In the nine years I worked as a professor, I’ve observed judgement all of the time. Students would judge themselves as stupid if they got even a B on their assignment. Being as though I was teaching basic skills courses, students were very judgemental about how they did not needed the course.

For others not to judge us, we grow up trying to fit into certain circles of friends. This creates us to loose who we really are and who we really want to be. We judge other people to fit the roles we expect them to play.

Today I encourage you to be the observer in your classrooms and when you are hanging around your social circles. What are you saying about yourself? What are you saying about other people? The more you judge yourself, the more you judge others.

If you catch yourself judging, don’t judge yourself for that. Just be mindful that today you are setting an intention to not judge anything that occurs throughout your day. The more you practice this you’ll be less judgemental of your teachers. You’ll be able to communicate with your teachers and your social circles much better. Because you have made the decision that right and wrong don’t exists. All that exists is the story being played out in front of you.

Take the non-judgement challenge today!

As the famous saying goes, “life happens.” And when it does, sometimes we feel forced into a decision we do not want to make. But as individuals, we always have a choice, even if  the decision in front of you is a tough one. And when you listen to your inner self, you realize that you know the decision that is best for you.

One of the activities I do with my clients when they have a tough decision in front of them is to write out the pros and cons of each decision. I have a particular format in which I set up all of the choices in front of them. We go through a series of questions as we fill out the exercise. Not once, in my three years of coaching, has anyone been unsure about their decision once we’re done with the exercise.

The exercise is really not that complicated. All the client is doing is writing down the assets and liabilities of each decision. But what makes the activity so effective? When faced with a tough decision, many people panic and convince themselves that they don’t know what to choose. They don’t realize that if they choose something that doesn’t work for them, there is always an opportunity to make another decision that works better.

The questioning I do as a Collegiate Career Coach simply makes people conscious of their feelings towards the options they have in front of them, and the resulting impact of choosing each option. In panic mode, people are not able to think clearly and therefore make their choice out of fear.

Choices out of fear never work. Why? Fear-based decisions are based off of what you do not want to attract in your life. But making a decision from that mind frame will only bring what you do not desire into your life.

Choices made with a clear and centered mind always work, because you can see all of your options and evaluate the risks you are or are not willing to take in making a tough decision.

These negative thoughts completely cancel out the thoughts of the good stuff that’s happening in our lives. So, when I’m faced with a challenge, I have learned to practice a gratefulness exercise.

Just recently, my laptop crashed and my hard drive was completely corrupted. As a writer, this was my worst nightmare. One of the things that made it even worse is that I always planned to back my information up, as all tech professionals suggest, but I just kept putting it off because I felt I was always too busy to just stop by the store and get it.

The day after I found out that I would have to pay $1,095 to get my data recovered and purchase a new laptop, which was another $1,000, I noticed my thoughts were only focusing how upset about the entire situation. As I was walking into school the next day, I acknowledged my thoughts and chose to turn them into something different. I started thinking of all the things I am grateful for in my life: my family, my friends, my recent move to Florida, my new job at Seminole State College, etc. All of a sudden I could feel my face brighten up and feel at ease. The positive energy transferred into my classroom. My students were upbeat and ready to learn.
If we are not conscious of our negative thoughts, we can easily fall into a bad mood. When we encounter other people with our bad mood, what’s the likelihood they will want to be nice to us or even be around us?

Sometimes the voices in our head are implanted by other people telling us what we can and cannot accomplish. But remember that you and only you can control the limits you set on your abilities. If someone else is telling you what you are not capable, that has nothing to do with you. It is only a reflection of the limits that person has in their own mind.

Always remember the principle that being happy does not come from having a perfect life and things always going our way. It’s focusing on what is going well in your our lives and building off of that. If we truly believe, accept and practice this principle, our challenges will be resolved with ease.

Many people do not follow their instincts, because they either ignore them or cannot sense them at all.

As a writing professor, I read student essays on many topics. One popular topic I’ve assigned over the years is to write about a valuable time in each student’s life when they’ve learned a valuable lesson. Most of the essays I’ve received from that assignment have been lessons where students knew that one decision was better for them but they chose the opposite decision because they wanted to go along with the opinions of their friends.

That’s what many of us do, even when it comes to choosing a college degree or future major. We go with the flow of what we think—or we’ve come to expect about what—we can or cannot do. For instance, I recently interviewed a woman on my Tuesday evening USTREAM show who knew she no longer wanted to be in Detroit. Her heart’s desire was to move to Los Angeles and pursue a career in entertainment public relations. She knew no one in the town, and many people suggested that she abandon her dream and maintain the security of sticking with the job she already had. She didn’t listen. She packed up her car and drove out to Los Angeles. In three months she had the job of her dreams. She now works with famous people all over the entertainment industry.

Some people fear that if they follow their instincts, the risk will be too great and success will not be in their future. It’s actually quite the opposite. If God put the dream in your heart, all you have to do is listen and believe in it. Even more than believing, you need to have an inner knowing that your inner self is right on target and have no doubts.

