1. Guilt– Deal with negative feelings because you don’t need to be your own worst enemy.
2. The Past– Put it in a file cabinet or folder.  Refer back to learn from it.  There can be no happy future when we dwell in the past.
3. Social Media – It is the attention black hole that is now being recognized as an impediment to living life happily in real time.  Wean off social media by replacing time spent in the black hole with face time.
4. Jealousy – It kills relationships and hijacks our best qualities.
5. Running Yourself Down– For every negative that you hear or repeat about yourself, balance it with one (or more) positives.
6. Pleasing Others– It’s impossible to please everyone or even someone.  Become proficient at creating your own narrative without regard to how others interpret it.
7. Controlling– The sure way to unhappiness is to try to change another person.

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The life of physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking who died after years of slow progressing ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is the ultimate study of how to beat situational depression.

Hawking was paralyzed.

Eventually could not speak.

Could not live without constant nursing care.

In his later years he was able to communicate only through a speech generating device at first a handheld switch and then by using a single cheek muscle to cue his voice synthesizer.

Hawking had three children, two wives and a life of distinction.

If ever anyone had a right to be depressed, it would be this man who had so many physical challenges.

Hawking’s inspiration to the rest of us is to overcome obstacles whatever it takes.

Realize your full potential even if it means accepting adversity and then devoting your life to overcoming it.

No matter what the many contributions Hawking has made to science, the obvious yet least likely to be recognized is that even as his body died, he lived a full productive life to compensate.

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No one likes adversity, but everyone becomes better for having experienced it.

The richest people in the world had to overcome adversity in varying degrees. And for some reason when money is handed down without being earned, the recipient does not enjoy the success and happiness of those who have to work for it.

The two advantages of tough times are they help us discover who we are.

How we overcome obstacles. How we plan to make it better.

But perhaps the biggest benefit in discovering who we are is to find out what we really want. After all, if you’re willing to pay any price to overcome what ails you, you know you really want it.

The other advantage of adversity is we find out who are friends are.

As trite as that sounds, there is no denying that a person who is really for you will shine while you are dealing with the pain and the challenges of adversity.

Adversity is the rehearsal for success and happiness by being the vehicle that introduces us to ourselves and to those around us.

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This is a term that is being used a lot right now – “We need to have a conversation”.

What they’re really saying is – I need to have you listen not necessarily talk.

Our world is fast and impersonal – we’re constantly in touch but it doesn’t mean that we are focused on listening.

99 times out of 100 if someone says we need to have a conversation, they are asking for you to hear them out and that doesn’t necessarily mean agree.

Ironically it has been proven again and again that the best conversationalist is the person who listens, asks questions and learns not the one who talks the most.

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The thing about intuition is that we all have it, but very few actually listen to it.

It’s when something feels to be true without having to use reasoning.

It may just be an instinct.

But when what we’re feeling is something we don’t like (“I’m not going to be with this person for life”, “I think I will lose my job”), it’s more comforting to not listen to ourselves.

When we’re feeling something more positive (“I’m going to get the promotion”, “This person I met feels like my soul mate”), we may not be able to prove it, but we want to let that feeling in.

Intuition is just another way to tune in to listening to our needs and wants.

No reason to keep score.

No reason to be afraid.

Listening to yourself is always the best reward.

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