Long before I was publishing articles for the world to read, I wrote in a private document. I did this for more than a year. There were a variety of reasons and excuses that I used to rationalize why I wasn’t sharing my writing with others, but in many ways it boiled down to fear.
Here’s what I didn’t realize at the time: fear isn’t something that must be avoided. It is not an indicator that you’re doing things wrong. Fear is simply a cost that all artists have to pay on the way to doing meaningful work.
Obviously, not everything that is thought or written or created needs to be shared. In our age, where everyone has a voice and a platform, there is a lot of noise created.
However, if you have a story inside of you, I think you should share it. If you have an idea that you’d like to create, I think you should build it. If you have a dream that would make the world a slightly better place, then I think it’s your responsibility to deliver it to the rest of us. But it won’t be easy. All artists deal with fears, self-doubts, questions, and a roller coaster ride of emotions.
With that in mind, here are six passages from famous authors, actors, and artists on how to overcome fear and unleash your creativity.
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates the strength of Resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.”
–Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
In the beginning, it is more important to start than it is to succeed. It is only through starting that we reveal the opportunity for growth.
What we need to do is say, “What’s the smallest, tiniest thing that I can master and what’s the scariest thing I can do in front of the smallest number of people that can teach me how to dance with the fear?” Once we get good at that, we just realize that it’s not fatal. And it’s not intellectually realize – we’ve lived something that wasn’t fatal. And that idea is what’s so key — because then you can do it a little bit more.”
–Seth Godin (full interview)
Mental toughness is a skill and like any skill it can be developed. Learning how to overcome fear is just like building a new habit. Start small and increase slowly.
“When you are thinking about doing something and it feels scary, when it feels like this big lion is waiting at the finish line and he’s roaring and he’s ferocious and he’s going to tear you apart… you should just run toward that lion anyway. Run to the roar.”
–Tina Essmaker (full interview)
It’s not your job to tell yourself no. It’s not your job to reject yourself or grade yourself or debate the value or worthiness of your ideas. Your job is to create. Your job is to share. Your job is to overcome fear and run the race.
Yes, if you build something people might judge it or dislike it. But if you don’t create and share the things that you have inside of you, then you’ll commit the far worse crime of rejecting yourself. You can either be judged because you created something or ignored because you left your greatness inside of you.
“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something — I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
–Hugh Laurie (source)
It will never feel like the right time. Do not wait for someone to give you permission to begin. Nobody is going to tap you, nominate you, appoint you, or choose you and say, “Now, it’s time to start.”
Give yourself permission. Successful people start before they feel ready.
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not – that one endures.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Ultimately, the chance to persevere through self-doubt and fear and procrastination is one of the greatest opportunities we have for self-discovery. It is through creating that we find out who we really are and what we are truly made of.
Live in the arena rather than judging from the crowd. It’s more exciting down there. Whether you win or lose, the fight is the reward.
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished?
Yes; work never begun.
–Christina Rossetti
Contribute to the world around you. Create and share the brilliance that you have inside of you. Life is not meant to spent solely consuming the things that others have made.
You’ve probably noticed that it’s hard to be motivated all the time.
No matter what you are working on, there are bound to be days when you don’t feel like showing up. There will be workouts that you don’t feel like starting. There will be reports that you don’t feel like writing. There will be responsibilities that you don’t feel like handling. And there will be “off days” when your energy and emotions are in the gutter.
These fluctuations are part of life, and I face these motivational challenges just as much as the next person. However, for the important things in my life, I’ve also developed a system for dealing with these “off days.”
Let’s talk about that system and how it can help you perform well even when you’re not feeling motivated.
I played baseball for 17 years, mostly as a pitcher. During my final season, I had a pretty good year. I was selected to the All–Conference team, I was chosen as the top male athlete at my university, and I was named to ESPN’s Academic All–America team.
But it wasn’t always that way…
Just a few years earlier, I was the only junior to be cut from my high school varsity baseball team. I played on the JV squad with all of the sophomores and didn’t make the varsity team until my senior year … when I threw a whopping 11 innings all season.
There are dozens of reasons for my transformation from high school through college (great teammates, coaching, work ethic, and so on), but there is one thing that I learned to do in college that I wish I had learned much earlier…
I developed a pre–game routine that allowed me to perform well, regardless of whether I was motivated or not.
One thing that makes baseball different from most other sports is the sheer number of games that are played. Major League Baseball teams play 162 games in a season — twice as many as the NBA and ten times as many games as the NFL. Even high school baseball players will routinely play 40 to 60 games each year.
With so many games, there will always be days when you don’t feel motivated, when your body is tired, or you’re just not mentally “up” for the game. In that way, I’d say that baseball is a lot like life. There will always be days when the things that are important to you feel like a grind.
But the game is going to be played whether you feel like playing or not, so you better figure out a solution to overcoming your lackluster emotions. I did this by developing a pre-game routine that would automatically pull me out of a funk and push me over that threshold to perform well.
Here’s what my pre-game routine looked like…
Grab a baseball and my glove. Jog out to the outfield foul pole. Jog across along the outfield wall. Stop at the opposite foul pole. Stretch hips and hamstrings. Jog back along the outfield wall. Toss lightly, working back to 75 feet or so. Head to the bullpen. Stand one step behind the mound and toss three or four times from there to the catcher. Step up onto the mound. Toss a few pitches without going into the full windup. Start throwing from the windup for 10 pitches or so. Throw from the stretch for 10 pitches or so. Finish with one of each pitch (change up, curveball, fastball in, fastball out). Walk to the dugout.
That whole sequence usually took 20 to 25 minutes and I did it the same way every single time.
While this routine physically warmed me up to play, it also — and perhaps more importantly — put me in the correct mental state to compete at a high level. Even if I wasn’t feeling up for the game at the beginning, by the time I finished my pre-game routine, I was in “game mode.”
In other words, it didn’t matter if I came to the ballpark motivated to play. My pre-game routine started a cascade of internal events that pulled me into the right frame of mind and made it more likely that I would succeed.
