Tag Archives: #olyaaman

Personal Growth

4 Things You Need to Know to Attract True Love

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When you can feel someone else’s pain and joy as if it’s your own, that’s when you know you really love them. – Ann Brashares

1) We Judge People 

Is this right? No. But this is the way it is. The looks play an important role in creating the first impression. Often if to take only appearance the judgement we make is wrong. True values of the heart are not seen right away and take only second place in our people-scale.

Whether you have a lifelong partner or are waiting for one, what does your ideal look like? What personality traits should he or she possess? What is the most important for you? Think these questions over but remember you can go just as far by only looks. You may already have learned the hard way that pretty face may carry emptiness inside. And some time after you discover that you have nothing to talk about.

2) When You Take Enough Time to Learn About the Person 

When you like what is inside, you start to see that face in a different light. No rush. Take time and pay attention. Life may be short or long, and no one knows how much time you have. Who is the one to share it with you? Who will become your soul mate, your trusted friend, love of your life? Patience in every aspect of this process is crucial. 

3) Learn to Live With Yourself in Harmony 

You will be able to attract the right person to be your companion, your lover, and your friend when you feel love and acceptance toward yourself. You should receive sincere and handsome compliments self-compliments every day. This will teach your heart to beat in a rhythm of love-attraction.

Family can be the most magnificent experience of supreme understanding and affection. This is the most nourishing and fulfilling relationship that can help you to grow and prosper. Just think about the purpose of a family partnership. What does it mean for you?

4) You Have to Know Exactly What You Want 

Know where you want to go in your relationship. Know the end point of this joined voyage. You will find yourself in a place you’ve created in your mind and believed in. If you are looking for a person to smooth over your loneliness – you will get that kind of a person that can just be there, present but meaningless. And you will get tired of each other at some point. Nothing to talk about and no need to spend time together. And here you are: scheduling and overscheduling yourself just so that you don’t have to come home. People you don’t really want to see, but the more the better – no need to think of the gloominess of your life.  

But you can come to a more certain ground if you are more specific about what you expect from your significant other. Think about everything from outside decoration to the filling inside. Be precise about what you expect from your partner and what You are ready to lay on the table of this partnership feast. There is no way to get a delicious culinary masterpiece that will make others marvel at your skill unless you put effort and creativity into it. You will have the most delicious love experience when you get ready for it with loving anticipation, take time to choose the perfect ingredients, and cherish every minute of the process of union-creation. 

Conclusion

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. – Gail Lumet Buckley 

The effort you put into making the defining decision in your life will pay you tenfold. You are the most important ingredient in this universe-recipe. You influence people around you and when you get better, someone beside you advances to a different level as well. Very often to bring fresh air to your relationship you need to start with yourself. And if you are alone at this very moment – the effort in altering the usual course of your thoughts, and consequently behavior will attract feelings you’ve been longing for. 

“Happiness unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”

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Personal Growth

I Stopped Blaming Others. Now Nothing Can Stop Me From Being Happy

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You have the power to adjust the course of your life

Let an exceeding sweetness of this life take you a prisoner by stamping it with heartfelt poetry about people you love. – Olya Aman

I stopped blaming everything and everyone for the mistakes I made.

I used to look for weaknesses in other people to justify myself. I considered it to be a simpler path toward a contented life. I realized that it is the longest road to happiness, and it may not even lead me to the right destination — too many distractions on the way.

Looking for someone’s shoulders to put the weight of my mistakes on was impairing my intelligence and vivacity. My regrets haunted me. I wanted the people I blamed for my mistakes to run away from my life. These thoughts and feelings were taking the leading depressing role in my life.

To end this personality-ruining tendency, I made it my custom to look in the mirror and with affection in my eyes admit my blunders, own them, and learn from them. I am rather proud of the power I hold in my hands. My decisions, my choices, and my actions made this happen.

I have the power to adjust the course of my life.

