Marc Chernoff's Blog, page 40

10 Painfully Obvious Truths About Life Everyone Forgets Too Often

The truth does not disappear when it is forgotten or ignored.

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a hundred different ways before it finally gets through to you? The ten truths about life discussed here fall firmly into that category — timeless lessons most of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of since, but for whatever reason we haven’t fully grasped them yet.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1. The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to (more…)

10 Sticky Notes We Need to Read 10 Times a Day (Until They Sink In)

It’s not what you say to everyone else that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power.

The best lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn over and over again. The human mind needs lots of reminders — lots of practice — to operate effectively. For example, deep down we know it’s OK to…

Say “no”Speak upTell the truthBelieve differentlyChange our mindPrioritize our needsLearn from our mistakesEmbrace our imperfectionsForgive and seek forgivenessBegin again, with grace and gratitude

Yet, we often (more…)

7 Essential Things to Start Doing for Yourself this Year (Not Next Year!)

You can’t lift a thousand pounds all at once, yet you can easily lift one pound a thousand times. Small repeated efforts will get you there this year.

Throughout a decade of life, relationship, and small business coaching, Angel and I have witnessed people reinventing themselves at all ages — 48-year-olds starting families, 57-year-olds graduating from college for the first time, 71-year-olds starting successful businesses, and more. How did they do it? They started making gradual progress in their lives, step by step. And by doing so, they changed the trajectory of their their lives.

What you need to remember most right now is that it isn’t too late or too early to start making positive changes in your life this year. Your future is always affected by what you start doing today. Yet so many people wait around for some arbitrary date and time, like next year, to take action. Don’t be one of them! Don’t stall on yourself! It’s time to… (more…)

3 Tiny Morning Rituals that Will Change Your Life this Year

A good morning, and thus a good day, aren’t just experiences that magically happen — they are created consciously.

Most of us are distracted from the get-go every morning. Trivial activities like checking social media, watching TV, and worrying about things we can’t control often set the tone of the day. And that means we waste our most well-rested time on things that don’t matter, while gradually losing touch with the significant, controllable parts of our lives that actually do matter.

We simply forget that the morning hours are enormously important — they form the foundation from which the day is built. We forget that how we choose to spend these hours can be used to predict the kind of days we’re going to have, and ultimately the kind of lives we’re going to live. So if you feel like you’ve been getting a rough start lately, and stumbling through your days with diminished intention and focus, it’s time to consider (more…)

52 Good Morning Quotes that Will Bring You Clarity Throughout the Year

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

When you first awake, be mindful and take a second to think about what a privilege it is to simply be alive and relatively healthy. Breathe onto the bathroom mirror just to see how amazing your breath looks. The moment you start acting like life is a blessing, I assure you it will start to feel like one. And when you start the day in a mindful state like this, it’s easier to focus more effectively on what matters most.

If you’d like to practice starting your mornings more mindfully in the year ahead, below you will find 52 good morning quotes — one for each week of the year. I choose one of these quotes every Sunday morning and sit quietly for two minutes, repeating it silently in my mind as if I were meditating. I also write it on a sticky note and put it next to my computer monitor for the duration of the week. This weekly ritual has helped (more…)

3 Reasons So Many of Us Feel a Day Late and a Buck Short (Year After Year)

If it keeps you busy but will hold you back someday, it’s a distraction.

There’s a big difference between empty fatigue and gratifying exhaustion. Life is too short not to focus more on what matters most. And life is definitely too short for routines that keep you stuck in a cycle of feeling like you’re a day late and a buck short. So today, let’s discuss three incredibly common reasons many of us (myself included for several years) remain stuck in that cycle, year after year.

1. We keep trying to overcome the odds in an unsupportive environment.

No matter how strong you are, and no matter how much determination and willpower you have, if you keep yourself positioned in an environment that works against your best intentions, you will eventually succumb to that environment.

This is where so many of us make life-altering (more…)

10 Daily Habits that Often Waste 90 Percent of Our Time (Year After Year)

Patience is not about waiting, it’s the ability to maintain a positive outlook while working hard for what you believe in.

Have you ever told yourself that you’re going to make something happen and then nothing happened? All details aside, it’s because you didn’t have the right habits in place — the little things you do every day that build up to something bigger. Your habits truly make or break you. Because in all walks of life you become what you habitually do. You will never make progress or change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret to your success is always found in your daily habits and routines.

In other words, regardless of your unique life situation or how you personally define success, you can’t become an overnight success. You become successful over time from all the little things you do one day at a time.

Failure occurs in the same way. All your little daily failures (that you don’t (more…)

40 Meaningful Questions that Will Quiet Your Mind (and Improve Your Focus)

Asking the right questions is often the answer.

In a recent email newsletter I wrote, “Quiet your mind in the New Year. Don’t just think outside the box; think like there is no box.”

And to my surprise, 97 people quoted that line and responded with the same general question: “How?”

I’ve spent the morning thinking about how to answer their collective question in the most universal way possible, and I’ve decided that the simplest explanation I can give is this: Ask yourself better questions — questions that (more…)

20 Essential Things to Start Doing for Your Happiness this Year

The happiness in your life greatly depends on the quality of your daily actions.

As you move through the first quarter of the year, remind yourself that it takes roughly 66 days to form a habit on average. So for the next nine and a half weeks, consciously leverage the actionable reminders below to look at the bright side of your life, and you will gradually rewire your brain…

1. Start steadying yourself with simple rituals.

When life feels like an emotional roller coaster, (more…)

12 “Notes to Self” We Should All Memorize in the Next 12 Months

As we look forward to everything 2024 has in store, I know many of us are yearning for a simpler and selective range of life experiences in the year ahead — the happier days, the normal times, the settings and experiences that make us feel more comfortable. And yet, the full range of reality often brings something very different. The year ahead will inevitably give us an extensive array of experiences that evoke feelings ranging from sadness to struggle to pride to growth to hope, and more.

So we have a choice starting today. We can revolt against reality — the reality of having to deal with discomfort, of having to cope with uncertainty, of having to feel upset sometimes. Or we can (more…)