Kanye West’s Most Brilliant/WTF One-Liners To Date

1. ‘Whoa by 50 percent [I am more influential than] Stanley Kubrick, Apostle Paul, Picasso… f****** Picasso and Escobar. By 50 per cent more influential than any other human being.’


2. ‘When you’re the absolute best, you get hated on the most.’



3. ‘My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater… That always sounds so funny to people, comparing yourself to someone who has done so much, and that’s a mentality that suppresses humanity…’



4. ‘One of my biggest achilles heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.’



5. ‘I don’t think there’s a living celebrity with more weapons formed against him, but I don’t think there’s one more prosperous.’

6. ‘So, the voices in my head told me go, and then I just walked up, like, halfway up the stage… But I just didn’t really want to take away from Beck’s moment, or the time he’s having to talk. It was kind of a joke – like the Grammys themselves.’



7. ‘I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.’


8. ‘I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it’s like when Biggie passed and Jay Z was allowed to become Jay Z.’



9. ‘Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.’



10. ‘I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice.’



11. ‘I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.’



12. ‘One of the problems with being a bubbling source of creativity – it’s like I’m bubbling in a laboratory, and if you don’t put a cap on it, at one point it will, like, break the glass. If I can hone that… then I have, like, nuclear power, like a superhero, like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on.’



13. ‘You should only believe about 90 percent of what I say. As a matter of fact, don’t even believe anything that I’m saying at all. I could be completely fucking with you, and the world, the entire time.’



14. ‘I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.’



15. ‘There’s nothing I really wanted to do in life that I wasn’t able to get good at. That’s my skill. I’m not really specifically talented at anything except for the ability to learn. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m here for.’



16. ‘I’m a pop enigma. I live and breathe every element in life. I rock a bespoke suit and I go to Harold’s for fried chicken. It’s all these things at once, because, as a taste maker, I find the best of everything.’



17. ‘People ask me a lot about my drive. I think it comes from, like, having a sexual addiction at a really young age. Look at the drive that people have to get sex – to dress like this and get a haircut and be in the club in the freezing cold at 3 A.M., the places they go to pick up a girl. If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic.’



18. ‘I jog in Lanvin.’



19. About Kim Kardashian: ‘Y’all are acting like this ain’t the most beautiful woman of all time. Wait a second, wait a second – I’m talking about arguably of human existence. The top 10 of human existence… I don’t give a f*ck what type of jacket she got on.’



20. ‘Visiting my mind is like visiting the Hermès factory. Sh*t is real.’



21. ‘If you read books – which I don’t, none at all – about how to become a billionaire, they always say, ‘You learn more from your mistakes.’ So if you learn from your mistakes, then I’m a f*cking genius.’



22. ‘I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things.’



23. ‘I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.’



24. ‘Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on.’



25. ‘I believe that bad taste is vulgar. It’s like cursing. I think the world can be saved through design, because what is the most distasteful thing someone can do? Kill someone. So, good taste is the opposite of that.’



26. ‘I’m a designer. A musician. A manager. The media try to dishumanise [sic] people who believe in themselves.’ Kanye West even manages to make up a new word during one of his many mid-set rants at Wireless Festival 2014.



27. ‘For me, first of all, dopeness is what I like the most. Dopeness. People who want to make things as dope as possible, and, by default, make money from it.’



28. ‘I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus.’



29. ‘I am in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists. But I’m also in the linage of a Miles Davis, you know, that liked nice things too.’



30. ‘Just imagine if I woke up one day and I was whack. What would I do then?’



31. ‘I am the number one human being in music. That means any person that’s living or breathing is number two.’



32. ‘Oh my God, I’m one of the greatest rappers in the world.’



33. ‘The Bible had 20, 30, 40, 50 characters in it. You don’t think that I would be one of the characters of today’s modern Bible?’



34. ‘I’m the closest that hip-hop is getting to God. In some situations I’m like a ghetto Pope.’



