I sit in my apartment in Milan, looking out of the window on a street, light with sunlight and cannot stop smiling! A long, cold winter is officially over! And everything looks and feels different. The air is fresher. The snow has melted  and beautiful greens of every hue begin to shine in the sun. People look happier.

Everywhere you look, you see a transformation: days are getting longer, flowers are blooming and trees are getting new tiny leaves.

No wonder spring is considered the season of growth, renewal and love!
Spring is also the perfect time of the year to revitalize your senses and refresh your mind.

Here are tips that will help you to do just that:

1. Get rid of clutter. During the winter our homes tend to become filled with lots of bulk and piles of different things. It is both physically and emotionally healthy to simplify and de-clutter your work and living space once in a while. Right now is the perfect time to do that! Organize your desk, sort out old photos, make room in your closets by throwing or giving away anything that is unwanted, outdated, unused for 2 years or no longer fits. Let the energy flow freely.

2. Captivate your senses with aromatherapy. For thousands of years essential oils have been used by different cultures because of their health-promoting benefits. Use chamomile, bergamot, cedarwood, lavender, rose, or sandalwood to calm down your mind, ease anxiety and stress and soothe tensed muscles. Or choose citrus, peppermint, rosemary and thyme scents to energize your body and uplift your mood.

3. Take a few moments to meditate. Meditation is a great way to calm your mind, increase concentration, release negative feelings and regain your emotional strength.

4. Do nothing for a half an hour. As it turns out there are many physical benefits of doing nothing and just being lazy. Research shows that people who would rather relax in a hammock and read a book instead of working on their laptop or doing their house chores have a better chance of living into old age. Give yourself some rest!

5. Take mini-vacations during the day. You do not have to wait for a two-week vacation to feel rejuvenated and energetic. Instead you can take 15-minute mini-vacations every hour or so to regain your strengths and put some space between you and your hectic work schedule.

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This weekend I had a very frustrating incident. As I was getting into a taxi, the driver got distracted and started driving off without checking if I had closed the door. Can you imagine my shock when I had one leg inside the car and the car suddenly started moving? I literally jumped inside, but my ankle still got caught in the door. Besides an ugly bruise I got a piece of the driver’s mind about how long it takes for SOME people to get into a car. No “I’m sorry!” No “Are you ok?” Nothing! I am usually good at controlling my temper, but this time all I could think of was how much I want to smack this rude man and give him a piece of my mind about his manners.

Do you often let a rude taxi driver, an uncaring boss, an insensitive co-worker or an arrogant stranger ruin your day? Have you ever wondered why sometimes people purposely say or do mean things?

I could come up with 4 main reasons:

a) They try to overcompensate for their hurt Ego. Someone has hurt them in the past when they felt especially vulnerable and now they are trying to regain their power and self-confidence by hurting you.

b) They secretly fear that they have the same quality that they are making fun of. For example, if a person makes derogatory remarks about someone being overweight, they are most likely insecure about their own body and are afraid that people will notice it too.

c) They are deeply attached to their sufferings and failures. As weird as it may seem, many people refuse to let go of their negativity, because it brings some drama into their life and gives them something to worry about.

d) They crave attention and love. Just like teenagers when reaching a difficult age act out of spite to prove their own independence, adults defy social norms to get attention and a strong emotion out of you (even if it is a negative emotion).

How do you respond to mean people?

I have noticed that there are two spontaneous reactions when it comes to dealing with negative people 1) we get mean and rude back or 2) we let them run all over us while boiling inside with righteous indignation. Neither of these options seems particularly attractive.

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Many of us are very preoccupied about catching the swine flu that is going around. We wash our hands, get the flu shots, use disinfectants for cleaning and take other precautions. Some even wear face masks in airplanes and public transportation in order to prevent themselves from being infected. However, only a few people are worried about catching another very dangerous type of virus – Human Gossip Virus or HGV (do not confuse with HGTV).

Gossip Virus is very similar to all other viruses. It is transmitted by air. It is highly contagious and it spreads like wildfire. It can be highly negative, inflammatory and harmful to the person being spoken about. And it makes people who indulge in gossiping suffer such side-effects as regret and a sense of guilt.

The news is not comforting – psychologists say that more and more people report being addicted to gossip!

Initially it seems so harmless. Having a little chitchat with your girlfriend about a mutual friend. Discussing Hollywood stars’ breakups, drunken fights and failed marriages. Expressing your dissatisfaction about your boss’s decision. Debating over someone else’s relationships.

What can be so harmful about that? – Just a few people, expressing their opinions and discussing the latest news. Looks absolutely innocent.  But the consequences can be irreversible: ruined relationships, destroyed reputations, lack of trust and respect towards you (just to name a few)

Fortunately, there are several steps that you can take to become immune to gossiping:

1. Wear a Gossip-Less Bracelet. Wise people from the East have an interesting habit. Whenever they want to say something negative about another person, they take their bracelet from one wrist and place it on the other wrist. It gives them time to reflect if they really want to say those words. I do the same thing. Whenever I get the urge to criticize someone or to share the latest gossip, I look at my bracelet and it reminds me of my goal.
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What do you think?

