Las Vegas – Nevada – USA (by tshantz)
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New York City – New York – USA (by LWYang)
18 Motivational Quotes from Will Smith that Changed my Life
You’re reading 18 Motivational Quotes from Will Smith that Changed my Life, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Wikipedia, describes Will Smith as an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter, who has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him “the most powerful actor in Hollywood”. He has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.
IMO, all of his great achievements, makes Will Smith a living legend. That’s why he is one of my role models, because he inspires me to be the greatest I can be.
Here are 18 motivational quotes from Will Smith that I register in my mind, which always motivate me to keep going in life:
- “Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.”
- “You can cry, ain’t no shame in it. “
- “The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school. “
- “The first step is you have to say that you can. “
- “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I’m not afraid to DIE on a treadmill. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, but if we get on a treadmill together, there are two things:
- You’re getting off first
OR
- I’m gonna DIE
It’s really that simple”
- You’re not the only one struggling. You’re not the only person having trouble, now or ever. Things will get better, and in the meantime, you’re in good company.
- Don’t chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard. The right people – the ones who really belong in your life – will come to you. And stay.”
- “There are so many people who have lived and died before you. You will never have a new problem; you’re not going to ever have a new problem. Somebody wrote the answer down in a book somewhere.
- “The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.
- “Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they are going to tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”
- “If you’re not making someone else’s life better, than you are wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other people’s lives better.”
- “Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.”
- “We spend money that we do not have, on things we do not need, to impress people who do not care.”
- “Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.”
- “Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are better at hiding it than others.”
- “Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.”
- “The first step is you have to say that you can.”
- “Love is the ultimate theme, but it’s not just for women.”
By now, I believe your heart will resonate with at least one of his motivational quotes from Will Smith. Which one is it? kindly share in the comment box below.
For further life changing motivational quote, you can read this article:
Forbes – Top 100 Inspirational Quotes
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Samuel Ogundiya is a Motivational writer and speaker. Who blog about self-improvement at www.samdiya.com
You’ve read 18 Motivational Quotes from Will Smith that Changed my Life, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Los Angeles – California – USA (by LWYang)
12 Tips To Improve Your Character
You’re reading 12 Tips To Improve Your Character, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
What is character?
Wikipedia says that character, from the Greek word “χαρακτήρας”, was a term originally used for a mark impressed upon a coin. A more modern definition is known as the sum of all the attributes, such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, in a person.
Personally, I say that character is the sum of all your experiences and thoughts. Character is perhaps the most important element that makes up an individual, as it defines who a person is and how they react to the world around them. At it’s base, character is easy to understand, but very difficult to completely define. It is even more difficult improving your character.
Why is character important?
Every decision you make either improves or degrades your character. Why do we care? Because society will break down and the way of life that we enjoy to will fall apart if all of us do not promote and encourage good character. Emerson said, “Men of character are the conscience of the society in which they live.” Our conscience needs improving. Improvement that must begin with each us.
To strengthen one’s character requires dedication, effort and knowledge. Remember, you don’t have to try to improve every aspect of character every day. Pick one and work on it. Here is a list of traits you can think about. Pick one that you think needs improvement and get to it.
12 tips to improving your character
- Knowledge: Know what makes up good character. Many traits or aspects make up character. There can be both good and bad traits. Sometimes merely the absence of a good character trait can be a fatal flaw. None of us is perfect, but knowing what makes up good and bad character is a start.
- Awareness: Know thyself. Being aware of one’s thoughts, feelings and emotions, is key to being able to improve any aspect of their life. You must know your starting point and be brutally honest with yourself about your strengths and your weaknesses.
- Truth: Seek the truth. Do not lie to yourself. Delusion will not help you improve. Having a good friend or mentor will help. An individual that you trust and respect to tell you the truth.
- Self-Control: Guard against irrational impulses. Aristotle and Aquinas considered that there are seven human passions: love and hatred, desire and fear, joy and sadness, and anger. While good in themselves, these passions can bypass our intellect and cause us to indulge in the wrong things: eat too much food, fear things irrationally, or become overwhelmed in sadness or by anger. Practice delayed gratification.
- Contentment: Be content with your lot (not imitating). Appreciate your own values and that which you have. Imagining that the grass is greener somewhere else is a recipe for lifelong unhappiness; remember that doing so is actually projecting your assumptions about how others live. It is better to focus on how you live.
- Brave: Take calculated risks. Life itself is risk. You can choose to avoid risk, but such action rarely yields results. It is best to face the situation, evaluate it calmly, formulate a plan and press forward. Like forming metal into a useable tool, forging character takes heat and pressure. The heat and pressure of risk and failure.
Compassion: Learn to do good and care. Watch for opportunities to extend a helping hand to your fellow person. Sometimes, just a smile to show you care is enough. Maybe the act of simply sharing your lunch with someone or holding a door open for someone with their hands full. Compassion can take many shapes.
- Help: Get an accountability partner. Having someone to talk to and help you look at your situation honestly is invaluable. Your partner must be someone you trust and are willing to take their criticism of you.