35. ‘I’m doing pretty good as far as geniuses go…I’m like a machine. I’m a robot. You cannot offend a robot.’

36. ‘I feel like the type of girl I would be with is a fellow superhero. So we get that “already flying and now we’re just flying together” thing.’



37. ‘I paid my dues when I had to wear a kilt in Chicago, and friends would say, “What’s your boy got on?” but there are warriors that have killed people in kilts in the past.’



38. ‘I’m going to be the Tupac of clothing.’



39. ‘I don’t personally like suit jackets anymore. I especially hate suit jackets on women… that was a groundbreaking idea 5 million years ago!’



40. ‘I like T-shirts and women in yoga pants… I live in LA that’s what some people wear… not sure why someone would put a suit jacket with that.’



41. ‘What do you mean by @JustinBieber was my favourite song of 2015’

7 Common Habits of Unhappy People

Image by Mitya Kuznetsov (license).


“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”-Marcel Proust

Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behavior and habits.
In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world.
But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimize or overcome these habits in my life.


1. Aiming for perfection.Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?
Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect.


How to overcome this habit:Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed:

• Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.
• Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.
• Realize what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection. This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it. But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.

2. Living in a sea of negative voices.
No one is an island. Who we socialize with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think.
It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective.


How to overcome this habit:

• Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful. It can be like a whole new world opening up.

• So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way.
• You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV.

3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much.
Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can build into horrifying nightmare scenarios playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences.
No good if you want to be happier.


How to overcome this habit:
It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past.
But to dwell on those things rarely help.

• So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that.

• Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past.
• If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again.

4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives.One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings.


How to overcome this habit:
Replace that destructive habit with two other habits.

• Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done.You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.

• Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticize people more and you tend to judge and criticize yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.


5. Focusing on the negative details in life.
Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you.


How to overcome this habit:

• Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills. 

• Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like:

How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive?

How can I solve this problem?
If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.


6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you.If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How?
Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing.You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do.
 
How to overcome this habit:

• Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.

• Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centered focus.

7. Overcomplicating life.
Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler.
 
How to overcome this habit:
Overcomplicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most overcomplicating habits.

• Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day.

• Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away.

• Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.

• Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.)

• Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again.

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.


So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.


1. Change yourself.


“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”


“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”


If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.


And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.


And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.


2. You are in control.


“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”


What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.


You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.


And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.


3. Forgive and let it go.


“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”


“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”


Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.


You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.


If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.


4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.


“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”


Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.


And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.


So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.


You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.


5. Take care of this moment.


“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”


The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.


Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.


Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.


6. Everyone is human.


“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”


“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”


When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.


And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.


It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.


7. Persist.


“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”


Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.


Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.


Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.


Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.


8. See the good in people and help them.


“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”


“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”


“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”


There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.


And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.


By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger.

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.


“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”


“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”


I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.


When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.


With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.


Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.


10. Continue to grow and evolve.


”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”


You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.


Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.

41 of the most motivating, thought-provoking and helpful thoughts on failure and how to handle it

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On some days things don’t go as planned. You fall. Or fail. Or stumble.

It’s a part of a life well lived but how you look at and handle these dark or negative situations can have a huge impact on your life, success and happiness. In this week’s article I’d like to share the best advice and thoughts on failure from the past from the people who walked this earth before us (well, quite a few of them are still here and walking among us).

This is 41 of the most motivating, thought-provoking and helpful thoughts on failure and how to handle it from the past 2500 years.