Imagine if you had a routine that could pull you into “exercise mode” or “work mode”, no matter how little motivation you had at the start.
If you look at top performers in any field, you’ll see similar patterns all over the place. NBA players who do the same thing before every free throw shot. Comedians who recite the same words before they step onto stage. Corporate executives who follow the same meditation sequence every morning.
Do you think these people always feel motivated? No way. There are some days when the most talented people in the world wake up feeling like sluggish lard bombs.
But they use their pre-game routines to pull them into the right mental state, regardless of how they feel. You can use this same process to overcome your motivation threshold and consistently exercise, study, write, speak, or perform any other task that is important to you.
Here’s how to do it…
Step 1: A good pre–game routine starts by being so easy that you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pre–game routine.
For example…
The most important part of any task is starting. If you can’t get motivated in the beginning, then you’ll find that motivation often comes after starting. That’s why your pre–game routine needs to be incredibly easy to start.
For example, you could create an exercise routine that starts with filling up your water bottle. That way, when you don’t feel like working out, you can simply tell yourself, “Just fill up the water bottle.” Your only goal is to start the routine and then continue from there.
For more about the importance of getting started, read this.
Step 2: Your routine should get you moving towards the end goal.
Most of the time, your routine should include physical movement. It’s hard to think yourself into getting motivated.
Here’s why…
What is your body language like when you’re feeling unmotivated or lacking energy?
Answer: You’re not moving very much. Maybe you’re slumped over like a blob, slowly melting into the couch. This lack of physical movement is directly linked to a lack of mental energy.
The opposite is also true. If you’re physically moving and engaged, then it’s far more likely that you’ll feel mentally engaged and energized. For example, it’s almost impossible to not feel vibrant, awake, and energized when you’re dancing.
While your routine should be as easy as possible to start, it should gradually transition into more and more physical movement. Your mind and your motivation will follow your physical movement.
Related: physical movement doesn’t have to mean exercise. For example, if your goal is to write, then your routine should bring you closer to the physical act of writing.
Step 3: You need to follow the same pattern every single time.
The primary purpose of your pre-game routine is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pre–game routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do ___.”
Eventually, this routine becomes so tied to your performance that by simply doing the routine, you are pulled into a mental state that is primed to perform. You don’t need motivation, you just need to start your routine.
If you remember the article on the 3 R’s of Habit Change, then you may realize that your pre-game routine is basically creating a “reminder” for yourself. Your pre-game routine is the trigger that kickstarts your habit, even if you’re not motivated to do it.
This is important because when you don’t feel motivated, it’s often too much work to figure out what you should do next. When faced with another decision, you will often decide to just quit. However, the pre-game routine solves that problem because you know exactly what to do next. There’s no debating or decision making. You just follow the pattern.
You can train yourself for success just as well as you can train for failure.
Today you may be saying, “I need to be motivated to get anything done,” but I guarantee that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’ve taught yourself to believe certain limitations, then you can also teach yourself to break through them.
The patterns that you repeat on a daily basis will eventually form the identity that you believe in and the actions that you take. You can transform your identity and become the type of person who doesn’t need motivation to perform well.
This is why it’s so critical to do your pre-game routine every time, not just when you’re struggling with a lack of motivation. These small behaviors reinforce your good habits and the feelings that come with them. Pretty soon, your pre-game routine will not only be a trigger that kickstarts your habit, but also a reminder of what you’re working towards and the type of person you are becoming.
This is the difference between approaching life as a professional or an amateur.
If you only work when you feel motivated, then you’ll never be consistent enough to become a pro. But if you build small routines and patterns that help you overcome the daily battles, then you’ll continue the slow march towards greatness even when it gets tough.
Intro text we refine our methods of responsive web design, we’ve increasingly focused on measure and its relationship to how people read.
A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen.
On the topic of alignment, it should be noted that users can choose from the options of None, Left, Right, and Center. In addition, they also get the options of Thumbnail, Medium, Large & Fullsize.
And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her. Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.
A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul
On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country.A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so happy, my dear friend, so absorbed in the exquisite sense of mere tranquil existence, that I neglect my talents.
But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
Walk down the Uluwatu beach
A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense”, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. “What’s happened to me? ” he thought. It wasn’t a dream.
His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame.
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Lonely girl waiting for a loved one on the beach
It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment.
It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer. Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad.
Depending on where you get your numbers, somewhere between 81 percent and 92 percent of New Year’s Resolutions fail.
Translation: At least 8 times out of 10, you are more likely to fall back into your old habits and patterns than you are to stick with a new behavior.
Behavior change is hard. No doubt about it.
Why is that? What are the biggest reasons new habits fail to stick? And what can we do to make positive changes easier?
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but after two years of researching and writing about the science of behavior change, let me share the most practical insights I’ve learned so far.
SOLUTION: Pick one thing and do it well.
The general consensus among behavior change researchers is that you should focus on changing a very small number of habits at the same time.
The highest number you’ll find is changing three habits at once and that suggestion comes from BJ Fogg at Stanford University. Let’s be clear: Dr. Fogg is talking about incredibly tiny habits.
How tiny? Suggested habits include flossing one tooth, doing one pushup per day, or saying “It’s going to be a great day” when you get out of bed in the morning. So, even if you keep your new habits that small, you should work on no more than three habits at a time.
Personally, I prefer to focus on building one new behavior into my life at a time. Once that habit becomes routine, then I move on to the next one. For example, I spent six months focusing on going to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Once that felt like a routine, then I moved on to my next habit, which was writing a new article every Monday and Thursday. This time, I spent eight months focusing on the new habit until it became part of my lifestyle. Next, I moved on to flossing every day. And so on. You get the idea.
BONUS SOLUTION: Pick a keystone habit.
Still struggling? When in doubt, pick something that could potentially be a keystone habit.
A keystone habit is a behavior or routine that naturally pulls the rest of your life in line. For example, weightlifting is my keystone habit. If I get to the gym, then it creates a ripple effect in other areas of my life. Not only do I get the benefits of working out, I enjoy a wide range of secondary benefits. I focus better after the workout. I tend to eat better when I’m working out consistently. I sleep better at night and wake up with more energy in the morning.
