6 Ways to Keep Long-Term Relationships Exciting

 

The truth is, over time, our feelings in our relationships do change. The sparkly and exhilarating rush of falling in love is not permanent. But that does not mean that this feeling disappears; it simply evolves. The idea that the excitement of a relationship is sentenced to only the first months or even years a couple is together is completely false.
When it comes to a long-term relationship with a partner we ourselves chose, we can maintain the thrill of being in love, and deepen our feelings of passion and intimacy.

8 Things You Shouldn’t Do Before Bed. You shouldnt miss this

Oh, the power of a good night’s sleep. A whole gamut of positive benefits can be seen from getting enough rest, but for many of us, hitting the sack can be challenging. There’s plenty of advice out there about what to do to get to sleep but what about what not to do? Click through for some of the pre-bedtime activities that could be hurting your chance at getting a good night’s sleep.

1. Exercise
No, you don’t get to ditch your yoga mat or running shoes all together. Exercise is a vital activity for your health, and can actually contribute to getting better-quality sleep. The problem, though, is that exercising within three hours of bedtime can raise your body temperature, and make dozing off more difficult. Breaking a sweat, then, is best left for earlier in the day!

5 Things You Need To Stop Doing if you want to live long.

These actions of yours are causing you to cut the years off your life

There are certain actions you do on a daily basis that are helping to prolong your life. At the same time, there are some that are causing you to cut the years off your life. It’s time to stop doing them, and focus on the good things. Here are five of the actions that you really need to bring a stop to now!

1. Sitting Throughout the Day

You may not have a choice with your job, but it’s really important to sit for as little as possible. Studies have shown that those who sit for more than three hours a day do more damage to their health, and damage that regular exercise cannot help combat against.
Those who sit for 11 hours or more a day for three years increase their chances of dying sooner by 40%.

4 ways to take your marriage from average to awesome

How would you rate your marriage right now? Are you happier, healthier and more fulfilled than you’ve ever been, or have the struggles and daily grind of life put your romance on the back burner? I believe we all want our marriages to be awesome, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to make it a reality.
I live in the “real world” just like you, and I know that not everyday can look like a honeymoon, but I also strongly believe that most married couples settle for an existence of mediocrity when something much greater is within their reach. As I’ve interacted with couples from all over the globe, I’ve found some trends that can help move a marriage from “average” to “awesome.” Here’s how to get started:

How to rebuild trust

Trust is a tricky thing. It is the foundation of every healthy relationship. It is the security that makes intimacy possible. It can be simultaneously strong and yet very fragile. It takes great effort and time to build, but it can be broken quickly.
Almost every relationship has encountered difficulties over broken trust. I would even argue that most difficulties in relationships stem directly from a breach of trust. Strong relationships (especially marriages) require strong trust, so here are a few ways to to build it (or rebuild it).


1. Don’t keep secrets.
In marriage, secrets are as dangerous as lies. Your spouse should have a “master key” to every part of your life. Never have a conversation you wouldn’t want them to hear, view a website you wouldn’t want them to see or go someplace you wouldn’t want them to know about. Complete transparency is vital to building complete trust.
2. Recognize the difference between forgiveness and trust.
Forgiveness and trust are two different things. When you’ve been wronged, you should give forgiveness instantly (which is “Grace”), but you should give your trust slowly (which is “common sense!”). Forgiveness by it’s very nature cannot be earned; it can only be given. Trust by it’s very nature cannot be given; it can only be earned. Forgiveness has to come first and then grace can pave the way to restoration and renewed trust.

10 Things to Remember When You Feel Lost and Alone

 

1.  You are not alone in being alone.

So many of us are fighting the same exact battle alongside you.  We are all in this together.  So no matter how embarrassed or pathetic you feel about your own situation, know that there are others out there experiencing the same emotions.  When you hear yourself say, “I am all alone,” it’s just your worried mind trying to sell you a lie.  There’s always someone who can relate to you.  Perhaps you can’t immediately talk to them, but they are out there, and that’s all you need to know right now.

