Personal Development Carnival: Issue 33

Welcome to the 33rd issue of the Personal Development Carnival. This carnival is dedicated to people who want to share and receive ideas to improve the quality of their relationships, sustain happiness and create lasting success for the next 45 years; and beyond.

Every Sunday a new carnival containing your thoughts, articles and inspirational stories will be shared. You may participate by visiting the submission form at the bottom of this issue. Continue to live while resisting the temptation to regret your past. Instead, you need to take full advantage of your future. After all, it isn’t how you start in life, it’s how you finish. Here’s to finishing strong in life.

10 Benefits of Keeping a Journal, and What to Write in It
by Ivan Rios

I was told by my 8th grade teacher that all the most intelligent people in the world carried personal journals everywhere they went. I didn’t believe her. Perhaps the fact that keeping a journal for the entire semester was a class requisite made me somewhat of a skeptic.

Some months ago I found out she was right. Well, partially right. I learned that Leonardo Da Vinci kept his notes on loose pages, only bound after his death. more>>

Perfect Your Work Poker-Face
by Shamelle Perera

You might argue that “looking like it’s under control when it isn’t”, is trying to act “fake”. However, there are times in life, when you need to hide what you really feel and show a poker-face. This is especially true in the workplace. We’ve all witnessed people who have lost control of their emotions at work, slamming doors, yelling at coworkers or customers, and saying things they’ll soon regret.

Imagine this; the idea you have been working on profusely over the week-end is turned down by your superiors, your boss wears a hideous outfit to the morning meeting, you get dumped during the lunch break….. Whatever the trigger, there are some occasions when you are in hysterics (for good and bad reasons). Yet you know it is unprofessional to let out your emotions in the workplace. You are painfully aware that you are committing career suicide by losing control of your emotions at work. What can you do about it? more>>

Flow:The Fluid & Happy State of Getting Things Done
by Ananga Sivyer

Have you ever found yourself completely absorbed in a project or creative activity; so much so that you lose sense of anything but what you are doing and time seems to fly?

If you have, you have experienced what professor and author Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes as the state of FLOW. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Professor Csíkszentmihályi explains that people are most happy when they are in a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity, or situation, at hand.

When people refer to being “in the zone” that is exactly the same thing as the state of flow. But, stressed and distracted as we are, feelings of total and happy immersion in what we are doing often pass us by. more>>

Life Really Is Amazing Even When It Doesn’t Seem So
by Roger Knight

There was a time, a few months ago, when I was getting bogged down with ’stuff’, not really getting enough new clients and, to be honest, I was feeling in a bit of a rut. I wondered what it was in me that was attracting this situation and I couldn’t really get to the bottom of it so I decided to ask for some help.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to find a life coach/business coach to help me push my businesses (web design and homeopathy) forward. It seemed that the time was right to put this into action. I had a search around and, to cut a longer story short, I found someone very near to where I live.

This post is not all about the coaching I have experienced - just one part of it that seems important and, perhaps, symbolic. more>>

The Emotional Cost of Clutter
by Carole Fogarty

We all have an emotional attachment to our stuff. Sometimes healthy and sometimes very unhealthy. The trick is to take an honest look at everything that you own and decide the emotional cost it is having on the flow of your life.

Healthy emotional connections to all the things we own and surround ourselves with, uplift our energies, make us feel good and we are pleased to have them in our lives. We absolutely love them, they add value or make our lives easier. more>>

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I’m afraid.” – Audre Lorde

Perfectly Imperfect
by Jen Schiller

Perfectionism has held me back from achieving my dreams more than any of my other myriad flaws and challenges. It’s the reason I’ve started three novels (four, if you count the one I’m working on now) and finished none. When I find an inconsistency in the plot or read back over a clumsily written passage, I immediately discard the imperfect book as a worthless waste of my time.

Perfectionism is the reason I’ve started and abandoned three blogs. When I read back over what I’ve written, I inevitably deem it “not good enough” (translation: not flawless) and trash the whole website. It’s the reason I’ve started and quit more life transformation efforts (diets, self-improvement projects, workout schedules, etc.) than I could count. Because once I miss a workout or eat a cookie or sleep in instead of getting up early, I’ve “ruined” the whole thing and I may as well quit. more>>

I “should” Heal and Grow
by Matthew Spears

I am really frustrated at my progress towards inner peace and balance. Why is this not “working”? What am I not doing or doing to sabotage myself? It’s all very well hearing and writing about my own wholeness, but it seems that no matter what I do, I feel more disconnection with my self and others, more pain, more isolation.

What good is inner work and channeling if it doesn’t actually produce positive change? Please feel free to tell me “as it is”, without walking around anything that I might be afraid to look at. I want to know. more>>

Five Ways to Reconnect to Your Inner Child
by David B. Bohl

I admit that there’s a part of me that thinks it’s a shame we humans have to grow up. Whenever I watch kids play, or think back to my own childhood, I remember how simple life was and how much joy could be had in seemingly insignificant things like mud pies and dandelions.

For most of us, life is more about maintaining sanity than it is about joy. We schedule appointments to fill up our entire week and run like rats from one to the other. more>>

Unleash the Leader in You, Be a Coach
by Dominic Tay

Do you believe that a good leader needs to be a good follower? I do. I always knew that everybody can be a potential leader but not all could be good followers. Why do you think so? One reason and possibly the most obvious reason is that it takes a lot of humility to be a good follower. It’s not always easy to follow someone who you think isn’t good enough to lead. But that’s the beauty of variety isn’t it?

In the corporate world and politics, people are categorized as either followers or leaders. If you think you can lead a group of people for betterment or if you have a strong desire to be a leader, then, this is your time to shine. So what would it take for you to hone or enhance your leadership skills? more>>

When Love Walks Out the Door: Six Tips for Intelligent Survival
by Gabriella Kortsch, Ph.D

When you are in love - or believe yourself to be in love - and love walks out the door, you are not only justifiably devastated, but you may be devastated to the point of paralysis, palpitations, pain that can associate with physical nausea, and above all, a sensation of not being able to continue with this deep, bottomless pit that has formed at the center of your being. The yawning Hades, whose blackness spreads before you, is only known by those who have been there. more>>

Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. You are invited to submit your articles and inspirational stories to the next edition of the Personal Development Carnival using our carnival submission form.

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