Notice that I didn’t try to build better habits for my focus, my nutrition, my sleep, or my energy. I just did my keystone habit and those other areas were improved as well. This is why keystone habits are powerful. They cascade into other areas of your life. You’ll have to figure out what your keystone habit is for you, but some popular examples include exercise, meditation, or budgeting your monthly finances.
SOLUTION: As Leo Babauta says, “Make it so easy you can’t say no.”
If you were to map out the motivation needed to perform a habit, you would find that for many behaviors it looks like this:
In other words, the most difficult part of a new habit is starting the behavior. It takes a lot of motivation to head to the gym for a workout after an exhausting day at work, but once you actually begin the workout it doesn’t take much willpower to finish it. For this reason, one of the best things you can do for building a new behavior is to start with a remarkably small habit.
New habits should be non-threatening. Start with a behavior that is so small it seems easy and reasonable to do it each day.
SOLUTION: Focus on the behavior, not the outcome.
Nearly every conversation about goals and resolutions is focused on some type of result. What do you want to achieve? How much weight do you want to lose? How much money do you want to save? How many books do you want to read? How much less do you want to drink?
Naturally, we are outcome focused because we want our new behaviors to deliver new results.
Here’s the problem: New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is not an outcome, it is a process. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better rituals, not chasing better results.
Rituals are what turn behaviors into habits. In the words of Tony Schwartz, “A ritual is a highly precise behavior you do at a specific time so that it becomes automatic over time and no longer requires much conscious intention or energy.”
If you want a new habit, you have to fall in love with a new ritual.
SOLUTION: Build an environment that promotes good habits.
I have never seen a person consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment. You can frame this statement in many different ways:
We rarely admit it (or even realize it), but our behaviors are often a simple response to the environment we find ourselves in.
In fact, you can assume that the lifestyle you have today (all of your habits) is largely a product of the environment you live in each day. The single biggest change that will make a new habit easier is performing it in an environment that is designed to make that habit succeed. For example, let’s say that your New Year’s resolution is to reduce stress in your life and live in a more focused manner.
Here is the current situation:
Every morning, the alarm on your phone goes off. You pick up the phone, turn off the alarm, and immediately start checking email and social media. Before you have even made it out of bed, you are already thinking about a half dozen new emails. Maybe you’ve already responded to a few. You also browsed the latest updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so those messages and headlines are swimming around in your mind too. You haven’t even dressed yet, but your mind is already distracted and stressed.
If this scene sounds familiar and you want to change your habit, then the easiest way to do it is to change your environment. Don’t keep your phone in your room. The phone is the thing that causes all of the problems, so change the environment. Buy a regular alarm clock (shockingly old school, I know) and charge your phone in another room (or, at least, across the room away from your bed).
You can change the digital environment too. Turn off all push notifications on your phone. You can even remove your email and social media apps from the home screen and hide them somewhere else on the phone. I deleted all of my apps from my phone for a month just to see how it would go. I missed them very little.
If your environment doesn’t change, you probably won’t either.
SOLUTION: Get one percent better each day.
If you listen to nearly anyone talk about their goals, you’ll hear them describe the minimum that they want to achieve.
The underlying assumption is that your achievements need to be big to make a difference. Because of this, we always talk ourselves into chasing a big habit. “If I want to lose at least 20 pounds, I need to start busting my butt and working out for 90 minutes a day!”
If you look at your current habits, however, you’ll see a different picture. Nearly every habit you have today, good or bad, is the result of many small choices made over time. It is the repeated pattern of small behaviors that leads to significant results. Each day we make the choice to become one percent better or one percent worse, but so often the choices are small enough that we miss them.
If you’re serious about building a new habit, then start with something small. Start with something you can stick with for good. Then, once you’ve repeated it enough times, you can worry about increasing the intensity.
Build the behavior first. Worry about the results later.
In June of 2004, Arno Rafael Minkkinen stepped up to the microphone at the New England School of Photography to deliver the commencement speech.
As he looked out at the graduating students, Minkkinen shared a simple theory that, in his estimation, made all the difference between success and failure. He called it The Helsinki Bus Station Theory.
Minkkinen was born in Helsinki, Finland. In the center of the city there was a large bus station and he began his speech by describing it to the students.
“Some two-dozen platforms are laid out in a square at the heart of the city,” Minkkinen said. “At the head of each platform is a sign posting the numbers of the buses that leave from that particular platform. The bus numbers might read as follows: 21, 71, 58, 33, and 19. Each bus takes the same route out of the city for at least a kilometer, stopping at bus stop intervals along the way.”
He continued, “Now let’s say, again metaphorically speaking, that each bus stop represents one year in the life of a photographer. Meaning the third bus stop would represent three years of photographic activity. Ok, so you have been working for three years making platinum studies of nudes. Call it bus #21.”
“You take those three years of work to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the curator asks if you are familiar with the nudes of Irving Penn. His bus, 71, was on the same line. Or you take them to a gallery in Paris and are reminded to check out Bill Brandt, bus 58, and so on. Shocked, you realize that what you have been doing for three years others have already done.”
“So you hop off the bus, grab a cab—because life is short—and head straight back to the bus station looking for another platform.”
“This time,” he said, “you are going to make 8×10 view camera color snapshots of people lying on the beach from a cherry picker crane. You spend three years at it and three grand and produce a series of works that elicit the same comment. Haven’t you seen the work of Richard Misrach? Or, if they are steamy black and white 8x10s of palm trees swaying off a beachfront, haven’t you seen the work of Sally Mann?”
“So once again, you get off the bus, grab the cab, race back and find a new platform. This goes on all your creative life, always showing new work, always being compared to others.”
Minkkinen paused. He looked out at the students and asked, “What to do?”
“It’s simple,” he said. “Stay on the bus. Stay on the f*cking bus. Because if you do, in time, you will begin to see a difference.”
