Ecstatic Gathering

For whatever reason, I always find myself serving some sort of recruiting function at every job I’ve worked at.

I did actually work an internship in HR recruiting years ago. That was my first internship in college and vetting resumes was part of my job, as well as interviewing people.

But I’ve gone on to do data analytics, research and development, marketing, and other things.

But for one reason or another, I’ve always been tapped to review resumes for certain open positions, even if those open positions aren’t necessarily adjacent to the position I’m holding.

The job market is competitive.

Many people are looking for jobs.

Many jobs exist, but many people are fighting for the same jobs. And as someone who reviews resumes, I’m simultaneously trying to spot the perfect candidate and find ways to speed up the process.

The easiest way to speed up the resume review process is to identify resume deal-breakers so that as soon as I see those, I can throw the resumes into the shred pile without having to spend any additional time reviewing them in detail.

Along the way, I’ve identified 4 common themes that make me automatically reject a resume:

1. Completely irrelevant experience

You applied for a marketing content job, but your experience is in accounting.

Don’t get me wrong, people switch careers all the times. But every single person I’ve invited for an interview that had completely non-adjacent experience demonstrated that they applied for the job just because it was a open job and they want one.

There’s nothing wrong with transitioning careers. And some people are early enough in their career that they may not have any professional experience at all.

There’s nothing wrong with not having work experience and trying to get into an entry-level position; we all have to start somewhere.

But I’ve had enough interviews with people who clearly didn’t know what it was they applied for that I tend to be wary when there’s no obvious tie to the job I’m recruiting for.

2. Typos

Everything I’ve ever hired for requires attention to detail.

You failed the first test if I see typos.

I don’t look for typos. I don’t run resumes through a spell-checker. But if they stand out, they stand out.

Your resume is supposed to be your best foot forward and while we’re human and we all make mistakes, typos in a resume are especially not good.

Your resume is the you recruiters meet before they get to actually meet you, so your resume has to be the best version of you.

It needs to be the most put together version of you but if you have typos, you’re putting a careless version of you out there.

It’s also important to have an error-free resume because recruiters don’t spend too much time looking at them.

If I’m being honest, I’ve received and had to review so many resumes that I started finding ways to try to get through them faster.

And if I’m being really honest, I spend about an equal amount of time looking for what I’m looking for in a candidate as I spend trying to find issues that I can use to automatically disqualify resumes to make my job easier.

3. Inappropriate length

You’re applying for an entry-mid level job and your resume is 3 pages long?

But you only switched jobs a couple times?

I’ve had soon-to-be college graduates apply for an entry-level role with 3 to 4 page resumes.

I strongly recommend against that.

I had a friend who was applying for an internship with my company and she was going to get the job anyways. But sending in a resume was a formality so we had it on file.

Her resume was 3 pages.

She told me that was the standard in her industry (public health), and maybe it is.

But she was applying for a market research internship at a marketing firm and she was still in college.

And when I looked at her resume, I saw it was full of everything she had ever done since high school.

Internships, classes, clubs, etc. And none of it was relevant.

By the time you apply for an entry-level job or higher, you may be so far removed from your high school career that that stuff shouldn’t be on your resume unless you did ground-breaking things back then.

A similar thing could be said about college things on your resume if you’re past early career.

Either way, no matter what you choose to include on your resume, you should be able to condense the bullet points that you include for each of your jobs and experiences so you can make your resume fit on one page, especially if you’re early-mid career.

Leave the wordiness for when you’re in the interview. That’s your time to elaborate.

4. Poor optics

Illegibly small font.

Poor design.

Boxes and lines and icons galore!

When I say poor design, I don’t mean you used bullet point shapes that I don’t like.

I mean you added so many designs elements, frills, lines, and icons to your resume that it looks too busy for me to even read.

This is the least common reason that I’ve had to throw out resumes, but it does happen.

Like I’ve said before, the resume is your best foot forward. If you put a sloppy foot forward, you’re presenting a sloppy version of yourself.

And if you’re presenting a sloppy version of yourself in the midst of a bunch of other resumes that present more put together candidates, what incentive do I have to push you forward to the phone screen round?

The answer is I don’t really have any incentive to push you forward to the phone screen round.

A sound mind lives in a sound body. A sound body is a result of a sound mind. There is no real well-being of one without the other, yet modern medicine still very often overlooks this important connection. Many scientists who take up the baton of investigating this unity in our being admit their efforts are often met with skepticism. Thankfully, the mind-body relationship defends itself so well in our everyday lives that, at this point, it would be hard to argue with it.

Off The Top of Our Head

A very simple example lives on your head. Have you already joined the Silver Strands club? Are there any wisdom hairs in your mane yet? While there's not much we can do about genetic predispositions, another reason our locks turn gray is stress. You might have heard of Marie Antoinette syndrome, the sudden whitening of hair, which, in the case of the French queen, allegedly happened overnight before her execution in 1793.

While there's no research to support the above-mentioned syndrome, we know that chronic psychological strain may indeed lead to premature graying over time. But the mind-body connection on our heads extends further. If we lose melanin pigments in our hair due to stress, research shows that the situation could be reversed. It is possible to naturally revive our original hair color by reducing the amount of stress in our lives.

So how do we stop worrying about our gray hair in order to stop producing more? One way is to simply embrace your evolution. You’re either leveling up and unlocking another chapter of your earthly journey, or your body is communicating its distress in a visible way. If you feel it’s the latter, then you need to let your hair down (pun intended).

Research Is Me-search

Any practices that do not involve pharmaceutical drugs tend to be labeled as alternative medicine, or, as some might affectionately call it, woo woo. But thanks to extensive research, we are now witnessing the slow demise of the biomedical model of treatment and the rise of the holistic approach. Psychology is still a relatively new science (in its current form it’s only about 150 years old), yet it’s been proven over and over again that we simply cannot detach our psyche from the well-being of our physical bodies.

To illustrate, one study showed that workers in low-level jobs with high stress and little autonomy are at much higher risk of developing a heart disease and diabetes as well as dying prematurely compared to their colleagues in less menial, higher-level roles. Another study conducted on women with metastatic breast cancer found that patients who participated in group therapy had better quality of life and symptom control, experienced less pain, and lived significantly longer than those who only received medical treatment. Research also confirmed that depression and anxiety increase the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines linked to cardiovascular disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and some cancers.

A simple google search opens the door to redefining what we were led to believe for years: that our body and mind are two separate entities. The wholeness of our self is multidimensional. But our bodies are governed by our minds, and our minds stay healthy through proper maintenance of our physical form. Obviously, we are not against pharmaceutical solutions, they are life-saving. However, they should also not be taken lightly, especially if there are other options we can try first.

A Bundle of Nerves and Solutions

It’s true that diamonds are created under pressure. We live in tough times so we also need to be tougher. Yet, you hardly have to find yourself at a breaking point to realize that too much stress is ruining your well-being. We’ll hardly discover new land when we say that you can manage your stress levels with regular exercise, healthy diet, proper rest and sleep, hobbies and fun, media detox, or meaningful social life (with a healthy dose of intentional solitude).