There are so many things in life I did not notice. Losing beloved people taught me not to be so mindless. Because one day my play will be over and I will not have all the time in the world as I used to think I had. While I’m still here, present in the lives of people I care about, I want to hug our joined experience as much as possible.

I will not postpone the time to be with people I love, no more ‘later’, no more ‘another day’. I will not delay the meeting with an old relative. I will find time to ask the right questions and find out about the roots of my family tree. No more ‘now is too late’. I won’t reschedule that vacation I dreamed about for so long. No more ‘next year’. I will do all the travel while I am healthy enough to enjoy it.

I won’t feel ashamed of the strange excitement that childish activities can gift. This nervous, restless, and passionate kid is in me and I love this creature. I want to be silly sometimes, funny often, and wise now and then. Today I give voice by my pen to the fantasies of my brain, not afraid of ridicule, not letting the negative judgment of others kill my work.

How great a privilege is mine to be my unique self, to have so much to say, to make my life unbroken. My fortune is enormous. I spend it entirely on doing good for others and myself. I want my kindheartedness to be even greater than my generously. Because the first one knows no bounds, while the other, although great, has its limits.

Don’t make your life a sad play. Take these life lessons into your breast pocket, close to your heart:

  • Some folks neither see though they are looking, nor hear though they are listening. These people exist, they do not live. Be present every minute of your life. Speak with superb animation, listen with passionate interest, ask questions with a magnificent sparkle in your eyes. It will be as impossible to stop you from being happy as to stop the Rhine at the Falls of Schaffhausen.
  • Eliminate any negative influences and impressions (TV-horror movies, people that make you feel miserable; places that bring bad memories — anything that can change the state of tranquility). All these activities have a peculiarly damaging effect on the nervous system. To recruit your strength, you need to be picky with the things that make you happy and express thorough censure toward things that can upset you.
  • There are circumstances in which men are powerless. When, for example, unchained elements cannot be combated by human power. Like a dream, fiction, or chimera — these situations should be read through and put aside. Sometimes we encounter ill-will coming from men. Do not waste your time in breeding revenge thoughts. Use your intelligence, energy, and decision-making ability in thinking of the present. The past is gone, but the future is yours.

A dull, dreary life is your destiny if you let a succession of victimizing thoughts dominate in your life. Blaming others is like living in some imaginative whirlpool. It is easy and makes you feel not as vulnerable. But it deprives you of your inner power, which stops your personal growth. You cannot embrace life and other people fully if you are constantly trying to find faults in others.

Finding yourself tipping, own it. Be master of yourself. Triumph over your mistakes. No bleating, bellowing, neighing — only self-acceptance, -respect, and -love. Don’t breathe a word of reproof, rather self-talk about lessons that can be learned, and experiences that can be implemented.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

Valuable Tips on How to Build Tireless Habits in Sport  

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The strength was always in you. All you had to do was find it. – Katherine Givens

1) Sometimes the Fastest Way to Get to Your Destination Is by Slowly Taking Small Steps 

There is no need to hurry if it leads to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Let’s say you want to exercise and get in shape. But you have not been to the gym in a couple of years. So now if you decide to go every day and invest an hour and a half or two hours in your workout – you may continue for a week or two, but you end up exhausting the resources of your body and spirit. One day you will find some excuse to not go. The same will happen the next day and as a result you will stop fighting with yourself. But if you take a different approach you will get into the positive habit of physical exercise and eventually you’ll crave that feeling of healthy energy in your body. 

2) By Just Taking It Easier and Giving Yourself Rewarding Gifts You Will Get to the Desired Goal

In the beginning  you force yourself to go twice a week for thirty minutes, promising to get a healthy ice-cream on your way back, which is not the same as the one you used to treat yourself with, but is pretty darn close. Next week you add one more day, in a month you sometimes feel like adding fifteen more minutes, and already after a year you wait for your gym day, you enjoy your hour training and have a couple of sets of very nice looking sportswear.

