"Nothing has a greater effect on your ability to enjoy experiences—at any age—than your health. In fact, health is actually a lot more valuable than money, because no amount of money can ever make up for very poor health—whereas people in good health but with little money can still have many wonderful experiences."
-- Bill Perkins
"It is a well-known rule that habits are formed in about twenty days. You can break a bad habit or form a new good habit in three weeks’ time. So, if you want to stop smoking, that habit can be broken by doing without cigarettes for three weeks. Easier said than done, I know. But by utilizing positive affirmations, the bad habit can fall by the wayside. Here are a few such statements to try:
“Stop smoking! Stop!”
“Stop ruining your lungs!”
“Stop! I have so much to live for! I’m killing myself!”
“Stop! You can’t do this!”"
-- John Paul Carinci
"We should avoid assuming we know why things happened the way they did, or why people treated us a certain way, or why we did what we did. These assumptions are usually wrong, because we are looking at the circumstances through distorted thinking. Rather than assume, it is sometimes possible to check reality. Often we can test our opinions and see if we are right. Even if we come up with many possible reasons, we still won’t know for certain. It’s all right to recognize we may never know for certain why things happened the way they did. It’s okay. After examining the experience, we can still choose to move on in a healthy way."
-- John F. Westfall
"THINGS DON’T OFTEN HAPPEN IN our lives like we have hoped. When we encounter unfavorable outcomes, we often experience difficult emotions. If this is happening to you right now, no matter how overwhelming and terrifying it is, I want you to know that you can weather the storm. You are stronger than you feel right now and wiser than you believe."
-- Haemin Sunim
"Spend more time enjoying things that amaze you. Happiness specialist Gretchen Rubin visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art almost daily, for example. Incorporating awe into your daily life might mean making sure you see the sunset as often as you can or studying astronomy—or whatever it is that blows your mind."
-- Arthur C. Brooks
"Whether the goal or task is small or large, the concept and method are the same. In fact, I recommend right this minute that you come up with three very small tasks. Write them down, but do only one at a time. Celebrate each small victory in your mind. Once you achieve the third goal, it will be time to choose bigger, longer-term tasks, dreams, goals. But you will be confident that the system works and that you are capable of reaching each finish line."
-- John Paul Carinci
"So how are you going to go about making things happen to reach that goal? It won’t just happen. You need to make a list (it could be long; it could be very short) of the things that have to happen to achieve your aim. After all, if you don’t know what they are, how are you going to make sure they actually do happen?"
-- Richard Templar
"If you do one thing today, make it exercise. Choose something you enjoy and you increase your chances of keeping it going."
-- Julie Smith
"We can control our lives by controlling the impulses our mind sends out every split second. And it literally is every split second that your subconscious mind is sending these thought impulses to your conscious mind. Thus, our subconscious mind, which works always in the background, is silently controlling our actions and our moods and, more importantly, advertising to everyone all around us exactly how we feel."
-- John Paul Carinci
"Eating the right things is one of the most important ways we nurture our bodies. Whatever size your body, whatever it can or can’t do, it is yours and it deserves to be taken care of, inside and out."
-- Trinny Woodall
"When you are ready to let go of something from the past, it can help to do something tangible that symbolizes the release of the memory. Some people, for example, take small stones to a pond or lake, and with each stone they state a memory they desire to leave behind, then throw the stone into the lake,symbolizing the release and end of that memory’s grip on them."
-- John F. Westfall
"Exercise. Stay physically active, even with a sedentary job. Arguably the single best, time-tested way to do this is walking every day."
-- Arthur C. Brooks
"To some extent, the rate of physical health decline is up to you. The better you maintain your health, the less steep your decline. For example, the lung function curve for nonsmokers is a lot flatter than the curve for smokers. The better your health in a given year, the more you will be able to enjoy your experiences that year. So, yes, you will decline—but you have a say in the shape of the decline! That’s a good thing, because the better you’re able to maintain your health during your lifetime, the higher your lifetime fulfillment score will be."
-- Bill Perkins
"If I feel inferior, I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain, I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty, I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent, I will remember past success. If I feel insignificant, I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions."
-- John Paul Carinci
"The third pillar for building a happier life is meaningful work. Hundreds of studies have shown that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are positively related, and causal: liking your job causes you to be happier all around. Engaging in work with your whole heart is one of the best ways to enjoy your days, get satisfaction from your accomplishments, and see meaning in your efforts. Work, at its best, is “love made visible,” in the elegant words of the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran."
-- Arthur C. Brooks
"If you have lost track of what your dreams are, not just in work but in life itself, think back to when you were a child. A time when you believed that anything was possible. What did you dream of then? What are you most passionate about and happiest doing in your life right now? Write down your answers and look at them carefully. Ask yourself if there’s a job out there somewhere that would involve doing the things that you love. You might even find a way of creating a job for yourself that involves all the things you love."
-- Camilla Sacre-Dallerup
"Our mental health defence players provide the foundations of good health. When we nurture them daily they pay us back with interest."
-- Julie Smith