But also be honest with yourself. Even though you might be bored reading about these solutions for the hundredth time, have you really given all of them a chance? Stress is not worth a single gray hair on your head and, if possible, healthy habits are always better than medication. Please, for the love of your health, begin there, with an option of your choosing, and work your way through the list.

Ready? On to the most wholesome solution then.
Shinrin Yoku

Every forest is a mindfulness cathedral, a spectacular brown-green kingdom where Mother Nature heals our souls. We’ve established how our mental health directly influences our physical well-being but in the woodland realm we can do both at the same time: we move and we rest. Whether it’s walking, jogging, journaling, or mediation, any benefits of a well-being practice will be multiplied and magnified among the trees.

Yet again, research shows that green environments lower our cortisol levels, pulse rate, and blood pressure, and promote greater parasympathetic nerve activity than cityscapes. Forests help us calm down, relax, and properly unwind in the stillness of nature. Outdoor therapy works. But don’t take the scientists’ word for it, put on your shoes and let the woods sweep you off your feet.

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

John Muir

Shinrin yoku is the Japanese practice of forest bathing. Which means we go in and we breathe it in. We enter, we pause, we listen, we observe. We admire the force that brought us into this beautiful world. We enjoy birdsong, we inhale the purity of filtered air, we hug a tree, and let nature into our minds and hearts so that it can heal our bodies. All that at no extra cost, no side-effects, with long-lasting positive results. Go into the forest to ungray your hair.

Staying hydrated is one of the cornerstones of our health. After all, our bodies are 60% water.

We spend that water every day, by simply living our lives and being active, which triggers our bodies to give us cues to drink more water, replenish our reserves, and avoid dehydration. This makes our bodies return to homeostasis and then the cycle begins anew.

Although many people think dehydration is something that can happen only during the summer, they’re sorely mistaken — it can happen any time, and it doesn’t have to end with a parched throat. It can creep up on us in the winter too, with no obvious symptoms, and it can have a detrimental effect on our overall health and well-being.

When most of us think about hydration, we simply think about drinking more water, however, today we’re here to learn that there’s more to it. Staying hydrated is about having the proper balance of the electrolytes present in water, such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, and others, and carbohydrates, which are all necessary for normal brain function.

Staying hydrated, therefore, is about more than drinking water. It’s about having a well-designed nutrition plan that will help you keep your electrolytes and carbohydrates in balance.

In this article, we’re going to talk about hydration and share some tips that will help you stay properly hydrated in both summer and winter while exercising, studying, or doing what you do best.
What Should I Know About Hydration?

Dehydration, which is an unpleasant physical state caused by losing more bodily fluids than we take, can have harmful consequences on our health.

It can appear in a mild, moderate, or severe form, depending on the overall status of our bodily fluids (the lost/unreplaced ratio of water in the body). Since electrolytes are necessary for the basic functioning of our nervous system and brain, severe dehydration can lead to nervous system problems.

Other problems related to severe or long-term dehydration are heat injury, problems with the kidneys and urinary tract, low blood pressure, seizures, but there are also the less dangerous, yet quite unpleasant diarrhea and vomiting.

While physical symptoms are the most common, dehydration can also have an impact on a person’s intellectual and psychological capacity. For example, cognitive functions tend to slow down when we’re dehydrated, and it becomes more difficult for us to remain focused and on top of the task if we’re thirsty. This is because our brains need optimal levels of electrolytes to function properly.

Mild and moderate dehydration can result in headaches, feeling weak, dizzy, or lethargic. Physically, we may experience dryness in our mouth, having no urine, dark-colored urine, elevated heartbeat speed, dry, and less elastic skin, etc.

Dehydration poses the highest risk for the elderly, as older people may forget to drink enough water during the day. This can worsen the symptoms of any potential physical illnesses they may be suffering from.

HOW MUCH WATER DO I NEED PER DAY?

The recommended amount of water for the average adult, according to the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is approximately 4 liters for men and 3 liters for women. This is equal to approximately 12-15 cups of water per day (11,5 cups for women and 15,5 cups for men).

If you exercise regularly, or if it’s extremely warm outside, this intake should be even higher. Also, when you have been drinking coffee or alcoholic beverages or eating salty or spicy food, your body may need even more water than usual, because all of them speed up dehydration. It may not sound very intuitive, but salty and spicy foods actually elevate our body temperature, which leads to higher water expenditure in the body. If you ate fast food or snacks recently, you maybe remember being quite thirsty afterward.

In order to prevent the negative health consequences caused by dehydration, it’s important to remain hydrated as best as you can, at all times. In our experience, the best way to achieve this is to build a habit of regular hydration.

When we don’t work on building our habits properly, it’s easy for us to fall out of the routine of performing them. In order to build a regular water intake habit that sticks, try to follow these tips.
How to Build a Hydration Habit

In the following paragraphs, we’ll share with you some tips on how to stay hydrated and how to make hydration a habit.

One important element in staying hydrated is drinking water before you go thirsty. For example, add drinking a cup of water after each Focus Time session. At the end of each day include the water intake into your productivity assessment, as that way, you will acknowledge and recognize your efforts towards building a better habit.
MAKE IT A PART OF YOUR DAILY ROUTINES

If you have a morning or evening routine that you stick to, add the extra step of drinking water. Fitting a new habit you’re building into an existent system makes it less burdening for the brain to accept and process this kind of novelty.

For example, after waking up and filling out your Five Minute Journal, you may want to step into your bathroom to get on with your morning rituals. All you need to do here is to add a step like “drink 2 cups of water” after brushing your teeth.

Additionally, make sure that your breakfast promotes water absorption: eating lots of fruits and vegetables not only helps our body absorb the water molecules better, but it also helps it balance the electrolytes and carbohydrates it receives from fluids.

Furthermore, make sure that you have a cup of water somewhere close before bedtime, so it’s always within reach. We acknowledge that this may be tricky to establish, as you may be reluctant to go grab it once you’ve already tucked in for the night, so make sure that you do it while you’re getting ready for bed.

LOG WATER INTAKE IN AN APP

If you find that apps help you gamify your routines, then try using an app for tracking your water intake. Today there are many free options for phones, computers, smartwatches, and other smart devices that are designed to remind you to drink your daily doses of water.

Using apps for habit building and tracking is good, because apps usually provide you with reminders, so even if you forget that you need to perform a certain activity, the digital reminder doesn’t. Also, many apps come with habit trackers of different kinds, and habit tracking positively affects the acquisition of a new habit.

Staying hydrated is extremely important for maintaining good health. It’s such a simple, yet necessary part of diet and lifestyle.

Dehydration can cause many negative consequences that most of us can easily prevent just by taking care to drink enough water daily and having a balanced diet.

The best way to do this is to build a habit that will stick. Set water intake as one of your goals, split it into steps and targets, and start implementing a new habit. Alternatively, use apps with reminders and habit trackers that will help you solidify this new habit and adopt it for life.