Conclusion

If you take the same approach in almost everything, having the ultimate goal of creating a habit, you will go very far by moving slowly.

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Personal Growth

3 Reasons to Welcome Changes and Self-Change

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Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

1) People Change 

It is normal to think one way today and to have a completely different point of view the next day. You may have in your circle of friends and acquaintances some people that always keep their old beliefs strong as a brick. These people do not even question the validity of those beliefs and don’t consider any judgments, believing, that just the idea of obtaining extra information (to clarify and make sure what they think is true is still this way at present) is an offense. If you have someone like that around you, you know how hard it is to talk with that kind of person. And you most likely try to either not even talk on that matter or do your best not to be left alone with that person at all. 

2) It Is Normal to Change Your Mind 

There is a ton of new information circling around us every second. And something we believed was good yesterday is not that way anymore today. Look at the medical world: a few years ago mothers were made to believe that breastfeeding is not as beneficial for babies as the formula was. But scholars changed their minds and revealed the undisputable benefit of mother’s milk. 

3) We Should Grow and Growth Requires Change

Without growth, life is not sweet at all, and growth requires change. The same is true with the people that surround you. You may find comfort in the company of a few select friends mostly because at this very moment they think in a similar way and you share similar views. And you still can be close, although your life path leads you to a different destination. You find new people to share your thoughts and to teach you new skills. 

Conclusion

It makes life an incredible adventure when you let in new impressions that new people bring. You may not be as open to taking the first step and saying “hi.” That’s not a big deal. There are plenty of people that enjoy doing it, so you just need to welcome that approach. The more people you meet, the more you listen to them – the more receptive your brain becomes to the “people reading” skill. And to develop it is one of the main keys to success in life.

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Personal Growth

3 Success-Defining Reasons to Listen Empathetically 

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Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know. No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. – Mitch Albom (“The five people you meet in heaven.”)

1) The Very Success-Defining Skill 

There are many things that we learn early on but think insignificant and omit in the process of our upbringing. One of them is the very success-defining skill – empathetic listening. That skill involves all our senses: ears, eyes, posture, mimics. It is vital to learn to listen using all of them, and not just to “listen” without even capturing the meaning as we think at this very moment about what we are going to say next. Most of us do that. Pay attention next time and you’ll see the living proof.

2) We Need to Listen Twice as Much as We Talk

We have two ears and one mouth. Isn’t it a sign to be more attentive when someone is sharing information with us? But here again we need to rein in our egos. We think that no one can give us anything valuable, which is such a big mistake. Every person in our lives comes with a definite purpose and you just miss it when you do not pin your ears back and give yourself in full to this moment of shared wisdom.

3) The Art of Asking Questions 

Imagine a foreign language course in your curriculum. And you decided to skip a lesson or two. How hard is it to stay at the same level of knowledge as your more responsible classmates? You feel you need to put so much extra work in now to acquire the same speed they learn with. Of course, in a classroom environment it is easier to grasp the meaning of some rule that is difficult to understand, as there is always someone who will ask the right question that will cause you to understand the teacher’s explanation. The same thing in life: you may miss that particular opportunity to listen, think, and ask the right question and the life you want to live becomes a few steps farther from your reach. We need to master the art of asking questions. And to do that we need to listen and think. And, of course, to have the end result in mind (I mean “why I need to listen” and “what I need to learn”).

Conclusion

The vital ability to think requires some training and a lot of practice time. You go to the gym to make your body fit and strong, and in the same way you need to train your brain to think consciously on subjects of everyday life. I know it is insane to force your mind to think: “take a toothbrush in your right hand and brush the upper left side…” and so on. Our subconscious mind keeps us sane by relieving us of the necessity of tracking every routine movement. But simply by trying to use your left hand more if you are right-handed and vice-versa makes a world of a difference. Small steps like that create a habit of using our thinking muscles more frequently and making them all-weather resistant. Every achievement starts with the unremarkable little steps that we take every day in the direction of our ultimate goal.

