then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

~Vincent van Gogh

Self-doubt can rob and steal excitement from your life. When we entertain and allow doubt to overtake our lives, we are essentially choosing to miss opportunities for growth. The little thief in the mind can have a big influence on our actions. Your voice may be saying you are too young, too old, too inexperienced, or not good enough. Silencing that voice is essential to building a persistent mindset.

Ways to silence the doubts:

Make the Decision -There is a lot of power behind making a decision. When you truly make a decision towards what you want, resolve to do whatever you can to make that decision a reality.

Don’t fear mistakes -We can often be afraid of making mistakes. That fear prevents us from taking action towards our goals. Mistakes can create learning opportunities that are needed if we truly want to advance in our lives.

Avoid doubters – Stay away from people who reinforce the doubting voice in your head. Finding people who encourage and support your goals can help quiet the voice of doubt.

When in doubt, do – Self doubt prevents decisive actions. Action is the key to success. If you come across a situation where you begin to doubt your ability, take action.

From: http://workawesome.com/productivity/perseverance/#more-14192

“It’s easy to go running once. It isn’t even that hard to go running for an entire month. What’s really difficult is going running, day after day, for years. It’s easy to start something; it’s much harder to consistently finish it.

Many people think consistency is a matter of willpower. That the people who exercise every day, always save a percentage of their income. Or those who manages to upkeep a blog for years have a special ability to endure.

I completely disagree. I think consistency has little to do with willpower and I want to use this article to explain why.”

“The Power of Consistency

Before I start talking about how to be consistent, I think it’s important to clarify why I believe consistency is important to start with. Many people associate consistency with boredom and a lack of initiative. People have told me earnestly that if something isn’t improving after a few weeks or months, you need to change it.

If that’s your attitude, consistency will be difficult. Consistency is about working on a larger timescale than weeks and months. A consistent person doesn’t care that their weight loss plan isn’t working after three weeks, or that their website isn’t earning six figures after three months. A consistent person looks at the longer time horizon, where the little hiccups of progress are smoothed out over the next years and decades.

Consistency works because while continually starting has short-term momentum, it doesn’t build anything. Doing the same thing every day eventually snowballs into tremendous progress because it doesn’t stop.

What’s the best way to be in shape? Exercise, for five years. What’s the best way to launch an online business? Practice running one for a decade. What’s the best approach to enhance your social life? Put yourself outside your comfort zone, every day, for years.”

Article from here

Black Swan Event is categorized by

1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
2. The event has a major impact.
3. After its first recording, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected (e.g., the relevant data were available but not accounted for).

*** ever feel like you don’t know enough? Things that you should know but don’t?

I am hungry for an education.

Whimsically beautiful dresses. Image from Stephie Says

Beautiful flowers for Spring

Dancing

Spontaneous Idealists are creative, lively and open-minded persons. They are humorous and dispose of a contagious zest for life. Their enthusiasm and sparkling energy inspires others and sweeps them along. They enjoy being together with other people and often have an uncanny intuition for their motivations and potential. Spontaneous Idealists are masters of communication and very amusing and gifted entertainers. Fun and variety are guaranteed when they are around. However, they are sometimes somewhat too impulsive in dealing with others and can hurt people without really meaning to do so, due to their direct and sometimes critical nature. This personality type is a keen and alert observer; they miss nothing which is going on around them. In extreme cases, they tend to be oversensitive and exaggeratedly alert and are inwardly always ready to jump. Life for them is an exciting drama full of emotionality. However, they quickly become bored when things repeat themselves and too much detailed work and care is required. Their creativity, their imaginativeness and their originality become most noticeable when developing new projects and ideas – they then leave the meticulous implementation of the whole to others. On the whole, Spontaneous Idealists attach great value to their inner and outward independence and do not like accepting a subordinate role. They therefore have problems with hierarchies and authorities.

As a Spontaneous Idealist you are one of the extroverted personality types. You enjoy working in a colorfully diverse group of people who interest and inspire you. Working in a “secluded room” is not your thing. Your sense for the motivation of others is almost eerie. You constantly observe that which happens around you and have no problems noticing all sorts of things simultaneously or communicating with several people at the same time. Your enthusiasm is contagious to others and that is why your colleagues and friends all appreciate you as an important member of your team. Your articulateness and your sensitive ear for nuances in conversations with others obviously play a role. For you, this team-oriented environment is very important because you need to receive positive feedback and recognition like other people need air to breathe. It would be practically impossible for you to contribute everything you need to maintain your high ideals, by yourself. Variety, challenges and fun are important ingredients of your area of responsibility. You appreciate receiving new stimulation, meeting new people, and continuously collecting unique experiences. However, too much routine, too much detail work and the necessity to stick with one project for a very long time is not your thing. Your strength are creative problem solutions, discovering new ways and opportunities, the conceptualization of new ideas on one hand, but not so much their concrete implementation on the other. Ideally, you have a staff of capable colleagues that takes over your concepts and runs with them. Your working environment should be chosen to continuously offer new developments that you can then deal with and by which you can measure yourself. Once you figure out at that a profession can only offer you limited professional and personal self-improvement alternatives you would probably become very unhappy. Particularly for people of your type it is worthwhile to once in a while consider a radical change in your profession. You will be able to deal with the associated demands without a problem as long as your curiosity and need for self-development are satisfied at the same time.

from here

from here

I can’t wait for April, May and June.

Love Natalie Portman, love Sofia Coppola. The 1st clip which is starring Maryna Linchuk is also directed by Sofia.

what a pretty advert for such a pretty bottle of sweetness.

Love the song, miss Japan. Just can’t get enough of Japan

Japan is one of my favourite countries that I have visited. I love everything about it, from people to food, the orderly transportation to the beautiful countryside, the towering skyscrapers to the pretty sakuras in spring. However Mother Nature has once again shown what it can do to one of the most earthquake/tsunami prepared countries in the world. I honestly don’t know how the Japanese will survive. But I know the Japanese will, through their resilience and tenacity, they can and they will. So Japan, please recover.

If you wish to play a part to do something for them, maybe you can donate here. I donated.

Images below from here. Journalists around the world are putting their lives in danger by going to ground zero to bring us the latest reports and the stories of those who survived. I pray for their safety and thank you!

It was a pretty awesome and incredible experience. Complete with champagne. Which is bad idea for a work night. What a night.