My productive morning routine.

I was a total mess and studied whenever I felt like and did things in a very sloppy manner and as a result, I was having trouble focusing on my studies and productivity was at its worst until I came up with a routine that worked wonders for me. Well, my motto was whatever routine I follow I needed to get the majority of my things done early. My routine may not be resonating with you. Everyone is unique and everyone works according to what suits them.

My morning routine is from 4:30 AM to 10 AM.

Yeah, I am a morning person so let's begin.

1.Wake up at 4:30 Am.

My day starts exactly at 4:30 AM when my alarm goes off. You might be thinking why I wake up so early. Well, the answer is I am an early bird 🐦. I have been reading biographies of successful people and some self-help books and they seem to tell the same thing that is to wake up early.

I prefer walking up early also because I love the silence and calmness at that time. It's absolutely quiet and gives me an absolute aura to work and be productive before the hustle and bustle sets in.

2.Make myself Ready( till 4:45 AM)

After I wake up there is a whole set of activities I do to get freshen up and all this helps me have a calm mind which helps me study better.

I) Freshen up: After gazing at the walls of my room for a minute with my half-opened eyes I go to the bathroom brush my teeth, wash my face and take deep breaths.

Pro tip: Washing your face with cold water helps you feel awakened.

II) Drinking water: Then I finally reach out to my water bottle on my bedside. You should drink a glass of water after you wake up 😴⏰ it feels good and also keeps you hydrated because your body didn't get water for hours when you were sleeping. Moreover, it helps you freshen up and helps you get over your dizziness.

III) Making my bed 🛏. Well, this is a habit that I have recently started and it's worth it. I was to keep my bed as it is and didn't even care to make it until my brother told me how important it is to make your bed. It makes you feel independent and also doing this small work gives you a small positive vibe.

IV) Meditation and Planning

The next thing that I do is meditation 🧘‍♀️. Meditation helps me calm my mind and also it's early morning so it's absolute calm and quiet. Meditation is relaxing the mind and helps you connect with yourself. In that 15 minutes of meditation, I sit quietly and just focus on my breaths and nothing!

Then it's time for planning my day. I don't use any apps but maintain a diary and write down everything I have to do on that particular day. Meditating just before planning helps me to think and plan with a clear mind.

At the end of the day, I see the list again and see how much I have been able to be productive and get the most out of the day.

It's almost 5 AM by now.

3. Exercise time till 6 AM.

Now that I am done with meditation and planning my day. I then get my running shoes and track pants and move on for having a good morning walk. The best part about morning walks is that you realise that half of the city is still sleeping and the roads are empty. Fewer vehicles, fewer commotions less pollution and everything feels so calm and quiet.

I feel good after having a walk and health is what I have prioritised for a long time.

4. Getting my table done.

After returning from the walk and getting freshened up it's time to clear my table. The mess I have created last day. Making my study space clear and getting ready to study.

5. Coffee time.

After having my table cleared and books ready for studying I make a coffee for myself. And then get down with my studies with a coffee mug in my hand.

6.Study time

Getting on to the most serious activity of my day and my life ie studying.

In the morning I usually read topics that I think is difficult to comprehend. These include anatomy, pathology and pharmacology.

Right from 6:30 to 10 AM I study with 30 minutes break in between.

So this was my morning routine. I know it may not be perfect according to many but routine for me must be productive and not perfect. As long as it is serving the purpose it's good. Make a timetable you are comfortable with and makes you happy and gets more work done.

Pollution is killing 9 million people a year, a review has found, making it responsible for one in six of all deaths.

Toxic air and contaminated water and soil “is an existential threat to human health and planetary health, and jeopardises the sustainability of modern societies”, the review concluded.

The death toll from pollution dwarfs that from road traffic deaths, HIV/Aids, malaria and TB combined, or from drug and alcohol misuse. The researchers calculated the economic impact of pollution deaths at $4.6tn (£3.7tn), about $9m a minute.

The overall impact of pollution has not improved since the first global review in 2017, since when 45 million lives have been lost to it. Prevention was largely overlooked in the international development agenda, the researchers said, with funding increasing only minimally since 2015.

Deaths from toxic air and chemicals have risen by 7% since the previous review and 66% since 2000, driven by increased fossil fuel burning, rising population numbers and unplanned urbanisation. This rise was offset by improvements in the “ancient scourges” of water polluted by pathogens and poor sanitation and indoor smoke from cooking fires.

The researchers said pollution, the climate crisis and the destruction of wildlife and nature “are the key global environmental issues of our time. These issues are intricately linked and solutions to each will benefit the others. [But] we cannot continue to ignore pollution. We are going backwards.”

Prof Philip Landrigan, at Boston College in the US and a lead author of the analysis, said: “Pollution is still the largest existential threat to human and planetary health. Preventing pollution can also slow climate change – achieving a double benefit for planetary health – and our report calls for a massive, rapid transition away from all fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”

Awareness of pollution was key, said Richard Fuller, at the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) in Switzerland, another lead author. He said action plans have been presented to 11 national governments to date: “Ministers are just gobsmacked at how big an impact pollution is having in their country.” Measuring pollution and making it public also drives change, he said: “It switches on communities to want to do something and yell and scream at their politicians. Everything can roll from that.”

The new review, published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, analysed data from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease project, the most recent available, and found air pollution caused almost 75% of the 9 million pollution deaths.

Toxic chemicals resulted in 1.8 million deaths, including 900,000 deaths from lead pollution, which is more than from HIV/Aids. Lead poisoning could significantly reduce intelligence across large populations, Fuller said, sources of which include water pipes, paint, backyard car battery recycling, as well foodstuffs such as contaminated turmeric.

The number of deaths from chemical pollutants was likely to be an underestimate, the scientists said, as only a small proportion of the 350,000 synthetic chemicals in use had been adequately tested for safety. The cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet has passed the safe limit for the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, researchers reported in January.

More than 90% of pollution deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, such as India and Nigeria. While high-income countries, such as the US and members of the EU, had controlled the worst forms of pollution, the researchers said, few less affluent nations had been able to make pollution a priority.

Pollution also crossed international borders, carried on winds or in food exports, said Fuller: “If we’re going to keep everyone safe, we need to help countries that have these toxic problems to stop the pollution at the source.”

Unsafe water causes 1.4 million early deaths a year but this has been falling due to improvements in sanitation and healthcare, particularly in Africa. However, the UN estimates more than 2 billion people still do not have access to clean drinking water.

The researchers called for increased funding for pollution control from governments and donors, better monitoring and a new independent scientific body to assess the problem, modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose influential reports are agreed by all governments.

“Pollution has typically been viewed as a local issue,” said Rachael Kupka, also at GAHP, which includes the UN Environment Programme and the World Bank. “However, it is clear that pollution is a planetary threat. Global action on all major modern pollutants is needed.”

Countries must urgently agree on a way of controlling and regulating attempts to geoengineer the climate, and consider whether to set a moratorium on such efforts, as the danger of global heating exceeding the 1.5C threshold increases, the former head of the World Trade Organisation has warned.