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Personal Growth

2 Simple Things That Will Teach You to Enjoy Your Life

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Gratitude is the heart’s memory. – French Proverb

1) We Do Not Control When the Last Day, the Last Hour, or the Last Moment of Our Life Will Be

By some odd universal law, we are not taught to appreciate what we have and should cherish. Interesting fact: we do not control when the last day, the last hour, or the last moment of our life will be. So why not make this day, this hour, this moment special. And it might not be any different day from yesterday and the day before. But it is in your power to make this moment singular by enriching it with thoughts You pick, feelings You define, and images Your eyes want to see.

If you set yourself up to see the bare tree and a foggy gloomy day with no sun in the sky to brighten your “now” – you exclude yourself from the beauty of the smoky-bluish-grey sky, the freshness of misty-dewy air, the soft whispering of the wind and the magnificence of sleeping nature getting ready, growing strength to bloom with colors in spring that is just around the corner. 

2) You Can Consciously Fine-Tune Your Inner Radio-Wave

Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were big things. – Robert Brault

You have the control and you are able to consciously fine-tune your inner radio-wave to a “happy-sunny-mood” station. Every breath is precious, every sound is unique, and every glance is dear – love yourself and love every moment. Before you open your eyes after leaving the warm embrace of sleep think about the good you want to bring to this day. Think about the person you want to make happy and what can you do to bring a smile to this lovely face. 

Conclusion

Gratitude is your playmate in this happy-game of life. There are so many things we take for granted and this is the biggest mistake ever made. You are given sight – say “thank you”, you can walk – be appreciative, you are healthy – that is the greatest gift anybody can have. There is no need to go far in search of a brave heart that despite physical limitations or severe health issues inspires people by the example of unconditional love and beauty of their souls. Look around and you may find such person living just a few steps from your threshold. Open your eyes and ears to the messages these people share by an example of their life. 

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Personal Growth

3 Ways How You Can Invest in Yourself

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When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family. – Jim Butcher

1) Take a Good Book and Take Some Time to Think

John C. Maxwell said: “Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few do it”. Become one of the few. Replace the TV-hungry guy with a friendly educational-video buddy. It is another way to fill in your brain with useful information and ideas for self-development. Make conscious choices when you are going to feed your mind.  This is crucial, eliminate controlling forces from outside and take the reins into your own hands. Do not just turn on the TV and allow yourself to take what you are given without your sensible approval first.  You will find by doing so how growth begins.

2) The Effect of Building Slowly Will Work Its Magic

You cannot build a castle in one day. It takes small steps to create a piece of art. Your mission is to invest your time and energy in building a mansion of unseen beauty that will be able to withstand any weather. This architectural masterpiece is you. When you make that decision, life changes and people suddenly want to confide in you and ask for your opinion. Provide your expert advice with thoughtful appreciation.

3) Your Circle of Friends Will Change Considerably

People you surround yourself with are supposed to help you accomplish your goals. They make you or break you, so choose wisely. You will be amazed to find out that people you thought “fly-too-high and out-of-the-way” are actually very responsive when asked to help out.

Successful people have gone through a lot of hardships on the way to the top. Now they know the path and can tell you the shortcut. It is vital to frame your life in a “better-people-around-me” way. Your social environment is as important to your mental health as nature (the outside environment) is to your physical one. It literally determines the trajectory of your life. Why?

Conclusion

“Eventually, we start to eat what they eat, talk like they talk, read what they read, think like they think, watch what they watch, treat people how they treat them, even dress like they dress.” Darren Hardy gives enough reasons to be selective in this respect. Do not let yourself just drift with a stream of life, paddle the way You want to go.

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Mental Health

4 Vivid Examples of Wise Energy Use

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Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon, that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. – Mitch Albom (“The five people you meet in heaven.”)