Tips On How To Make A Man Want To Love You

 

What’s the secret to keeping a man happy? The answer is simple: listen to him, support him, be nice to him and don’t ignore his sëxual needs.

Although situations vary, most decent men are loyal to a woman who takes this simple approach. Of coursethis applies to men who are emotionally available for meaningful love. But one of the things that we discussed during our panel on black males is that there is a perception that black men are not interested in finding meaningful love or getting married.

10 Lies Most Men Tell Their Partners

 

While lies come in all sizes and shades, here are the more common fibs that the male of the species is more inclined to dish out— sometimes to get out of a fix, oftentimes to keep his partner happy, and at other times because it’s ever so convenient and hassle-free!

1. “I wasn’t checking her out.’
They will deny till they turn blue in the face that they were checking out another woman while you were very much in the vicinity. They’ll protest how until you accused them, they didn’t even register the presence of the sexy, curvaceous woman in the mall, or airport, or wherever it is such women frequent.

8 Vegetables That Make You Look Beautiful

 

Looking to improve your appearance without having to invest in expensive beauty products or surgical procedures? The truth is, the secret to being beautiful does not come with a high price. In fact, you only need to be more conscious about the foods you eat and make sure that what you put on your plate can benefit not only your health, but your skin as well. Fortunately, health and beauty go hand in hand – and that means as long as you stay healthy, you can look naturally attractive, too. 

So, forget about those pricey skin creams and cosmetic surgeries, and consider eating several types of vegetables that make you look beautiful. With these food items, you will notice your skin clearing up, your eyes looking bright and stunning, and your body looking as gorgeous as ever!

1. Spinach

Eating dark leafy greens such as spinach can offer life-changing benefits on your health and overall appearance. It’s not pure magic or empty promises, but it’s the impressive component in spinach that makes all of these possible. For instance, spinach is loaded with zeaxanthin and carotenoids lutein, which are essential substances that can make your eyes look more youthful and brighter. After all, you can’t be beautiful with tired and red eyes, since that’s the first thing people see when they look at you. What’s more, spinach is rich in iron, an important mineral that can give you a healthier-looking complexion. So, make it a point to eat spinach everyday to achieve all these promising skin health benefits. Toss in some spinach in your salads or sauteed veggies, or use it as side dish to your tasty steak for an extra boost on your health. To give an interesting taste to your spinach, add some heavy cream, olive oil and blue cheese on these leafy greens. You may even prepare a zesty spinach smoothie combined with cucumber, broccoli and lime for a refreshing and nutritious drink.

4 things every wife desires from her husband.

 

This is not a comprehensive list, but here are four things most women desire from their husbands:
1. Open, honest, consistent communication.
Communication does for a marriage what breathing does for your lungs. Be willing to turn off ESPN and put your iPhone down and engage in meaningful conversation. Never hide anything from her! Build a foundation of trust, honesty and open communication. Every one of your words and every action is either building more of her trust or eroding her trust in you. Remove distractions and make communication a high priority.

15 Things You Must Give Up to Be Happy Again

 

1. Choosing to do nothing. – You don’t get to choose how you are going to die, or when.  You can only decide how you are going to live, right now.  Every day is a new chance to choose.  Choose to change your perspective.  Choose to flip the switch in your mind from negative to positive.  Choose to turn on the light and stop fretting about with insecurity and doubt.  Choose to do work that you are proud of.  Choose to see the best in others, and to show your best to others.  Choose to truly LIVE your life, right now.
2. The excuses you keep reciting to yourself. – Sooner or later you will come to realize that it’s not what you lose along the way that counts; it’s what you do with what you still have.  When you let go, forgive, and move on, you in no way change the past, you change the future.  