Pascal Lamy, a former director-general of the WTO and a former EU trade commissioner, now president of the Paris Peace Forum, said governments were increasingly likely to explore the possibilities of geoengineering, as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions have so far been inadequate.

“Given where we are, we have to seriously consider the risk of overshooting 1.5C,” said Lamy. “That is a huge risk. All of the ways by which we can alleviate this risk must be evaluated. I think a global effort on geoengineering could work.”

At present, there is little to stop a government from experimenting with geoengineering. “There should be ways of stopping countries from doing this alone,” Lamy told the Guardian. “We should look at all options, including a moratorium.”

But Lamy said the likelihood of an individual billionaire, such as Elon Musk, attempting to geoengineer the climate without government involvement was still remote. “I don’t think that is a danger. I think Elon Musk would need some kind of authority [from governments],” he said. “I don’t think he could try to do it alone. You need government clearance to send up a rocket, even.”

Geoengineering would involve trying to change the temperature or climate on Earth through methods such as whitening clouds, injecting sulphur particles into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight, or spreading iron in the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide. Ideas such as launching a giant sunshade into space have also been suggested, along with more prosaic options including painting roofs white.

None of these possibilities have yet been tried, and some could be dangerous: for instance, spraying sulphur could cause acidification of the seas, cloud whitening could change rainfall patterns and deflecting the sun’s rays could cause crops to fail.

But Lamy said the world had to examine such methods, as countries were failing to cut greenhouse gases fast enough. “It is tragic that we have to consider this [geoengineering]. Because we know we are not on the right path to avoid overshooting 1.5C,” he said.
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Scientists warned this month there was a 50:50 chance of global average temperatures rising to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within the next five years. If the earth’s temperatures exceed 1.5C consistently, drastic and in some cases, irreversible changes to the climate will follow, including melting of the ice caps, floods, droughts, heatwaves and sea level rises.

Some methods of geoengineering could be cheap, Lamy added. “Some could be economically rather cheap, whereas we know that carbon capture and storage is something very costly.”

Lamy said the science behind geoengineering required careful investigation, but his concern is directed towards how any such attempts would be governed at an international level. Some forms of weather manipulation have already been tried: for instance, cloud-seeding to provoke rainfall has been used in China.

Lamy, as president of the Paris Peace Forum think tank, is leading a new initiative to establish potential governance structures for geoengineering. He has convened a panel of 16 global experts, called the Global Overshoot Commission. They will consider recommendations on how geoengineering can be governed, both within existing international structures such as the UN, and the potential need for new governance bodies.

The commission will produce a report, probably consisting of a series of principles to be observed, that will be presented to governments in 2023, before the Cop28 UN climate summit. It will have no legal standing but is intended to inform government thinking.

As well as geoengineering, the commission will consider ways of helping countries adapt to the ravages of the climate crisis, the potential for new technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and ways of “repairing” the climate to reduce temperatures after they have breached the 1.5C limit.

Let’s break this sex-happiness equation down for a moment before looking at the details of the study: The researchers began with the well-established finding that individuals experience higher levels of well-being when they have an active and satisfying sex life. As they noted, the results of previous research demonstrated that “the size of the difference in well-being for people having sex once a week, compared with those having sex less than once a month, was greater than the size of the difference in well-being for those making US$75,000 compared with US$25,000 a year.”

Is it the sex itself or something about sexual activity that is so good for our happiness? You might argue that people who are happier are more likely to have sex more often, because they’re in a good relationship and are satisfied with it. The good sex, then, would simply follow the good relationship dynamics. It’s also possible that people who are more positive in general are more likely to get involved in a close relationship which, in turn, benefits their well-being. Such a cyclical process would imply that the happy just get happier.

The authors believed that the key ingredient in the sex-happiness relationship is positive emotion. As they note, however, it’s extremely difficult to examine this possibility through the typical questionnaire method, which is subject to memory bias, or in the lab, where the situation is artificial. Instead, the fourth, and most telling, of their studies used a daily diary method. The researchers gave the participants smartphones to use for recording their responses, all of which were collected over the course of two weeks when the participants periodically received signals from the phone to complete the assessment. The participants were 58 heterosexual couples averaging 25 years of age and in a relationship, on average, for four years.

A previous study in the series, analyzing daily diary reports from a larger and somewhat more diverse sample (working parents), showed that people rated their positive emotions higher when they indicated they had had sex in the previous 24 hours. The impact of sex on happiness was accounted for, in large part, by increases in affection linked to prior sexual activity. For this smartphone-based study, which asked only about sexual activity and affectionate moments, participants simply answered whether they’d had sex since the last report, and whether they’d engaged in a “moment of love and affection” with their partner.

In that fourth study, researchers tracked the daily course of sex and affection. This allowed them to study the effects of sex on Day 1 with affection on Day 2, and vice versa, over the entire course of the study period. The results confirmed the study’s hypothesis that, across days of the study, sex predicts affection and affection, in turn, predicts sexual activity. The study can’t prove causation because participants weren’t assigned to experimental groups of sex/no sex or affection/no affection. But given that such a study would be practically impossible to conduct and likely produce artificial results, the analytic strategy used by the researchers provides as strong evidence as is possible of the sex-affection link.

As the authors concluded, “Sex seems not only beneficial because of its physiological or hedonic effects…but because it promotes a stronger and more positive connection with the partner.”

Over time, such experiences build to strengthen the bonds between partners, meaning that their long-term relationship satisfaction is bolstered as well. These effects extend to the experience of one’s partner because, as shown when partners’ responses were analyzed in terms of their effects on each other, “when one person draws emotional benefits from sex, their partner’s relationship satisfaction is also promoted over time.”

If affection is so important to personal and relationship satisfaction, one intriguing question raised by this study is whether it can replace sexual activity when couples lessen the frequency of having sex due to external factors. People may decrease their sexual activity as they get older due to physical changes, and couples who have recently had children may similarly have sex less often. But as long as such couples maintain their affection toward each other, they can offset the potentially negative effects of lowered sexual activity. Conversely, for couples who feel they’re drifting apart and are therefore having sex less often, if they work on their physical affection toward each other, their sexual relationship may become reestablished as well.

To sum up, fulfillment in relationships depends on many factors, of which the physical nature of the interaction is just one. This study shows that the physical basis for a couple’s interactions with each other does play a surprisingly strong and powerful role.

Why It's Good to Step Back and Observe to Calm Anxiety

Anxiety has a way of sucking us in. Anxiety pulls us close to worry- and fear-provoking situations because the closer we are to a troublesome situation, the stronger our anxiety becomes.

For example, someone might fear failure in a relationship or at work. Once that anxiety begins, it works its way deep inside, making his thoughts race with worry. The more his thoughts are consumed with anxiety, the stronger his negative emotions become, creating feelings like anger, jealousy, self-hatred, despair, and more (Anxiety and Over-Thinking Everything). His behaviors could very well change because of this anxiety and fear of failure; perhaps he becomes paralyzed by his fears, unable to start projects at work or initiate activities with his partner. Or he might be able to take action, but fear and anxiety make him question himself, miss deadlines, apologize too much, and more.