1) We Are All Learning Our Way in Life

Jeck Ma said in one of his interviews: “Any mistake is an income, a wonderful revenue.” We are all learning our way in life until we are about twenty years old, he sais. Yes. Sometimes, very often, truly said, we are students of life longer than that. We keep wounding the hearts of people we love with sharp words. Will you agree that the scale of our harshness goes from high to low, and the top chart is given to ourselves and immediately after goes to the ones we love? We keep making choices, big – as a five-year relationship that ends with sorrow and regret, and small – as the wrong exit that adds an extra fifteen minutes to our drive-time. 

2) If Only We Could Learn From the Mistakes We Make 

“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.” (Napoleon Hill “Think and Grow Rich”) If only we could learn from the mistakes we make, consider them a lesson, and move on to a better life right after. Wouldn’t it be an achievement? A great experience-investment in a future life with fewer slip-ups. Don’t let yourself have regrets about the past. If you do, you’ll just waste your energy on something you cannot change. Remember everything happens for a reason.

3) Make Better Choices From Now On

Now you are at this point in your life because of the decisions you’ve made in the past. Make better choices from now on and bring only positive energy to your present and future. Peaceful acceptance of yourself will not make you wait long. As a bird that changes the fluffy outfit of a new member of the brood you will enjoy new feathers and the ability to fly. Fly high in the dream sky of your renewed life without destructive feelings towards anything or anybody.

4) Feel Love for the Closest Person in Your Life

Love yourself – your dearest friend and everyday companion. Learn to treat him or her as the love of your life. Be as gentle to this person as you may be to the most cherished people from your surrounding. You may have a mentor in your life, I hope you do, but even if you don’t – think as if you had one. What words would you choose when you ask for guidance and advice? You would be polite and humble, I would guess. But think for a moment about who your dearest and most cherished soul mate is. Who is with you no matter what happens? Who tolerates all your prickly moods and harsh words and is still there to support and give you a shoulder to cry on or, better said, finds you your favorite pillow? Treat this person the way you treat your diamond ring: polish and marvel at the sparkling multifaceted beauty.

Conclusion

Speak to the inner child of this lovely face in the mirror and give him something to laugh about and something to be amazed at. Learn to be alone and love the company of this smart person who is ever-thirsty for knowledge. Share your ideas with this gorgeous soul and be ready to write down the words of wisdom and love, care and true friendship on the wall of your shared life.

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Mental Health

3 Things to Know to Build Your Happiness

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When you look at your life, the greatest happiness is family happiness. – Dr. Joyce Brothers

1) Becoming a Better Person

Becoming a better person will bring a breath of fresh air to your existing relationships or will help you in your search for a life-long partner. To start this journey of self-exploration you should go to a lonely room, the one you may like to spend time in when a company is around, but now it will be only you… and you.

2) To Live Every Day With Yourself

To live every day with yourself is a challenge. Most people need distractions in their lives as they have nothing to say to themselves to make the lonely time an amusing experience. You should never feel lonely as there is always something to talk about with a smart person (and you should consider yourself to be one). If you want other people to be interested in you, listen to you, agree with your opinions and enjoy spending time with you – you need to be interested in yourself and to have your own opinion on subjects.

Don’t make a habit of believing in something only because other people think it is so. We have a lot of examples from the past and present when the truth everybody considered as unquestionable and  later it proved to be a false belief or even a plague for the rest of the world. If it is necessary to make a choice, make it using your own judgment. Take a simple example such as going to see a movie. How often has it happened before when the majority thought a film was great and you considered it a timewaster deep in your heart? Don’t be afraid to express your own opinion.

3) Directly to This Face You Say Some Things

Still, it is not easy to live with this person that looks at you from the mirror. Directly to this face you say some things that may leave you with no friends and family if you are as harsh to them as you are to yourself. You keep old regrets and offenses under a bright light in your “office-brain-space”. Mark Twain said: “We should be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is in it…” The wisdom of this quote is well known but very often we know something in our brains but are not able to accept it in our hearts. If you keep telling yourself something constantly – eventually you don’t just know it is true, but you feel it as so.

