What are you worth? How would you evaluate your life? When was the last time you stopped to take stock of yourself?

Of course, an easy way to calculate your worth is by subtracting your liabilities from your assets in order to determine your net worth.

When you’re doing this for financial reasons, your assets are anything of economic value which you own, including real estate, stocks, money you’re owed, and so on. Your liabilities are the things that you owe, such as credit card debt, your mortgage, and your car loan.

However, your net worth only gives you an assessment of how you’re doing in one very specific area of your life. It certainly doesn’t give you the whole picture. Is your life really worth much if you have a high net worth but no family or friends to share it with, or if you’ve traded your health for your wealth? How about if you have no leisure time or any spiritual life to speak of?

What if you were to define assets and liabilities in ways that don’t involve economic value? For example, your good habits are assets, while your negative habits are liabilities. Among your assets you could list the following:

• Meditation.
• Keeping a gratitude journal.
• Spending thirty minutes a day working on a hobby you enjoy.

Among your liabilities you could list the following negative habits:

• Procrastination.
• Smoking.
• Hitting the snooze button when the alarm rings in the morning.

Another thing you can do is to list your positive character traits as assets, including things such as the following:

• Honesty
• Humor
• Optimism

On the other hand, your negative character traits would be liabilities. These could include things such as the following:

• Impatience
• Indecisiveness
• Being Overemotional

Conducting a life audit can help you determine whether you’re in control of your life and whether your life is headed in the right direction. Below you’ll discover how to conduct a life audit.

Life Areas to Audit

There are many areas in which you can conduct a life audit. These include the following:

• Audit how you spend your time.
• Audit your productivity.
• Audit your effectiveness.
• Audit your skills.
• Audit your education.
• Audit your health.
• Audit your finances.
• Audit your fitness level.
• Audit your habits.
• Audit your character.
• Audit your relationships (with your family and friends).
• Audit your living conditions (how clean and organized your home is, and how comfortable you feel in your home).
• Audit your creativity.
• Audit how happy you are.
• Audit your energy level.
• Audit your career.
• Audit your spiritual life.
• Audit your leisure time.
• Audit how well you’re doing in terms of achieving your major life goals.
• Audit how much fun you’re having.

Process for Conducting a Life Audit

The seven-step process for conducting a life audit is the following:

1. Decide what aspect of your life you’re going to audit, or evaluate (I gave you several ideas on areas you can choose to audit, above).

2. Decide on the metrics that you’ll be using to measure how well you’re doing in your chosen life area. For example, in the area of fitness you could use measurements such as your weight, your waist circumference, and your percentage of body fat.

In order to measure your happiness you can set an alarm to ring on your smart phone every hour; each time the alarm rings stop and assess how happy you feel at that moment in time on a scale from 1 to 10.

You can measure how creative you´re being by your output, such as whether you’re writing 1,000 words of your novel a day. Another way to audit your creativity is by the the amount of time that you spend each day being creative. As an illustration, you could choose to give yourself a high score in creativity if you spend at least one hour a day working on a creative project.

Another method that you can use in order to conduct an audit is to simply ask yourself a series of questions related to the life area that you’re auditing. As an illustration, if you’re auditing your relationship with your friends, you could ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I remember my friends’ birthdays and special occasions?
• How often do I speak to my friends on the phone?
• How often do I see my friends?
• Are my friends supportive of me and my goals? Am I supportive of them?
• Do my friends have healthy life habits?
• Do my friends enrich my life?

3. Design a form that you’re going to use for your audit. It can be something very simple, such as the following:

4. Conduct your audit. If you feel that you can’t be completely truthful–after all, it can be incredibly difficult to evaluate yourself–, ask a trusted friend or family member to help you.

5. Once you’ve determined where you are now, decide where you want to be. For example, if your audit reveals that you’re overweight and have an unhealthy waist circumference, determine how much you want to weight and how many inches you want to lose from your waist.

6. Create an action plan for getting to where you want to be. What are the steps that you need to take in order to move from where you are now, to where you want to be? As an illustration, your action plan in the area of fitness could include things such as the following:

• Change your diet.
• Buy a treadmill and walk on it for half-an-hour every morning as you watch the morning news.
• Consult a friend who’s in great shape and ask them for tips.
• Drink more water.

7. Carry out your action plan and give yourself audits along the way to make sure that you’re making progress. Make adjustments as needed.

Conclusion

Conducting a life audit can mean the difference between living life by default or living the rest of your life by design. If you need more help in conducting a life audit, Worksheet #8 in my “Create and Achieve Your Life List Workbook”, which is part of the “How to Live Your Best Life” system, contains a thorough life evaluation you can use.

Related Posts:

• Keys to Success – B.C. Forbes
• 32 Bits of Wisdom from William Clement Stone
• 32 Timeless Success Principles from Napoleon Hill
• 72 of the Best Success Quotes
• 49 Snippets of Wisdom on How to Succeed

The following 105 epigrams–or wise, pithy statements–on life by B.C. Forbes were taken from the book “Forbes Epigrams: 1000 Thoughts on Life and Business” which is now in the public domain.

1. The most profitless thing to manufacture is excuses.

2. To fill your job, fill your mind.

3. Sturdy trees grow slowly.

4. The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

5. Learn and you lead. Loaf and you lean.

6. Aspire then perspire.

7. He who has good health, good humor, and no debts is not poor.

8. Diamonds are chunks of coal that stuck to their job.

9. Think not of yourself as “the architect of your career ” but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselling and scraping and polishing.

