year old takes time to ask how your day went and they actually care about the answer.  There are thousands of individual acts people take each day which have an impact your life.  Make sure you take the time to recognize these acts, and most importantly tell that person that they matter!

If you are intentional about recognizing these efforts you’ll have the power to improve their mood, their day, and ultimately can impact their life in a positive way.  These may be the two most important words you could ever share with someone, and you just never know when they might just need it the most.

The video below is one of the most amazing messages I’ve seen in a long time, and I promise you it could possibly be the most valuable 19 minutes and 48 second message you’ve heard.  It might possibly change your life like it has mine!

Have you ever found yourself hesitating to share your point of view during a meeting because you were concerned with what people would think about you for sharing it?

When you walk into a room full of people you don’t know, do you feel uncomfortable and as if people are checking you out and possibly judging you?

I can promise you you’re not alone!  There’s a large segment of our population who live with varying degrees of this anxiety, and in fact … I think it is safe to say that every human being has experienced these type of feelings at least a few times in their lives.  :)

If you take a step back look at these feelings logically, I think you’ll quickly build a case in your mind proving these feelings of anxiety are completely unnecessary and irrational.  The following are a few things that might help give you some perspective.

Everyone has their own issues and insecurities.  It’s funny how sometimes we believe we are the only one dealing with those internal voices causing us to second guess ourselves.  Everyone else is somehow 100% bullet proof and super confident, and  possess the skills to see through us and immediately identify our weaknesses! Seriously?  Come on … You’re smarter than that!  :)

Do they pay your bills?  Remember when you were the most fired up about that new THING and you excitedly told your friend about it and they laughed and said, “you can’t do that!”  You were hurt, annoyed, a little angry, but all in all, those emotions caused you to feel crushed.  Worse of all it made you begin to question your decision.

Really?  First of all you need to get different friends.  Secondly, how much time and energy do you think they spent thinking about your idea or even how their words might have affected you once you left?  Well the answer is ZERO.  They immediately went back to focusing on themselves and their problems.  Heck, the reason they tried to steal your thunder is probably because they were feeling pretty bad about their own circumstances.

If this isn’t reason enough to discard their negative sentiment … REMEMBER, they don’t pay your bills!  You do, so make decisions for yourself!

There are far too many times we sacrifice our own happiness because we’re afraid of what other people will think or what other people will say.  The bottom line is their thoughts are only that … their thoughts, and you’ll never truly know what they are anyway, so why be concerned with them.

We also put far too much weight in people’s words without truly evaluating where they are coming from…

Did they have a negative experience years ago that they’re still sour about?

Did hear a story about someone else who did and they don’t have complete information?

Or did they simply have a rough morning and their looking for someone to take it out on?

Regardless of the reason why, their words have no way of hurting us unless we allow them to.  So DON’T!  The only person responsible for helping you achieve a life of happiness, is YOU!

If you want to achieve big things, YOU need to take massive action.  YOU are responsible for making the decisions that will lead to either success or failure.  Surround yourself with supportive, positive people to help guide you, but ultimately, YOU need to make decisions for YOU!

How many times have you been ready to “Go for it,” but stopped because you heard a voice at the last second saying something like, “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t do that!”

Wasn’t it strange how the voice was so loud and unmistakably clear, but when you looked around you couldn’t find anyone?

The dialogue we carry on in our own heads is sometimes the most destructive and motivation killing stuff!  Heck, with friends like yourself … who needs enemies?

These voices are like a mirror reflecting the experiences, thoughts, words, information, and most importantly, the people we hang around.  Personally this is very exciting to me and as I think back over the past 20+ years I can almost point to individual decisions I’ve made that have significantly affected the quality of those internal conversations.

I’m not a big fan of dwelling on the past, but when you can look backward for the sake of accelerating your progress forward, I think it can be translated into amazing progress.  Some of the events that can be life changing and drastically change those internal voices are as follows:

Avoid contact with negative people.  You may notice that I touch on this quite a bit … and I do.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that married people look alike, talk alike, have the same facial expressions and so on.  You don’t share blood, or DNA, but you certainly take on the qualities of those you hang around most of the time.

If the content of your conversations are overwhelmingly focused on all your problems, aches, pains, or about the things you hate in the world … you’ll attract more of that into your life.  After all, that’s what you think about and talk about all the time. The universe will reward you with those things you focus on with emotion.

