Marc Chernoff's Blog, page 57

40 Quotes for Coping with Things You Can’t Control

The goal is to grow so strong on the inside that nothing on the outside can affect your inner wellness without your conscious permission.

How you cope with unexpected stress and frustration can easily be the difference between living a good life and living an unhealthy one. If you choose unhealthy coping mechanisms like avoidance or denial, for example, you can quickly turn a tough situation into a tragic one. And sadly, this is a common mistake many people make.

When you find yourself facing a disheartening reality, your first reaction might be to deny the situation, or to avoid dealing with it altogether. But by doing so you’re inadvertently holding on even tighter to the pain that you wish to let go of — you’re, in effect, sealing it up inside you.

Let’s imagine someone close to you has grown ill, and supporting this person through his or her illness is incredibly painful. You might not want to deal with the pain, so you cope by avoiding it, by finding ways to numb yourself with alcohol and unhealthy eating. And consequently, you grow physically ill too while the pain continues to fester inside you.

Obviously, that’s not good.

If you notice yourself doing something similar, it’s time to pause, admit to yourself that you’re coping by avoiding, and then shift your focus to a healthier coping mechanism, like using the quotes listed later in this post (several of which are excerpts from our books) to help you open your mind.

When you face struggles with an attitude of openness — open to the painful feelings and emotions you have — you find out that it’s not comfortable, but you can still be fine and you can still step forward. Openness means you don’t instantly decide that you know this is only going to be a horrible experience — it means you admit that you don’t really know what the next step will be like, and you’d like to understand the whole truth of the matter. It’s a learning stance, instead of one that assumes the worst.

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place this coming weekend in Orlando. If you can’t attend in person, get yourself a full recording of the 2022 live event HERE.

The General Benefits of Healthy Coping

Coping certainly isn’t an (more…)

An Open Letter to Those Who Are Trying to Make the Best of a Bad Situation

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.”
— Iain Thomas

This article was inspired by a short email we received this morning from a new course student:

Dear Marc and Angel,

There’s so much meaning and value I want to foster in my present life, and yet a tragic past continues to drag me down. I feel like I have weights tied to my ankles. It’s the heaviness of grief that still sneaks up on me. Truly, I’ve been through a lot – the toughest and most heartbreaking of which was losing my husband in a car accident when he was only 35-years-old. And right now, six years later, I’m at a point where I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation, but I wake up on some mornings and just can’t seem to let go of the way things were “supposed to be” in my life.

Anyway, I know you can’t solve all my problems, but I was hoping you could shine some light on my situation. I could use a little perspective today. Do you have any wisdom you could share?

Sincerely,
A Struggling Student

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place May 28-29, 2022 in Orlando. We just released 4 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last). Check out the 2022 event here.

Our reply (an open reply to all who are trying to make the best of a bad situation):

Dear Struggling Student,

Marc and I just finished reading your email, together, and we sincerely wish we could start by giving you two of the biggest, longest hugs imaginable. But since that’s not possible at this very moment, let me tell you about an unexpected phone call I received in the middle of the night last night.

My phone rang just before midnight. I didn’t answer. Then it rang again a minute later. I rolled over, grabbed it off the nightstand, and (more…)

10 Things to Start Telling Yourself on Hard Days

Mental strength is incredibly important. Take care of your mind and the way you speak to yourself. Don’t let negative self-talk weaken you today.

Life changes every single day, and so can you.

That’s the truth, and yet oftentimes so many of us feel hopelessly stuck against our will.

Why? Because the changes we seek breed uncertainty, and life can be hard to navigate when we’re uncertain about things.

We feel confused and displaced, and we begin filling our gaps of understanding with stories about how life is. But these stories often do us more harm than good.

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place May 28-29, 2022 in Orlando. We just released 10 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last). Check out the 2022 event here.

Imagine you’re in the (more…)

15 Important Reminders for Your Darkest Moments of Self-Doubt

Our character is often most evident at our highs and lows. Be humble at the mountaintops, be strong in the valleys, and be faithful in between.

Why are we feeling this way—so beaten up and worn down?

Why do we, who start out so passionate, courageous, worthy and believing, become utterly bankrupt by the youthful age of 30, 40 or 50?

Why is it that one of us drowns in material consumption and debt, another self-mutilates, a third seeks oblivion in hard liquor and gambling, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and judgment, cynically tramples and berates her own individuality, intelligence, and priceless youth?

Why is it that, once fallen, we don’t attempt to rise back up? Or, having lost one thing, why don’t we attempt to seek another?

Why? Why? Why!!!

Because we give up on ourselves too soon.

We let that monster named negativity chew us up and spit us out into a mucky puddle of self-doubt.

And we’ve all been there at some point too. So, if you can relate right now, here are some important reminders to keep handy…

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place May 28-29, 2022 in Orlando. We just released 10 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last). Check out the 2022 event here.

(more…)

20 Quotes and Notes We Need to Read 20 Times a Day Until They Sink In

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place May 28-29, 2022 in Orlando. We just released 10 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last). Check out the 2022 event here.

Happiness doesn’t start with a relationship, a vacation, a job… or any external source. It starts with your thinking and what you tell yourself today. Remind yourself of this truth. And remind yourself that the absolute best lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn over and over again. The human mind needs lots of proactive reminders—lots of practice—to operate effectively through thick and thin. 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, stronger than before

Yet, we often seek the exact opposite when life gets stressful and we’re under pressure.