10. The longer you gaze on an obstacle the bigger it becomes.

11. You aspire to become a boss? Then need no bossing.

12. After all, you have to give full, fair value or you won’t last.

13. Don’t just float or you’ll sink.

14. You drift towards the rocks. You have to row to reach success.

15. Don’t talk about your abilities, demonstrate them.

16. There is no higher efficiency than doing the right thing in the right way.

17. Your boss may determine your salary, but you yourself determine your worth. To get more, make yourself worth more.

18. If you have ceased to smile, you have lost out in the game of life, no matter what your bank account may be.

19. The only hopeless failure is the person who has ceased to strive for success.

20. You can’t build a skyscraper on a faulty foundation. Attend to the foundation first.

21. When an unpleasant task lies ahead of you, get it behind you without delay.

22. A dose of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.

23. Water that is stagnant becomes worthless. So do men.

24. If you do the best and the most you can today, don’t worry about tomorrow.

25. The raw material of success is thought.

26. Don’t intend; do.

27. The man without a savings account is usually a man of little account.

28. Look forward and press forward.

29. If you’re not garnering a proper amount of fruit, examine well your roots.

30. To avert pain later in life, take pains.

31. The promising man keeps his promise.

32. There’s a difference between living and being alive. Which are you doing?

33. Improvement begins with I.

34. In school you didn’t expect to advance unless you studied. How about now?

35. Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

36. It’s polite to apologize, but it’s more polite not to do anything calling for an apology.

37. The best investment for a young man is investment in his own education.

38. The man who sells his health for wealth makes a poor bargain.

39. Have a goal other than gold or you’ll end up a disappointed mortal.

40. No man is completely a failure as long as he retains faith that he will one day succeed.

41. Don’t wait for something to turn up. Go and turn it up.

42. Be your own efficiency expert by doing your job the best way it can be done.

43. Are you sure your troubles are not mostly self-created?

44. If you had no difficulties to triumph over you would have no triumph. Make this thought part of your mental equipment.

45. To get, give.

46. Organize, systematize, deputize, realize.

47. To become a top-notcher, keep in top-notch fettle mentally and physically.

48. The whole philosophy of life can be summed up in two words: be kind.

49. To make headway, improve your head.

50. The really big man never allows his head to get too big.

51. Improve your mind and your output will improve.

52. Purpose and perspiration are a winning team.

53. Any time is a good time to start carrying out a new idea.

54. Hustle, or you’ll get left behind.

55. Be sure to distinguish between having self-respect and having conceit. The first is indispensable. The second is contemptible.

56. Show nerve, not nerves.

57. Strength comes from struggle, weakness from ease.

58. Don’t worry so very much about what people think of you, but see to it that they ought to think well of you.

59. The real satisfaction comes from the struggle, not from the reward.

60. Unless you deposit wealth in your mind, you’ll never be truly rich.

61. It’s noble to succeed, but it’s nobler still to help the other fellow to succeed.

62. Have respect for others or you will not have the respect of others.

63. Getting on is largely a matter of getting up each time you are knocked down.

64. Every act is a boomerang.

65. It is better to err on the side of initiative than inactivity.

66. A recipe for happiness: give and forgive.

67. There’s only one letter of difference between 1-e-a-r-n-i-n-g and e-a-r-n-i-n-g.

68. The brain is capable of becoming just as big as you take the pains to make it. To grow, it must be fed and exercised.

69. Education that leads to knowledge is fine. Education that leads to action is better.

70. Good habits will in time make the going comfortable and easy.

71. If you’re sufficiently anxious to see and seize opportunities, you will have little time to note or talk about the shortcomings of others.

72. Any man can face one day’s trouble. It’s trying to carry tomorrow’s, too, that weighs us down.

73. Show me a happy person and you show me a busy one.

74. If you don’t have patience you are never likely to have much else.

75. Your income depends on your output.

76. Success usually is a plant of slow growth although its flowering may seem sudden.

77. Being a thoroughbred doesn’t depend upon your ancestors but upon you.

78. Do you make up a mental balance-sheet of yourself every night?

79. To get more don’t only work more but work more intelligently.

80. Impatience has prevented many a fellow from taking firm root in the soil of success. Don’t expect to reap the moment you sow.

81. Feel discouraged? Remember, the goal worth reaching isn’t reached easily.

82. To win and keep friends, be one.

83. One investment that pays good dividends is stick-to-itiveness.

84. Thinking costs nothing, yet creates everything.

85. Ability and reliability make a good team.

86. To score, set up a target.

87. I asked the president of the Central Union Trust Company of New York, George W. Davison, his formula for getting ahead. He replied in three short words: “Keep at it”.

88. If there be an elixir of life, it is laughter.

89. The thing the lack of which makes you so unhappy are you sure you would be happy if you had it?

90. In making your living, try to make yourself agreeable to others, and thus help to make the world go round more harmoniously.

91. To be well thought of, think of others.

92. Do; strive; seat; serve.

93. Good judgement is the raw material of success.

94. Life is like a bank: You get out of it what you put into it with interest added.

95. It doesn’t help a great deal to know more than others if you don’t put your knowledge to work.

96. Don’t stand still. Go after something worth going after.

97. Success is nothing but doing your full duty to the very best of your ability. Whatever rewards come are only trimmings.

98. Don’t sit down and take what comes; go after what you want.

99. Get your motives, your principles, your ambitions right, and nothing can utterly daunt you. Inward strength will succor and sustain you.