4 Ways to LIVE Today, and Not Merely Exist

 

1.  Invest the present in what matters most to you.

You are the customer of a bank called Time.  Every morning it credits you with eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds.  Every night it writes off, as a loss, whatever remainder you have failed to invest to good purpose.  It carries over no balance.  It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you with the same deposit of eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds.  Each night it burns the remains of the day.
If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.  There is no going back.  There is no drawing against the tomorrow.  You must live in the present on today’s deposits only.  Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success.
You’re making withdrawals right this second.  The only question is: Are you making them count?

30 Must-Do’s While You’re Young Enough to Read This

 

1. Accept every unique piece of yourself. – The secret to happiness and success is the acceptance of yourself.  You will never become who you want to be if you rely on everyone else to qualify you.  Own yourself completely, just the way you are, flaws and all.  Once you love and accept even the worst possible version of yourself, you are free.  So always go with yourself, never against yourself.  Be who you were created to be and you will set the world on fire.
2. Make yourself a priority. – Truth be told, there are only a few people in this world who will stay 100% true to you, and YOU should be one of them.  Prioritize your own needs into your daily to-do’s.

25 Things You Need to Stop Wasting Time On

 

1. Distractions that keep you from special moments with special people. – Pay attention to the little things, because when you really miss someone you miss the little things the most, like just laughing together.  Go for long walks.  Indulge in great conversations.  Count your mutual blessings.  Let go for a little while and just BE together.
2. Compulsive busyness. – Schedule time every day to not be busy.  Have dedicated downtime – clear points in the day to reflect, rest, and recharge.  Don’t fool yourself; you’re not so busy that you can’t afford a few minutes of sanity.
3. Negative thinking about your current situation. – Life is like a mirror; we get the best results when we smile.  So talk about your blessings more than you talk about your problems.  Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing.  Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there.

12 Things Successful People Do Differently

 

1.  They create and pursue S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Successful people are objective.  They have realistic targets in mind.  They know what they are looking for and why they are fighting for it.  Successful people create and pursue S.M.A.R.T. goals.
S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.  Let’s briefly review each:

• Specific – A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a related specific goal would be, “Join a health club and workout 3 days a week for the next 52 weeks.”  A specific goal has a far greater chance of being accomplished because it has defined parameters and constraints.
• Measurable – There must be a logical system for measuring the progress of a goal.  To determine if your goal is measurable, ask yourself questions like:  How much time? How many total?  How will I know when the goal is accomplished? etc.  When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued efforts required to reach your goal.

40 Regrets You Don’t Want to Have in 40 Years

 

1. Spending too little time with the right people. – Sooner or later, you just want to be around the people who make you smile.  So today, spend time with those who help you love yourself more.  And remember, the people you take for granted today may be the only ones you need tomorrow.  Never be too busy to make time for those who matter most.
2. Not making your loved ones smile more often. – The most beautiful thing is to see a person you love smile, and even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason

20 Self-Confidence Traps Holding Smart People Back

 

Do you ever feel like a duck stuck in white water, paddling furiously and never getting any closer to where you want to go?  The goals and dreams you have just aren’t coming together, and you’re not sure where or why you’re missing the mark.
You think you’re doing your best and busting your butt at work, but that promotion never materializes.  You’re so excited about the date you had last week, and you thought it went well, but he never responds to follow-up calls.  You work really hard at a new business idea, put in significant time, effort, and energy, but for some reason it just never catches on.
So you catch yourself thinking, “What’s wrong with me?  Am I not good enough?  Am I not smart enough?”
Then at other times you know you’re not on your ‘A’ game, but you try to cover it up.  You put on a happy face and hope no one notices how fearful and full of doubt you’re feeling.  And while acting confidently like this, despite your doubt, may be a decent strategy for boosting self-confidence over the long-term,

10 Little Habits that Steal Your Happiness

 

You ultimately become what you repeatedly do.  If your habits aren’t helping you, they’re hurting you.  Here are a few examples of the latter that will steal your happiness if you let them:

1.  Focusing on everyone’s story except your own.

Don’t be so satisfied with the success stories of others and how things have gone for them that you forget to write your own.  Unfold your own tale and bring it to life.  You have everything you need to become what you are capable of becoming.  Incredible change happens when you decide to take control.  This means consuming less and creating more.  It means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and deciding for you.  It means learning to respect and use your own ideas and instincts to write your passage.
If you want your life story to soar to new heights, you’ve got to clear a path, reduce the time-sinks and burdens weighing you down, and pick up the things that give you wings.  Keep your best wishes and your biggest goals close to your heart and dedicate time to them every day.  If you truly care about what you do and you work diligently at it, there’s almost nothing you can’t accomplish.