His anxiety continues to skyrocket, and because he's immersed in his situation, his thoughts continue to race, his emotions spiral out of control, he struggles with anxiety's physical symptoms, and he just can't calm his anxiety. He needs to step back and observe.

When we're in the middle of struggling against anxiety, staying with the anxiety by thinking about it, feeling it, and cursing it can only serve to worsen it because what we pay attention to grows. Therefore, it's important to step back from anxiety and be a distant observer.

How to Calm Anxiety by Stepping Back and Observing

An important clarification is in order: stepping back isn't the same thing as running away or avoiding. Avoidance doesn't work to reduce anxiety; no matter how much we ignore problems in our world, we can't ignore them fully because they stay with us in our mind (Living with the Cycle of Anxious-Avoidance: Trying to Get Out). Stepping back, therefore, involves not ignoring or running away but putting some metaphorical distance between yourself and the anxiety-provoking problem.

When caught up in anxiety, we often feel stressed, nervous, apprehensive, and worried. Our thoughts race with anxiety, and our minds are stuck in negative thought patterns, pelting us with "what-ifs," "shoulds," all-or-nothing thinking, and other thought traps. We're so close to the situation that is causing anxiety that it's hard to see the big picture. We can't see the forest when we're standing against a single tree staring at its trunk. To calm anxiety, we need to back up so we can see the whole picture.

You might want to try these simple steps to step back, observe, and calm anxiety:

Imagine that you're someone you respect. I have a mentor and former teaching partner that I admire, and I envision what he would think and do in an anxiety-provoking situation.

Use an imaginary wide-angle lens to take in the big picture. If it's a work project that's making you anxious because of the threat of failure, look beyond the project. What other projects have you done well? Why do you have the project/what skills does the boss perceive? What else do you do in your job? If you do fail at this project, what might happen and how will you deal with the consequences?

Observe neutrally. Pretend you are a neutral party just watching a show about anxiety. You don't know the characters in this story, nor do you have a stake in the outcome. Also, observe this situation and its outcome with the distant perspective that this is just one drop in the gigantic bucket of your life. The drop will plunk into your bucket, cause some ripples, and the drop will merge with the rest if the "water," the ripples will settle, and your life will continue.

To calm anxiety, step back and observe your situation neutrally. This doesn't change the situation, but it does positively affect how you think and feel about it. It can calm anxiety and help you deal with what you need to address.

In the below video, I share an experience I had, one where I realized that stepping back and observing helps calm anxiety. I invite you to tune in.

1. Be curious about your own mind.

Metacognition is the ability to observe and think about your own mind and how it works and it’s a key ingredient for lasting mental health.

Most people act on autopilot, especially when strong emotions are involved:You feel angry and immediately lash out saying something sarcastic, slamming a door, or even just ruminating in your own mind about how terrible someone else is.
You feel anxious and immediately try to distract yourself with meaningless activities or you call a friend for reassurance.
You feel sad and immediately turn to alcohol or food to numb out the pain.

Not only does impulsiveness lead to bad decisions, but it prevents us from learning something new about ourselves.

If you always resort to sarcasm anytime you feel angry, for example, your vision of what anger is and what it means is quite limited. It’s just a bad feeling that leads to saying cruel things.

On the other hand, if you cultivate the habit of observing your thoughts and feelings especially the uncomfortable ones you can begin to get curious about them.

When you learn to be curious about your own mind, self-awareness and growth are not far behind.

For example, if you took a minute to observe and get curious about your anger, you might realize that behind your anger is some fear fear that people won’t love you for who you are, fear that you’ll be alone, maybe even fear of your anger itself. Which means that anger, and all the behaviors that come out of it, are merely a distraction from the real issue your fear and insecurity.

But this kind of self-knowledge is only possible if you consistently pause and observe your own mind from a place of curiosity.

The next time you feel a strong emotion, hit the pause button. Then ask yourself: What’s going on in my mind right now?

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space… In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Viktor Frankl

2. Be compassionate with your suffering.

A sure sign of mental health is that you are compassionate with yourself when times are hard that you approach your mistakes and suffering in a gentle, rational way, without resorting to extremes.

In my experience as a psychologist, the one thing that unites virtually every one of my clients is that they lack the habit of self-compassion.

Self-compassion means that in times of pain or suffering, you treat yourself like you would treat a good friend in an empathetic, balanced, non-judgmental way.

Ironically, while most of us are quite good at being compassionate with other people, we’re terrible at being compassionate with ourselves:When you make a mistake, you immediately start criticizing yourself with negative self-talk and catastrophic predictions.
When you feel upset or afraid, you immediately criticize yourself for being weak and discount your pain as silly or trivial.
When you’re uncertain or confused, you compare yourself to others as if shame will motivate you to figure things out.

In other words, your default response to mistakes and pain is to be hard on yourself. This is probably the result of a culture that insists that the only way to achieve success in life (and therefore happiness) is to be tough on yourself.

But I see little evidence that being hard on yourself improves either your success or happiness in the long run. If anything, people who are successful probably got their despite their lack of self-compassion, not because of it.

The antidote to being hard on yourself is self-compassion.

Importantly, self-compassion doesn’t mean that you’re soft or spoiled, it just means taking a balanced view of your mistakes and failures:Self-compassion means acknowledging your failures for what they are without dwelling on them.
Self-compassion means reminding yourself that you are more than the sum of your mistakes. Far more.
Self-compassion means acknowledging that just because you feel bad doesn’t mean you are bad.

There’s no greater strength than the ability to be gentle with yourself.

“The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.”

Lao-tzu

3. Be flexible in your behavior.

A tell-tale sign of poor mental health is rigid behavior. But its opposite flexibility is the key to a stronger, more healthy emotional life.

There’s an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.

While most of us probably don’t fit the legal criteria for insanity, it’s probably not hard to think back on a time when you were suffering emotionally and see the same pattern getting stuck trying the same old things to feel better but only feeling worse.

For example:When you’re feeling depressed and down, it’s all too easy to isolate yourself and disengage from the world.
When you’re feeling guilty or ashamed, it’s tempting to replay your past mistakes over and over again in a cycle of rumination and self-criticism.
When you’re feeling anxious and afraid, it’s easy to lose yourself in a mindless distraction rather than facing up to your fears.

In other words, we all tend to get stuck in habitual ways of responding to stress and painful emotions. We feel bad and our default behaviors kick in, often without much awareness.

But here’s the thing…

You can’t keep doing the same old thing and expect new results.If every time you feel anxious, you start worrying — and then find that worrying only makes you more anxious — maybe it’s time to think about a new way of responding to anxiety?
If every time you feel sad, you start ruminating — and then find that ruminating only makes you feel worse about yourself — maybe it’s time to think about a new way of responding to sadness?
If every time you feel angry, you criticize other people — and then find that being critical only makes you feel worse about yourself in the long run — maybe it’s time to think about a new way of responding to your anger?