1.“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” – C. S. Lewis
2.“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
3.“No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.“ – Napoleon Hill
4.“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
5.“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.” – Buddha
6.“An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.” – Charles F. Kettering
7.“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Confucius
8.“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
9.“When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.” – George Bernard Shaw
10.“A man may fail many times but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs
11.“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J.K. Rowling
12“To be wrong is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” – Confucius
13“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
14“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.” – Virgil Thomson
15“When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.” – Eloise Ristad
16“Part of being a man is learning to take responsibility for your successes and for your failures. You can’t go blaming others or being jealous. Seeing somebody else’s success as your failure is a cancerous way to live.” – Kevin Bacon
17“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” – Douglas Adams
18“Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” – John Wooden
19.“I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.” – Anthony Robbins
20“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.” – George Eliot
21.“A man may fall many times, but he won’t be a failure until he says that someone pushed him.” – Elmer G. Letterman
22“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw
23.“What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning – and some of them many times over – what do you find? That you can swim? Well – life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!” – Alfred Adler
24.“Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
25.“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
26“Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.” – Napoleon Hill
27.“You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
28.“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” – John C. Maxwell
29.“There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them.” – Tom Krause
30.“Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal.” – Mike Ditka
31.“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
32.“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of a greater or equal benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
33.“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
34.“No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who’s always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.” – Chris Hardwick
35.“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard
36.“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” – Mark Twain
37.“Success builds character, failure reveals it.” – Dave Checkett
38.“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” – Jack Canfield
39.“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” – Ken Robinson
40.“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” – Zig Ziglar
41,“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” – Napoleon Hill

How to Live a Happy Life

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.” - Chinese Proverb

Saying no is often the easier way out.

When you say no you can safely stay within your comfort zone. You don’t have to fear failing or being rejected. The scary unknown and sometimes difficult change can be avoided.But if you say yes your life can expand and deepen. The yes allows you to open up your life to more happiness.

Today I would like to share 10 things that I have said yes to and that have helped me to become happier in my life.

Pick one of these that resonate the most with you and focus on making it a part of your life.



1. Being imperfect.

Trying to be perfect is setting the bar too high. It will be impossible to reach. And so you’ll lower your self-esteem. You may not feel very happy about how things are going in your life. Even though they might be going very well indeed Perfectionism is mindset that eats at you and your happiness. Saying yes to being imperfect can turn that around.

How to do it:

• Realize the costs of buying into myths of perfection. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it. But in real life it clashes with reality and it can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.
• Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else very slowly or never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.

2. Being you.

Not being able to be yourself, always trying to change for others or censoring yourself don’t feel good at all. It makes life feel so small and limited.

So how can you be yourself? Your environment plays a huge part.

How to do it:

• Supportive people. Spend more time with the people who support your dreams, values and you. Or are at least neutral. And spend less time with people who always criticize you or you simply aren’t a good fit for.
• Supportive and life-expanding influences outside of your everyday life. Change your environment not only close to you. Go further and spend more time with sources of information that supports your dreams and can give you information that expands and makes your life happier and more exciting. Find support from people you have never met via books, movies, blogs, forums and music. And spend less time with negative and limiting influences.

3. The things that make you come alive.

It is important to find some time and energy for the things that you feel makes you come alive.

How to do it:

• Mix it up. Try something new, even if it is just something small each week. Eat the vegetarian dish at lunch if you always eat meat. Listen to some music that isn’t your normal cup of tea. Go out to a movie, café or pub with friends if you usually stay in at night. Or vice versa. Create variation and expand your comfort zone regularly in small ways to live a happier life.
• Reconnect with what you used to love if it has fallen by the wayside. If you used to go fishing, paint or play the guitar and it really made you come alive then reconnect. Use an hour for it this week and see if it still brings you joy and makes you come alive.

4. Optimism.
Pessimism can really limit your life and bring it to a standstill. It can make it feel like there’s no point in trying because it won’t make a difference or you’ll just fail. It can create ceilings and walls made out of glass where there really are none. Saying yes a more optimistic way of thinking can on the other hand open your life up.

How to do it:

• Ask yourself optimistic questions. When you’re in what seems like a negative situation then make something better out of it by asking yourself questions that promote optimism and helps you to find solutions. Questions like: What is one thing that is positive or good about this situation? And what is the opportunity within this situation?
• Start your day off on the right foot. As mentioned in tip #2, the influences in your life can make a huge difference. So choose to spend your breakfast time with an optimistic influence like for example a book, a blog or your mom. Or talk to someone early in the day that most often supports and cheers you up like a co-worker or a friend in school.