- Gratitude: Focus on the positives in life. All to often, we dwell on the bad things in life. The troubles, difficulties and challenges. Don’t ignore them, they have to be dealt with, but do not focus on them either. You should think about the good in your life. Cicero said that, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
- Patience: Improvement takes time: Forging character takes time and hard work. You must have patience to allow yourself time to improve. Your accountability partner can help in several ways. They can encourage you, but most importantly they will likely see a change before you do.
- Diligence: You must guard your hard won character. Take care of your precious character. While creating it takes time and effort, losing it completely can be the result of one poor decision.
- Record: Keep a journal of your journey. Keep notes on what aspects you are trying to improve. Record your challenges, your failures and your successes. Objectively review this with your accountability partner.
Remember that to strengthen your character, you will work hard. This requires discipline, self-control and effort. Find someone to help you. Someone that you trust. Much like a blacksmith shaping metal, forging character requires heat and hard work.
Shawn Griffith is an author, blogger, coach, dad and entrepreneur. He writes about wisdom, character and common sense on his blog Down Home Thoughts. When he is not roaming the mountains with his lovely wife, he tries to make sense of the world. His first book is Forging Character, The Conscience of Society.
You’ve read 12 Tips To Improve Your Character, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Cleveland – Ohio – USA (by LWYang)
Golden Gate Bridge – San Francisco – California – USA (by Travis…
7 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Improve Your Focus
You’re reading 7 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Improve Your Focus, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Do you suffer from clutter? Having a hard time focusing? There’s a link between clutter and lack of focus, which means a lack of productivity.
You’re now bombarded with more stimulus than the human brain has ever had to deal with before. The internet is chock full of information, entertainment, ‘infotainment’, invitations, ads, top tens, top twenties, top one-hundreds. Your life is full of work, family, friends, events. Your mind is reeling with all the intake.
And that’s just the mental clutter. If you’re busy, the physical clutter, the mess, can stack up. The two compliment each other. The more physical clutter, the more mental clutter. In fact, researchers from Princeton University found that clutter negatively affects your ability to focus and process information. This, then, creates stress.
Take the following steps toward eliminating clutter. You’ll thank yourself and your productivity will benefit.
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Do some spring cleaning
Spring cleaning isn’t just the typical tidy-up-and-call-it-good project. It’s a thorough declutter job that will leave you feeling refreshed, no matter what season it is. Here are some spring cleaning tips to get you started:
- Set realistic expectations—if you expect you can do it all in one quick sweep, you’ll get overwhelmed; break the project down into segments and reward yourself for accomplishing each goal
- Invite company—regardless of whether they’re helping you clean, someone to talk to can help alleviate the dullness and drudgery of cleaning
- Stylize your wardrobe—think about the clothes you do and don’t need in terms of who you are now; have fun with it
- Rearrange your layout—even the positioning of your furniture can be a clutter-creator; think in terms of what helps a place breathe
Store or get rid of what you don’t need. Your home is where you start and end your day. Decluttering your home is highly necessarily for decluttering your life and improving productivity.
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Do some good
If you lack motivation, making the effort to declutter can be really tough. You can tell yourself, ‘I need to be more productive’, but in what way is that a motivator? Try thinking about it, and acting on it, in terms of doing good for others. Here are some tips on how to declutter and do good:
- Donate used greeting cards—St Jude’s Ranch for Children, for one, has a recycled cards program that benefits abused, neglected and homeless children, as well as poor young adults and families
- Donate book—thrift stores and used book stores take all sorts of books, while schools will take kids’ books
- Donate expired coupons—if you have these sitting around, military families can use them for up to six months after expiration for commissary purposes; see Expired Coupons for Overseas Military and Troopon
And, donating other items that are in decent shape to thrift stores and homeless shelters is a fantastic way to do good while you declutter
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Create an ‘important’ space
Designate a drawer or cabinet for items that normally sit out because you use them frequently. Get a mini file cabinet for important papers. Organize for easy access. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. If things you’ll need later aren’t in your visual field now, you won’t focus on them until when you need them.
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Organize your workspace
A cluttered workspace is a huge problem when it comes to productivity. That goes for your email inbox as well as your desk. For the email inbox, setup a pending folder for messages you can’t get to right away, but you know you’ll need to get to them later. You may receive messages that aren’t spam, but you don’t necessarily need to read them. Create a filter for these.
As far as the physical workspace goes, use the beginning of each day to throw away things you don’t need, categorize papers you do need, and organize. Create applicable folders, such as the pending folder. At the end of the day you’re probably tired and eager to go home. That’s why it’s important to clean up and organize at the beginning. If you do it at the end, you may go home and think about work more, which is what we’re trying to avoid.
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Get rid of junk
While cleaning your house, you may discover there’s just a lot more junk than you know what to do with. For a while you’ve been ‘shoving things under the rug’—throwing them in your garage or shed, or anywhere you don’t have to think about them. This could require a trip to the landfill. If you don’t have time, there are junk removal services. But then again, not having time is part of what I’m writing about dealing with here.
