Dumb Little Man | Tips for Life

Whether these toxic influences are sabotaging you intentionally or not, identifying and removing them from your life can dramatically improve your health, wealth, and general well-being.

11 Frenemies You Should Dump, Right Now

1. Needy Nancy: She is constantly insecure about “us” and needs frequent reinforcement that you are still friends. If more than a week goes by without a coffee, lunch, or long chat, things get awkward fast. Real friendships are a two-way street, and Nancy is always driving in the same direction. 
2. Competitive Charlie: He wants what you have, and he’s watching to see what “edge” he can get. Everything is a contest, and he’s more interested in getting ahead than supporting your successes. Realize that he doesn’t have your back — and you shouldn’t have his.
3. Debbie Downer: Life sucks and she knows it. The glass is always half-empty, people are inherently evil, and nothing can change her mind. Be careful — Debbie will wet your blanket before long. 
4. Broadway Bob: If he were a play or movie, it would certainly be classified as a drama. Just when sailing gets smooth, controversy strikes, and he always seems to be involved. It usually starts with a “Did you hear?” or “As a friend, I just wanted to let you know….” Life doesn’t have to be that complicated. 
5. Networkin’ Noreen: She is always slingin’ cards and hustling for “bidness.” Your friendship is measured by what you can do for her. No matter the topic of conversation, her services take center stage, and she’s always angling for a good introduction. This is a pseudo friendship of convenience, so start making it inconvenient.
6. Listless Larry: You’re pretty sure he’s not a zombie, though his life is completely devoid of ambition, purpose, or anything meaningful. He doesn’t believe in much and judges anyone who’s “involved.” Unless you, too, want to float through life with little more than some old records and a lifetime supply of Funyuns, steer clear.
7. Judge Jacky: Life is her courtroom, and everyone is the accused. No one is ever smart enough, good-looking enough, rich enough, or Christian enough to meet her standards. Unless you love being the defendant, I suggest you let court recess.
8. Flaky McFlakerson: He’s consistently inconsistent. Forty percent of the time, he shows up every time. You now expect a last-minute “something came up” and a constant barrage of poorly designed excuses. Friendship is about reliability, and this guy is your 1983 Yugo.
9. Climbing Carey: No matter what or who stands in her way, she is moving on up. Her past is laden with “former friends” who became collateral damage. When she condescendingly talks about having kids in “like 10 years,” you get the feeling she might eat her own young. Back away slowly before you get sacrificed on her career altar.
10. Devilish Don: While he has three kids, a beautiful wife, a good job, and an enviable golf swing, Don wants more. People “take themselves too seriously.” He’s all about “getting wasted,” hitting on the cart girl, and talking crap about his “worthless” wife. It’s best to leave that party before his values get you into trouble.
11. Groupie Gail: She’s your biggest fan. She always “likes,” retweets, and congratulates. Need her opinion? She waffles until finding the response that pleases you the most. While she makes you feel great temporarily, Gail dangerously distorts reality. Real friends challenge and debate with transparency. Unless you need your pillow fluffed, I’d suggest leaving Gail at the next tour stop. 

The "Average of Five" Rule

The “Average of Five” rule states that you are an average of your five closest friends.

I’ve found it to be surprisingly accurate, and the company you keep is a good indication of the person you will become.

Surround yourself with people whose traits you admire, and prepare to soak up their positive, productive, and healthy influence.

Everything just feels miserable.

Can you even remember the last time you actually felt happy?

The Real Causes of Unhappiness

During one summer while I was in university, I was unhappy.

I was unhappy because my friends had better summer jobs than me. I got better grades than them. So why were THEY getting all the cool jobs?

The real low point came when we traded stories on our respective jobs at the end of summer. I found that most of them had key roles in prestigious companies. Some even got to choose which projects to work on, and leveraged that into connections with top executives.

I was jealous.

That's because I spent the entire summer doing data entry.

So to protect my bruised ego, I told myself how my friends just got lucky, how they had connections I didn't have, and so on. I spent months thinking such thoughts to make myself feel happier. But in the end that didn't help.

It didn't help because nothing had changed. Instead of taking action to improve my job prospects for next summer, I chose to bubble wrap myself in made-up excuses.

I was sabotaging any chance for me to be happy.

The Secret to Being Happy

It took me a while, but I eventually learned that happy people have problems too.

They get into fights with others. They don’t always get lucky breaks, even if they deserve them. And contrary to what we may want to believe, not everything that happens in their lives is good.

But they know the secret to being happy: it’s all in your head.

Happy people have a more proactive and positive view of life.

They believe they have the power to make things better for themselves and others. They believe they are masters of their own destinies. Because of this very attitude, they are not easily brought down by bad things that happen in life.

Finally, happy people don't make excuses for things they know they should be doing.

It took me a long time to learn this, and even longer to apply it to my own life. My friends got cool jobs because they WORKED for them, while I just complained on the sidelines HOPING to get a cool job.