Why don’t some people respond to their instincts? There are a few reasons. Some of us listen to the wrong “influences” in our lives, which can sometimes be friends or even our own family. It’s like having the radio turned up really loud, so that we can’t hear our own independent thoughts. But other people’s thoughts and opinions don’t necessarily work for us. We also fill our time with too many activities. In order to better hear your inner self, take time each day to sit quietly and let your mind drift. You owe it to yourself and your destiny.

As a professor, business owner, writer, daughter, sister, aunt and friend, I want to get everything done, sometimes all in one day. Yet, I have learned that when I overload my list of activities, I run myself down—physically and mentally. When I run myself down, I’m unable to perform my activities on the level to which I would prefer.

So each week I make myself a list of priorities, which I call, “My List of Dreams to Fulfill.” Knowing what my overall goals are, I list all the activities I would like to complete in order to fulfill them. I then rank the list in order of priorities. I almost never complete the entire list by the end of each week, but the most important activities that I’ve identified as important are always done. And the activities that I have ranked and not finished are either removed from my list due to its lack of importance or move up in rank for the following week. Allow yourself to be okay completing the top three. That’s an accomplishment wroth of celebration.

Another key to managing your activities is asking for help. You’ll be surprised at how your family and friends really want to be a part of helping you fulfill your dreams. And for my professional business activities, I hire others who specialize in activities they complete far quicker than I would, especially with my busy schedule.
Hiring someone to do your work in college is definitely not a wise idea because, in addition to cheating, you will never know the information yourself. However, seeking extra help from your professor or your school’s tutoring center will allow you to complete your work with more confidence and in a timely manner. If there is someone in your class who seems to understand the material that you may be struggling with, get their contact information and arrange a study session together.

People explain things in different ways. Hearing the information from someone else might give you some clarity and allow you to complete your work in a timely manner. The more you understand, the easier it will be for you to complete your work.

So go ahead and create your own personal “Dreams to Fulfill” list, and seek help from others around you.

When writing in your journal, it is important to write about whatever comes to mind. I recommend writing at the end of your day, before going to bed, so that you can include as many of the day’s events. Try to remember as much as you can about your day, using Post-it Notes to jot down certain things that impacted you throughout the day.

Make sure that your journal includes three important pieces of information:

• Include every event that impacted you. If it was important enough to remember or you made a note of it during the day, it influenced you in some meaningful way.
• Write down the feelings you had surrounding each event you mentioned in your journal. Then take as much time as you need to think about why you felt the way you felt. There is always a lesson hidden in the emotion you feel when an event takes place.
• Log the reactions you had to each event. Determine if that is the reaction that you’d like to have if that event occurred again. If not, then write down how you’d like to change that reaction.

In order to make journal writing a consistent part of your weekly schedule, assign a certain amount of days that you commit to writing. Allow one additional day that will give you the opportunity to review your entries from that week. Reflect on them.

Between the margins, point out the parts of your true self that you embrace and want to keep a part of your being. Also, include notes about the parts of your true self that you’d like to change. When considering making alterations, think about some of the people you admire, whether you know them or not. The things we admire in others are aspects that we already possess in ourselves somewhat but may not yet express as much as we’d like to.

Don’t doubt it for a minute that who you are influences what you do and how you do it. Let’s use a career example to show you exactly what I mean. If I have a student who does not value education and is only in school because his or her parents told him or her that is what he or she had to do after high school, that student is going to do is the bare minimum to pass classes. This is not you’re “A” or “B” student but the student who may or may not pass the class.

The student does this is by exerting only the slightest effort. The student does not study, does assignments last minute, and does not accept tutoring services when offered. The student just described has inner conflict and is not living a fulfilled and happy life in school or in any other aspect of his or her life.

Everyone has a foundation that makes up a part of who we are created from the environment from which we were raised, our families, our friends, the society around us, our religious background, our beliefs, and our morals and values. But what many people do not understand is that our foundation can be changed. Some parts of this foundation might work well for you right now in your life. If that’s the case, keep those aspects of your foundation. But for the parts of your foundation that aren’t working in your life, get rid of them so that you can be who you want to be.

Being your true self is so important, because it allows you to expose the gifts you have to offer to the world. If you keep them inside and don’t share them with anyone else, the world will miss your contribution.

One of the biggest blocks that prevents people from being who they want to be is fear of judgment from others. Some people worry about what their parents might think about their decisions, and others fear what their peers might think about their decisions. Fear of the peers is often referred to as peer pressure. No matter what age, many people feel they have to do what everyone else is doing so they can fit in. Most people think this only happens with teens and young adults, but the truth is that for a large chunk of life we all try to fit in at work, in our social groups, and within our families.

If you fear what others might think of you and your decisions, you are not tapped into your true self. If you live your life they way you want to live it, you’ve found the freedom that has been your right since you arrived on this Earth.

Tapping into your true self takes courage, because it may go against the grain of others you know and love. But if you feel you are living life the way it is supposed to be for you, keep going. You are on the right track.

When faced with a challenge, the first step is to accept the challenge and embrace it. It might sound crazy, because challenges are usually viewed as a source of causing some level of difficulty in our lives. Only after the challenge has been embraced can you deal with it on a higher sense of consciousness. Looking at the challenge or problem from a different perspective will reveal the multitude of choices you have in front of you. It’s all about how you react to the situation.

One of my favorite quotes by Albert Einstein is, “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” This simply means looking at the challenge or problem in front of you with a new set of eyes, a set that is willing to look outside the box in order to come up with the solution that works best for you.

I may be a life coach, but I’m also human like everybody else. I like it when my life runs smoothly without problems. But I also realize that my life will only run as smoothly as my mind is willing to allow. If I can open my mind up to the opportunities that a challenge has to offer, I don’t need to get stressed out about the situation.

Recently, I made an appointment for a very important meeting to be held on a Thursday. The meeting meant a lot to me in a variety of ways. I was grateful to have it. In order to prepare for this meeting, I had asked a friend to send me 4 lbs. worth of documents from New Jersey to Florida.

She shipped it on a Monday, and we both anticipated and were told that I would receive it that Tuesday evening two days ahead of my meeting. I was charged for the price of the overnight delivery. I had no doubt in my mind that it was going to arrive Tuesday evening and planned on picking it up from the front desk of my building after my USTREAM.tv show I hold live every Tuesday night.

As I was writing this very exact article, I had so much to say about turning challenges into opportunities that I got a bit of writer’s block. My usual remedy for writers block is to scan the Internet for awhile, and then go back to what I’m writing. Often I’ll see something that will spark an idea or lead me to the next thing I want to express.

Believing that everything happens for a reason and there are no coincidences, I don’t think checking my personal email instead of scanning the Internet just happened by chance. I checked my email and realized that my friend had been sending emails all day and was in touch with UPS to rectify a challenge that occurred with the shipping of the package. Although I was charged full price for overnight shipping, the package was sent ground and was scheduled to arrive Thursday night. But my meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning.

Because of my fear about how not having the papers would negatively affect the meeting, I was about to express my frustration with the customer service representative at the company. But I thought consciously thought through the situation first, before reacting. I chose to consider the opportunities I could gain from the situation. It turned out I gained two opportunities.

First, I was able to negotiate a solution with the manager. As soon as I was transferred to her, she began to explain to me that there was nothing she could do and told me to deal with the store from where the package was shipped. She said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not the one who made the mistake.”

Speaking with her on a higher energy level, I acknowledged that she definitely was not at fault, but assured her that as a manager working out of the national office of her company, she was more than capable to help me resolve the situation. Positive communication in a challenging situation is always an opportunity to encourage myself and others who may be involved.

It did. Immediately, the confidence level in her voice perked up and her desire to help was apparent in her voice. And that’s exactly what she did. She took five minutes to think outside of the box, and resolved the situation almost immediately.

Another opportunity I gained from the situation was that I no longer had writer’s block. I believe in the theory of whatever intention you put out into the Universe is what you are going to receive back. I was looking for something to write with a good example of a recent challenge, and I was presented with one.

With any challenge my clients face, I have them write down the challenge so that they can embrace and understand it better. Then I have them write out any opportunities they can see from the situation. Depending on the circumstance, some challenges may be easier to see opportunities from than others. As a result, I am there to ask them questions to reveal the different opportunities they are willing to view from their perspective.

You must decide for yourself which category feels most appropriate for you. Even if someone else wants to challenge you in a confrontation, take the time to recognize that the confrontation can only take place if you involve yourself in it too. It’s easier to choose peace if you look at the challenging person and your situation with the person you have identified as challenging as an opportunity to learn something about yourself.

Whether the “challenging person” is someone you choose to surround yourself with or someone who just happens to be in your class at school or in your workplace, you technically have a relationship with him or her. Remember that relationships teach you more about yourself. The characteristics you love about someone else are characteristics you possess within yourself. The “funny” thing is that the thing that irks you about that “challenging person,” is a characteristic you possess, too.

A longtime childhood friend of mine finds every opportunity to be right and finding peace is not as much of a value for her than it is for me. The one thing that used to irk me the most about her was that she always tried to tell everyone what to do with their life. As a life coach, that’s completely against the grain of what I believe. I believe everyone has their own answers inside of themselves. After seriously looking at myself and my personality, I realized this bothered me so much because I also sometimes thought I knew—and expressed—what the best answer was for people, especially when it came to family and friends. I turned this realization into an opportunity to change that unappealing characteristic. If I despised that quality in others, I surely didn’t want it anymore for myself.

Through meditation and affirmations to change my way of thinking, I learned to love people for who they are no matter what decision they made. I learned that I am responsible for me, and each person on this earth is responsible for themselves. This lesson improved my life coaching skills, and also my time spent with family and friends. It was obvious my family and friends felt more comfortable around me, because of my change of attitude. The most interesting part, to me, was that I no longer judged my childhood friend. I didn’t even notice that characteristic within her anymore.

We all know or have met someone in our lives that we have found it difficult to get along with. Take it as an opportunity to learn something more about yourself, look for where that characteristic shows up in your life, and use it to make yourself who you really want to be.