100. To rise above the crowd, crowd your days and hours with study, observation, effort and resolution.

101. Hope, of course but hustle, also.

102. Listen to the advice of wise people, then do your own thinking and follow your own judgment.

103. Our eyes are placed in front because it is more important to look ahead than look back.

104. It is poor policy to be so busy working as to be too busy to think.

105. Great achievement must be preceded by great preparation.

Conclusion

Fitch Gibbens once described epigrams as “wisdom sharpened to a point.” Apply the 105 Forbes epigrams above and use their wisdom to live your best life.

Related Posts:

• Keys to Success – B.C. Forbes
• 32 Bits of Wisdom from William Clement Stone
• 32 Timeless Success Principles from Napoleon Hill
• 72 of the Best Success Quotes
• 49 Snippets of Wisdom on How to Succeed

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Live your best life by recognizing that what you make of yourself is in your own hands. It all starts with what you’re thinking. Are your thoughts leading you toward the goals that you’ve set for yourself, or are they leading you away from them? The keys to success are within your reach.

Related Posts:

• Forbes Epigrams – 105 Thoughts on Life
• 32 Bits of Wisdom from William Clement Stone
• 32 Timeless Success Principles from Napoleon Hill
• 72 of the Best Success Quotes
• 49 Snippets of Wisdom on How to Succeed

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

The amount of willpower or self-control that you have is one of the best predictors of how successful you’ll be.

If you have poor self-control you probably overspend, overeat, and procrastinate. On the other hand, if you have high levels of self-control you probably follow a healthy diet, exercise, save, and are good at getting things done.

Fortunately, if you’re currently lacking in willpower and self-control, there are strategies that you can apply in order to help you solve this problem. One of these strategies is reward substitution, which is explained below.

Reward Substitution Explained

Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Ariely explains in a TED Talk which he gave at Duke that the problem of self-control is the following:

We have all of these desires for ourselves in the long-term—we want to be fit, financially secure, successful, and so on—but in the short-term we fail to take the action that will lead us to those results.

When he was in high school, Ariely had a serious accident which landed him in the hospital. While he was in the hospital, he got Hepatitis C–and liver disease as a consequence–from a bad blood transfusion. About seven years after he left the hospital, his liver started giving him problems, so he sought medical advice.

Ariely’s doctor told him that the FDA was running a clinical trial to see if a drug called interferon could help cure Hepatitis C. He advised Ariely that if he didn’t join the trial there was a good chance that he would die from liver cirrhosis in the future.

The treatment that Ariely’s doctors wanted him to take consisted of the following: he had to inject himself three times a week for a year-and-a-half. If he did this, there was a chance that he might not get liver cirrhosis thirty years down the road. However, each time he injected himself he would get headaches and feel nauseous for the next sixteen hours.

In other words, the scenario was the following:

• Feeling sick for sixteen hours each time he injected himself was unpleasant, although not as unpleasant as getting liver cirrhosis thirty years later.
• However, getting sick after injecting himself was not just unpleasant; it was also immediate.
• The possibility of getting liver cirrhosis was thirty years in the future.

Ariely explains that when making the decision between doing something now which is unpleasant, but which will have positive effects in the long-term future, or avoiding the discomfort in the present, we often over-focus on the present and sacrifice the future.

So, how was Ariely able to inject himself three times a week, for a year-and-a-half, even though he felt sick for hours every time he injected himself? He stopped focusing on the long-term reward of not getting liver cirrhosis. That reward was too far off is the future to make him willing to put up with discomfort in the present.

Instead, in the mornings on the days in which Ariely had to inject himself, he would go to the video store and check out a few movies. Watching movies is something that he loves to do. So he would walk around all day with the movies in his backpack looking forward to watching them. Then, when he got home in the evening he would inject himself and pop in a movie.

Ariely created a reward substitution. The reward of not getting liver cirrhosis was too far away in the future to motivate him to act in the present moment. People are just not designed to care very much about delayed rewards. Therefore, what he did instead was to focus on the immediate reward of watching movies.

How to Implement Reward Substitution in Your Own Life

A blog post I wrote a short while ago got over 25,000 views in one day. It was a post on how to slow down aging and live longer. Obviously, living longer lives with fewer years of disability is something that we all want.

One of the most important things you can do in order to live a longer, healthier life is to do some sort of cardio exercise for 30 minutes, five days a week. However, for most of us, exercising involves at least some degree of discomfort and unpleasantness. While you’re exercising you’re tired, you’re sweaty, and you have to exert yourself for the amount of time you’re exercising.

When you get home from work each day you have the following options:

• Kick off your shoes, lie down on the couch, and get the immediate reward of relaxation; or
• Put on your t-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers, and go out for a thirty minute jog, so that your chances of having a heart attack or a stroke thirty years from now are greatly reduced.

The reward of longevity is just too far off in the future to prevent you from lying down on the couch and taking it easy. Therefore, you need to find a reward substitute. You can try the following:

• Right before your jog, prepare everything that you’ll need to make your favorite smoothie, and put it all in the fridge so that you can make the smoothie as soon as you get home after your jog.
• Make a date with your spouse or your roommate to watch a TV show that you both love when you get back from your jog.

Find a compelling reward that you can give yourself in the present to focus on, in order to get yourself to take the action that will get you a much larger reward further down the road. Ask yourself:

• What long-terms goals do I want to achieve?
• What actions do I need to take on a regular basis to achieve those goals which are likely to cause discomfort or some unpleasantness?
• What reward substitutes can I use to reward myself immediately, instead of trying to focus on a reward that is so far off in the future that it won’t motivate me to act now?

