The key is to balance times of stress with some recovery time and to recognize when it’s time to take a break.  Here are just a few ideas that you can put into action each day.

Active recovery: This might include taking a walk, going for a run, gardening or working out

Passive recovery: This category includes activities such as reading, watching a funny show, or listening to music

People time: Scheduling time with a friend or family member can really help you to feel renewed

Alone time: Relaxing or spending time alone to meditate is another great way to recharge

While stress can be an opportunity for personal growth, it’s important to listen to your body in order to maintain a healthy balance.  Try these various techniques and learn what works for you in a given moment. This way you will be refreshed and ready to face whatever may come your way.

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That is the makings of a true leader. One who leads from a place of wisdom and not using positional power alone.

You can have positional power and personal power, but you cannot be an effective leader without personal power. However, you do not need the positional power to be a driving force for good in your own life and those around you.

3 Tips to Boost Your Personal Power

1.  Strive to learn more

Commit to consistent learning and be broad about the topics you study. Study life and seek out seminars and workshops to build your expertise. Above all, learn more about yourself continually. Try new things, experiment, take some risks and put yourself into situations that make you feel vulnerable, maybe even push your “comfort zone” a bit.

  2.  Practice Mindful Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is among the most positive habits you can develop. Keeping a gratitude journal can serve you in multiple ways. You will feel better, sleep better, eat healthier, have stronger relationships with everyone important in your life, and you will feel happier for being grateful for everything you have surrounding you. You will be amazed at how an “attitude of gratitude” can change everything and everyone around you.

3.  Own Your Authenticity

Authenticity is about being true to you. Being genuine. This is only possible when you have in depth knowledge and know your strengths and weaknesses. You will begin to act with methodical intentions that are in line with your moral compass. You will know your place and when to delegate.  You will discover how to go about using your relationship skills to get people to do things for you that you know they will do a better job than you could if you were to try.

Coming from a place of personal power to influence others will help push you toward reaching your goals faster. You will have strong relationships with people who value your input, expertise, trust your credibility and will help you when you ask, without hesitation.

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If you are someone who creates a to-do list without considering your long-term goals, you may start feeling as though you are spinning your wheels. You will be going through the motions of “doing something” which will make the process of not getting anywhere that much more frustrating.

To-do lists are a good idea but, you need to make sure they are in-line with your goals. Consider taking a top-down approach to your tasks rather than bottom-up. Start with your long-term goals. Where do you see yourself in a few years from now? If you cannot answer that question, you need to do some soul-searching. Take the time to figure out what you want to accomplish at a high-level. Then, you can use that to break down into granular tasks. Finally, you use the mid-level tasks to help define the to-do list that you use daily.

People put off setting long-term goals because the time frame seems so far in the future. How can you be expected to know what is going to happen five to ten years from now? Try to choose the shorter-term time frames. You can measure what happens two weeks from now as it is going to happen soon.

Another problem with longer-term goals is one of commitment. People seem to think that when they declare a long-term goal, it becomes chiseled in stone, and they are required to commit to it. Hey, this is your list. Circumstances change, and It is ok to adjust your goals.

Once you have set your goals and have broken them down into sub-tasks, creating your to-do lists will follow easily, and they will get you closer to accomplishing your goals.

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You will find that when you do the same exercise routine, after a while you get fewer benefits from it. Your muscles become too used to the routine, and they will reach plateaus that are difficult to break through. By mixing up your routines, your muscles will have new plateaus to reach and will develop faster.

This is the reason that trainers mix up the exercises of their clients. They switch up the sets of routines to give the muscles the benefits from new exercises.

Yes, routine exercise is still better than no exercise at all. Without exercise, your muscles will start to break down and become out of shape. Once you start changing your routines, your muscles will be developed quicker.

Another benefit of incorporating different routines is your mindset about exercise will stay fresh. You can look forward to trying something different. Your muscles will hurt when you give something new a try for the first time, but it will not last forever. Let it just be a reminder that those muscles have not been getting the proper exercises.