“The buses that move out of Helsinki stay on the same line, but only for a while—maybe a kilometer or two. Then they begin to separate, each number heading off to its own unique destination. Bus 33 suddenly goes north. Bus 19 southwest. For a time maybe 21 and 71 dovetail one another, but soon they split off as well. Irving Penn is headed elsewhere.”
“It’s the separation that makes all the difference,” Minkkinen said. “And once you start to see that difference in your work from the work you so admire—that’s why you chose that platform after all—it’s time to look for your breakthrough. Suddenly your work starts to get noticed. Now you are working more on your own, making more of the difference between your work and what influenced it. Your vision takes off. And as the years mount up and your work begins to pile up, it won’t be long before the critics become very intrigued, not just by what separates your work from a Sally Mann or a Ralph Gibson, but by what you did when you first got started!”
“You regain the whole bus route in fact. The vintage prints made twenty years ago are suddenly re-evaluated and, for what it is worth, start selling at a premium. At the end of the line—where the bus comes to rest and the driver can get out for a smoke or, better yet, a cup of coffee—that’s when the work is done. It could be the end of your career as an artist or the end of your life for that matter, but your total output is now all there before you, the early (so-called) imitations, the breakthroughs, the peaks and valleys, the closing masterpieces, all with the stamp of your unique vision.”
“Why? Because you stayed on the bus.”
I write frequently about how mastery requires consistency. That includes ideas like putting in your reps, improving your average speed, and falling in love with boredom. These ideas are critical, but The Helsinki Bus Station Theory helps to clarify and distinguish some important details that often get overlooked.
Does consistency lead to success?
The key feature of The Helsinki Bus Station Theory is that it urges you to not simply do more work, but to do more re-work.
Average college students learn ideas once. The best college students re-learn ideas over and over. Average employees write emails once. Elite novelists re-write chapters again and again. Average fitness enthusiasts mindlessly follow the same workout routine each week. The best athletes actively critique each repetition and constantly improve their technique. It is the revision that matters most.
To continue the bus metaphor, the photographers who get off the bus after a few stops and then hop on a new bus line are still doing work the whole time. They are putting in their 10,000 hours. What they are not doing, however, is re-work. They are so busy jumping from line to line in the hopes of finding a route nobody has ridden before that they don’t invest the time to re-work their old ideas. And this, as The Helsinki Bus Station Theory makes clear, is the key to producing something unique and wonderful.
By staying on the bus, you give yourself time to re-work and revise until you produce something unique, inspiring, and great. It’s only by staying on board that mastery reveals itself. Show up enough times to get the average ideas out of the way and every now and then genius will reveal itself.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers popularized The 10,000 Hour Rule, which states that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert in a particular field. I think what we often miss is that deliberate practice is revision. If you’re not paying close enough attention to revise, then you’re not being deliberate.
A lot of people put in 10,000 hours. Very few people put in 10,000 hours of revision. The only way to do that is to stay on the bus.
We are all creators in some capacity. The manager who fights for a new initiative. The accountant who creates a faster process for managing tax returns. The nurse who thinks up a better way of managing her patients. And, of course, the writer, the designer, the painter, and the musician laboring to share their work out to the world. They are all creators.
Any creator who tries to move society forward will experience failure. Too often, we respond to these failures by calling a cab and getting on another bus line. Maybe the ride will be smoother over there.
Instead, we should stay on the bus and commit to the hard work of revisiting, rethinking, and revising our ideas.
In order to do that, however, you must answer the toughest decision of all. Which bus will you ride? What story do you want to tell with your life? What craft do you want to spend your years revising and improving?
How do you know the right answer? You don’t. Nobody knows the best bus, but if you want to fulfill your potential you must choose one. This is one of the central tensions of life. It’s your choice, but you must choose.
And once you do, stay on the bus.
We live in an age when love, sex and intimacy seem to be many people’s epitome of happiness. Yes, we seek other ways to find happiness and fulfillment, but the rate of divorce and the percentage of single parent families compared with two-parent families tells me that parenting is either of less importance to parents than marriage or that they are uninformed about the effects of divorce on their children. Parents who leave an unhappy marriage for the sake of their children are not in possession of all the facts or are misguided in their belief that divorce is in the best interest of the children. The best wisdom out there says that children of divorce suffer more than children of unhappy marriages.
Here are 7 reasons why parents should put parenting before marriage.
1. Children need two parents more than they need a perfect home
The influence of both a male and female parent on a child’s development cannot be understated. A good mother, on balance brings a nurturing, protecting and comforting aspect to a child’s life, while a good father brings his child stability, security and strength. Mothers tend to be more emotional, fathers more rational. Mothers tend to be more understanding, fathers more decisive. A good mother may offer her child a shoulder to cry on while a good father may show his child how to get up and move on.
Of course, a good parent possesses all these qualities and shares the responsibility for providing their child with all their needs. But it is in the nature of a male parent to provide a child with answers and solutions and direction while it is more inherent in a female parent to be protective of a child’s emotional well-being and to be a good listener without feeling the need to give her child a logical solution to their problem.
Having both a male and female parent present in the home teaches a child how to explore and develop both the masculine and feminine aspects of their own character. In balanced adults there is a healthy presence of both male and female characteristics. In women, the balance will tend to be more feminine and in men, more masculine. If a child is to have the best chance to develop emotional stability then two parents are needed on a daily basis. Even the slightest change in the balance will have an adverse effect on a child’s emotional and intellectual development.
2. A child has a right to be brought up by two parents
Marriage is a choice that two people make for themselves. It is rarely a selfless or altruistic act. People marry because they find someone who brings them happiness and fulfilment in life. Of course, there is also the promise to live to make the other person happy. Even though the phrase “for better or for worse” is still often said in the marriage vows, more and more this promise is being broken as married couples find it’s a promise they are unable or unwilling to keep.
However, when a child is born into the marriage, it has rights which far outweigh the needs of the parents. Even though a couple desire to be fulfilled in their personal relationship with each other, a child has the right to be brought up by two loving, caring, selfless parents: parents who put their child’s interests before their own.