Conclusion

Think of a large object that’s right next to you. Then it starts to move away. As it moves away, it looks smaller and smaller. Soon, all you can see is a tiny speck. Large rewards that are far off in the future look like tiny specks in the present. And it’s very hard to get motivated by those tiny specks.

Instead, choose to focus on rewards which—although much smaller than the ultimate reward that you’re striving for—look much bigger in the present because you can have them right now. Live your best life by increasing your willpower and self-control with reward substitution.

Related Posts:

• 12 Tips for Defeating Procrastination and Gearing Up for Action
• Stop Procrastinating Tip: Practice Discomfort
• Five Scientifically-Proven Ways to Strengthen Your Self-Control
• Strengthening Your Willpower: Four Ways to Listen to The Angel On Your Shoulder

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The 20 questions below were taken from the book “How to Turn Your Ability Into Cash”, by Earl Prevette. They’re worth pondering.

1. What is my attitude toward myself, toward other people, toward God, toward my neighbor, and toward my job?

2. Do I think and act positively?

3. Am I tolerant and considerate of other people?

4. Do I honestly respect the rights and opinions of others?

5. Do I interrupt while others are speaking?

6. Do I tell my affairs to everyone I meet?

7. Do I practice the Golden Rule?

8. Do I permit the whims and fancies of misfortune to deter real issues?

9. Do I monopolize the conversation with a big “I” and a little “you”?

10. Am I arrogant and impudent?

11. Am I honest with myself?

12. Am I persistent and progressive, without being offensive?

13. Am I blown around from opinion to opinion, like a thistle in a windstorm?

14. Do I cultivate habits that make me strong physically, mentally and spiritually?

15. Do I have confidence in my ability?

16. Do I dare to think for myself?

17. Do I hesitate, falter, postpone and procrastinate?

18. Do I practice the little acts of courtesy in my daily associations?

19. Do I covet what others have?

20. Am I envious? Am I jealous?

Live your best life by constantly asking yourself questions in order to examine your habits of thought and how you’re relating to yourself and to the rest of the world.

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Here are 14 ways to be uber creative:

1.Look to Nature for Inspiration. Velcro was inspired by nature. The Swiss Georges de Mestral–the inventor of Velcro– noticed how the sticky seed heads of burdock plants attached themselves to his pants and to his dog’s fur after they went for walks in the woods.

Under a microscope he saw that the seeds had little hooks that would attach themselves to anything passing by to aid in seed dispersal. He realized that the same mechanism could be used to join other things together. This observation led him to invent the product now called Velcro.

2. Follow Andy Warhol’s Lead. Take a “known” image, and turn it into something new and fresh. One of Warhol’s most iconic works is a canvas filled with soup cans. Anything can serve as inspiration: old photos, pictures of the circus or a carnival, graffiti, a store display, and so on.  Turn the mundane into something special.

3.  Gather Tips From Successful Artists. The internet is filled with tips: tips for writers; tips for graphic designers; tips for film-makers; and so on.

Start gathering these tips–in a blog, in a notebook, or using whatever tool suits your fancy–and turn to them when you’re not sure what to do next.

4. Collect Stuff That Catches Your Eye. Look at the following quote from Lynne Perrella, author of “Alphabetica: An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists”:

“Whether we call it collecting, scavenging, accumulating, scrounging, gathering or junking, it’s all about the urge to surround ourselves with our stuff, our loot, our stash, our hoard, our mother lode of treasures, and to read the inspiration that these sometimes inexplicably irresistible objects provide. Whether the collected objects are actually used in works of art or merely provide inspiration, the synchronicity between Artist and Object is undeniable.”

5. Persevere. The Chinese bamboo tree will not sprout for the first five years after you plant it. You water and fertilize it for five whole years and nothing happens. Then, sometime during the fifth year, the Chinese bamboo tree sprouts and grows ninety feet in six days.

6. Be a Tireless Warrior For Your Project. Davy Rothbart, founder of “FOUND Magazine”, started a website–then a magazine, and then created several books– based on a collection of notes, letters, photos, journals, and to-do lists that people have plucked up off the ground, found in alleyways, and picked up off the subway floor.

His enterprise all started when someone mistakenly left a note on his windshield. Davy indicates that when trying to bring your ideas out into the world, you have to be thick-skinned. He had to deal with lots of rejection when bookstores didn’t want to carry his magazine.

7. Improve your visual thinking. Visual thinking is about using pictures to help you solve problems, think about complex issues and communicate more effectively. It takes you beyond the linear world of the written word, lists, and spreadsheets, and into the non-linear world of maps, sketches, symbols, and diagrams.

8. Reframe your mistakes. Edward de Bono suggests that there is a need for a positive word to describe ‘a fully justified venture which for reasons beyond your control did not succeed’. The available words such as ‘failure’ and ‘mistake’ are unfair and squelch creativity.

In addition, de Bono says the following: “It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.”

9.  Think of New Combinations of Everyday Objects. Many creative people have defined “creativity” in much the same way as Thomas Disch does in the following quote: “Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none existed.”

Here are three examples:

• Wheels + gym shoe = roller skates;
• TV + Music = MTV;
  
• Clock + Alarm = alarm clock

10. Avoid crowds. Take Hugh MacLeod’s advice: don’t try to stand out from the crowd. Instead, avoid crowds altogether. Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffee conceived of his comic strip “Tall Tales” while going through difficult financial times. He managed to break into the business of syndicated comics by doing something different than what everybody else was doing.