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Prioritize your obligations
This is a tough one. The cluttered life is oftentimes marked by rushing around to attend every event, to appease all the people around you, to keep yourself entertained. It’s time to narrow it down. What’s most important to you? When you’re working on your focus, do just that.
Focus only on what’s necessary and what’s most important, such as family gatherings, dates, and quality time with friends. Keep a log-book with A, B, and C priority levels, in which you include times and dates for appointments.
Focus on work on while you’re at work. Focus on your relationships outside of work. Those relationships will benefit because you’re working on yourself.
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Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness is the ultimate way to declutter your thoughts. Above, I recommended keeping a log-book. That’s so you can file away appointments and not think about them until you’re there. While you’re doing something, practice mindfulness and appreciation. This is the act of observing your own thoughts without judgment. It’s the act of observing what’s happening around you.
If you don’t judge your thoughts and feelings about what’s happening, you’re not anxious. And, certain thoughts and feelings don’t stick around in a whirlpool of emotion, because you’ve categorized them objectively. Start by simply feeling the textures and sensual attributes of objects. Notice your thoughts about them. Categorize your thoughts, decide what to act on, what not to act on, and move on.
Daniel Matthews is a widely published writer on the web with a passion for philosophy and empowerment. You can find him Twitter and LinkedIn.
You’ve read 7 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Improve Your Focus, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Statue of Liberty – New York – USA (by Kyle Taylor)
5 Conversation Scripts That Will Instantly Connect You (even if you’re super shy!)
You’re reading 5 Conversation Scripts That Will Instantly Connect You (even if you’re super shy!), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
As a nerd I love geeking out about fantasy, books, engineering and philosophy.
But in high school it was not always that,..uhm,.. practical. You know,… during that awkward stage of life.
As a typical nerd, I was always a flat out mute. During parties, meetings or whatever social settings my peers forced me in.
I ‘fondly’ remember leaving the party of my best friend. Just because I could not get myself talking to strangers. I was shy, anxious and plainly didn’t know what to say.
Somehow it was easier to avoid conversation entirely.
This was all kind of acceptable…. Until the summer of 2010, commuting back home.
I was sitting on the bus, minding my own business. When out of nowhere a radiating beauty comes sit next to me. A hot skater girl, exactly what I always fantasized about (romantic fantasy people, not carnal, mind you 😉 ).
I thought, this is it. Que the random teen movie soundtrack and go. Time to shine!
Of course I did nothing.
I couldn’t even utter a word. I lacked the experience to be even remotely social. Nevermind being charming.
That’s when I had enough!
I made a plan. I deduced two main problems to initiating conversation. The 30 seconds right before and at the start of conversations are the hardest. So why not do those on auto-pilot?
I researched and wrote down a few simple opening questions. Then started rehearsing. Just so I could start a good conversation without thinking. A few false starts later and I learned to initiate dialogues spontaneously.
With some practice you too can start talking on auto-pilot. Better yet: you can enjoy it!
Thus I present my elaborate scripts to initiate meaningful conversation. Socializing won’t be so scary anymore.
Start making amazing connections using these starters. Great for opening people up. Because these questions make people think and talk positively. Making others and yourself feel good. Laying the base for sustainable connections.
Feel free to steal these scripts – on the condition you start memorizing and applying them.
1 Hi! How are you? – – Why are you feeling ?
An easy way to start. But you go beyond the standard, by asking why. Most of the times people don’t ask you why you are feeling a certain way. They just dron on.
This way you give others the chance to tell about themselves. And you get to know them.
2 Hi, Nice to meet you. So tell me, what is your story?
A bit bolder. This approach may startle people a bit. But asking people what they are about flatters them. Give them the spotlight. So others have the chance to talk about who they are. Listen carefully, this is a great opener!
3 Hey I love your [genuinely compliment item], where did you get it?
This one is a bit less rehearsable. But practice and try it anyway. Paying people compliments is awesome. Everyone loves it. How often do you get a compliment? Not too often right? And when you do, it is great. Why not give that feeling to others.
Look carefully, notice what you like, say you like it, followed by a question were they got it. Doesn’t matter whether you compliment someone’s car, shoes or smile!
4 Hi, so what was your highlight of the week?
This lets people reflect on what they did, with a positive twist. Not just how was your week? No, what was the highlight!
Acknowledging and asking what was positive the last 7 days. You will definitely bring people in a positive mindset.
5 Hi! So what personal passion project are you working on right now?
Most people work on something they like or want to passionately get better at. It’s in the front of their minds all the time. For you it might be ‘learning to socialize better’.
Ask people about their passion! Listen, show interest and voila, you connect.
Initiating conversation can be hard. Remember, for most people it is difficult. Be the confident socializer using these questions. So you can start creating genuine connections. Memorize, try them and keep practicing. Soon it will be easy to make new friends!
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Want to learn more? Timon teaches social skills and confidence to engineers, nerds and geeks. By showing the right mindsets and easy applicable techniques. Learn to lose your inner doubter, make new friends and feel confident while doing it. At Techlecticism you can learn to be your best self.
You’ve read 5 Conversation Scripts That Will Instantly Connect You (even if you’re super shy!), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Sig Nordal 