5. Turning negative self-talk around.

It is very important to keep your motivation and your self-esteem up to live a happier life.

Your inner critic may be one of biggest obstacles standing in your way of that. If you make a mistake or fail, if someone criticizes you or if you are just getting tired then that small inner voice can become louder and louder and drag and keep you down.

It can tell you that you are stupid or lazy. That you will not succeed. That you are worse or uglier than someone else.

Being able to turn the inner critic around or to shut it up as soon as it pops up is a very helpful skill.

How to do it:

• Say stop. Simply create a stop word or stop-phrase that you say or shout in your mind whenever your critic pipes up with a distorted and self-esteem hurting thought. Say: Stop! Or: No, no, no, we are not going there again!
• Explain to yourself what this will lead to over the next year or more. As I mentioned in tip #1, reminding yourself of the cost of buying into myths of perfection is a powerful way to replace those thought habits. This works very well for other self-esteem hurting thought patterns too. Remind yourself of how the inner critic has shaped your life so far. And in your mind see the cost of letting it roam free for another year or five.

6. Saying no when you feel it is the right thing for you to do.

To have the time and energy to say yes to the most important things you have to say no to some things too.

How to do it:

• What do I truly want to focus my time and energy on? When you get an offer or an opportunity arises ask yourself this question. When you look over your schedule ask yourself this question. Think about and look at what your top priorities are and what you deep want before you say anything.
• Disarm and then state your need. It becomes easier for people to accept your no if you disarm them first. You could for example do that by honestly saying that you are flattered or that you appreciate the kind offer. Then you, for instance, add that you do not have the time for accepting and doing what they want. Or say that you do not feel that this offer is a good fit for your life right now.

7. Forgiveness.
Not clinging to the past and to the hurt that is there but to let it go and look to the now and the future is an essential thing to find more happiness in your life.

Forgiving is not always easy and can take time but there are some things that can make it a little easier.

How to do it:

• Remind yourself that you forgive for your own benefit. As long as you don’t forgive someone you are linked to that person. Your thoughts will return to the person who wronged you and what he or she did over and over again The emotional link between the two of you is so strong and inflicts much suffering in you and – as a result of your inner turmoil – most often in other people around you too. When you forgive you do not only release the other person. You set yourself free from all of that agony too.
• Make a habit of forgiving yourself. Do not just forgive others but also yourself. By forgiving yourself – instead of resenting yourself for something you did a week or 10 years ago – you make the habit of forgiveness more and more of a natural part of you. And so forgiving others becomes easier too.

8. Making someone else happy.

Making someone else happier has many benefits. The happiness spreads back to you as you see his or her face light up and as you know you did the right thing. It spreads back to you as people have a strong tendency to want to give back when you have done something good for them. And it spreads out into the world as that now happier person may spread his or her happiness to other people.

How to do it:

• Help out practically. Lend someone a hand when they are moving. Or give them a ride in your car. Or if they need information, try to find a solution by asking the people you know or via Google.
• Just listen. Sometime a friend or someone close to you may just want to vent or for someone to listen as he or she figures things out. It may not seem like much but it can be an immense help for someone who needs it. So be there fully – don’t sit there thinking about something else – and listen.

9. Openness and growth.

Saying yes to being open to the good things in life and growing as a person plays a big role when it comes to happiness. The other things in this article will help you with that. But here are two more tips that will make your journey a little easier and simpler.

How to do it:

• Change one thing at a time. Changing many things or your whole life at once sure sounds good. But willpower is something we often overestimate and everyday life tends to come in the way. So to make sure you have a much better chance of changing a habit or area of your life change just one thing at a time.
• Start small. Just say no to one small thing you don’t want to do this week. Or forgive one person for one thing. Or help and make someone happy in some small way. Take just one small step outside of your comfort zone.

10. To living your life fully despite setbacks.

When things have been standing still for while or you hit a bump in the road then it’s easy to back down. To shrink. To give in or give up. But a better way to say yes to happiness in those situations is to say yes to living your life fully.

