Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. These phrases seem like they would be simple to apply to our lives and live out, but so many times we fail in this area. Some days we don’t even stop thinking about ourselves long enough to give anybody else a second thought, let alone their needs and how to love them! The world we live in has caused us to become more and more isolated, with email instead of hand written letters, and text and instant messaging instead of phone calls. We don’t reach out to one another anymore, and there are many, many people who desperately need to be loved.

If you want to live a little less for yourself and a little more for the people in your life, the first thing you should do is make a list of all the people that you care about and would like to do more for. You can even write down things that you can do for the people on your list, right beside or underneath their names. Next, write another list of the people in your life that you have been having trouble with lately. Maybe you and a coworker haven’t been getting along lately, or perhaps an acquaintance of yours hasn’t been acting very nicely towards you. This list will not be as fun to make as the first one, but it still needs to be made if you are to truly apply the Golden Rule to your life.

It will be somewhat easy to love the people on list number 1. These are the people who love you and care about you, or are at least nice to you, and it is always easy to treat these kinds of people as you would want to be treated, especially when they are already treating you that way! The people on your second list on the other hand, will be a little harder to convince yourself of treating nicely!

When it comes to the Golden Rule and people who are not treating you well, there is a fine line between applying the Rule to the situation and getting out of it altogether. For example, if you are in an abusive relationship, don’t wait around, treating the person as you would want to be treated; get out of there and protect yourself! However, if the situation is just someone you are knocking heads with or someone who is living like they have never heard of the Golden Rule, then you will have to work on looking at them in a different light and treating them with the love and respect that they are not giving you right now.

I am sure that you have heard the saying, “You have 2 ears and only 1 mouth for a reason!” Well, this saying became a saying for a reason as well – it is true, and should be applied to our daily lives. How many times have you been frustrated when talking to someone, when you notice that they are thinking about their reply, rather than really listening to what you have to say? Or perhaps you’ve noticed that some people only ask the question, “how are you” just do they can open up conversation and tell you how they are. These things can be irritating, and especially when the same people do these things over and over again. People need to feel validated, and a great way to validate someone’s feelings is to listen to them.

If you are like me, and you have a problem with talking too much, you should not feel embarrassed or insecure about it; instead, resolve to fix the problem, and don’t worry about what other people are thinking about you when you do talk too much. Most people won’t look down on you in any way for doing it, but will just be mildly annoyed – very mildly! Learn to think for at least a few seconds before you speak. This will give you a chance to plan what you want to say, and think about how much you actually need to say to get your point across. If you have a funny story to tell, limit yourself to just that story, and leave the other ones that pop into your mind for another time.

If you need motivation to curb your talking, think about the risks of letting yourself go in conversation. None of us are perfect, and if we keep on talking, eventually we will find ourselves saying things that we may regret saying later on. Gossip, rumors and idle talk can start this way, and if you do not stop yourself from giving into the temptations of these things, you will soon find yourself the proud owner of a reputation! Gossip hurts everyone involved, and can ruin friendships, marriages and family relationships. Practice reining in your tongue before it becomes a destructive tool. When you talk, make sure that your words build people up instead of tearing them down, and when you get that feeling that the person you are speaking to has had enough of the subject, stop talking!

If you are having some issues with correcting your child’s behavior, and you are finding that what worked on you as a child, is not working on them, (does it ever?) then you need to learn how to effectively set limits and use choices to correct bad behavior and teach your child how to express themselves without being “bad.”

In life, no matter who you are or how old you are, every decision you make has consequences. Our good choices reward us with good consequences, and our poor decisions leave us with bad consequences. This is what you need to implement into your child’s life – once they learn this, and learn to make good choices, their lives will be a lot easier! Learning how to make good choices can start young, and setting limits is how you can teach them to make good choices while disciplining them at the same time.