It was time to stop sabotaging myself with self-defeating thoughts.

15 Warning Signs Your Thinking is Sabotaging Your Happiness

I sabotaged my happiness in a lot of ways that summer. I didn't realize it at the time, but now I do. And I've included some of the warning signs in the list below for you.

Are you sabotaging yourself now as I was?

1. You blame, always. Do you always point fingers when something goes wrong? Blaming is a subtle sign that you think something or someone else needs to change to make you happy. Living your life depending on what others do is a sure way to be unhappy. Instead, take ownership of what you can control.
2. You think the world is against you. You feel like you are having the worst day ever, and the whole world is trying to screw you over. Or is it just your imagination? Go ahead and vent your frustration for the rest of the day. But stop before you go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day. Let’s not tarnish it with bad thoughts that are already in the past.
3. You feel like no one cares. Here’s an interesting thought: do YOU care about others? Instead of feeling sorry for yourself because you think no one cares, do something today to show your care for someone. Call a friend to say hello. Help out a neighbor. Do a nice deed for someone. What goes around comes around.
4. You take everything personally. I know friends who take whatever others say about them personally. As a result, some days they are over-the-moon ecstatic about a positive comment. Other times they are miserable because someone critiqued what they did. Keep in mind what other people think is none of your business. They are entitled to their opinion. You are entitled to not listen.
5. You relish in getting back at people. Do you keep grudges? Do you look forward to the day when you can get back at someone who has wronged you in the past? This sort of thinking will only drown you in a pool of negative thoughts. Learn to let go. There are much better things to do with your time than to spend it feeling bitter and resentful.
6. You feel like you have something to prove. I had a friend who always tried to prove how tough he was at school. The truth was, the harder he tried to prove himself, the more desperate and ridiculous he looked. This spiraled into a vicious cycle where he would be unhappy with himself, and thus try harder and harder to prove something to others. As for you, you don’t need to prove anything. You are good enough as you are. You just need to believe in yourself.
7. You are harsh when others screw up because they “deserve it”. I have a colleague who eagerly goes out of his way to make those who screwed up suffer for it. He felt it is his “right” to treat others that way because others treated him so when he first started. Not surprisingly, my colleague seems equally as miserable as those he torments. Do you think pouring salt on someone else’s wound will make you happy? I highly doubt it. Instead, learn to forgive. What has happened is already in the past. Holding onto unhappy memories is a sure way to stay unhappy.
8. You feel life is unfair. Someone else is always getting the credit, the boy/girl, the big raise, and everything good. Yes, the world is unfair in some ways. What are you going to DO about it? Remember how I said happy people are proactive and positive? Losers complain all day and yet DO NOTHING about their miserable situation. But you’re not a loser, right? Learn new skills, try new adventures, and improve yourself as much as possible. If you do that, pretty soon you’ll be the one getting all the good things in life while everyone else looks on.
9. You feel it is OK to cheat. This is often tied to the feeling that life is unfair. If you think that way, it’s easy to rationalize cheating as a way to “balance” things out. Of course, we all start with small cheats. And if we don’t get caught, we go for bigger and bigger payoffs over time. Can you see how this is a dangerous slippery slope? Cheating may bring you short-time happiness, but it guarantees long-term misery. Instead, focus on producing work that you are proud of. Focus on building relationships based on trust, care, and love. Focus on doing what’s best for you and others, rather than what feels good at the moment.
10. You love to complain. Oh, how good it feels to play the “woe is me” card in front of your friends. I've been there and done that! For a brief moment, you are the center of attention. Everyone is listening to your gripe story. Everyone takes pity on you. Then your friends start to tune out your constant complaining. Desperate to regain their attention, you come up with even sadder stories of how your life sucks. Have you ever stopped to listen and be there for others? If you haven’t, why do you think others will do the same for you?
11. You think you have it bad in life. Stop living in your own little world. There are others around you who are much less fortunate. Relatively speaking, maybe your life isn't so bad after all. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I would complain how I don't have this or that in life. What always helps is to remind ourselves the things we have to be grateful for in life. Think: what can you be grateful for in your life?
12. You’re jealous whenever something good happens to your friends. Sure, you may SAY you’re happy for them. But are you really? Or do you secretly resent their newfound happiness? I have learned that being happy for others can create a corresponding lift in your mood. Everyone’s life is different. The timing of your happiness has nothing to do with your friend’s timing. Be happy and celebrate your friend’s bright moment. In time, you will have your own. And your friend will be there to celebrate yours then.
13. You think nobody likes you. The ironic thing is, your thinking nobody likes you will make you appear cold and uncaring. This only results in people actually disliking you. Instead, give time for people to get to know you. Be warm and friendly. Yes, there will always be the odd person who doesn’t like you for whatever reason. Let that go. Don’t let them skew your perception of others who do accept you for who you are.
14. You bully others. I don’t claim to know how bullies think. But I do know one important fact: happy people don’t bully others. Happy people feel good and confident about themselves. They do not push others down in order to lift themselves up.
15. You tell yourself you don’t deserve good things. This is the quintessential defeatist attitude. When something good does happen to you, you think it’s luck and not your own doing. Maybe you need to give yourself some credit. Before you can be happy about your life, you have to believe that you deserve happiness. Once you start to believe something, you’ll begin to see it happen.