Have you noticed how some people seem to have everything they need to be successful: right knowledge, good looks, family connections and starting capital and yet they fail miserably? While others who do not seem to be that smart or that outgoing become successful against all the odds? The true reason behind success and material wealth is not the resources that you have; it is the way you think, talk and act!

Usually after talking with a person for 15 minutes you can already tell if they will achieve the great heights of turning money-making into a never-ending struggle.

Poor people generally talk about:

• Their problems and all the injustices ever done to them
• Discuss banal reality shows, latest “news” and negative events that they have no control over
• Gossip about other people – what is wrong with them
• Blame everything and everyone for their misfortunes
• Complain about their lazy spouses, ungrateful kids, stupid boss, and controlling parents
• Have strong prejudices against other social groups (usually this includes wealthier and more successful people, people of other nationalities and other religions)
• Brag about all the good things that they have ever done for someone else
• Invest in things that bring instant gratification, without thinking about the consequences.

Wealthy or wealthy-to-be people talk about:

• New theories and skills that they are learning
• Investment ideas and strategies
• People who inspire and guide them
• Positive events that have happened in their life
• Activities and things that motivate them
• Their long-term goals

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“There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear”. ~George S. Patton

Fear has darkened more hopes, shattered more goals, stifled more ambitions, poised more dreams, prevented more accomplishments than any other emotion in the world.

Although, the same fear has sharpened our senses in the face of danger, made us stronger when we needed to protect ourselves or our beloved ones, prevented us from taking bad decisions and unjustified risks, and in some cases it has saved our life.

Fear has many faces. Sometimes it disguises as caution. Sometimes as doubt and worry. Sometimes as an unpleasant gut feeling. Sometimes as anxiety or panic. And sometimes fear is so strong that it paralyzes us and takes our breath away.

What is the difference between the fear that you should pay attention to and the one that becomes an obstacle towards your personal growth and success?

How to tell if your fear is imaginary?

Basically any irrational thought that starts with “what if…” indicates that your fear is not real. I once heard someone say that 90 percent of the things we fear never happen. A further 9 percent we often make happen ourselves. For example, a person who has a deep fear of losing his job may become so anxious about making a mistake that he will not be able to perform well and will continuously seek co-workers approval. His productivity will decrease which will eventually lead to a lay-off.

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“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” – Marie Curie.

Fear is one of the most powerful and most destructive emotions that has ever existed.

Fear of failure in business prevents us from taking risks and making profitable business decisions. Fear of poverty keeps us at a job that we dislike. Fear of rejection does not let us ask out a person that we like. Fear of criticism turns us into the prisoners of someone else’s opinions and prevents from following our dreams. Fear of success holds us back from making money and cuts short our professional career. Fear of losing a person that we love poisons our relationships and pushes the person that we love further away from us.

Psychologists divide fears into 4 main categories:

1. Imaginary fears.

About 90% of all our fears are imaginary, meaning we feel scared or worried even if there is no real threatening situation in the environment which could cause fear. The irrational nature of imaginary fears makes them highly persistent and very destructive to our health and well-being. As there is no real cause that can be explained or eliminated, our mind continues to look for the signs of danger, even if there are none. Taken to the extreme, irrational and unnatural fears turn into phobias.

Solution: Fears that have no objective reality should be recognized for what they are – imaginary.

Refuse to dwell on your negative thoughts that lead nowhere. Your imaginary fear in this case is not a rational anxiety backed by realistic risks – just our imagination playing cruel games with us.

There are many effective ways to distract yourself every time disturbing “what if…” thoughts pop into your mind.

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From the beginning of time fear has been the strongest motivational drive.

Fear is a built-in self-defense mechanism that has served us for thousands of years to avoid danger. Fear protected our ancestors from wild animals and enemy tribes. We lived, because of fear.

Nowadays fear no longer serves us as well as it did a couple of thousand years ago. We no longer face the danger of meeting an angry buffalo on our way to work. We no longer have to be afraid of getting killed by an enemy tribe when we travel across the country. We no longer have to go deep inside wild forests to find food for our children.

In the course of evolution, together with modern technologies our fear has transformed itself. Instead of having strong spikes of fear that pass as soon as the danger is gone, most of us live in a constant state of worry. With physical danger no longer present, we have switched our focus from real life danger to hypothetic future danger.

Now we are a lot more worried about losing our job, having to speak in front of a large audience of people, not being able to send our kids to college, or our spouse coming home late at night, than we are of being attacked by a wild animal.

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It is mind-blowing how many of us are living our lives on auto-pilot. We do the same things, meet with the same people, have the same conversations over lunch, go to the same supermarkets to buy our groceries and watch the same TV shows when we get home. Even the arguments that we have with other people seem to evolve around the same issues.

Our life is built around certain behavior patterns that we follow without thinking.

In fact, multiple psychological findings suggest that about 95% of what we do, we do automatically. And only in 5% of cases do we actually make conscious decisions about our life.