2.  Waiting for the perfect moment.

Don’t buy into the myth of the perfect moment. 

9 Good Signs You’re in the Right Relationship

 

1.  No games are being played.

Far too often, we make our relationships harder than they have to be.  The difficulties started when… conversations became texting, feelings became subliminal, sex became a game, the word “love” fell out of context, trust faded as honesty waned, insecurities became a way of living, jealously became a habit, being hurt started to feel natural, and running away from it all became our solution.  Stop running!  Face these issues, fix the problems, communicate, appreciate, forgive and LOVE the people in your life who deserve it.
And of course, if you feel like someone is playing games with you, speak up.

2.  Everyone is on the same page.

If a woman starts out all casual with a man and she doesn’t tell him that she wants a committed relationship, it will likely never become a committed relationship.  If you give someone the impression that casual, or whatever, is okay with you, that’s what will be assumed going forward.  The bottom

6 Things Happy People Never Do

 

Happy people do a lot of things.  They spend time expressing gratitude, cultivating optimism, practicing kindness, nurturing loving relationships, committing to meaningful goals, savoring life’s little pleasures, and so on and so forth.
But they NEVER…

1.  Mind other people’s business.

Forget about what others are doing.  Stop looking at where they are and what they have.  Nobody is doing better than you because nobody can do better than you.  YOU are walking your own path.  Sometimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes circumstances with everyone else’s public highlight reel.  We listen to the noise of the world, instead of ourselves.  So stop the comparisons!  Ignore the distractions.  Listen to your own inner voice.  Mind your own business.
Keep your best wishes and your biggest goals close to your heart and dedicate time to them every day.  Don’t be scared to walk alone, and

8 Ways to Stop Hurting Your Happiness

 

It takes no more time to see the good side of life and act upon it than it does to see the bad side and trip over it.  If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change your thinking.  If you know you’re on the wrong track right now, take a deep breath.  It’s OK.  Sometimes you have to be wrong before you can be right.
The road of life is rarely smooth.  It’s easy to stumble and fall and hurt yourself.  But these bumps and bruises are a necessary part of your growth – you fall down, you learn something, and then you brush yourself off and move forward.
Today, let’s take a step forward.  Your bad habits – the ones that hurt your health and happiness – are 100% dependent on YOU for their

30 Things to Start Doing for Yourself

 

1. Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways.  They are the ones who make you feel more alive, and not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be, unconditionally.

8 Things You Should Never Give Up for a Relationship

“It’s been exactly ten years since my controlling, abusive ex-fiancé sold my favorite guitar which cost almost $1,000 and took me ages to save for.  He sold it on the day I broke up with him.  When I went to pick up my belongings, he was proud that he had sold it to a local pawnshop.  Luckily, I managed to track down the guy that bought it from the pawnshop.  The guy was really sweet and gave it back to me for free, on the condition that I join him on his front porch for an hour and play guitar with him.  He grabbed a second guitar and we ended up sitting there on his porch for the rest of the afternoon playing music, talking, and laughing.  He’s been my husband for almost nine years now, and we are happier now than ever.”
That’s a paraphrased version of a story one of our coaching clients, Megan, lived through a while back.  It’s one of those life stories that really stuck with me – one that I still think about on a regular basis.  And it immediately came to mind this morning when a new reader of ours, Jay, emailed me a long story about his present, broken relationship.  Specifically this one line jumped out at me: