challengesinlife

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4 Scientifically Proven Ways To Stay Happy All The Time

1. Exercise more

Lots of studies on this one. Exercising releases the good mood endorphins so that you are always in a better mood after a workout or simply a walk to the supermarket. I have never met a person in a bad mood after a workout!

The best study I know is where three groups of depressed people are put on a regime of anti-depressants, exercise or a combination of the two. No surprise to know that all three groups were happier, but did it last? Six months later, the group who had been treated with exercise only, had a very low relapse rate of 9%. The other two groups had relapsed and how! Their rates were ranging from 38% to 31%, so about a third of them were now depressed again.

2. Trash your negative thoughts

Some people are overwhelmed by their negative thoughts and they have real problems in getting rid of them. A University of Madrid study found that by actually writing these thoughts down on a piece of paper and then destroying them was effective.[2] They recommended that you either tear them up, throw them in the trash or burn them!

The fact of discarding them physically does help in reducing their toxic effects. Psychologists suggest doing this on a regular basis.

3. Practice mindfulness

It just means that you concentrate and pay full attention to the present moment and accept it in a non-judgmental way. This is now becoming a popular trend in psychology and medicine. When done regularly it can boost mood, reduce stress levels, and lead to a better quality of life.

4. Dedicate a little time to helping others

People buy bigger houses, cars and phones but it does not seem to increase their overall happiness in the long term, although it might cause a brief spike in happiness. That is short lived. Researchers have found that when we dedicate a little time or money to helping others, this has a significant effect on our own happiness.

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How to Think Positive Thoughts When Feeling Negative?

Positive thinking can lead to a lot of positive change in your life. Developing an optimistic outlook can be good for both your physical and mental health.

But sometimes, certain situations arise in life that makes it hard to keep a positive outlook. Take steps to make positive thinking become more like your second nature and you’ll reap the biggest benefits.

Here are 5 ways to make thinking positive thoughts easy:

1. Spend Time with Positive People

If you surround yourself with constant complainers, their negativity is likely to rub off on you.

Spend time with positive friends and family members to increase the likelihood that their positive thinking habits will become yours too. It’s hard to be negative when everyone around you is so positive.

2. Take Responsibility for Your Behaviour

When you encounter problems and difficulties in life, don’t play the role of the victim. Acknowledge your role in the situation and take responsibility for your behaviour.

Accepting responsibility can help you learn from mistakes and prevent you from blaming others unfairly.

3. Contribute to the Community

One of the best ways to feel good about what you have, is to focus on what you have to give.

Volunteer in some manner and give back to the community. Helping others can give you a new outlook on the world and can assist you with positive thinking.

4. Read Positive and Inspirational Materials

Spend time each day reading something that encourages positive thinking. Read the Bible, spiritual material, or inspirational quotes to help you focus on what’s important to you in life. It can be a great way to start and end your day.

5. Recognize and Replace Negative Thoughts

You won’t be successful at positive thinking if you’re still plagued by frequent negative thoughts. Learn to recognize and replace thoughts that are overly negative. Often, thoughts that include words like “always” and “never” signal that they aren’t true.

If you find yourself thinking something such as, “I always mess everything up,” replace it with something more realistic such as, “Sometimes I make mistakes but I learn from them.”

There’s no need to make your thoughts unrealistically positive, but instead, make them more realistic.

[challengesinlife]

What Is Self Awareness & How to Become More Self-Aware?

What Is Self Awareness?

Self awareness could be as simple as getting in touch with, and then understanding your thoughts and feelings. For some, it might mean connecting with your innermost beliefs and values and then living a life that is congruent with those values.

For people focused more on professional development, self awareness is understanding their strengths, weaknesses, personality types, and leadership styles.

How to Become More Self-Aware?

Six strategies to help you do just that:

1. Create Space for Yourself

Sometimes, when we have our heads down, and we’re immersed in our everyday lives, it’s hard to see what’s really going on. Life is busy, so if you want to become more self-aware, you have to create space for yourself.

2. Practice Mindfulness

During these times, it’s important to listen to your inner voice, tune into what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it, and to acknowledge and understand yourself better. When your mind becomes clear, it becomes easy to see why you were upset and what you needed to do about the situation.

3. Keep a Journal

Journaling can help you clarify your thoughts and feelings, get to know yourself better, reduce overall stress, solve problems more effectively, and even resolve disagreements with others. If it helps, think of journaling as practicing mindfulness on paper. Take some quiet time to think about your inner world, how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, and so on. While you’re analyzing your inner world, write down all of your thoughts as they occur to you. I call this a stream of consciousness. If you can, do this at least once a day, either in the morning or in the evening. If you want to take your self-awareness to an even higher level, try journaling your observations every hour throughout the day.

According to the National Science Foundation, we have an average of 50,000 thoughts per day, most of which we are not self-aware enough to notice. Imagine if you took a little time to practice mindfulness and wrote some of those thoughts down.

4. Seek New Perspectives About Yourself

Most of us think we have ourselves pretty figured out, don’t we? We spend more time with ourselves than with anyone else. We know all of our own intimate secrets, hopes, dreams, and guilty pleasures. We often know ourselves as the person we aspire to be, not the person we are in the present.

It’s difficult to get pure, honest feedback free of bias and fluff, but by asking our friends, family, and coworkers for 360-degree feedback, we can gain a new perspective about ourselves that would be challenging to get on our own.

If you want to become truly self-aware, seek feedback from those you know and trust. The insights may surprise you, but the new perspective will be incredibly valuable.

Final Thoughts

The impact that self awareness has on success is undeniable, but mastering self-awareness is going to take some effort from you.

[challengesinlife]

Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food.

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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How to Feel Inspired When You’ve Lost Motivation?

Ways through which you can Feel Inspired When You’ve Lost Motivation:

1.Connecting the Dots

Sometimes when you’re trying to reach a goal, it’s impossible to connect the dots where you currently are. Somehow you just have to trust in yourself, and have faith that you will reach your dreams, despite not having the slightest clue or perfectly laid out road to where you are going. Nobody can connect the dots looking forward; you only can connect them when you’re looking backwards. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future; you have to trust in something, whether it’s karma or destiny, but trusting yourself is the first step towards feeling inspired and having the motivation to move forward.

2. Allowing Your Environment to Predetermine Your Mood

Look around your room right now or your workspace. Does it inspire you? Does it give you motivation? Is it noisy or quiet? Sometimes the hardest thing we do to ourselves is try to force ourselves to work in an area that is subconsciously telling us, “I can’t work here.”

And when you are constantly trying to discipline yourself, you will feel worse and be less productive. Instead try to build your ideal workplace and ideal time. Free it from distractions. Perhaps add a piece of artwork or a quote of your favorite person nearby you on the wall. Maybe add a beautiful plant in the corner to give you inspiration. If you feel more energy and enthusiasm during the night, schedule your day to work at midnight if you can. If you can realize the power of having a productive environment, you will naturally feel inspired and motivated to get work done.

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How to Enjoy Life In a Way That Most People Don’t? Part 2

11. Make Time for Gratitude

Creating a routine of writing down three things you feel grateful for each day helps you focus more on what’s good in your life. Starting a gratitude journal can help, too. By focusing on gratitude, we place ourselves in the moment and are able to see just how much good we’ve got going for us.

12. Track How You’re Spending Your Time

It’s easy to get to the end of a day and wonder where all the time went, so track how you spend your time in an average week. When we’re conscious of how we’re spending our hours, we can make the most of the time we have on this planet.

13. Be Deliberate in Your Choices

We’ve never had so many opportunities to create a lifestyle that we truly love, yet many of us still live life on autopilot. Be deliberate in your life choices: remember that it’s your life and no-one else’s.

14. Invest in Yourself

The more self-aware and self-accepting we are, the happier we are. Make time to read personal development books, journal, and focus on being compassionate towards yourself. Here are also 3 Valuable Ways to Invest in Yourself

15. Remember That All Feelings Pass

A key part of enjoying life is accepting that we’re not going to feel 100% happy 100% of the time. During the more challenging times, remember that life is one big cycle of ups and downs, and remember that all feelings pass.

16. Celebrate Small Wins

In a goal-obsessed society, it’s easy to bounce from one milestone to the next without savoring our successes. Make time to celebrate your wins—no matter how small, and focus on enjoying the journey rather than the destination.

17. Allow Yourself to Feel Happy

Many of us find it challenging to enjoy a calm, “normal” life. Give yourself permission to enjoy a drama-free existence and focus on finding pleasure in your daily experiences.