Instead of defaulting to your same old strategies, try to be flexible in how you respond to difficulty:Take a new perspective. Ask yourself: How would someone else look at this?
Experiment with new behaviors. Test out what happens when you bite your tongue instead of lashing out or call a friend instead of isolating yourself.
Study other people. Pay attention to how the people your admire respond to difficult situations and stress: What do they do differently and what might that look like for me?

Be a scientist in your own life: observe what’s not working, formulate a new theory, test it out, and see how it works.

You can think your way into almost any form of suffering, but it’s only through taking action that you’ll truly move on.

“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”

Philip Pullman

4. Be assertive about your values.

The real tragedy of chronic emotional suffering is you become so consumed with alleviating your pain that you lose sight of the things that matter most your values and aspirations.

When we feel any kind of pain including emotional pain our attention gets drawn to finding the quickest possible way to alleviate that pain.

For example: When your finger feels pain and you realize it’s resting on a hot frying pan, all your focus and energy go toward getting your hand off the hot pan. And for good reason it would be dangerous and harmful to leave your hand on a hot stove!

But, while pain is often an indicator of danger, that it isn’t always. Emotional pain, no matter how severe, isn’t itself dangerous no amount of sadness or anxiety, for example, can harm you.

But it’s easy to get confused here. It’s easy to treat all pain as an indication of danger. And when we do that, it means channeling all our attention and energy toward escaping that pain.

But there’s a cost to this instant pain avoidance strategy:

When you spend all your time running away from what you don’t want, there’s little time left for running toward what you do want.

If you suffer from chronic mental health issues or emotional struggles, you probably recognize this pattern of your life shrinking and narrowing as everything becomes about feeling less pain.

And while this strategy of trying to outrun your pain makes sense on an intuitive level, it almost never works in the long-run. And in fact, it often makes things worse:Avoiding your grief by drowning it out with constant distraction only perpetuates it.
Avoiding your social anxiety by not going out as much only intensifies it.
Avoiding your goals because you’re afraid of failing only makes your self-esteem issues worse.

The cure to a life of chronic avoidance is assertiveness.

Crafting the habit of assertiveness means learning to go after what you want with confidence and setting boundaries on what you don’t want with strength:Asking for a nicer table at the restaurant even though you’re worried that the waiter might think badly of you.
Refusing to engage in hostile conversations with coworkers, even though it feels good to try and put them in their place.
Making the decision to leave your job and try a new career even though you’re scared.

In the end, the only way to genuinely and consistently feel better is to starting moving toward the things that matter most even if you don’t feel like it.

Let reason and values guide your decisions and trust that your feelings will follow in time.

1. Accepting fear instead of running from it

Confident people don’t lack fear they just have a healthier relationship with it.

The biggest mistake I see with people trying to become more confident is that they try to eliminate or avoid fear altogether. But this is dangerous for several reasons.
Eliminating your fear is impossible.

Your brain evolved a threat-detection system for a reason keeping you alive. A side-effect of that threat-detection system is feeling fear.

For example: When you hear the rattle of a mama rattlesnake in the bushes next to the trail you’re hiking on, you’re threat-detection system kicks in quick — releasing adrenaline, increasing heart rate and muscle tone, narrowing your attentional focus, and of course, feeling afraid.

You might not like it, but this whole fear system is there for a very good reason — it helps keep you safe from genuine threats. Even if it were possible, getting rid of fear entirely would be foolish.
Fear can be useful.

The second reason it’s dangerous to try and avoid or suppress your fear is that, even in situations that are not life-threatening, fear can be useful.

You’re not going to die if you flub the intro to your presentation in front of the whole company. But the fact that your fear system kicks into a gear a little bit during public speaking can be to your advantage.

When your fear system gets activated, your body releases adrenaline, which is a powerful performance enhancer, both physically and mentally. Everything from your attention and memory to your reaction times improve with a little adrenaline. Good performers from athletes to public speakers know this and harness fear to their advantage.
Avoiding fear creates anxiety.

At the heart of every chronic anxiety issue is a simple process: When you try to eliminate or run away from fear, you teach your brain to be afraid of fear itself. In the long-run, this makes you chronically anxious.

If you immediately “attack” or “flee” from your fear anytime it comes up, your brain is understandably going to start thinking of fear itself as a threat and danger. This means it’s going to be increasingly on guard and hypervigilant to anything that might make you anxious or afraid. And if it finds something, it’s going to make you even more anxious!

Confident people don’t eliminate fear. They embrace it.

If you cultivate the willingness to accept your fear and get on with life despite feeling afraid, you send a powerful message to your brain:

Fear is uncomfortable but not dangerous.

And when your brain really believes that, confidence is not far behind.

A simple way to build your confidence and cultivate a better relationship with fear is to practice naming it and acknowledging it. By simply telling yourself I am afraid and that’s okay you’re beginning the process of retraining your brain not to be afraid of fear itself. And the more it believes that to be true, the more confident you’re going to feel.

‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave.’

George R.R. Martin

2. Communicating assertively

Confident people communicate their own needs honestly and respectfully.

On the other hand, people with low self-confidence routinely put aside their own wants and needs in favor of someone else’s:The adult woman who’s so afraid of upsetting her mother that she drops everything — even the needs of her own family — any time her mom asks her for something.
The timid employee who says yes to every request anyone makes of him at work and ends up feeling chronically stressed out and anxious as a result.
The passive spouse who never brings up their unhappiness in the marriage for fear of “rocking the boat” and making the other person angry.

If you always put other people’s wants and needs before your own, you’re always going to feel unworthy.

And it’s awfully hard to feel confident if you don’t think you are worthy.

Confident people believe that their wants and needs are every bit as valid and important as other people’s and they act accordingly:They ask for what they want clearly and respectfully.
They respect other people’s right to say yes or no just as they respect their own right to ask.
They say no to what they don’t want and are willing to set and enforce boundaries with people.

That’s easy for them…, you say, They’re already confident. I could ask for what I wanted if I felt as confident as they do!

The problem here is mistaking cause and effect. Yes, confident people have an easier time communicating assertively because they feel confident. But they only feel confident because they’re willing to be assertive even when it’s hard.

Nobody likes saying no and disappointing people. But confident people do it anyway if it’s the right thing to do. And when they see that things actually turn out okay in the long-run, it becomes a little bit easier to do the next time.

Confidence comes from doing the right thing even if it feels difficult in the moment.

If you want to feel more confident, practice being more assertive.Ask for what you want clearly and respectfully.
Say no to what you don’t want.
Set and enforce healthy boundaries.

If you respect yourself enough to communicate assertively, confidence won’t be far behind.

Assertiveness isn’t about building a good disguise. It’s about developing the courage to take the disguise off.

Randy Paterson

3. Making decisions based on values, not feelings

Confident people build trust in themselves by prioritizing values over feelings.

The secret ingredient to feeling more confident is trust. But it’s a very specific form of trust:

Confident people trust themselves to do the right thing no matter how they feel.