Parents rarely make a commitment to their children when they are born, but children ought to expect that their parents will do whatever it takes to give them a stable, loving home in which to grow and develop. In a good parent, the rights and needs of their child will always come before their own, whatever the cost to themselves.
3. To be a parent is a moral obligation – not a choice
There is never a time as long as a parent and a child are living when they will not be connected. Even if estranged, a parent will always be the parent to their child. There is no divorcing a child. There is no saying to a child ‘I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore, this simply isn’t going to work’. But when two parents say that to each other, they are in some measure saying it to their child. Parents may put a spin on divorce by saying to the child ‘it’s better for you in the long run’ but the truth is – it isn’t. A child’s perspective will be ‘you don’t love me enough to stay together and make your marriage work’ – even if only subconsciously. While some may say ‘I’m glad my parents split up – I couldn’t stand the shouting’, what would they have said if their parents had found a way to make the marriage work in order to keep the family home together? Or are they even aware of the effects that growing up in a broken home has had on them?
The love between a husband and wife can wane or even be extinguished, but the love of a good parent is unconditional and unmovable. A marriage can breakdown and be dissolved, but the love that a good parent has for their child can never be diminished and their commitment to their child can never be undermined or broken. The commitment that a parent has to their child is not one based on choice, it’s one based on moral obligation. It would be even better if it were based on unconditional love. What lengths would a good parent go to to provide their child with the very best upbringing they could if they truly loved them more than themselves?
4. A child deserves and expects it
During their formative years, children depend upon both parents to show that they are committed to them. They need to see that they are loved and to know that their home is stable and secure. They need to know that no matter what storms the family has to face together, the foundations of the family home cannot be shaken. Children need the certainty that the love their parents have for them comes above their own personal happiness – that it indeed comes before their love for each other. When a parent puts a child’s interests second to their own it will make their child feel unloved and second-rate. The child will begin to doubt their own worth and their value to the parent. After all, what kind of love puts someone else second?
If a child doesn’t deserve a parent’s unconditional and undying love then who does? Children are vulnerable and need protecting. Parents have a responsibility to give their child the best parenting they possibly can whatever the cost to themselves. A child has no reserves on which to draw to cover the emotional shortfall which results from growing up in a broken home. Parents, on the other hand should be prepared to go into emotional debt if they have to in order to make sure their child does not grow up emotionally poor or crippled.
5. Spouses can expect too much from each other, but children never expect too much from their parents.
Marriages are not perfect, neither are parent-child relationships. But a child deserves understanding, provision, support, affection, and security moreso than a spouse. After all, when two people get married, they make an agreement to love each other and provide for each other’s needs. When a child is born, no such agreement takes place. A child simply grows up expecting all that’s coming to them. When one person in a marriage fails to uphold their part of the agreement, the other has every right to withdraw their own part of the agreement. So often, when the love that one has for the other depends on what they ‘get’ out of the relationship, if they ain’t ‘getting’ then the love dies. But this only works one way with a child-parent relationship.
When a child fails to be a perfect child, a parent cannot abandon them or withdraw their love from them. The child still has the right to expect to be loved unconditionally. Children owe nothing to their parents, but parents owe everything to their children. If a child fails to love a parent as they would like to be loved, the parent must go on loving their child nonetheless. The child has no debt of love to pay to the parent. But if a parent loves their child unconditionally, that child will grow up to love their parent too. If a parent fails to love their child more than themselves, the child will withdraw from the parent to a greater or lesser degree.
Even though good parents will fail their child in some measure, a child’s expectations of the parents are always right – even if unrealistic. Good parents will always understand that they are not married to their child – they are inextricably connected and committed to their child and that a child has a birthright to expect unreserved love and commitment from their parents regardless of how much a child returns their parents’ affections or lives up to their expectations.
6. A broken home results in a broken child
Somewhere along the way, when a child is brought up by one parent or by two parents who live apart, something in the child is lost or broken. Having two parents who could not find it in themselves to stay together to give them a stable home will have a detrimental effect on a child. It may not emerge till later in life, but a person from a broken home may find it difficult to make strong emotional connections with others. Statistics show that people from single-parent homes are less successful in life – even years afterwards – than those from two-parent families.
While parents may argue that they split up for the child’s sake, in actuality, it’s rare that divorce ever benefits a child. Growing up in a home even where parents are disconnected or in constant disagreement gives a child more stability and normality than growing up where they have to deal with the loss of the two-parent home. A child growing up in a broken home grows up grieving for the intact home where two parents are available on a daily basis to provide them with the moral, emotional and intellectual support essential to their development and nourishment. The best parenting cannot be done over the telephone or on weekends. The best parenting is done on a daily basis and in partnership with the other parent. No matter how parents try to justify divorce, it will nearly always result in a broken child.
7. Putting parenting first may save a marriage
Children should never be used as an excuse not to leave a marriage, but they can be the reason why a parent would stay in a marriage. The difference is that if a parent knows that to provide their child with a stable, loving and peaceful home in which to grow up will give them the best possible start in life, it may give them the resolve they need to work harder at their marriage than if they had not been a parent. Whereas, not leaving a marriage for the sake of a child is a mindset which can result in a parent putting too much responsibility on their child to bring them personal happiness.
If parents can proactively take steps to make a marriage workable so that their child has the home they deserve, they may find that their marriage becomes less of a disappointment. Focusing on the needs of their child and resolving to work at their relationship for the sake of their child doesn’t necessarily mean that the marriage is false or a sham. It merely shifts the priorities of the marriage. Nor does it mean that the child carries the burden of keeping the marriage together. It merely requires a level of giving to the child that supercedes the parents’ desire to take from each other. Providing a child with a good home is one of the best reasons two people can stay together.