18. Practice Mindfulness

Noticing how we feel and what’s around us right now is an effective way of getting out of our heads, detaching from our worries, and returning to the experience of what it’s truly like to be alive, which is key when we want to enjoy life as much as possible.

Get inspired by this article about mindfulness: Meditation Can Change Your Life: The Power of Mindfulness

19. Get Outside

Feel the wind on your face, the sun on your skin, and enjoy a good dose of Vitamin D and fresh air. Science has found that being out in nature reduces stress and increases overall well-being.

One study found that walking in nature, compared to simply looking at nature, reduced cortisol (stress-hormone) levels and improved mood in a sample of healthy university students[4].

20. Speak Your Mind

When we hold back our thoughts, opinions, and desires out of fear of displeasing others, we’re not being true to ourselves. Speak up and feel uncomfortable in the short-term and you’ll enjoy life more in the long-term.

21. Record Happy Moments

Take photos, journal, draw—whatever you need to do to record happy moments and memories. This way, when you’re feeling down, you’ll have something to look back on to lift your spirits and help you enjoy life.

22. Get Active

Exercise releases endorphins, which are natural pain-relieving and stress-busting chemicals. Even if you’re short on time, a 20 minute walk or a few jumping jacks can do wonders for your mood.

23. Keep Learning

Find enjoyment through a sense of purpose, and make time to explore subjects that interest you. After all, you never know where your interest might lead!

24. Practice Compassion

When we can feel compassion for ourselves and compassion for others, even difficult situations become rewarding and, ultimately, more enjoyable.

25. Give Back

Spending time on activities that make a difference to others, through pursuits like volunteering, helps instill a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. Even though some of the activities might not be that enjoyable or exciting, the simple act of giving back is a reward in itself.

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How to Enjoy Life In a Way That Most People Don’t?

Here are 25 simple ways you can enjoy your life more, starting today.

1. Focus on Yourself

Other people will always be on hand to offer up their opinions and advice. Ultimately, however, it’s you who has to live with the consequences of your decisions.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with outsider opinions and advice, go off the grid for a few days. Get off social media, put your phone on silent, and tap into your own thoughts and emotions to figure out what your next step should be.

2. Make Time to Relax

Making time to relax and reconnect with ourselves leaves us better equipped to deal with more challenging periods in life. Instead of only finding time to relax when you’re extra stressed, in order to enjoy life, you need to be making time for rest on a daily basis.

3. Avoid the News

It’s all too easy to get sucked into public drama, online and offline. Trust that if something important happens, you’ll know about it. Otherwise, save your energy and spend your time on something more worthwhile than doomscrolling.

4. Nurture Your Positive Relationships

Make time to nurture the positive relationships you have with friends and family. Identify the people who lift you up and focus your energy on them.

Cultivating positive relationships in life has been proven to increase overall well-being. One study even found that “found that people who have good social relationships are half less likely to die early than are more isolated people”[2]

5. Meet New People

Community is one of the most important needs we have. Making a consistent effort to meet new people helps us fulfill that need and introduces us to new ideas and perspectives.

Expanding your support system will also insure that you have more resources to get through tough times and enjoy life.

6. Explore New Places

New places and cultures offer a different perspective on the world and add a healthy dose of inspiration and possibility to our lives. You don’t need a huge bank balance, however, in order to explore. Walk through a new part of town, watch a documentary, go camping in a nearby national park. It doesn’t have to be far to offer you a great experience.

7. Keep a Wish List

Whenever you think of something you’d like to try, or a place you’d like to visit, write it down and keep a collection. It keeps the dream alive and stops it fizzling out as a forgotten thought.

8. Try New Things

Commit to trying a certain number of items from your wish list each year to make sure they don’t just stay as wishes. This will keep you engaged with the world around you instead of allowing you to sit back and watch it all fly by.

9. Spend Money on Experiences, Not Possessions

It’s experiences, not possessions, that create memories and meaning. Instead of buying that diamond necklace you’ve got your eye on, why not spend that money on a weekend getaway with your spouse? Objects won’t help you make memories, but experiences will, and those are things that really allow you to enjoy life like no one else.

10. Cut Down Your Junk

Physical clutter equals mental clutter. Reducing the amount of stuff around us fosters a calmer mental state, too. By tidying up around the house, you can increase your focus, productivity, and positive emotions.

