What are you afraid of? It doesn't matter whether it's speaking in public or snakes, if you really want to conquer it, you can.

Let's talk for a few moments about fear. Fear can be either a valuable ally or a vicious enemy. It can keep you safe and prevent you from taking dangerous chances, but it can also stop you from taking the risks you must take if you are to grow and change for the better.  

It's important to understand that fear itself can't hurt you. Fear is simply a negative rehearsal of the future. You imagine yourself… >>>

If a Hollywood producer wanted to film the story of your life, would it be an Oscar-winning epic or a direct-to-DVD cure for insomnia?  

How well has your life been going so far? Have you been living your life to the fullest and making good use of your enormous potential? Or, have you been letting other people write your story for you, telling you what you can and cannot do, what your personality is like, and what is good enough for you?  

You know, your life could be a glorious thing - the kind of story Hollywood producers would love… >>>

Have you ever heard the story of the woman who preferred the smell of dead fish to flowers? 

There's an old story of a woman who sold fish all her life and knew nothing else. One fine summer day, she was invited to the queen's palace to help prepare a royal festival.  When she was shown to her room, she found it filled with fragrant flowers. "How disgusting," she complained. "Please take me back and let me sleep near my pile of fish." 

Now why would she choose the stench of her fish over the sweet fragrance of flowers? It… >>>

Do you ever feel let down after you reach a goal that you have worked long and hard for? Let's talk about why that happens and how to avoid it.

Did you know that people are teleological beings? That means that it is absolutely critical for us to have goals and to know what we want in life. But what happens when we get it? When suddenly the goal we have been working so hard to achieve has been accomplished and now there is nothing to strive toward? 

Well, most of us have a tendency to flatten out - we… >>>

Would you like to change your luck for the better? If so, throw away your rabbit's foot and four leaf clover - and I will tell you how. 

Why is it that some people are successful at almost everything they do, while others seem to continually fail? Is it luck, or is something else going on? 

I think what we normally attribute to a force called "luck" is simply the part of our mind that does not see the whole picture. No one creates any condition - health, finances, career, relationships - unless he or she has attracted it by… >>>

Do you know what either/or thinking is? Either/or thinking, or black and white thinking as it is sometimes called, is a very dangerous thing, and it is basically just what it sounds like.

Either/or thinkers don't see shades of gray. They want easy answers and they like to keep it simple. So they see life in terms of winners and losers, good guys and bad guys, success or failure, right and wrong. They fail to realize that right and wrong depend on time, place, culture and purpose, among other things. 

They don't see that no one is all good or… >>>

What would it take to make you happy? 

Now, I know some of you think that if you only had this or that particular thing or a certain amount of money, you'd be happy. Others believe that if you were only in love with someone wonderful who loved you back, then you would be happy. And there are still others who believe that if a miracle would occur and cure you or someone you love of an illness, that would make you happy. 

But I want to tell you something. Happiness is a choice you make, not something that does… >>>

Ever wonder how you can tell if you're living your life in the best possible way? There are some pretty good indicators, and I'll tell you what they are. 

If you know about the work I do, or if you're a regular receiver of this email, you probably know that I believe it's up to you to create a life that works, that feels right, and that makes you happy. But how in the world can you tell if you're living your life to the fullest? Well, there are some questions you can ask yourself that will pretty much tell… >>>

A few days ago, we talked about the possible selfishness of personal growth. Today, I want to add another angle to the discussion about whether pursuing personal growth is, indeed, selfish. 

In my mind, there's no question about it. We must have a caring relationship with ourselves before we can expect others to do so. But being interested in personal growth doesn't mean you're selfish. Quite the contrary.  

In his book, "The Psychology of Romantic Love," Nathaniel Brandon wrote that, "The first affair we must consummate successfully is the love affair with ourselves. Only then are we ready for other… >>>

How big is your comfort zone? Is it growing or shrinking? All of us live inside an area I call a comfort zone. It's the imaginary space containing all the activities we have done often enough to feel comfortable about. It also contains our ideas about where we belong, how we should live, what we do socially, and so on. 

You can visualize this zone of comfort as a circle, if you like, but the wall of that circle is not really there to protect us. It is made of fear and self-imposed limitations. We like to believe that the… >>>

Is an intense desire for personal growth and development a selfish thing? Some people think it is, but I disagree.