This auto-pilot behavior keeps us securely tied to our daily routines, preventing us from growing professionally, slowly killing the excitement of relationships, and sucking the fun out of our lives.

But the really devastating part about living your life automatically is that most of us do not even realize that we are doing it. Our days blend in together. We have a hard time recalling what we did last week and we have very little to look forward to. We find ourselves reacting to outside circumstances, rather than controlling events of our life. Deep down we keep wishing for more, without being sure if there is more or how to get it.

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Have you ever heard of the Pillars of Hercules?

If you look at them, all you see are two little islands near the Straits of Gibraltar, but according to Roman mythology these pillars were built by Hercules to mark the end of the known world. It was said that the pillars bore the warning “Non Plus Ultra”, which means “Nothing further beyond”.

For thousands of years people looked at these islands and believed that the whole world ended just there. They could see the line of the horizon, the same deep turquoise sea and the same blue sky with tiny little white clouds generously spread over it. They could watch the seagulls flying over the pillars and turning back. And they dreamed about being free and careless like the birds. But the idea of going beyond the imposed borders never crossed their minds. Because no one had ever done it and, therefore, it could not be done!

Until one day a young man looked at these pillars and saw them for what they really were – just two lavishly green islands. Nothing else… nothing more… The man’s name was Christopher Columbus.

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For over 6 years I’ve been studying yoga. For all these 6 years my yoga teacher often repeated: “Your life is just the reflection of your consciousness. Once you understand it, your life will change dramatically.”

I’ve never paid much attention to it. It sounded weird, and I couldn’t really understand this concept. A couple of months ago I hit the point in my life where everything was going just plain wrong. I had troubles in my love life, I had some serious money problems, and to top it off I had a huge fight with my best friend.

I felt depressed and stressed out. I had no idea how to change the situation. Until one day I looked in the mirror and the word “reflection” stuck in my head. “If my life is just the reflection of my thoughts, then I created this myself!” This realization made my knees go weak. I sat down staring at the wall, trying to digest this thought.

This realization changed my life almost instantly. The same evening I called my friend and apologized. The depression disappeared in an instant, I felt full of strength and energy. The week after that, I launched the new project that was extremely successful (it’s still making me money every month). As for the love life… I’m in loving relationship with the cutest Italian guy in the world.

I have to warn you: once you truly realize it, it will change the way you look at your life forever. It’s almost painful at first, thinking that you created all your problems, all your failures, all your stress, and even all your health issues.

But once you understand it, you will have the greatest power available at your hands – the power to create your life just the way you want it.

You can build your life the way you want just by changing your thoughts.

I want you to mentally look on your life from the side and ask yourself:

- Am I happy?

- What do I want to change?

- Why I haven’t achieved my goals yet?

Look at all the aspects of your life: your job or your business, your family, your health. Now say aloud: “I created my life with my thoughts. My life is just the reflection of my mind.” Repeat it at least 10 times.

Now your inner voice probably says: “But I didn’t want this! How could I create all these problems? Those are simply circumstances!”

Please, remember one thing – there is no such thing as circumstances. It’s only your attitude. You create your own circumstances, because you create everything! What you think – you become. What you think your life is – your life becomes.

I’m not saying that you created all the bad things in your life on purpose. After all, you had no idea how your thinking affects your life.

The good news is that now, when you know, you can use this Law of Universe to live the life you want. And I’m going to teach you a couple techniques to make it even easier.

Technique #1: Create your life on paper.

This will take you some time, but I promise that this exercise will be worth it.

Take a piece of paper and describe your life the way you want it to be. There are no limitations. Don’t think “Oh, that’s impossible”. If you can think it, you can create it.

Describe everything in detail. You have to see the whole picture, to feel what it is like to live the life of your dreams.

- What house do you live in?

- What’s your occupation? Do you run your own business?

- What is your income?

- How’s your family?

- What kind of car are you driving?

- Where do you go on vacation?

- What are your hobbies?

- What does your regular day look like?

Set aside a couple of hours, turn off your phone, and take the first step to your dream life. Start creating it from the inside. Once you create this picture, your subconscious mind will start working on making this dream a reality… on autopilot!

Once you’re done, don’t lose this paper. Reread it on a regular basis, for example every time before you go to bed. This will keep you focused on the life you want to live. And whatever you’re focused on – you’ll get.

Technique #2: Forget about the problems.

The universe works in a wonderful way. It gives you whatever you focus on.

If you focus on your money problems – you’ll get more money problems.

If you focus on your bad relationships – you’ll get more bad relationships.

If you focus on your stress – you’ll get more stress.

It works every time.

The key to making this universal law work for you is to focus on what you want. You have to learn focusing NOT on the problem, but on the SOLUTION.

To tell you the truth, problems don’t exist at all. It’s only tasks that you have to do in order to learn lessons life is giving you.

If something happens, stop worrying and stressing out. Remind yourself that it’s only a task, and you have everything to successfully carry it out.

Focus on the solution.