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How to Get Your Life Back on Track When Things Are out of Control

If this happens, there are things you can do to get back on track, eliminate bad habits, and live your life.

1. Do a Life Audit

Life audits are great to help you start paying attention to different areas of your life – career, intimate relationships, family relationships, emotional well-being, health, finances, spirituality, and creativity. When it comes to getting your life back on track, it’s best to assess where you are at this present moment.

There are many versions of the life audit[1], and it’s about finding a method that works for you. While some may prefer to work on a diagram, which is similarly called the Wheel of Life[2] others would rather answer a list of questions instead.

2. Regain Your Confidence

Confidence is the root to how you show up every day and into the long-term. Showing up is more than getting up and going to work; it’s about showing up with an intention for the day.

When things are spiraling out of control, it’s because you lack physical and mental clarity. Although confidence may seem an intangible element to grasp, it’s far more within reach than you think.

Think about what gives you confidence, and find things that correlate to that. If it’s feeling good about your body, commit to fitness. If it’s knowledge, learn from those you admire, or reach out to a mentor you would like to work with.

3. Organize the Little Things

When you feel like you don’t have control over the major events in your life, always remember you have control over the things that surround your space – literally. This means having control over how clean your house is, how organized your drawers are, if you eat healthy, how much money you spend, how often you see family and friends, etc.

The little things add up and can also help you feel like you’re regaining control of your life and reduce stress along the way. This is a great place to start if you want to learn how to get your life back on track.

4. Assess Your Time Management

Time management is a life skill, and one that takes years to master. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to engage in multiple projects, but like everything else, it’s about moderation and portion sizes. Assess your day, and see how much of your time and energy go into certain areas and activities if you want to get your life back on track.

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4 Steps To Bounce Back When Life Knocks You Down

Here are five steps to bounce back fast when life knocks you down.

1. Reframe the Difficult Experience

Let’s face it… it’s disappointing when life knocks you down. In this state, it’s easy to drop into self-pity and blame the world for your problems. However, just because you get derailed, that doesn’t mean that you’ve failed altogether. Reframing means changing the way you think or “talk” to yourself about a stressful event. Instead of saying “I give up”, “I’m a failure,” shift your internal narrative and say something like, “This is merely a setback. I will get through this because I’m a strong person.”

2. Show Yourself Compassion

I believe that self-compassion helps you face life’s challenges with more grace and ease. No matter what setback you encounter in life, don’t beat yourself up about it.

Whether it was something within your control or not, show yourself some self-compassion. Self-compassion acknowledges the reality that you are having an unhealthy moment, not an unhealthy life. You always have a choice what the next moment is going to be. 

 3. Take Responsibility for Your Life

If you refuse to take responsibility for life’s setbacks, you avoid problems altogether and, in turn, disempower yourself.A setback may not have been your fault. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take ownership of it. When circumstances are unfavorable, it takes guts to say, “I’m owning this.”Spending time and energy being bitter towards a situation is a waste of time. You can’t move forward in life if you’re too busy blaming the world for your problems.Avoid making excuses at all costs and recognize the role that you played in the situation. This is how you will feel empowered to learn from your mistakes and bounce back fast when you get knocked down.

4. Get Right Back Up Again

When life knocks you down, you always have two choices — get up and move forward or stay on the ground and accept defeat. The longer you stay down, the harder it is to get back up again.The reality is that you won’t grow from merely hanging out in your comfort zone. True growth requires that you take big risks and put yourself on the line, without knowing what the final outcome will be.The path to an extraordinary life will require that you do the very thing that others aren’t willing to do.

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6 Challenges in Life You Must Overcome to Become a Better Person

Life is an uncertain roller coaster. You can choose to embrace it and enjoy the ride, joyfully learning from your experiences along the way; or you can choose to rebel against all of life’s challenges, resenting every moment of your journey. The latter robs you of any growth or development, while the former gives you the opportunity to learn from those challenges and become a better person for having experienced them.

While “better” may be relative, one thing is certain – “better” means improved. No matter where you find yourself, there is always room for improvement. Even a monk strives daily to improve himself, striving always to become a better person.

Here are 6 common challenges in life you must overcome on your road to becoming a better person:

1. Loss

2. Failure

3. Setbacks

4. Establishing Your Moral Compass

5. Mastering Your Mind

6. Overcoming Your Story