Instead of drawing a traditional horizontal strip that would compete with the existing material, he opted for a seven-inch-tall vertical strip, which gave editors a lot more flexibility as to where in the paper the strip would run. Ask yourself: how can you avoid the crowd?

11. Practice being in a receptive state of mind. Instead of constantly having the television on, listening to your iPod, and surrounding yourself with noise and other distractions, practice being in a relaxed, contemplative state of mind. This state of mind is the one most conducive to allowing creative thoughts to slip into your mind.

12. Adopt the Four Roles of the Creative Process. Follow Roger van Oeck’s advice from his book “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants” and adopt the four roles of the creative process: Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior.

• The Explorer. When it’s time to seek out new information, adopt the mindset of an Explorer. Get off the beaten path, poke around everywhere, be curious, and pay attention to unusual patterns.

• The Artist. When you need to create a new idea, let the Artist come out. Ask what-if questions and look for hidden analogies. Break the rules and look at things backwards. Apply creativity techniques. Exaggerate. Look at things from many different perspectives.

• The Judge. When it’s time to decide if your idea is worth implementing, or if there is anything that needs to be added or subtracted from your idea, see yourself as a Judge. Ask what’s wrong and if the timing is right. Question your assumptions and make a decision.

• The Warrior. When you carry your idea into action, be a Warrior. Get excited about implementing your idea, eliminate all excuses, and do what needs to be done to reach your objective.

13. Make Your Creative Dreams Real. The amazingly creative author SARK explains in her book,“Creative Companion: How to Free Your Creative Spirit”, that you have to make your ideas “real”.

SARK had the following idea: she wanted to make some cards to guide and help people in their spiritual journey. Therefore, she set about inventing their form. Here’s what she did:

• By tearing French rag paper into small squares, and hand-coloring the edges, she created a canvas on which she could write her messages.
• She then folded an envelope out of the same paper, dyed some cotton string to tie it shut with, and wrote a simple instruction guide.

And voilá . . . these became spirit cards and she sold thousands of them.

14. Make Time to Be Creative. Many people have the intention to make time for creative pursuits, but life keeps getting in the way. After all, there’s commuting, work, doing the laundry, picking up the kids from soccer practice, and the list goes on and on.

You won’t suddenly find the time to be creative; you have to make the time. Carve out one hour a day for your writing, drawing, composing, and so on. Use your creative hour for self-expression, to discover more about yourself, to enter the state of flow, to bring something new into the world, and to simply disconnect from the stress of everyday life.

Live your best life by being uber creative.

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You have two options: you can live a shorter life with more years of disability, or you can live a longer life with fewer years of disability. The choice is yours.

There are changes you can make to your lifestyle that will help you to both extend your life and improve the quality of your “golden years”. Below you’ll discover 17 ways to slow down aging and live longer.

1. Get a New Perspective on Aging. Instead of thinking of getting older as an inevitable decline, think of it as gaining knowledge and wisdom.

Studies show that those who have a positive view of getting older look and feel younger than people of the same age who view aging as something negative. In addition, those who feel younger than their age have less cognitive decline.

2. Eat Low Fat Greek Yogurt. If you don’t get enough calcium in your diet, the body steals some from your bones. This may compromise bone strength and put you at a higher risk of osteoporosis.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that adults 19 years old and older get 1,000 mg of calcium per day, with an upper limit of 2,000 mg. One 8-ounce cup of Greek yogurt has 415 mg of calcium, almost half of the recommended daily amount.

3. Take Up Meditation. Dean Ornish, M.D., author of “The Spectrum”, explains that telomeres—the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep DNA strands from unraveling–shorten with stress. Ultimately this means that chronic stress can shorten your life from 9 to 17 years.

However, the damage caused by stress to the telomeres can be reversed by finding effective ways to release stress. In addition, one of the best ways to release stress is through meditation.

4. Always Wear Sunscreen. Dr. Wendy Roberts, a board certified dermatopathologist, explains that wearing sunscreen slows down the development of wrinkled, premature aging skin. In fact, up to 90 per cent of aging is caused by external factors, the big one being sun exposure.

Choose a sunscreen that has broad spectrum protection against both UVB and UVA rays.

5. Wear Sunglasses. In addition to protecting your skin from the harmful effects of the sun, you also need to protect your eyes. You want to keep ultraviolet light from getting into your eyes and onto the lids and the skin around them.

Long-term, excess UV exposure can cause a variety of eye problems, including cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss among people age 50 and older. Make sure that the sunglasses you choose block out 99 to 100 percent of both UVA and UVB radiation.

6. Stimulate Your Brain. A study published in the journal Neurology confirms that people who habitually read, write, and otherwise process information are less likely to experience mental declines late in life. Mental stimulation is extremely valuable in slowing down cognitive decline.

7. Get Regular Aerobic Exercise. People who are active have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, depression and dementia. Aim to do at least 150 minutes, 2 hours and 30 minutes, of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week.

Going for a brisk thirty-minute walk, five days a week is a great way to ensure that you can continue to carry out the activities you enjoy as you get older.

8. Start a Weight Training Program. One unfortunate aspect of aging is the loss of muscle tissue and strength. However, it’s possible to slow down the aging process by improving strength. In addition, studies show that increasing your strength also makes your genes younger.

9. Hang Out With Friends and Family. Relationships play a key role in health and life expectancy. Social relationships don’t just improve the quality of our lives, but also the length of it.