Let’s unpack that a little…

People who lack confidence are constantly putting aside what they really want and value because they’re afraid of how they’ll feel or how others will feel.

Here’s a simple example of how this works:

Your partner suggests watching a romantic comedy for the third night in a row. And even though you’d rather watch something else, you’re afraid they’ll be upset or annoyed if you say no. So, without much deliberation, you do what feels easier in the moment and say okay to the romantic comedy.

The problem is you’re teaching your own brain that what you want and value isn’t important. And it’s awfully hard to feel confident if you don’t believe your values are important.

Confidence comes from trusting yourself to act on your values instead of your feelings.

If you want to feel more confident, look for small ways to choose values over feelings:Do an extra two minutes on the treadmill even though you feel tired.
Take out the trash even though it’s not technically your job.
Read that report over one more time even though you’re sick of it and just want to be done with it.

We rightly admire and believe in people who are principled — people who put doing the right thing above what’s easy or expedient. These are our heroes.

Confident people know that the same thing applies to ourselves. They know that you can become the hero in your own life by sticking to your values even when they conflict with your feelings.

Get in the habit of choosing values over feelings and your self-respect and confidence will soar.

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

James Clear

4. Practicing self-compassion after mistakes

Confident people know that beating yourself up for mistakes is no way to succeed long-term.

In many ways, confidence is less about what you do and more about what you don’t do. And there’s no better example of this than how we respond to mistakes, setbacks, and failures.

A common pattern in people with low self-confidence is that they are overly-critical and judgmental with themselves when they do something wrong. They say things to themselves like:I knew I would screw this up. I never should have tried in the first place.
I wish I wasn’t so anxious all time. People are never going to respect me if I’m always nervous.
Ugh… I’m just the worst. It’s no wonder nobody likes me.

There are two major problems with responding like this after a setback:Negative self-talk is almost always unrealistic. It’s often overly black and white (“I wish I wasn’t so anxious all the time.”) or makes assumptions without real data (“People are never going to respect me…”).
Negative self-talk makes us feel even worse about ourselves and makes it harder to act with confidence the next time. In other words, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Confident people understand that it’s simply unhelpful to beat yourself up when you’re already down. It doesn’t do any good and should be avoided at all costs. Because in addition to making yourself feel even worse, it erodes your confidence in the future.

When they make a mistake, confident people simply treat themselves the same way they would treat a good friend with compassion.

Being compassionate with yourself after a setback or failure doesn’t mean you’re shirking responsibility. You can own up to your mistakes honestly and still be gentle and compassionate with yourself.

And when you do, not only will you feel a little better in the moment, but your odds of succeeding next time go up as well.

If you want to start feeling more confident, resist the urge to wallow in self-judgment after setbacks and treat yourself like you would treat a good friend with compassion and understanding.

1. Make Peace with Your Past

The first rule to follow to live a happy life is to not allow your past to keep you from being happy especially if it’s full of unpleasant memories that make you miserable when you think about them. Learn to let go of those unpleasant memories. Learn to forgive others who have wronged you in the past. Even if they don’t deserve forgiveness, forgive them for the sake of your own future happiness. You’ll never be happy in the future as long as you refuse to make peace with your past.

2. Stop Worrying About What Others Think of You

You’ll never be very happy in life as long as you worry about what others are thinking about you. This is especially true if you’re a people-pleaser who is more concerned about making those around you happy instead of yourself. The truth is that there are certain people who will never be happy, no matter how hard you try to please them. Furthermore, you shouldn’t care/or worry about what others think about you. It’s your life! Make the decisions that are best for you instead of trying to make decisions based on the opinions of others. If you stop and think about it, do most people you know really care that much about what you think of them especially when it comes to their own happiness?

3. You Are the Only Person in Charge of Your Happiness

There’s only one person in the world who’s responsible for your happiness and that’s you! Just like you can’t spend your life trying to make others happy, you can’t expect others to be responsible for your happiness either. You must make a conscious effort each morning to remind yourself that you aren’t going to let anyone nor any potentially unpleasant circumstances put you in a bad mood. You must learn to take things especially unpleasant things in your stride. Furthermore, you’re responsible for setting and achieving goals that can help you attain the success and happiness you want in life.

4. Stop Comparing Your Life to Others

One of the biggest reasons that so many people are unhappy is that they compare their life to the life of someone else who they perceive to have a better or happier life. The reality is that you don’t know how happy or unhappy someone else truly is based on how things might appear to you. Think about that expression, “You can’t really understand someone else until you walk a mile in their shoes.” Well, the same can be said when it comes to judging the true ‘happiness’ of someone else. You honestly just don’t know. Therefore, you should focus more on your own life and how you can improve it, instead of trying to compare yourself to others.

5. Time Heals (Almost) All Wounds

You’re likely familiar with the old saying, “Time heals all wounds.” There’s actually a lot of truth to that expression. As time goes by, many of your painful memories will start to feel less painful. You’ll likely find it easier to forgive others who might have wronged you. Time can also help heal a broken heart from a failed relationship. You might even be able to make up with a friend or family member that you had a falling out with.

6. Don’t Be Unhappy When You Don’t Have All the Answers

No one has all the answers in life even the most brilliant people in the world. Therefore, when you encounter a problem without an immediate, clear-cut solution, don’t let it make you unhappy. However, that doesn’t mean that you must go through life without solving major problems that you encounter. Instead, you should learn where to find the answers when you don’t know them. For example, let’s say that you’re a new entrepreneur. You’ll likely encounter many questions running your business that you won’t know the answer to. By seeking out a mentor — someone with a lot of business experience — you can find someone who will likely know the answers to many of the questions you might have about your new business.

7. Don’t Try to Own/Solve All of the World’s Problems

Finally, just like you won’t be able to solve every problem that comes into your life, you should definitely not expect to be able to solve everyone else’s problems either. Remember, the world is an imperfect and often unfair place. While it’s natural to feel sad when you see others struggle especially when you really want to help them you can’t let it rob you of your own happiness. You must understand that there will always be sad or unjust things that happen to those you love. The truly happiest people in life are able to see the good in things, as well as help those around them see the good in their own lives.

In short, the old saying that, “money can’t buy happiness” is true. True happiness is about learning to find contentment in your life. You must learn to let go of bitter feelings that make you unhappy. Forgive those who have wronged you in the past, so that you can enjoy a happier future. Don’t live for making others happy, and don’t expect others to live for making you happy either.

1. They care less about whether a guy likes them or not.

Highly confident women know how dangerous it is to attach their worth and value to what a man thinks of them. They’re aware that affection is not conditional so they don’t have to fight for it. They know that what matters most is how they feel about themselves and not how others do.

Whereas, insecure women are mostly consumed by their desire to be liked by men they’re hitting on.

Some of the most common fears confident women don’t have are fears like fear of not being liked in return, of not being interesting enough, of not being good enough, and of not being attractive enough so they are never anxious and stressed about whether a man likes them or not even if his feelings aren’t clear enough.

This is primarily because what they think of themselves is more important than what others think of them.

