"The fog is lifting" - photo by Jennifer Lee

Do you feel like your life could be happier? A better tomorrow could start with something as simple as your attitude. Our perspectives have a huge effect on our overall level of happiness. They can affect our success as well.

Over time, attitudes become habitual. Because of this, they can take a bit of effort to change, but such work is well worth your time!

Try these techniques to bring greater happiness and success into your life:

1. Start each day by making a mental list of things you’re thankful for. You can do this while you’re lying in bed just before you get up, in the shower, or while driving to work. This simple mental exercise will adjust your focus to the good things that you already have.
2. Love life, not stuff. Do you feel that having more possessions will make you happy? What usually happens is that, after you acquire something, it never seems to mean as much to you as you thought it would. After the newness wears off, you’re back to wanting some more new stuff! So the joy in most new possessions is temporary, at best, and leads to more “wanting.”
• The quality of your life itself is what will bring you the most happiness, not the quantity or quality of your stuff.
• Spend some time each day doing what you love.
• Build meaningful relationships that uplift you.
• Take action to create a life filled with what truly means the most to you.
3. Be patient. Our society has trained us to be in a hurry and expect immediate gratification. However, some of the great things in life take time to bring to fruition.
• Enjoy the process of creating the life you desire. Each day will bring you one step closer. Being impatient tends to push your goals farther away.
4. Believe in yourself. Life is much more pleasant when you have faith in yourself. Remember: You’ve already done things that are much more difficult than just about anything you may still wish to accomplish. So you know you can achieve your future plans.
• Consider learning to walk. How many times does a baby fall before they finally can stand up unassisted, let alone walk? And we keep learning more over time. Even a 10-year old doesn’t walk as well as a 30-year old. It takes many years of practice.
• How many times are you willing to fall down and get back up now? When you believe in yourself and expect success, you’re more likely to succeed. Your upbeat attitude will lead you to seek solutions to your challenges until you reach your goal.
5. Sometimes being smart is sufficient. We often believe that everything worthwhile requires a lot of work. However, many times, approaching challenges by working smart instead of working hard can save a lot of time and grief.
• Sit down and reflect on your situation from the perspective that there’s a simple solution to each challenge. You might be surprised how clever you can be if you make an effort to find an easy but satisfactory solution.
6. There’s no such thing as failure. Each time your plans fall short, analyze where they went wrong, learn from the experience, and continue moving forward.
• When you “fail,” all you’ve really done is discovered an ineffective way of trying to do something. That’s all. The knowledge gained only makes you more capable in the future.

Adjusting your attitude and making the changes permanent will take some work, but this effort pays off. Your attitude affects your perspective, what you notice, and what you fail to notice. So by adjusting your attitude, you can shift your whole reality!

Examine the attitudes you already hold that may be limiting your life and happiness. What perspectives and beliefs would serve you better? Use the above ideas to start the process of adjusting those ineffective attitudes today for a happier tomorrow.

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Known for a contagious passion for excellence, a talent for practical business solutions, and a competence for being a motivational leader, Lorene Collier Purcy, is an author, speaker, business consultant & life coach.  Whether it’s life balance or financial management, Lorene has been helping individuals realize their true potential and acts as their accountability partner, assisting them on how to effectively implement strategies to live the life they truly deserve.  You can contact Lorene at lcpurcy@savvychicksrule.com or visit her online at www.savvychicksrule.com. Lorene is one of our licensed Right-Brain Business Plan® Facilitators.

Guest post by licensed Right-Brain Business Plan® Laura Burns

These days marketing your business is a multi-media affair, and your online presence is an integral part of your engagement strategy. Or at least it should be, but many people are slow to implement some simple best practices that can dramatically improve their online presence. Below is a list of my favorite small changes to your online accounts that will make a big difference. These include tips for some sites you may not be using yet. Take this opportunity to check them out – you never know when you’ll find a new amazing site that’s perfect for you.

1. It’s cool to be square

If the site’s standard avatar shape is square, your avatar should be square. This sounds simple, but I see this all the time. When you upload your company’s profile picture you need to make sure that everything fits inside the boundaries given. Too often I see companies use their logo for their profile picture, but instead of tailoring it for the specific site it is cut off. Often I can only 2 or 3 letters of the company name because the rest is cut off. Take the time to create a nice looking square logo to use on sites where a square avatar is standard. If I can’t see the name of your company how will know who you are?

2. It’s quality, not quantity

Focus on engagement, not on amassing a million fans, likes, or followers. In social media it’s easy to get caught up in trying to get as many people to follow or like you as possible. While it’s great to expand your network and connections, the actual sales and clients will come from the meaningful connections you make as you engage your online community. Twitter is a dialogue creator – reply to people’s tweets, answer their rhetorical questions, and engage with everyone you can. Facebook is an even greater tool for relationship building, but remember that the quality of your interactions is much more important than the quantity. Truly engaged and inspired people will mention you on Facebook and spread the word about your business. Spend the time to build relationships with people on Facebook – it’s worth the time!

3. Don’t spam people

Spread your posts out over the course of a day. No one likes to sign onto Twitter and see 8 tweets from the same person in a row. You’ll lose followers for this reason every time. Instead space your posts out over the course of a day to keep people engaged and connect with a greater number of people. Social media moves fast and most of your followers won’t see every post you make. By spreading them out over the day you’ll have a better chance of being seen by your followers. If you don’t have time to manually post that many times a day consider using a tool like Hootsuite to plan your tweets and Facebook updates ahead of time. Hootsuite allows you to enter posts and set a time in the future to automatically send them out to your followers.