Human beings are social beings. We feel the most lasting satisfaction and meaning from our relationships with other people. We have a strong need to belong, to love and be loved, to feel needed and accepted. But how much love you can give - and accept - depends on how you feel about yourself. 

Long before you can improve your relationships with others, you must first improve your relationship with yourself. If you don't value and care for yourself, you… >>>

Are you a talented person? Whether you see yourself that way or not, I'm going to try to convince you that you have at least one natural talent. 

I'll bet it's easy for you to look at a famous musician or artist or dancer and say, "Golly, that person is really talented." But I'm also willing to bet that if I ask you whether you, yourself, are talented, you'd be inclined to say, "Well, no, not really." 

You see, most of us who don't have brilliant careers in the arts have been trained to see ourselves as lacking in talent.… >>>

Can the mind help cure disease? What role do the emotions play in preventing illness?

What is the relationship between the thoughts you think, the feelings you experience, and the overall health and well being of your body? This is a very old question, but modern science has developed some innovative new ways to determine the answers. And, while what they are finding may startle some people, it doesn't surprise me a bit.

It turns out that improving the quality of your life lowers your chances of developing serious mental and physical illness and also improves the speed and likelihood… >>>

People who are struggling with addictions are all too familiar with the phenomenon of denial. If you have ever tried to overcome an addiction, you know that getting past denial is one of the first steps to change. 

Now, denial has its roots in a perfectly normal need - we want to feel that we are OK just the way we are. But denial goes one step further. Instead of looking at current reality, accepting it as a fact, and then thinking calmly about how to change it, people who are in denial distort current reality so they won't have… >>>

People who would never think of trying to drive a car with the brakes on often do something very similar to themselves.

A wise and funny woman I know once said, "Show me a person without guilt, and I'll show you a person without a mother!" Now, she herself is a mother and guilt, when it's appropriate, is a useful function of a healthy conscience. 

The point she was making through humor is that all of us suffer from at least a touch of guilt and feelings of unworthiness. When these feelings grow large enough to take over, it's like… >>>

Has anyone ever called you stubborn? Would you describe yourself that way? If so, you may be in luck when it comes to making positive changes. 

Some people find themselves in trouble a lot because of a personality characteristic that they call stubbornness. You've heard of will power. Well, stubbornness is a kind of "won't power." It causes you to dig in and refuse to budge, and sometimes it drives other people crazy. 

But, as Roger and McWilliams point out in their book, Life 101, "Just as fear is also excitement, stubbornness is also determination. It's simply a matter of… >>>

One of the most important ways we communicate is with language. However, if our language is fuzzy, our communications will be too.

If you want to communicate effectively, you'll also want to make your language as effective and clear as it can be. One way to do this is to be very careful about using words we call "universals" or "absolutes" - words like "always," "never," "all" and "every." 

Now, universals are fine, when they're true. If you say, "Everyone must die someday," or "All the people in our family have brown eyes," you're talking about facts. But what about… >>>

Do you know what it means to behave in a passive-aggressive way? Let's talk about this behavior today, and maybe you'll recognize yourself or someone you know. 

The term passive-aggressive came into being during World War II, when an Army psychiatrist used it to describe soldiers who ignored or resisted orders. According to clinical psychologist Scott Wetzler, passive-aggressive behavior is not being passive one minute and aggressive the next.

It's really sugar-coated hostility, or aggression with an escape clause. Passive-aggressive people are invariably an hour late, a dollar short and a block away, armed with an endless list of excuses… >>>

Today, let's talk about how to deal with setbacks in your quest to be a better person. 

Affirmations are a wonderful way to help you change in positive ways. Affirmations are simply present-tense, positive statements of a desired end-result. For example, an affirmation you could make if you want to be a more loving person is, "I treat all people with respect and courtesy in every possible circumstance."

Given this affirmation, what happens when you're driving to work and another driver cuts you off, glaring at you as if you had no right to be on the road in the… >>>

Do you ever feel that the people who are closest to you are the ones who resist the most when you try to change for the better? 

Sometimes, when we are committed to personal growth and change, family members and others who are close to us will do everything they can to try and get us to change back. Did you ever wonder why that might be? Well, for one thing, when people get used to their lives being a certain way, any change - even when it's an improvement - can be threatening. And sometimes, people who are negative… >>>