You can try to chalk that up to some crazy new age garbage, but it’s absolutely true! Trying to disprove it will only cause you more pain.  Unless you are a masochist, I’d encourage you to avoid associating with negativity at all costs.  It’s not easy to avoid, but it’ll be much easier than dealing with the pain you’ll receive by continuing the association.

Make a decision to only pursue what you are passionate about.  This decision will help you avoid lack of motivation, feelings of boredom, and the pain of spending the majority of your life doing something you hate.  If you’re spending the majority of your time  pursuing what you love, you’ll find it very difficult to be negative very often.  Passion causes excitement and can eliminate depression.

Make a commitment to become the best at what you do.  Happiness in life doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of money you make, or what your profession is.  It’s most important for you to find joy, feel rewarded, and feel as though you are making a contribution to the world.

If you are following your passion and make the decision to be the best at whatever you are doing, your thoughts will center around what it will take to accomplish that, and there won’t be much time to fall back into the old negative, self defeating voices of old.

Listen to personal development material daily.  I’d love to think all of us our strong enough to change our  lives completely on our own, and there might actually be one or two people out there who can, but it doesn’t make any sense to ignore the lessons other people have taught us through sharing their knowledge and experiences.

I believe we should immerse ourselves in personal development.  This will ensure our focus is on getting better and once we train ourselves to continuously move in the direction of becoming the best human being we can possibly become, those voices will begin to change and reflect that focus and positive action.

Look for the positive in everything. This isn’t easy, but with a little practice you will begin to easily identify much more positive than the negative that comes from any event, no matter how horrific the event.  I understand many people will attempt to challenge this because it’s extremely difficult to dig through the pain, sorrow, and after effects of some of the horrible things we experience in our lives.

I challenge you to get in the habit of intentionally reflecting on each event in your life, and identifying positive outcomes that have occurred following the pain.  Sometimes the positive happens right away, and other times it takes years to materialize, but there is always positive and you’ll definitely find it if you look.

When you hear those negative voices in your head … ignore them, get excited, and move ahead!  Many times those self defeating voices occur because we are doing something that we’ve never done before.  That move out of your comfort zone will be met with resistance similar to when you stretch a rubber band, and similar to the rubber band, the more you take action that gets you out of your comfort zone, the larger it will expand.

Make the effort to reprogram yourself to get excited when you hear those voices, and be proud of yourself for doing something to ensure you don’t live a life of mediocrity.  Do great things and learn to be your own best cheerleader, instead of your own worst enemy!

Do you have a goal you’d like to hit but you just don’t have confidence that you can accomplish it?

Does this lack of confidence paralyze you into inactivity, or cause what I like to call chronic hesitation (a.k.a procrastination)?

If you’re in that situation now or have been anytime in the past, you can breathe a sigh of relief.  You aren’t strange, in fact; if you’ve never found yourself in that situation, I think you’re strange.  :)

Everybody faces confidence issues from time to time.  I’m sure you can easily recall one of those times and remember how active your mind was as it flitted through all the little details and no matter how quickly you picked it up, you still felt as though you were stumbling through as you struggled to master whatever it was you were looking to do.

Many people are so terrified of the perceived pain of insecurity that they allow themselves to become completely overwhelmed by  the smallest  things. It’s as though they are completely incapable of stepping back and looking at everything from a  high level so they can see things clearly and develop a plan to navigate through the learning process.

This is especially something that you will experience if you make the bold decision to step out and pursue your passion as a career.  The beauty is NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT!  You won’t be surprised when you begin to have those insecure feelings.  The following are things that you can do to head these feelings off, or at least reduce the time you’ll experience the lack of confidence.

Get Obsessive! The best way to become the great at anything is to gain as much knowledge and proficiency as you possibly can, as quickly as you can.  I look at it just like ripping off a band-aid.  You can do it slowly, but all you’ll do is cause more pain and for a longer period of time.  If you simply rip it off fast … it’ll still hurt but it’ll be over much quicker and it won’t cause you nearly as much pain.

If you’ve got something you want to accomplish, or something you believe you have a budding passion … dive in and GET OBSESSIVE!  If you focus consistently and intensely on a topic you love, or on how to accomplish a certain task for an extended period of time, you will find you can accomplish amazing things.

Associate With The Right People. The saying that misery loves company couldn’t be more accurate!   One of the worst things you can do is to hang around people who are negative, or aren’t supportive.  This isn’t an easy thing to do because sometimes the people that are the worst are those you are closest to.