Who said that romance or sex or a great social life are the only reasons to be married? Surely, providing a child with a loving home is as good, if not, a better reason for working at a marriage than all the others put together? The result of working at the marriage wouldn’t be to prevent the pain of separation for the parents, it would be the enduring and immeasurable investment that they make in the well-being and personal development of their child. If parents can keep their child the focus of their ambitions and desires, they can find ways they otherwise wouldn’t have done to make their marriage workable and as enjoyable as possible and thus provide their child with the parents and the home they deserve.
Stephen Rees
Having worked at a difficult marriage for 20 years in order to bring up my two children my desire is to encourage and help other parents in a similar situation to do the same. My core belief on parenting is that a good parent can find ways of making a marriage work – even if not fulfilling – in order to provide their children with a stable, happy home in which to grow up.
The modern belief that leaving a bad marriage for the sake of the children has no evidential basis. In fact, studies on both sides of the Atlantic have shown that children who come from homes where both parents are present even if the marriage isn’t a good one, develop better emotionally and intellectually than those who come from broken homes. Parents who are considering divorce should take notice of this evidence if they truly want the best for their children.
My book “How To Be A Good Parent In A Bad Marriage” provides encouragement and support for parents who find themselves struggling to cope with the stresses and traumas of being a parent in an unhappy marriage, and shows how you can find happiness and fulfillment in life while being a great parent to your children.
You can be a million miles apart emotionally while in the same bed and as close as the next heartbeat even though you are separated by miles or time. Have you ever had the experience of feeling really separated or far apart from your partner even though you were within touching distance? Have you ever felt close to someone that you see infrequently or don’t really know that well?
How can you explain this paradox? I have had both experiences in my life on more than one occasion and I have tried to determine the root of this closeness and distance paradox. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I think I am getting closer to the core of the issue.
There are several types of closeness or distance. There is: physical, emotional, financial, sexual, spiritual, and psychological. I have felt really close emotionally to someone yet a million miles apart physically. I have felt a great valley of distance between someone spiritually yet a closeness in other areas. How about you – had the same experiences? If you are in a relationship and do not feel close to your significant other or partner in any of the above ways I suggest you consider the value of this relationship on your path through the rest of your life and how to change this or what it demonstrates in the overall picture of your relationship needs or agendas.
The real problem here is when we are close in some ways and distant in others. For example, if you have a greater need for more affection, emotional closeness or romance and your significant other has a greater need for better financial security and no need for the romance or emotional closeness, you will never bridge this gap focusing on a totally unrelated common area in your relationship or pretending it doesn’t exist or doesn’t really matter. You will tend to bring the unresolved resentments, baggage, expectations, guilt etc. into the other areas of your relationship contributing to greater distance and more dysfunction. You may not do this consciously, but you will certainly do it unconsciously.
I am just asking you to spend some time considering where you are close and far apart in a current relationship and its impact on the overall relationship and each of your relationship needs and expectations. If you don’t evaluate on a practical basis the positives and negatives on any relationship you may be heading for serious disappointment.
The current ‘atmosphere’ of dating and relationships seems to be circulating the feeling of “I want it – but do I?”. I walk past young lovers in Paris (I’m in Paris at the moment) and see a lot of couples enjoying the energy of the city and each other – playing flirting games of “I love you” and “what more will you offer me” – and they are genuinely happy. I also walk past others who are musing with a friend on how they like this guy or that girl and what might be the prospect of being with this person and excited about it. And it started me wondering – what makes us pursue romantic love and affection with a person.
Even though I read and hear a lot of cynicism about dating, finding lasting love and marriage or commitment – I still see a lot of people pursuing, enjoying and loving romantic love. And I’m not in the online dating world. I see it on the streets, parks, bars and venues of Paris. In the couples and families in my building. On the summer vacations of those travelling in France. And in the everyday quotidian – people are still holding hands as if there was something deeply satisfying about being with someone.
One of the researchers on romantic love is Dr Helen Fisher an anthropologist who has studied the pursuit of romantic love in over 90 cultures across the globe both living today and from our past. Dr Fisher’s research has worked out the hormonal drives and personality profiles of love based on the 4 hormones of the body, oestrogen, serotonin, testosterone and dopamine.
What intrigued me about a few of Dr Fisher’s talks in that she still does not have answers for why we pursue romantic love outside the motivating factors of hormonal urges. She certainly has mapped the motivators and she honestly and sweetly says that there is still a piece not covered by her research that can explain why over thousands of years of humanity there is that ongoing pursuit, fascination and interest in romantic love but her research does show that the obsession with romantic love is constant throughout cultures across time and the world.
On the street of Paris, I see young couples bantering and sharing their differing views as they cuddle and connect in what seems a safe place in a world that is full of a lot of change. And I muse to myself that these lovers are in the midst of a period of history which has the most change and the most humans on the planet. In their quiet sanctuary to provide solitude for two – a quiet place where two people can engage in the most simplest activity of connection, two people engaged in each other with the hope or joy that this couple provides a depth of feeling they can’t find in the world. And in that connection, they can also feel the precariousness of resisting their lover, saying no I don’t like that and have their lover actually respond with a deep need or desire to keep their lover happy or sustain their affection. And then I think to myself, but humans have felt and thought they were caught in the worst of times throughout many periods of history. Paris itself has seen darker days as many of its museums and sites testify.
Is it that humans crave safety and security with someone in a world where there is no-one to really champion or celebrate them?
I’ve often wondered, if we crave that security as an adult, why isn’t our mother or father’s love enough (if they’re alive) – why do we go looking for a romantic love that is not the love of a dear family member. Some of us don’t like our families, so seeking out a romantic love interest is a good way to find someone who likes you, celebrates you – validates you – in spite of your family.
Getting into a couple gives you a sense of an anchor to the world and a clear position in the social structures. However, when you’re single or a free agent you could be perceived unconsciously as a potential threat to the species – because your role in the tribe is not defined or pinned down, like you could steal a partner in a couple or provide sexual competition or interest that undermines a couple’s perceived stability. As a couple you can be seen as a more stable “economic unit” that is predictable. However if you are single you could represent something that is ‘unknown’, your agenda, your ‘orientation’ in the world isn’t clear. What is your reason for being as a single agent?