4. Follow the 1/3 rule, or it’s not all about you!

People don’t respond well when they think they’re being constantly sold something. Online engagement is about creating an appealing presence that people want to engage with and pay attention to. The 1/3 rule means splitting your posts into 3 categories. Spend 1/3 of the time liking, following, quoting, and posting about other people’s work, projects, events, etc. Spend another 1/3 of your time posting entertaining, inspirational, and informative stories and links about a variety of topics that will appeal to your community. Then, spend the remaining 1/3 of your time promoting your business and products.

5. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs

The internet is big place, so make it easy for people to find their way to you. Try putting your website url, twitter handle, or Facebook address wherever you can to help people remember how to get to you. This is especially helpful now that Pinterest has taken off. If you find your website or blog is getting a lot of people ‘pinning’ photos off of it, be sure to embed your company logo or url into all your beautiful pictures. That way pinners in the future will be able to see where the gorgeous photo they just re-pinned came from. It’s easy to add your logo or url to a photo- you can even do it easily in MS Paint!

Remember that your online presence is about creating relationships and engaging your followers in discussion. Let people know and love you, and then they will be your best customers! For social media strategy webinars to help you create a strong online presence, check out www.lauraburnsconsulting.com.

Laura Burns helps passionate people transform dreamy visions into sustainable realities. As the owner of Laura Burns Consulting, she teaches visionary creatives how to feed their bellies and their souls doing what they love. For spicy tips and resources, follow Laura on Facebook and Twitter.

As part of The Coaching Blueprint, creator Kate Swoboda asked the participating coaches (including me!) about their “conditions of satisfaction” for their practice. As Kate says, it’s important for anyone who is running a business to know what success looks like and feels like for you. When working with identifying conditions of satisfaction, it’s important to notice whether or not they’re someone else’s conditions, expectations, attachments, or ideas about success.

Danielle LaPorte writes: “Knowing how you want to feel is the most potent form of clarity you can have. Acting on generating those feelings is the most creative thing you can do in your life.”

In the video above, Blueprint Coaches Bridget Pilloud, Tara Sophia Mohr, Dyana Valentine, Julie Daley, Tara Gentile, Tanya Geisler, Jamie Ridler, and yours truly all share our conditions of satisfaction for our coaching practices. What we say about creative flourishing coaching practices is just as applicable to brick-and-mortar business owners, artists and creatives, consultants and 9-5-ers: Create it how you want to feel it. Enjoy this gem of satisfaction, self-care, and enoughness!

Find out more about The Coaching Blueprint and creator the fabulous Kate Swoboda here.

Wait ’til you see what Laura Burns literally has tattooed across her chest (you gotta watch the video)! I know Laura will inspire you to live your creative passions. You can view the chat log here.

Laura is one of my Right-Brain Business Plan® licensed facilitators and she is the founder of Laura Burns Consulting. She is a strategizer, motivator, and catalyst for intense change who brings joyful growth and sustainability to nonprofits and creative entrepreneurs.

If you’re in the Houston-area, check out Laura’s upcoming Right-Brain Business Plan® workshop September 21st-22nd.

Did you miss Tuesday’s live video chat with me and the wise Mark Silver from Heart of Business? Not to worry, we’ve got ya covered! You can sign-up for the replay here.

If you think sales is icky or just plain “ewwwww” to quote someone from the chat, then you’re sure to learn lots from this informative and heartfelt session. Mark shared his Sacred Selling model and answered really great questions that came in from our live chat. No doubt questions about sales that you probably have yourself. I also talked through some examples of how his teachings have helped me.

We also shared an exclusive offer that ends tomorrow morning, August 24th to those of you in my community to take the Sacred Selling teachings deeper through Mark’s comprehensive home study program. To be transparent, Mark is sharing a portion of the profits with me during this special promotion as a thank you for letting you know about this valuable resource.

Even if the special offer isn’t for you, I know you’ll gain so much from simply watching the 60-min. no-cost class.

In fact, here’s what some of our live participants had to say at the end of our session:

“This came to me at just the right time. I need to just lead with heart and quit trying so hard.”

“I feel ready to begin! Very inspiring!”

And you have to watch until the very end to see Mark’s pearl of wisdom that invoked huge belly laughs and lots of LOL’s in the chat.

If you participated in this year’s Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit you most likely experienced the wisdom of one of my guest speakers Mark Silver of Heart of Business. And, if you don’t know Mark yet, you’re in for a treat!

Mark’s work speaks to me at a soul level. He simplifies the nuts and bolts of business in a way that resonates with my right-brain creative and spiritual side, which is why, I think you’ll get a lot from his teachings around Sacred Selling.

On Tuesday, August 21st, you can join Mark and me for a live, interactive video class where we’ll be discussing how you can keep your best clients from slipping through your fingers.

Mark’s Sacred Selling materials have been quite beneficial to my business and we’ll share some real-life examples of how I’ve put his teachings into practice.

Grab your virtual seat for this no-cost live video class on Sacred Selling and learn from one of the most down-to-earth, authentic, and effective teachers that I know.

We look forward to seeing you there!