I know it’s tough but I can guarantee you if you continuously associate with people who are negative or people who are constantly draining your emotional resources, you need to suck it up, and move on.  If not, you need to get used to living a life filled with much unhappiness and negativity.  You can still love these people, but you cannot subject yourself to that environment for extended periods of time without picking up the same thought process and adopting the same behavior patterns.

The bottom line is if you associate with positive people, they will be supportive of you and will believe in you when you may not even believe in yourself.  This will have a direct impact on your confidence level.

Choose Your Words Carefully.  Words are extremely powerful whether they are spoken or not.  That may sound a bit strange but if you think about it … the way you refer to things in conversations, is the same way you’ll think about things during times of reflection.  If you are constantly talking about all the reasons you CAN’T do something,  this sentiment will lead to the exact same type of internal dialogue.

It isn’t just saying you CAN’T do something.  It’s also saying things like: I’m not very smart, or that you are broke, or that you weren’t very good in school, or you really screwed up once and now you have limited options.  These type of thoughts and statements will become self fulfilling prophecies.

If you only do one thing after reading this post, I encourage you to focus on the words you say and the thoughts that occupy your mind over the next couple days.  When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts or making negative, self defeating statements …. STOP and either rephrase it or re-position the  way you are thinking about it.  If you do this consistently, it will become a habit and you can break the pattern and have a much more enjoyable life.

Do you go to sleep at night dreading the next day?

Are you more concerned with making money than you are for your own happiness?

I am amazed at how many conversations I witness where the entire content is filled with complaints about their job.  As I listen to the lack of enthusiasm and perceived hatred for the occupation, or company they count on to sustain their lives, it baffles me as to why they’d continue to put themselves in such a horrific position.

Now of course I say that a little tongue in cheek as I completely understand why people continue to put themselves in a situation that brings them no joy.  I’ve found it’s one of three reasons.

The first type of person likes to moan and complain about everything. They aren’t really interested in being happy so there’s not much that can be done for them.

The second type has been unhappy for so long they’ve simply become numb to it and after all … they need to pay their bills somehow.

The third type are the people who feel trapped and simply don’t know what else to do.  They feel forced into selling out and doing what they hate so they can support their families.  I believe this is the stage they stay in for awhile and then shift right into the model above where they become numb and simply give up.

I don’t believe anyone should spend their time working in a career that they hate.  You may think I’m strange, but I don’t believe we should EVER work for money!  I believe you should NEVER pursue anything as a career that you aren’t passionate about, and when you’ve completely lost that passion you should either take a break, or find another passion to pursue.

I’m sure you’re thinking … “Yeah right!  If it was only that easy!”  Well, I’m here to you that it absolutely is.

You simply need to make a decision and stick to it.  The reward is … you’ll never find yourself being weighted down with negative thoughts and emotions or having to live with the realization that you sold out.

If living with that isn’t enough, the following are four other reasons why you should turn your passion into a career.

1. You spend more time “working” than you do with your loved ones. When you really break it down you spend more than 25% of your available weekly hours at work.  To think that spending that much time being unhappy won’t bleed over and affect the quality of your relationships with your loved ones, is insane.  If not selling out isn’t reason enough to do what you love, how about protecting the quality of your most important and valued relationships.
2. You will be more confident in all areas of your life. It’s not possible to have confidence if you consistently place yourself in an unhappy situation.  You’ll never be excellent at something you don’t enjoy and therefore will always be wondering when your “boss” will tire of your sub-par work.  Doing what you love and are passionate about will keep your interest and attention.  This focus will help your proficiency and ultimately your confidence.
3. You will never be at a loss for motivation. I don’t know about you but the worse feeling in the world to me was when I used to wake up faced with the daunting task of leaving the warmth of my bed to go do something I disliked for 8 hours.  The beauty of pursuing your passion is you’ll NEVER have to search for motivation.  You’ll find yourself waking up before your alarm rearing to go!
4. You will be much more healthy and energetic. The biggest issue with deciding to pursue a career that makes you unhappy is the stress you’ll have to face because of it.  The only thing stress causes is disease and death.  If you don’t believe me … go talk to a Dr. or do a little research.  If you make the decision to ONLY pursue your passion you’ll eliminate a huge portion of your stress and therefore you’ll be happier and your energy level won’t be drug down by depression.

I understand I’ve made some harsh statements in this post but … does it really help to sugarcoat the truth?  If you’ve read something here that touches a nerve, I only hope it helps give you a push to make a change that ultimately improves the quality of your life.  I’m not saying it won’t be a lot of work, but how much work is it to do what you hate every day?  :)