Most people break their exercises into two major categories, cardio, and weight training. Cardio exercises can be performed more frequently than weight training. You can do cardio every day, but weight training should be staggered every other day or every two days. The rest period gives the muscles time to rebuild.

Even though you can do cardio training every day, it will still be beneficial to break up the exercises. Do the same exercise for a few weeks and then change to something different. Or, you can alternate between a variety of cardio exercises. If you use a treadmill one day, then use a cycle the next. If you jog one day, then take up swimming on the next day, etc.

Shaking up your exercise routines will give you the maximum benefits to your body, and you increase your chances of sticking with exercising. You will be happier as well as healthier because of it.

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When you make mistakes, you learn from them. That is what makes them so valuable. Of course, if you do not learn from them, you will be doomed to making the same mistakes repeatedly.

If you try too hard to avoid mistakes, you will probably end up making more of them. That is because no one is perfect. You simply cannot avoid mistakes and you should not.

Sometimes, the mistakes that you make will make people angry with you. If your actions did affect them, do what you can to rectify the situation. A simple apology may be all that is needed.

Just as you would like others to forgive you when you make mistakes, be forgiving of others when they make mistakes, and it affects you. Open your heart and let them make amends.

Once you give in to making mistakes, you will find it to be a freeing experience. You will no longer need to put so much pressure on yourself to avoid them.

Another aspect to consider is that mistakes can lead to positive unintended results. Just look at sticky notes by 3M. The researchers at the company set out to create a strong adhesive that resulted in a weak one. Someone at the company took the idea and used it to create the sticky notes product. There have been many instances of mistakes that lead to alternative solutions. These would not have happened if they were trying to avoid the mistakes.

Allow yourself to make mistakes which will help you to trust yourself.

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We also have routines in our society. In some ways, laws can be considered routines. You know that you are not supposed to run a red light and that can be thought of as a routine. When you come to a red light, you stop.

You set up routines for your kids in the form of chores. You know that certain tasks need to get done each week. Many parents tie kids’ allowances on these chores. When the kids finish their chores, they receive their allowances.

When you pay bills, you tend to have a routine for this. Some people like to:

• Pay bill upon receipt
• Pay on a certain day of month
• Pay automatically by their bank or brokerage.

There is only one right answer for how to do this. Whatever works for you. However, the method you choose will be routine.

Compare this to people who do not have routines to manage their lives. They tend to handle tasks when the mood strikes them. These people are usually late with their bills and have messy environments. Some of these people will say that this way of life works for them. However, for most people this is chaos. It is something that can easily be avoided by setting up routines for the tasks you need to complete.

Remember we all need to break up our routines on occasion. You may use weekends to do activities that you don’t get to do during the work week. Also, many families use vacations to help break up their routines.

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Most emotions are transitional, meaning, you are never in one state for long periods.

People who are considered upbeat will have moments of sadness or depression and even depressed people will have moments of happiness, too.

Think about a major event such as a war. When two countries are fighting, both sides lose lives. It is bloody, stressful, nerve shattering, and it can last for several years. But, once the war is over, the countries are elated. There will be no more bloodshed because of the war, and people can return to their homes.

However, think about it, there is nothing that has changed in the world with the exception that the war has ended. In other words, the sun still sets each day. People still must manage their lives. The elation from the war ending does not last long. Months later, the war is still over, but the euphoria has died down.

The same is true in a smaller way when you have a bad sickness. Say you have a stomach bug that leaves you uncomfortable and in pain. Once the bug passes, and you are better, you feel wonderful. However, you do not feel any better than you did before you were experiencing the bug. It is relative to the bad feelings. That is how emotional states work. They go from one to the other on a constant basis.

Appreciating the small things in life may lead to happiness. But it is likely you are content more than you are happy. Contentment can almost be thought of as a neutral state, leaning on the side of happy. There is not anything wrong when you are content but there also is not anything that is making you overly happy.