The irony is that many people will now face being single for periods after being in a couple, because relationships don’t last lifetimes these days.
Are we at the end of thousands of years where the ‘long-term relationship equals life-term relationship’ means we are holding onto an old way of defining ‘security’ as being in a couple and we don’t know how to move beyond that?
It leaves a lot of my older friends who have left a marriage or relationship feeling they have to accept – at some point – that they are OK if they are not in a relationship. And for some they realise it is a powerful place for them to arrive: a final acceptance of they are who they are. They may be single or alone – and they are fine with that and even happy.
However, I still see people at all ages, sparkle when they meet someone who lights them up. And that’s the piece that still stirs me.
Here is my musings on why we as the human race continue to believe in romantic love (in spite of the political climate, the atmosphere of the planet or modern dating and its pitfalls):
two humans coming together with the hope of bringing out the best of each other fulfills a deep human need to know and experience yourself as a lovable, giving, flawed and in spite of the flaws, acceptable human being who can make someone else feel the same and even create the opportunity for that person you love to be more of who they are.
and for some, it is motivated by the desire that this person will accept you and bring out a piece of you that you just can’t find by yourself – but you suspect, sense, believe and hope this other person will find the way to manifest this hidden piece of yourself.
There are not a lot of places in our adult lives, where we play that role for each other.
Another way to put romantic love is that it is our unconscious drive and our soul’s need to discover what is hidden from us that the hope of romantic love offers a chance to get up close and intimate with.
I for one, am a believer in romance.
However, I don’t expect romance to be ‘plain sailing’ because the best intents unless they are fueled by some good common sense skills on how to treat a human cannot fulfil the ideals of romantic love.
I am truly interested in knowing why you may be a believer or fan of romantic love.
Let me know your motivations – comment on this blog post. Or email me [email protected]
Angela Ambrosia is a Love and Relationship Coach based in Australia and France. As a performer she discovered dance as a vital way to connect to the joy of life and overcome low self esteem and lack of self love. Her coaching and teaching connects women and men to the communication of love with yourself and in your relationships. She offers the coaching program “Transformed Relationships” for women and men to create modern relationships that create the love you have only dreamed of.
New mothers each have a unique experience when it comes to breastfeeding. Some naturally have a good supply right away while others need to wait a few days first before their breast milk comes in or they have a low supply. If you’re one of the latter, here are 5 easy ways to naturally boost your breast milk supply!
Eat a balanced diet and stay hydrated
To be able to take care of your baby and feed her properly, you need to take care of yourself first. Aim to drink at least 8 glasses of water each day and eat healthy and well-balanced meals. Breastfeeding mothers need an added 500 calories daily. Remember, the content of your breast milk changes based on your diet!
Choose protein-rich and energy-boosting foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, lean meat, oatmeal and yogurt (add flaxseed meal – many moms say this helps boost their supply!).
Don’t miss your vitamins
Aside from eating healthy, the intake of vitamins is important to a breastfeeding mom. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend Folic Acid, Calcium, Iron and Vitamin D.
Consider taking supplements
Taking natural supplements have helped many mothers increase their milk supply. Herbs that are known to help address this problem are called galactogogues and some examples are Blessed Thistle, Brewer’s Yeast and Fenugreek.
Experts recommend that you try various options or combine these natural capsules to find out what works for your body. More importantly, consult your doctor beforehand.
Try feeding on demand
To help boost milk production, try feeding on demand. This is because the production of milk is a demand-supply system – meaning that the more your child feeds, the more milk is produced. Remember to let her feed fully on each breast because when a breast if fully empty, it signals the brain to produce more milk.
Bake lactation cookies or try lactation teas
Many breastfeeding mothers around the world have found success in lactation cookies. You can purchase them ready made or you can bake your own (so you can modify ingredients to your liking!). Another milk-boosting product that many moms say help are lactation teas.
Again, before trying new things out to increase your breast milk supply, it’s always ideal to consult it with your doctor first.
Try these 5 easy ways to naturally boost your breast milk supply – don’t get discouraged and seek the advice of your doctor. Remember, your baby can feel your frustration!
Angela Kidd is an author and illustrator, a wife and a mother to 3 beautiful kids. In her spare time, she would personally create storybooks and coloring books for her children for fun and they loved it.. And so did she. Angela quit her job and created her own line of educational activity books for children of various ages, with the main goal of making learning fun! You can check out some of Angela’s amazing books
Having a child is a blessing every couple looks forward to having after marriage. Having a child or children marks a complete family for most people. Under normal circumstances, most couples should be successful in having a child within a few months. However, things may not go as every couple expects where some couples struggle to get pregnant. The reason behind this in most cases is infertility.
What is infertility?
Infertility is the failure of a couple to conceive even when they actively engage in unprotected sexual intercourse. The diagnosis is given to couples who have tried to conceive for at least 12 months without success. Infertility can be categorized into primary and secondary infertility. The former entails couples who have never had a child before while the latter involves couples who had already conceived but are unable to conceive again.
Why some women struggle to get pregnant and what causes infertility in the first place?
Ovulation problems are the main reason for some women who struggle to get pregnant. Hormonal issues and polycystic ovaries are some of the causes that bring about ovulation problems. Blocked fallopian tubes mostly caused by endometriosis or pelvic inflammatory disease are another reason why some women will not get pregnant. If a woman has structural problems with the uterus, she cannot carry a pregnancy for a full term even if they conceive.
Age is another reason that makes some women struggle to get pregnant because as a woman grows older especially past 35 years, her ability to produce healthy eggs reduces. Conception requires healthy sperms and egg functioning to be successful. Even though the majority of infertility cases in woman are caused by problems in their reproductive systems, some struggle to conceive because of their poor way of life habits – such including drinking, smoking, and poor diet.
How to reverse infertility and get pregnant naturally.
If a woman is diagnosed with infertility, that doesn’t mean it is the end of the road for her. There are many remedies that don’t involve surgery or drugs that can help her to become naturally pregnant. Equipping yourself with the appropriate knowledge on fertility is the beginning of your journey to becoming pregnant naturally. Below is such info entailing ways that can help women who are struggling to become successful in getting pregnant naturally.