For example, let’s say your child (we’ll call him Timmy) refuses to behave at the dinner table. Instead of getting upset, yelling, or sending him to his room, try looking straight at him, and saying calmly, “Timmy, if you choose to behave at the table, you may stay and enjoy dessert with the rest of the family. If you choose not to behave, you will have to go to your room and you may not have dessert today.” This technique puts the power of choosing in Timmy’s hands, and will teach him that his choices have consequences. After stating this to him, give him some time to process what you have told him. Do not, I repeat, do not make his choice for him, and above all, do not back down and give in at this time! Children need structure, and when parents continually give in and go back on their word, this causes chaos in the home, because who has control when the parent never does what they say they are going to do? Timmy has the control. Not good!

After Timmy has had a chance to process the information you gave him, if he is still continuing to act up, or if he is trying to get you to negotiate with him, simply restate the limits. Don’t negotiate with him, and don’t get upset at this point. If Timmy still does not behave after you have restated the limits a couple of times, then it is time to follow up on those limits. Take him to his room, and let him know that he is going to his room and missing dessert because HE chose to misbehave. A good 90 percent of the time, children (and most adults) will choose the positive consequence over the bad. Who wouldn’t? Sometimes however, if the parents have not been following up on their threats, the child will test the limits because they think you won’t actually follow through.

With all of the competition out there and the limited number of jobs available, when you do get called in for a job interview, it puts the pressure on that much more to make a good impression and be able to answer all of the questions with ease. Interviews are nerve racking enough without having to worry about not being able to feed your family or pay your rent if you don’t get the job! If you are a nervous interviewer, there are a few things that you can do to help prepare yourself for the interview and set your mind at ease before you go in for the interview.

The first thing you need to remind yourself of, is that your interviewer is only a person, just like you, who is perhaps a little nervous at the thought of meeting and talking to a new person as well. We all share the same types of fears and insecurities, and we can all relate to one another’s feelings.

The next thing you can do to prepare yourself for the upcoming interview is to research popular interview questions and start preparing your answers. Be careful not to sound like everyone else and only give the routine, standard answers when you are doing this. Interviewers can tell when someone is being honest with them and when their answers are genuine. You could give a bunch of great answers, and tell your interviewer everything that they want to hear, but most of the time, one honest answer can catch their attention and get you the job a lot faster than a few standard answers. For example, when asked why you want the job, instead of giving them the routine, “I have always wanted to do this job,” answer, talk about the position like you know what it entails (it helps if you do your research!) and the challenges and rewards that you expect it to bring into your life. Tell them how you will overcome the challenges and enjoy the rewards, and make sure they hear you talk about how these things will help the company; businesses love to hear that their employees want their company to grow!

The final thing you can do to prepare for an interview is to get a couple of friends together and host some mock interviews. Have them confer with one another over what questions they will ask you, and have them take turns interviewing you. It might be a good idea to have one friend interview 2 or 3 of you at the same time in case your real interview is a group one. You can also conduct a couple of interviews yourself to get the feel for what it is like to sit on the other side of the desk.

Divorce is ever growing in North America, and kids all over the continent are having to face feelings and issues that they were never meant to go through. However, divorce isn’t always avoidable, and if you can see that your children are starting to suffer from the effects of your family situation, (whether it be divorce or a parent leaving) there are steps you can take with your children to help them through the tough times.

One of the biggest issues that come out when a child goes through the traumatizing event of divorce or a parent leaving is the feeling of abandonment. Unfortunately, many parents don’t think that their decisions will affect their children very much, and make the mistake of assuming that they will be just fine. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Kids pick up on a lot more than we think they do, and they can feel the same complex feelings that we do. The difference is that we have the maturity and life experience to work through those feelings, while they sometimes don’t know what to do with them, or how to express them.

If your child has been worried lately about being left with a babysitter or anxious that you are not going to come back from the grocery store, you need to validate their feelings. Try telling them a few times every day how much you love them and love spending time with them. When you put them to bed at night, let them know that you are here to stay, and would never even consider leaving them. It may take a while for your children to stop associating you being gone with being abandoned, but after a while, they will be okay with you going out. The key is repetition. You are basically retraining their minds to associate something good with what was once a bad memory. This takes time and patience, but if you keep at it, you should start noticing a positive difference in your children soon.