How to do it:

• Keep going. When you fail or make a mistake don’t give up. Reconnect with optimism by using the questions further up in this article. Find inspiration from books and blogs and the people around you. Don’t beat yourself up. Instead nudge yourself back on track again.
•  Remember, it’s not too late to change your life. I didn’t really try to improve my life very much until I was 25. And many throughout the world and history have made positive changes far later in life than that. So if you want to make a change then start today. Work with what you have where you are right now. Start small and take the first step towards something new. 

A Prayer for the Lonely on Valentine’s Day

Today Am gonna write on a biblical perspective sice I know we are many and am not the only one going through this alone, If you are dreading Valentine’s Day, you are not alone. 

Every year I talk with women, read loads of emails, and even receive handwritten letters from women who are lonely in love, disappointed from unmet expectations, or simply tired of the loneliness they feel on a day designed to celebrate love.  

Whether you’re single, married, divorced, or widowed, you may feel like a woman who walks alone. But there is One who knows your heart inside and out, and knows exactly how to fill it with joy when nothing else satisfies. 

Scripture tells us Jesus, our High Priest, is one who can sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). Not only can He help us when we are being tempted because He was tempted too, but He can relate to our sorrows because He lived life on this earth, as well. And because He is God and knows us inside out (Psalm 139), I believe He also understands a broken heart, a lonely heart, and an empty heart. 

So take heart. You have a God who can meet your emotional needs because He knows you intimately and invites you to pour out your heart before Him (Psalm 62:8).  

Here is a “pour it out” prayer for the lonely on Valentine’s Day. Say it from your heart and share it with someone who needs to know she is loved.  

Lord God, You are the Creator of love and the Author of romance. It was all Your idea in the first place. And therefore, You understand more than anyone else when I feel I am lacking in what others seem to have in abundance. 

Thank You that You understand the deep desire of my heart for companionship, emotional fulfillment, and physical and emotional intimacy. You made me with a desire to be fully known and loved by another. Help me to see that You know me fully, and understand me more than any other. Comfort me with that assurance on the days when I wish I had someone physically – or emotionally – close to me. 

Even though You, Lord, can at any time change my circumstances in order to fill the void in my heart, for some reason You have chosen not to. Help me to trust You with what You are withholding from me, perhaps so I will draw closer to You and rely on You more for what I need (Psalm 84:11). Help me to trust You during the times that your “no” is protecting me from what I don’t yet see. Help me to hold onto hope that You really do have my best in mind and Your wisdom is far above mine. 

On this day that so many celebrate love, help me to celebrate Your love for me, with a deep knowledge that You love me more than any person on this earth ever will. Help me to find joy in that as I wait for Your best for me. Help me to see Your love for me in every flower that blooms, feel it in every warm ray of sunshine, hear it in every pure and right love song, and experience it in every good and perfect gift I receive (James 1:17). 

Thank You that You have searched me and You know me (Psalm 139:1) and that nothing is hidden from You. 

Lord, I love that You know all about me. And when You see desires of mine that are not fully in line with Yours, You do not toss me aside. You, instead, send friends my way to love me back to You. You send songs my way that remind me of where I need to be in my relationship with You. You send words my way that remind me that You are the One who opens Your hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:16). Lord, take any longing that lies within me that is unhealthy and replace it with a stronger desire for You. And because You tell me to “come boldly to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16, NKJV) and tell You all that is on my heart, I will not try to hide anything from You. I want to experience intimacy with You the way an honest, transparent love relationship was meant to be experienced. 

Thank You, Lord, that You see it all and You love me just the same.  

“All my longings lie open before You, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you” (Psalm 38:9). You know what I long for and what disappoints me. Comfort me on those days when I feel disappointed and hurt by what this world has to offer. Help me to remember that You are the only Perfect Love and the One I must keep my eyes upon. Thank You for Your demonstration of sacrificial love for me and remind me that no one on earth could express that kind of love toward me. You truly are the One I must seek above any other. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.