There may be too much pressure striving for happiness when you should be striving for contentment. The good news is your appreciation for small aspects of your life will lead to contentment without having to worry about trying to make yourself happy all the time. Those times will occur naturally.

If you spend most of your life content, you are doing something right. Think about all the people you love and what you have, such as your health and a good job, etc. If you try to imagine life without them, you will truly appreciate your contentment. Who knows, that thought may even make you happy for a short period.

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Think of all the things you are grateful for and start listing them. Who makes you happy? List out the aspects of what those people do to make you happy. If you love the way your spouse smiles at you, write that down.

No item is too small to add to the list. Possibly, you love the jokes that the coffee person tells you when you get your morning cup of coffee and muffin. Put that on the list, too.

Your list should never be complete as every day will bring new experiences and people to add to it. Remember that you make differences in other peoples’ lives as well. Try to make those experiences more positive than negative. Are there are people around you who bring you down?  Avoid them or try to help them to be more positive.

If you are the one bringing people down, you need to try and reverse this. The list will be a huge factor in helping you. Did you know negative and bitter feelings stem from not appreciating your life and all the things in it. That is why keeping a list is so important.

You can choose to write this list on a piece of paper, or you can store it electronically. It does not matter how you store it as long as it is easily accessible. Commit to reading it and update it regularly. Add to it as you find more things that you are grateful for in your life.

Maintaining this list could be the basis for a book that you write about appreciating your life. Publish your list.  You may help others do the same. When they read your ideas, they may get inspired to be grateful. Since everyone’s list will be different this could generate more ideas for your list. 

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Perhaps you are not a believer in such principles as LOA. You think it is hokum, and that the universe does not have a points system of sorts. However, it has been shown time and again that when people put out positive energy, they receive that in kind. The same is true for negative energy.

Even if you are not a believer, what can it hurt to direct positivity into the world? Your small circle of friends and your family will notice it. That is enough to validate staying positive and appreciate those smaller things in your life.

Negativity surrounds you.  It is so easy to get swallowed up in it. The news reports seem to show nothing but bad news on every channel. It is gotten worse with the increase of the internet. Someone can post a negative tweet, hundreds of people see it, then share it so the list of people seeing it grows into thousands.

Because the internet allows people to post comments anonymously, that makes matters worse. People would never say to someone’s face the negative garbage they write but, have no trouble spewing it on the internet. LOA works on the internet as well. People who post negative messages will find them returned. They cannot hide in their anonymity either. The universe has a way of bringing it back to them.

If you are one to say or post negative messages, think about the impact that has on others. It is hurtful, and it will affect them negatively. On the other hand, think about how wonderful those people would feel if you posted something nice about them. You should not make up these attributes. They should be true.

You should be able to find something nice to say about others. There is an old saying that if you cannot find something nice to say about someone, do not say anything at all. People should incorporate this saying and live by it, especially on the internet.

If you believe that the small items do not make a difference concerning LOA, think about the number of people that are alive on the planet. There are over six billion people. If everyone projected his or her appreciation for one small item, that would be a massive surge of positive energy.

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Who would you rather associate with, the high-strung person who does not appreciate anything or the person that appreciates everything? It is likely you chose the appreciative person. This person will also be able to handle major issues since he or she is at ease handling the minor ones.

It is true that appreciative people have lower stress than people who are not. Of course, this is not a way to reduce stress completely. Appreciative people still need to eat correctly and exercise well.

If you are hot-headed about every little item, it is time to reevaluate this attitude. When you take the time to be grateful, you will start to relax. You will stop jumping to conclusions, and you will look for ways to solve problems in a relaxed manner.

You can also use exercise and relaxation techniques such as meditation and massage. Keep trying different ways to relax but above all, be appreciative of your entire life. Others will be attracted towards you as they key off your positive energy. They will also be more willing to follow your lead.

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