Another good thing you can do for your children would be to get the other parent to talk to them about these things as well. It is important that they hear something positive from the parent that they don’t see as often anymore. If the other parent is not able to do this, then I would recommend reminding your children of the good times they had with their other parent, and how much they are loved by the both of you.

Even when you have taken care to choose your friends wisely, and you feel good about your friendships, the time will come when one or a couple of your friendships will seem a lot more like work than fun. Granted, relationships are not always easy, and sometimes it takes some work to keep up a friendship, but some friendships are tougher than others. When these times come, you have to take peoples’ situations into consideration – are they just going through a tough time right now? If so, then be there for them, and let them know that your friendship is there, no matter what. However, if neither one of you is going through anything at the moment, and your friendship just seems like pulling teeth, maybe it’s time to talk.

It can hurt to let a friendship go, but sometimes its just not worth it to hang on. Think about it this way: some people are brought into our lives to stay, while some are only with us for a little bit, while still others only bless our lives for a few days. Sometimes friendships are not meant to be lifelong deals. Think about it; if you had kept up every friendship since preschool, you wouldn’t have time for much else! It is healthy to grow in and out of friendships, as long as you still have 1 or 2 close and dear friends – the kind that are there for life.

If you don’t feel ready to let the friendship go, but are still having some issues, then you need to think about talking to your friend. However, before taking this step, think about how your friend would react to what you have to say. Is it worth it to bring up the problem, or would it only make an already difficult situation more difficult? If the problem you are having is merely that you need more time away from that person, then don’t be afraid to say no sometimes when they ask you if you want to do something. Don’t say no all of the time of course, but it is perfectly normal to need some time apart from someone, even if they are your friend.

If you think your friend will be okay with you bringing up an issue that you have, than by all means, go for it. Just be careful how you word things and make sure that you still tell them how much you value their friendship and want to work things out.

There are people out there who would be able to tell you their goals at the drop of a hat. They have written them down, charted their progress and are well on their way to success – and they know it! Then there are people who would have to think about it for a few minutes when asked about their goals in life. They have goals, but they haven’t really given much thought as to how to meet them or when they would like to see them realized. Both kinds of people will eventually meet their goals, but perhaps the people who track their progress are better able to stay on track and they may even reach their goals sooner than those who don’t really give it much thought.

Almost everyone who has ever thought about their goals or set specific goals for themselves has made the same classic mistake: setting their sights too high. We all have set unrealistic goals for ourselves, and sometimes our aspirations are just too high. By this, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t set your sights on the stars, but I mean that you shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that you can do it all right away. Many of us tend to think about our aspirations as all or nothing, and this type of thinking will only lead to failure.

When it comes to setting goals, you should really write them down somewhere and keep them handy for when you are having a rough day or have suffered a setback. This way you can remind yourself of why you set these goals in the first place, and be encouraged that your dreams are reachable. How do you create reachable goals? This is achieved by breaking down the big ones into small, attainable goals. Make a time line of when you would like to have reached the full goal, and then break your goal down into a few “subgoals” and mark these down on the time line. Make sure you give yourself enough time to attain these goals, and room to add more if needed.

You can also give yourself an incentive program for goals reached throughout the time line. Add these incentives to your time line so that you can see what you are working towards. Some incentives could include a new outfit, a day with a good friend, a new book or even just some time to yourself, to relax.

The best way to deal with rejection is to be ready for it when it comes. Now, by that, I don’t mean that you should walk around expecting people to reject you left and right! I mean be proactive in your approach to negative responses. Whose opinion of you matters the most anyways? Not your parents’ opinion, your spouse’s opinion, or what your friends think of you matters the most; it is your opinion of yourself that matters the most! I will never forget a quote from the movie, “The Princess Diaries” – “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” This is a great quote because it is true, and we can apply it to our everyday lives.