A study found that strong social ties can be as important as losing weight if you’re obese; getting active if you’re sedentary; and giving up cigarettes if you’re a smoker. One of the best things to do if you want to live longer is to strengthen your ties with others.

10. Get Married. Marriage brings better mental and physical health and reduces the chances of premature death by 15%.  Research shows that married people lead healthier lifestyles. In addition, marriage reduces anxiety and the risk of depression.

Of course, it has to be a loving and supportive marriage in order for it to be beneficial to your health and longevity.

11. Volunteer. Researchers have studied the psychosocial benefits of volunteering. They found that volunteers live longer than non-volunteers. In fact, volunteering appears to reduce risk of death by 25 percent.

Some theories as to why this is so include the following: helping others leads to feelings of perceived usefulness and competence, as well as providing social integration and support. In addition, when helping others, hormones such as oxytocin and progesterone are released; these hormones regulate stress.

12. Treat Yourself to Dark Chocolate. Dark chocolate can boost blood circulation in your brain, lower blood pressure and inhibit stroke damage. Be sure the cocoa content is at least 70 percent, and eat at least half an ounce of dark chocolate a day. Like anything else in life, it’s also important not to overdo it.

13. Get Seven Hours of Sleep. Research has shown that, when it comes to sleep, seven is the magic number. A study of more than 30,000 adults found that heart attacks and stroke are twice as high among those sleeping less than five hours a day, compared with those getting seven hours.

Those who slept nine hours or more also had a markedly increased risk.

14. Get a Pet. Studies have shown that having a pet has a myriad of health benefits. First, having pets helps lower our stress levels and decrease blood pressure. Pets also improve our mood and boost our immunity. In addition, having a pet significantly decreases a person’s chances of dying from heart disease. All of this translates into a longer lifespan.

15. Be conscientious. Research has found a correlation between conscientiousness and lower blood pressure, lower rates of diabetes and stroke, and fewer joint problems. For one, people with conscientious personalities are less likely to engage in harmful behaviors–such as smoking and risky driving–and more likely to adhere to healthful ones.

Attributes of being conscientious include being organized, being disciplined, and having self-control. Things you can do in order to become more conscientious include creating a daily schedule and sticking to it, being more punctual, and organizing your desk every day before leaving work.

16.  Have a Purpose. Research published in Psychological Science shows that at any age, having a sense of purpose could add years to your life. In fact, purposefulness has been found to be one of the strongest predictors of longevity. Therefore, if you want to live longer, set meaningful goals. In particular, set an overarching goal for what you want to achieve during your lifetime.

17. Eat to 80% of Fullness. The residents of the island of Okinawa in Japan are known for their longevity. One of the secrets to their long lifespans is a practice they call hara hachi bu — eating only until you are 80 percent full. Here are four ways to practice hara hachi bu:

• Eat until you’re satisfied but not yet full.
• Eat slowly in order to give your body time to send you cues about fullness.
• Use smaller plates.
• Err on the side of eating less than you think you need; if you still feel hungry twenty minutes later, you can always go back for more.

Conclusion

Experts estimate that about 10% of your longevity is determined by your genes. The other 90% is in your hands. Follow the tips above in order to live longer, and live better.

Related Posts:

• How to Take Back Control of Your Life
• 20 Ways to Boost and Replenish Your Energy
• Ten Strategies for Overcoming the Negativity Bias and Increasing Your Quality of Life
• Five Ways to Make Friends and Get Along With Others

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A journal can be a powerful tool for achieving your goals. You can even think of journaling as a self-coaching session. In this post you’ll discover the ten benefits of keeping a journal, as well as the eight steps to follow in order to start keeping your own journal as a goal-achievement tool.

Benefits of Keeping a Journal

Here are ten benefits of keeping a journal:

1. Keeping a journal forces you to commit your goals to writing. When you write down your goals you turn vague desires into well-articulated targets you can clearly see and aim for. You’re taking the first step toward turning the desires in your head into something concrete that exists in the material world.

When you write down your goals you’re laying the first brick, or planting the seed.

2. By setting aside fifteen to twenty minutes a day, every day, at a predetermined time to write about your goals you’re guaranteeing that you’re going to spend at least that amount of time each day thinking about your goals and how you’re going to achieve them. In other words, it’s time that you’re going to spend “tending your garden”.

3. A journal allows you to record your progress. If you’ve encountered setbacks while trying to achieve an important goal you may be feeling discouraged. When you feel like you’re losing your motivation to keep moving forward it’s a good idea to take out your journal and look back at the progress you’ve already made toward the achievement of your goal.

In addition, even if you’ve made several failed attempts at achieving a goal, looking back at what hasn’t worked can be helpful in coming up with new approaches which could work.

4. A journal is evidence of past success. Before you start working on a new goal it’s a good idea to sit back with some of your old journals and read about your past successes. This will help motivate you to get to work on the new goal with a feeling of certainty that—just as you’ve been able to achieve other goals in the past—you’ll be able to achieve it.

5. Having a set time during which you’re going to write about your goals each day keeps you accountable. Nobody wants to sit down and write: “I did absolutely nothing to move closer to the achievement of my goals today. Instead, I wasted time watching TV and playing video games, pursuing other people’s goals, or doing busy work.”

Knowing that at the end of the day you’re going to have to sit down and write about what you did that day to move you closer toward the achievement of your goals is a great motivator to get you to do what you’re supposed to be doing. You can even pretend that your journal is an accountability report which you have to hand in to a supervisor.

6. Writing about your goals helps you to uncover hidden fears that may be holding you back, as well as limiting beliefs. A lot of the time we can’t see how we’re holding ourselves back. Writing can help you to get in touch with a deeper part of yourself and bring stuff to the surface that you didn’t even realize was there.

When you’re writing about your goals you may “hear” yourself saying things such as the following:

•  People with my background can’t achieve a goal like this.
• I just don’t have what it takes.
• If I lose weight, then my friends—who are also struggling with their weight—won’t want to hang out with me anymore.

Once you’ve brought your hidden fears and limiting beliefs to the surface, you’ll be able to deal with them. A journal can help you gain self-awareness and bring your blind spots within your visual range.

7. A lot of the time we know what we want, but we don’t know how we’re going to get it. Your journal can serve as a brainstorming tool for coming up with steps you can take in order to achieve your goals.

The brain loves a challenge. Give yours the following challenge: “In the next twenty minutes come up with a list of 100 things I could do in order to achieve this goal”.

Even if nothing you come up with makes any sense, your brain will continue working on the task while you sleep or do other things. Then, the next time that you sit down to write in your journal it’s likely that you’ll be able to come up with an idea on how to proceed that’s both realistic and actionable.

8. Writing about your goals helps you to identify possible obstacles that you may encounter, and create an action plan on how you’ll deal with those obstacles when they arise. Then, when an obstacle does appear across your path, you won’t be caught off guard. Instead, you’ll know how to deal with it.

9. A journal detailing how you solved a problem that others may be having—or how you achieved a goal that others may want to achieve—can be turned into an eBook which you can give away or sell. Creating a product you can make money from can be another source of motivation to keep you moving toward the achievement of your goals.

10. A journal can help you to keep the ball rolling. The last thing you should do before closing your journal for the day is to give yourself an assignment. That is, identify what you’re going to do the following day in order to move your goal along.

How to Keep a Journal

Here are the eight steps that you need to follow in order to keep a journal with the express purpose of helping you to achieve your goals:

1. Decide what you’re going to use—you can use a notebook, an online journal, or anything else that you feel comfortable with.
2. Keep one journal for every major goal.
3. Decide on a time that you’re going to set aside each day to write in your journal.
4. Commit to writing every day.
5. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation; you’re not writing a literary masterpiece.
6. Don’t censor yourself –your journal is just for you. Allow yourself to write whatever you feel.
7. Don’t get up from your writing session until you’ve given yourself an assignment for the next day and you’ve scheduled it in your appointment book.
8. After each writing session give yourself a mental pat on the back for the progress that you’ve made so far toward the achievement of your goal. Also, feel gratitude for the people who have helped you, and the resources you’ve had access to.

Conclusion

Keeping a journal can be a powerful tool for achieving your goals. Live your best life by setting goals, and then keeping a journal which will help you to achieve those goals.

Related Posts:

• How to Take Back Control of Your Life
• How to Keep a Journal: Two Methods You Should Try
• 14 Ways to Be More Resilient So You Can Bounce Back From Adversity
• Just For Today

Creating a bucket list is one of the best ways to make sure that you use your time and resources in order to accomplish and experience what you really want out of life. And one life area that you can’t leave out of your bucket list is travel.

My eBook, “Idea Book – 2,000 Ideas For Your Travel Bucket List” contains what the title says: 2,000 travel bucket list ideas. You’ll find ideas for every one of the seven continents.

Below you’ll find 20 ideas for your travel bucket list taken from “Idea Book – 2,000 Ideas For Your Travel Bucket List”.

Europe

1.Visit the Eiffel Tower

Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair, the Eiffel Tower –located in Paris–has become a global icon of France. It’s the tallest structure in Paris, and can be seen from all over the city. The Eiffel Tower’s three platforms are home to two restaurants, several buffets, a banquet hall, a champagne bar, and many gift shops.

2.Visit the Blue Domed Churches in Santorini

The Blue-Domed Churches in Santorini –officially Thira–, Greece. Santorini is an island in the southern Aegean Sea. Oia–Santorini’s prettiest and most popular village–is famous for its white washed blue domed churches. These blue-domed churches can be found all throughout the village.

3. Visit the Rialto Bridge

Visit the Rialto Bridge, one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. This 16^th century bridge is the oldest bridge crossing the canal and it’s one of the architectural icons of Venice.

4. Visit Dubrovnik, Croatia

Visit the ancient walled city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, which was described by Lord Byron as “The Pearl of the Adriatic”. Dubrovnik is famous for its city walls, and the medieval Old Town Dubrovnik is a UNESCO heritage site. Also, climb to the summit of Mount Srdj to get gorgeous views (it’s an easy two-hour climb).

Oceania

5. Visit the Sydney Opera House

See the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. It sits at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour. The opera house was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon. It opened in 1973. The Sydney Opera House constitutes a masterpiece of 20th century architecture, with its unparalleled design and construction. Contrary to its name, it houses multiple performance venues.

6. Visit Easter Island

See the Moai, approximately 1,000 human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island –a tiny Polynesian island which is a special territory of Chile—in the South Pacific. The stone blocks, carved into head-and-torso figures, are on average 13 feet tall and weigh 14 tons.

Although it’s not certain why the Moai were created, scholars suspect that they were meant to honor important personages. They were carved and erected from the 10^th to the 16^th centuries. When Europeans arrived in 1722 they found the island mostly barren and its inhabitants few. It’s believed that the Rapa Nui’s demise resulted from an environmental catastrophe of their own making.