Conclusion

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

Remember: everything starts with a thought (first it is an idea then it becomes an action). You are able to change anything in your life, but you need to shift your own thinking first.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

How to Start Writing a Book: A Writer’s Diary – Part III

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Become strong enough to learn how to fail skillfully and get up with grace

Introduction

A. is a 26-year-old office worker who is bored to death. When her boss is looking the other way, she switches the screen of her computer to the pages of her book. She downplays herself and often in conflict with her protagonist. We are going to witness a drift of her thoughts during this process.

If you downplay and mock yourself – you lose self-respect. The agonizing self-rivalry exists in almost everyone. If considerate, it is very productive. Learn what price to pay to become a winning party always. 

Become Strong Enough to Learn How to Fail Skillfully and Get up With Grace

We had our annual ‘all hands’ office party yesterday. My colleague Josh was making eyes at me all night. And near the end of the party, he approached me with words: “Look into my eyes – they are so kind.” I responded with mitigated reality: “They are drunk.” He mumbled: “Weeeell..works both ways, doesn’t it?” I’m afraid to say that I was so close to agreeing. Was I that lonely? No way! I came home took my little old bear off my laptop and finally got to work.

When you try to control areas in life that are out of your league, the world goes completely mad and may drag you to the depth of insanity, unless you become strong enough to learn how to fail skillfully and get up with grace.

When you try to write about things that do not interest you, the book becomes a dull play and not one reader will be determined to sit out the performance. Start all over again, and this time you should be armed at all points with full information about your topic and passion for the depiction of it. 

Let Life Give You Wings to Fly

I feel overwhelmed with work duties, cannot put them out of my head even for a couple of days. The company I work for is shrinking, and I may very much be the next one to be laid off. Oh, well… My skin feels the wind of change. The touch of it is a little chilling, but I am going to tune my senses to the wave of it and make the best of my life. At any rate, if I lose my job, I will devote more time to writing.

Life can be a fairytale or a nightmare. It can age you, kill you or give you wings to fly. The good thing about it is that the choice of what to get is yours. And the bad thing is – no one does it consciously.

 Every trial in life is not a limitation, but a kind of self-developing advantage. Consciously accept it and your writing spirit will be always bright, free, and generous. Do not let everyday disheartening occurrences distress you. Your ability to work depends on a healthy state of your mind and body. Cherish those with utmost care. 

Control the Mood That Reigns in Your Reality

Today I forgot my wallet at home. When I was standing in front of the vending machine in our office lunchroom I was close to staging a hungry faint just to see if this soulless ‘food dealer’ had some mercy for me. My protagonist found his love. Will I?

Your reality is the best thing in the world because you control the mood that reigns in it. Be unpredictable and you won’t get bored. Your state of mind is the source of life energy and food just keeps your body in a functional state. 

Recognition is a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to have. The chase will exhaust you. You need only art, temper and talent to meet all the illumination of wisdom and the rest is destined for you. 

When you control your mood, you are always able to stay remarkably fresh to your readers, and remarkably well-seasoned to your critics.

Conclusion

Today is just the day when I feel so manly with all the responsibilities I have. My main priority – my book – is slowed down by them. I’ll keep my job if I make an extra effort there, somewhat here, and chiefly everywhere. To pay the bills means to work more and write less. I wish I could trade my skirt-manliness for the one that wears pants.

 You can be irreparably older than your peers. And years have nothing to do with it. You age faster with the questions you ask yourself. If accustomed to asking and listening, you will easily mystify and captivate your readers. 

Your book will come to houses and feel at home. It will change the interior with new impressions and experiences. Everything will feel familiar and at the same time strange. And although the outside stays the same, the change inside will make people feel cozy in their chairs, reading away with a cup of warm beverage in hand. 

Stay tuned…