Check on weight.
Being overweight or underweight can be the enemy hindering you from becoming pregnant. Being overweight results to the production of too much estrogen while being underweight can interrupt your normal cycle. Both of these things reduce the opportunity of becoming pregnant. You should therefore try to maintain a healthy weight to give your body better cooperation and increase the chances of becoming pregnant naturally.
Starting a fitness program is a good way to maintain a healthy weight, but one should be cautious not to overdo it. Overdoing exercises can interfere with your period and delay the process of ovulation. Relaxing exercises like long baths, walking or swimming are some of the best exercises to help you maintain a healthy weight and increase your chances of getting pregnant naturally. Yoga is also a great stress reliever for a lot of people with some experts also believing that specific poses can help promote baby-making by increasing blood flow to your pelvis, stimulating hormone-producing glands, and releasing muscle tension.
Avoid Stress and Negative Mindset.
Keeping your mood feeling good like your body is also important in helping you to get pregnant. You should be in a good mindset and avoid stress. This is not the time to lay blames or feel guilty because you have been diagnosed with infertility. Stay positive hoping for the best outcome and believe everything will work well. Of course, stress is part of the day to day life, but you should never let it take complete control over you through depression.
The worry and anxiety of failing to get pregnant month after month should not lower your zeal and efforts to become pregnant. Accepting that such anxieties and worries happen is the best approach to deal with them. Take time to relax as a way of coping with the issues. Do your favourite activity such as watching a movie with your partner, listening to music, reading a book to occupy your mind and forget about stress around you. Taking a vacation will also work magic in relieving your stress and making your body and mind relaxed hence increasing the chances of conceiving.
Timing Your Ovulation Period.
Timing your ovulation window is the best way to become pregnant naturally. You should know your menstrual cycle and know when you will be ovulating. To assess the ovulation period, you can use temperature, mucus or moods to judge the best timing. There are many apps and kits out there that can help you determine your ovulation period if you have an irregular menstrual cycle. During the ovulation period, you are very fertile, and chances of becoming pregnant are high. Therefore, if you manage to time this period well, you can easily forget about your periods for the next nine months.
Quit Smoking and Alcoholism.
If you have been fighting getting pregnant but on the other hand, you are always smoking, or you are an alcoholic, its time you quit both. Alcohol, caffeine, Nicotine and other toxins inhaled during smoking can interfere with your cycle hence reduce the chance of getting pregnant. The smoke can also lead to the production of unhealthy eggs or damage the sperms hence they don’t fertilise or terminate the pregnancy afterwards. These substances can also affect the nervous system of the unborn child. Therefore, if you are aiming at getting pregnant and having healthy babies, you should keep away from alcohol and smoking.
Diet.
Eating the right foods and sticking with a healthy diet is a very important part in getting pregnant naturally. Take foods rich in iron, protein, vitamin D, and Zinc. Such foods include spinach, potatoes, lean meat, fish, and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Stay away from junk foods because they are high in trans-fat content and won’t do you any good in your efforts to become pregnant naturally. Such foods include cookies, French fries, doughnuts among others. Fish with high mercury levels such as salmon, shark and Spanish mackerel should also be avoided. Generally, to ensure you have a healthy diet, incorporate whole grains, vitamins, minerals, fruits, and vegetables. This will be very helpful in getting you pregnant naturally.
Maintain a Good Positioning.
The position you assume when making love is another important element in getting pregnant naturally. One of the best positions that can help you in getting pregnant is missionary position. It helps in an interlocking and ensures most of the sperm goes deep into your body. After the intercourse, you should avoid movement and raise your hips using a pillow to ensure you retain most of the semen.
How some women have benefited by using the “Miracle pregnancy eBook.”
If you have tried all you can but haven’t been successful in becoming pregnant, you may consider looking into the Pregnancy Miracle eBook. This is an eBook of around 240 pages written by Lisa Olsen detailing 14 years of research and her own battles of failing to become pregnant. The book incorporates what Lisa calls a miracle plan which consists of a holistic approach and natural treatment that can help one to get pregnant naturally instead of going for surgery and drugs. The book teaches older women how to stimulate their bodies so that they can become productive like those of young girls. In this book, you also learn about what you are supposed to eat, how to exercise, as well as many other aspects on the topic of getting pregnant naturally. Lisa outlines everything in a procedural approach, supports her arguments with scientific research and explains how other women have benefited from the methods she gives.
There charts and checklists that can help users to track their progress without referring to the eBook. This book has brought smiles to Lisa and many women around the world. Some women have reported getting pregnant after a few months of following the methods given in the eBook. Many women have stated it is the best book out there for conceiving naturally and learning how to reverse infertility and get pregnant naturally.
However, if you think this book will work like magic, you are wrong. It is not a quick fix. Lisa emphasizes that her eBook requires patience to work unlike what other solutions like surgery and drugs claims to offer. Instead, the eBook tries to fight the main causes of infertility with the aim of helping the users get pregnant naturally. Many people have testified that this program has taught them how to increase fertility naturally.
Conclusion.
Getting a negative result on your pregnancy test kit can be really disappointing. The situation becomes worse when you are diagnosed to be infertile. Infertility is a term every married couple hates with a passion. Infertility can result in a heavy burden financially and emotionally. People around you take you as barren hence affecting you emotionally, and when you turn to treatments, it can be very costly.
Medications for the same reason can be complicated and may involve long processes to apply for and work. However, infertility diagnosis doesn’t mean all is over for you. There is hope, but you need to be well informed first to fight infertility. You can fight this menace without surgery or drugs and become pregnant naturally.
The above tips on how to reverse infertility and get pregnant naturally can make you smile after many years of agony. They are all natural and don’t pose any risk to you or your unborn child when you become pregnant. Stop infertility in its tracts today and get pregnant naturally!
Learn how to conceive naturally and how to learn new healthy habits that increase your chances of falling pregnant.