7. Visit Uluru

Visit Uluru–also referred to as Ayers Rock—in Australia. This ancient sandstone monolith is one of Australia’s best known landmarks. As the light changes throughout the day, Uluru—which is a sacred site of the Aboriginal people–seems to almost magically change color.

Although some people make the one-kilometer climb to the top of Uluru, in terms of cultural respect, it’s better to take one of the many walks around the base of Uluru.

Africa

8. Visit Abu Simbel

Visit the Abu Simbel temples in Nubia, Southern Egypt. The twin temples–which are among the most magnificent monuments in the world–were built during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC.

The larger of the two temples, generally known as the Temple of Ramesses II, features four large statues of Ramesses II in the facade. The smaller temple, known as the Temple of Nefertari, is dedicated to Ramesses’ most beloved wife, Nefertari.

9. Visit the Masai Mara Reserve

Visit the Masai Mara Reservation in south-west Kenya, which is considered to be one of the world’s greatest wildlife reserves. It’s globally famous for its exceptional population of lions, leopards and cheetahs.

In addition, the Great Annual Wildlife Migration can be witnessed from Masai Mara— each year around 1.5 million wildebeest and 300,000 zebra (along with other antelope) migrate from Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains, north to Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, and back.

10. Visit the Sossusvlei Dunes In the Namib Desert

Visit the Sossusvlei Dunes in the Namib Desert in Namibia. The Namib Desert–which extends 1,200 miles along the coast of the South Atlantic Ocean—is said to be the oldest desert in the world. In addition, the Sossusvlei Dunes are among the highest dunes in the world.

One dune called “Big Daddy” rises 380 meters, or about a quarter-mile, from its base. The most popular dune to climb is called Dune 45.

11. Visit the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Go gorilla trekking in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park located in southwestern Uganda in East Africa. The park is most notable for the 340 Bwindi gorillas that live here: that’s half the world’s population of these critically endangered mountain gorillas.

Although the gorillas are the stars at the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, there is much more to see here, including rare forest elephants, giant forest hogs, 11 kinds of primates, forest duiker antelopes, bush buck antelopes, over 200 species of butterflies and more than 350 species of birds.

North America

12. Visit the Grand Canyon

Visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. Carved by the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon is over a mile deep. In order to really experience the Grand Canyon, drive to the North Rim, 45 miles south of Jacob Lake, AZ. Then, hike the ten miles to the South Rim near Tusayan, AZ. This is called the Rim to Rim hike.

13. Visit Mount Rushmore

See Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota. It’s a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore. Specifically, it features sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km2).

14. Visit Times Square

Visit Times Square in midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA. It’s the hub of the Broadway Theater District, and one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections. With its ambiance and billboards spectacle, it’s one of the most visited places in the world.

South America

15. Visit Machu Picchu

Visit Machu Picchu in Peru. Machu Picchu is a citadel of stone built by the Incas more than 500 years ago, nearly 8,000 feet up in the Andes. The complex of palaces and plazas, temples and homes may have been built as a ceremonial site, a military stronghold, or a retreat for the ruling elite.

16. Visit the Galapagos Islands

Visit the Galapagos Islands, an archipelago consisting of 19 volcanic islands situated in the Pacific Ocean some 1,000 km from the South American continent (they’re part of Ecuador). The Galapagos Islands are famed for their vast number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin.

17. Visit Christ the Redeemer

See Christ the Redeemer, a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It’s 30 meters (98 ft) tall, not including its 8 meters (26 ft) pedestal, and its arms stretch 28 meters (92 ft) wide. The statue is located at the peak of the 700 meters (2,300 ft) Corcovado Mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Asia

18. Visit the Great Wall of China

Visit the Great Wall of China located along China’s historical northern borders. The Great Wall begins in the east at Shanhaiguan in Hebei province and ends at Jiayuguan in Gansu province to the west. It was continuously built from the 3rd century BC to the 17th century AD, and is over 20,000 kilometers long.

19. Visit Angkor Wat

Siem Reap is the capital city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia, and it’s the gateway to the Angkor region. Angkor–which means “city”–served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. Angkor spreads over an area of over 60 miles and contains 1,000 stone temples set upon forest and farmland.

One of these temples in particular, Angkor Wat, is the heart and soul of Cambodia. Built in the early 12th century,this temple–which at first was a Hindu temple and then a Buddhist temple–continues to be the largest religious monument in the world.

Today, it continues to serve as a house of worship and is featured on the Cambodian flag. The four mile temple has five central tours, representing the sacred Mount Meru, the center of the universe in Hindu mythology. The moat surrounding Angkor Wat symbolizes the oceans.

20. Visit the Taj Mahal

Visit the Taj Mahal, a white marble mausoleum located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar component of the Taj Mahal, it’s actually an integrated complex of structures.

Get 2,000 Travel Bucket List Ideas

In “Idea Book – 2,000 Ideas For Your Travel Bucket List” you’ll find all of the following:

• 2,o00 Travel Bucket List Ideas
• The ideas are divided into categories and subcategories so you’ll get a very organized and easy to read eBook.
• It’s a 387 Page PDF
• Every item contains an image.
• Every item contains a practical description.
• Over 70,000 Words
• Over 1,500 Links to Videos and Helpful Websites.

Get “Idea Book – 2,000 Ideas For Your Travel Bucket List” for just $9.95. It’s a digital products, so you’ll receive it immediately upon purchase.

I want you to be confident in your purchase, so I’m offering a 30-day money-back guarantee.

P.S. “How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List”, will show you how to create your bucket list as a blueprint for your ideal life, and turn it into reality.

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