We do the wrong things even when we know better.

Because the human mind has weaknesses. It becomes forgetful and insensible when it’s stressed. And the only way to conquer these weaknesses is to practice conquering them.

Now is the time to practice! (more…)

10 Powerful Mantras to Stop the Drama in Your Life

The ability to not overreact, or engage too deeply in life’s drama, keeps your mind clear, your heart at peace, and you fully composed in otherwise uncontrollable situations.

Why do we get so easily stressed out and sucked into drama?

It’s because the world isn’t the predictable, orderly, blissful place we’d like it to be. We want things to be easy, comfortable and well ordered. Unfortunately, work is hectic, relationships are challenging, people demand our time, we aren’t as prepared as we’d like to be, our family frustrates us, and there’s just too much to do and learn and process in our minds.

So we get stressed out, and drama ensues.

But the problem isn’t the world, or other people’s thoughts and behavior – these aspects of life will always be uncontrollable and a bit of a mess.

The problem is that we’re holding on too tightly to ideals that don’t match reality. We have subconsciously set up expectations in our minds of what we want other people to be, what we want ourselves to be, and what our work and relationships and life “should” be like.

Our attachment to our ideals stirs anxiety in our minds and stress in our lives.

Our resistance to accept things as they are fuels our drama.

And we don’t want to be a part of this drama – at least that’s what we tell ourselves – so we blame others for it … which in turn creates even more of it.

But there’s good news! We can let go of drama, and find peace with reality.

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place May 28-29, 2022 in Orlando. We just released 10 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last). Check out the 2022 event here.

The Peace and Joy of No Drama

I’m going to suggest a simple practice for whenever you feel stress, frustration, worry, and all the other detrimental mindsets that bring drama into (more…)

12 Things My Grandmother Told Me Before She Died

When my grandmother, Zelda, passed away fifteen years ago at the age of ninety, she left me with a box of miscellaneous items from her house that she knew I had grown to appreciate over the years. Among these items is an old leather-bound journal that she aptly named her Inspiration Journal.

Throughout the second half of her life, she used this journal to jot down ideas, thoughts, quotes, song lyrics, and anything else that moved her. She would read excerpts from her journal to me when I was growing up, and I would listen and ask questions. I honestly credit a part of who I am now to the wisdom she bestowed on me when I was young.

Although I’ve shared her wisdom with blog subscribers and book readers in the past, today is the day she became an angel fifteen years ago. So to honor her, I want to share some of my favorite excerpts from her journal with you. I’ve done my best to sort, copyedit, and reorganize her thoughts into twelve inspiring bullet points. I hope you find value in them. (more…)

20 Things We Should Say to Ourselves More Often

What we ultimately do comes out of who we believe we are.

A good friend of mine, who graduated with honors from Cal Berkley several years ago, is now the co-founder and CEO of a successful start-up in Silicon Valley. Throughout grade school she struggled with reading and writing disabilities. She spent kindergarten all the way through 12th grade in English ESE classes. During a parent-teacher conference when she was a freshman in high school, two ESE teachers collectively informed her mom that it was highly unlikely she would ever graduate.

So how did she do it? How did she push through and overcome the odds? “Affirmations,” she told me with a serious smile when I interviewed her recently for a side-project I’m working on. “I literally told myself that they were wrong about me. I told myself exactly what I needed to hear, every single day, to move my life forward. It may sound like a cliché to some people, but it’s not. It’s powerful stuff!”

I love her sentiment and I agree with her 100%. In fact, there’s a good reason why training our minds with positive affirmations works wonders like this.

Just like every muscle in the body, the mind needs to be exercised to gain strength. It needs to be worked consistently to grow and develop over time. If you haven’t pushed your mind in thousands of little ways over time, of course it’ll crumble on the one day that things get really challenging.

A mind well trained with positive affirmations has the right thoughts queued up and ready for retrieval at a moment’s notice.

If you’d like to begin (or enhance) this practice in your own life, here’s a selection of affirmations I often suggest to our course students, as starting point: (more…)

40 Quotes that Will Calm Your Mind When You’re at a Crossroads

It happens to all of us gradually as we live and grow.  We discover more about who we are and the way life really is, and then we realize there are some changes we need to make.  The lifestyle we’ve been living no longer fits.  The environments and relationships we once found comfort in no longer exist, or no longer serve our best interests.  So we cherish all the great memories, but find ourselves at a crossroads, choosing to embark on the first step of a brand new path.

And it’s not easy.  It’s painful to give up what’s comfortable and familiar, especially when you have no other choice.  Marc and I have struggled through this process many times out of necessity.  Over the past decade we’ve had to deal with several significant, unexpected life changes and challenges, including: (more…)

16 Tiny Stories of Regret that Will Change the Way You Live

Ten years from now, it won’t really matter what shoes you wore today, how your hair looked, or what brand of clothes you wore. What will matter is how you lived, how you loved, and what you learned along the way.

Deep down you know this already, right?

Yet today, just like the majority of us, you are easily distracted and derailed by the insignificant.

You give too much of your time to meaningless time-wasters.

You step through days, skeptically, with inner resistance.

You take your important relationships for granted.

You get caught up in hurtful drama.

You give in to your doubts.

And the list goes on.

But why?

Why do you follow these hurtful patterns of behavior?

Why do you set yourself up for regret when you know better?

Because (more…)