If you are having trouble seeing yourself in a good light, grab a pen and a piece of paper and start listing all of the good qualities that you have. Write down whatever you can think of, and soon you will have to go and get another piece of paper. You can write down the physical attributes that you like about yourself as well, and don’t by shy – this is not a time to be modest. After all, you are the only person who will ever read this list, so you can go all out and write everything down!

After you feel satisfied that you have remembered everything you like about yourself, and all of your good qualities, (you may have remembered a few that you had forgotten you had or forgotten you liked) look it over and spend some time appreciating everything that you have to offer to people. Keep this list somewhere private, but somewhere that you will remember to take it out once in a while and remind yourself of everything that is good about you.

Constantly remind yourself that you are not placing your confidence in what other people think, but that you are confident in what you know to be true about you. Rejection will still come your way sometimes, but you can’t control other people’s actions; you can only control your reactions. Not everyone has the same opinions either, and for every one person who rejects you, there will be at least 50 people out there who would not.

When you fin yourself coming up with excuse after lame excuse for not exercising, the only thing you are lacking is motivation. Don’t worry though; this is an easy problem to fix! There are plenty of things that you can do for yourself that should get you going and help you to keep up with a regular exercise routine.

The first thing you should do is write out a list of reasons why you want to workout. Some of these could include better health, living longer, seeing your grandchildren grow up, decreasing your risk of stroke, diabetes and heart disease, weight loss, and there are many other things that you could add to your list. Next, post this list somewhere that you will see it a few times a day, and it can remind you why you started exercising.

The next motivational thing you can do for yourself is to set some goals. You should have short term goals and long term goals. Short term goals could be things like working out 3 times next week, losing 2 lbs this week, or increasing the intensity of your workout. Long term goals could be weight loss, a marathon, or a anything else that you want to work towards. Again, you should post your goals somewhere in your house or car where you will be sure to see them.

Another method of motivation is a picture of what you would like to look like in the future – something to work towards. Some people like to take before and after pictures, while others prefer seeing a picture of their family to remind them of why they are committing to a regular exercise routine. A good alternative to the picture thing is an outfit that you would like to fit into when you have reached your long term goals. If you know the size you want to reach, go out and splurge on something that you know you will still want to wear a few months from now, and hang it in your room where it will be visible.

The last and maybe most important thing to do when trying to motivate yourself, is get some accountability. You can try hiring a personal trainer for a few weeks or months, or you can ask a friend to help keep you on track. A lot of people find it helpful to help each other with weight loss goals, so if you have a friend who wants to lose weight and start exercising regularly, you can keep one another motivated.

One of the main reasons why people end up living paycheck to paycheck is that they don’t have a plan. When it comes to your finances, you simply cannot take it one day at a time; you have to think about and plan for the future. If you are barely making it on your salaries now, what are you going to do when you are retired and living on just your pension checks? One or both of you may have a great pension plan with work, but I think we can learn from the recent items in the economy news that your job’s pension plan may not be as secure as you thought!

The first thing you need to do when it comes to making a plan, is to create a household budget. A good budget is one that allows some spending money, while still paying all of the monthly bills regularly, and also pays down your debts. A bad budget would be one that only focuses on one bill at a time, or one that sets you up for failure through unrealistic goals.

Make sure you do this one together; this way you can both make the big decisions on how much money to allot to your different bills and expenses, and the decisions made will be final. Make a list of all of your expenses and bills, and then create 2 lists out of that 1 list – variable expenses and fixed expenses. Then, make another list with every source of income you have coming in. Hopefully when you subtract the expenses from the income, you will have money left over to play with. If not, you will need to brainstorm together for ways to make extra cash each week or each month.

If you have some money left over, you can now decide the amounts to want to put on your debts and what you need for spending money. No matter how much you have left over in your budget, you will still need to look at downsizing those variable expenses. If there is a way to cut some or all of them down, then do it, with the thought of paying off your debts and saving for the future in mind.

Another helpful thing you can do is set up automatic bill payments, and write down the amounts coming out on the appropriate days in your calendar. This way you will never be caught off guard with a late payment.