That’s why they seamlessly believe they’re lovable, interesting enough, attractive, and worthy of affection as they trust that the right person will not fail to notice them.

For them, the best way to be unhappy is by counting on the reciprocity of likeness from men they like to feel happy and good about themselves.

2. They don’t give up their own interests and hobbies for that of their partners.

Highly confident women are happier in their relationships because they don’t give up things they enjoy doing when they’re single. They don’t abandon their interests and hobbies but instead, they engage, enjoy, and talk about them with their partners.

That’s because they know that one’s hobbies and interests are part of herself, identity, self-image, and self-worth.

Besides, having a separate life and identity is extremely important. Thus, highly confident women don’t shrink back from holding onto their selves, identity, self-image, and worth.

As we all know, we only got one life. And highly confident women know that it’s really a shame to lose one’s self and identity in a quest to mold one’s self into what one’s partner might like.

I know so many women who simply abandon their interests and hobbies and adopt that of their partners thinking they’ll be liked, loved, and appreciated the more.

But the truth is, no one should expect to be truly happy in such a relationship. Happiness, whether in a personal, professional, or any aspect of life, happens when you’re true to yourself instead of adopting a persona that isn’t yours simply because you want to fit in and be liked more.

3. They don’t abandon their friends for a guy.

As we all know, being in a relationship cuts down the time we spend with our pals. But highly confident women never make the mistake of abandoning their friends like they were never there in the first place.

What highly confident women also do is that they set out time to hang out with their girlfriends. They don’t expect their partners to be friends with their friends because they know that it isn’t necessary. But instead, they never let go of traditions like keeping up with mutual hobbies, occasional outings, etc.

Life itself isn’t a stable playground. Things might go bad at any point and one might end up being single again. That’s why one shouldn’t let go of people who will stand by her at such times.

Nurturing our relationships with friends who are likely to have been a part of our lives long before any lover could be, will always be the best thing to do instead of letting our relationships with them grow cold and sour.

4. They create boundaries (and respect others’.)

Highly confident women know that healthy relationships require endurance, patience, time, and compromise. But they don’t consistently endure or put up with obviously unacceptable treatments nor do they allow themselves to be pressured into doing things they don’t want to do.

With a clear boundary of what you can take and what you won’t take, you won’t be selling yourself short all in the name of being in a relationship or molding yourself into something a man might like, because if he doesn’t love and accept you the way you are, then you are better off without him.

In this current day and time, many people seriously believe they have to overly compromise, make a lot of sacrifices, and endure some kinds of obviously unacceptable treatments so their relationships can thrive.

But in the real sense, this only makes their relationships messy as they’ll keep giving up their needs for that of their partners, enduring whatever treatments they receive from their partners all in the name of love, in fact, they’ll even succumb easily to pressure from their partners to do things they don’t want to do.

That’s why highly confident women aren’t so addicted to doing such dirty jobs to keep partners interested and happy as insecure women do. In fact, they also trained themselves to accept other people’s boundaries without being offended.

5. They don’t blame themselves for the failure of their relationships.

One thing I’ve noticed is that highly confident women tend to easily move on with their lives after breakups than the majority of women. Why? Consider it yourself. When do you think it’s easier to get over a relationship breakup? The odds are great that it’s whenever you don’t punish yourself for the failure of the relationship.

While highly confident women at one time or another also go through heartbreaks, they don’t hold themselves from moving on by dwelling in unhealthy and destructive guilt feelings.

In almost every relationship failure, both parties involved must have in some ways influenced everything that happened. It can’t be entirely one person’s fault.

Highly confident women know this. They also know that if a relationship fails, the odds are high that it wasn’t meant to be, so they just move on with their lives instead of wasting a considerable amount of time reflecting, blaming, and punishing themselves over the failure of a relationship while their ex may simply move on and find another love sooner rather than later.

6. They are not arrogant or have an inflated sense of self.

If you’ve already been around some truly confident people, you’ll have realized that people enjoy being around them since:

They aren’t manipulative, they don’t have conniving personalities, they’re rather assertive than confrontational, they’re mostly positive than negative, they aren’t entitled or bratty, and they also care for the needs of others in addition to caring for theirs.

There’s hardly anyone enjoying great and satisfying relationships without having a deep feeling of self-assurance that stems from knowledge of one’s self-value and worth as opposed to having an exaggerated sense of importance and superiority over others.

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been told that you’re special and unique or how much you believe that you are. What matters is that everyone is also special and unique.

So feeling entitled, being bratty, and thinking that you’re deserving of everything good way more than others, doesn’t make you a strong and confident person but an insecure person who’s simply masking his or her insecurities with such attitudes.

7. They don’t seek out validation from others to feel good about themselves.

Highly confident women know that they don’t have to always seek out feedback and encouragement from others because they wholeheartedly accept their own self-validation irrespective of whether or not they get anything positive from anyone else.

We all know that it is reasonable for one to want validation from people around her towards her ideas, choices, opinions, and achievements. But the problem is, that being dependent or relying on feedback and encouragement from others breeds anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

That’s why highly confident women aren’t addicted to hearing praise, acceptance, and acknowledgment in all aspects of life. Unlike most women who simply let their need for unending validation rule their entire life including, their choices of romantic partners, how they handle conflicts in their relationships, and how they generally behave in their relationships.

8. They are courageous enough to voice out their opinions.

High confidence is not attainable if you aren’t courageous enough to have your own voice. What differentiates highly confident women from the majority is that they never shy away from speaking up and letting their thoughts and opinions known.

Because it doesn’t make sense to always go with his opinions, as it keeps your relationship off balance and makes you reek of low self-esteem.

Relationships don’t work out well with one person’s opinions always, since it gives the relationship a one-sided direction.

On the other hand, having your opinions will make him see things from your perspective and will take your relationship to greater heights.

Being confident enough to voice out your feelings is one of the attractive qualities of a highly confident woman. And if you possess this quality, you’re certainly one.

9. They aren’t afraid to leave when things don’t feel right.

Confident women know very well that there’s literally no reason to stay in a relationship that’s obviously gone wrong.

In the same way, your fear of being single again, fear of hurting your partner, or of not being able to find someone else shouldn’t hold you back from walking out of a bad relationship.

If you ever have a gut feeling that you might want to end a relationship, that’s a good sign that something is amiss.

And if all odds are high that the relationship isn’t working anymore or was never meant to be in the first place, no matter how scary it might be, you are just better off being single than just staying in a relationship out of fear of whatsoever.

Confidence is not a coincidence. Instead, it’s something that needs to be cultivated because most of us aren’t born with it. And there are a lot of proven habits we can adopt that’ll level up our self-worth and self-value.

It doesn’t matter how many and which of the habits you choose to adopt. What matters is your decision to listen to your inner voice rather than the cruel voice of society telling you how unworthy you are.

And by being consistent, taking things slowly, baby step to baby step towards the path of confidence, and becoming a tiny little bit better each week, you’ll develop the truly confident mindset that’ll ensure success in all aspects of your life.

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