The Final Warning Sign (#16)

Go back to the list above and look at the various points again. How many of them apply to you? More importantly, does the following, final warning sign apply to you?

You would rather talk than to take action.

You may nod your head as you sheepishly check off on the previous warning signs. But will you actually TAKE ACTION to change things? Not taking action is a sure way to sabotage yourself, stay stuck, and be unhappy.

I wish I could tell you an epic, Hollywood-like conclusion for my summer job story. No, I didn't get a spectacular job offer the following year. In fact, the rest of my summer jobs throughout university were pretty normal.

But I did learn how to be happy.

That's because I made the effort to change how I think. The transformation didn't happen overnight.

But each time I complained or let a negative thought creep into my head, I would push it back out. Slowly, I embraced the notion that I have the power to change and improve my life.

Happiness Begins with You

You have a choice.

You can spend the rest of your life feeling miserable. You can complain to anyone within earshot, eventually pushing even your closest supporters away.

You can lash out at the world because you feel someone or something “owes” you a happier life.

Or you can choose to be happy.

All it takes is for you to view things differently. Believe that you have the power to create happiness in your life. Know that you deserves better. Trust that it will all work out.

You can do this.

What are you waiting for?

1. Set a Schedule

When you have vague goals and plans, it is not easy to work towards achieving them.

So, the first step in improving your focus is to make sure your goals are clear and your plans are well thought out and most importantly, that you have a schedule for every step of the way.

For example, saying you want to spend more time with your parents is vague – write it down as “I will call my parents every Wednesday and Friday and meet them on Sunday.”

A schedule ensures you have a clear picture of what you need to do and this makes it easier to focus and actually perform the necessary actions. Some people even find that using their Smartphone to set reminders or alarms for a particular task work out very well.

2. Stop Procrastinating

When there is something you need to do to achieve a goal, do it at once. Stop procrastinating.

Doing something right away is beneficial in two ways – for one, it allows you to get the task done and more importantly, you do not block valuable mind space with thoughts of having to do the task you postponed doing.

Often, it is the starting that is difficult; once you begin, the actions just flow and before you know it, the job will be completed.

If you have decided to write a few lines in your diary every evening, don’t postpone it until after you watch your favorite late-night show; take a few minutes before the show and get it done and over with.

3. Focus on Less

Having too many things to do is a sure fire recipe for a lack of focus – no sooner do you start one task than your mind starts thinking of another. This eats away at your time as well as your concentration.

If you face this problem, make it a habit to jot down the tasks that come into your mind and pick three or four that are the most important right now.

Of these, take up one at a time and focus on accomplishing the goals related to the task; once that is over, move to the next item on your list.

4. Get Back on Track When You Slip

You wake up early and exercise for about a week. Then, because you work a lot, you "forget" to exercise for three days.

Your mind will tell you that you have ruined your wonderful routine and trick you into pushing off getting back to your routine until the next week, or until this important project is over or….you get the idea; before you can realize it, your focus is gone.

The best way to avoid being trapped like this is to tell yourself it was a busy three days, but now, you have to start exercising again.

5. Learn to Delegate

If there is an event and the organizer tries to do everything himself, do you think he can really focus on all the tasks?

Definitely not – that is the reason why there are committees and sub-committees to whom the organizer can delegate tasks while he focuses on the larger picture. Doing something well does not mean you have to do it on your own. In fact, this approach is often counterproductive because of your inability to pay attention to so many jobs simultaneously.

Instead, identify the jobs you are good at doing and focus on them. For all other areas – delegate.

6. Team Up

Sometimes, it can be helpful to work with a friend or a relative who is also trying to build focus. Tell each other about your goals and plans and set up a system of catching up a few times a week to see how well each one is sticking to their decisions.

Often, this external motivation will help you develop focus faster than working on your own.

As most of us realize in hindsight, it is not important to merely have goals – you have to actually take action.

Think well and think hard about why you have something on your goal list. Write down these reasons.

Read this list frequently to get the motivation you need to stick to your quest for success.

You will find endless blogs and articles filled with advice and ideas, but really there is only one real easy solution to making our lives better – and most people do everything they can to avoid it.

Here are three simple steps to solving many problems in your life.

Step #1: Be honest

Stop and be honest with yourself. Tell yourself the truth about how you feel about a certain situation, a relationship, a job or something in your life that isn’t as you say you would like it to be.

Do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? If you’re bitching, moaning or blaming, clearly it feels uncomfortable and you might feel guilty.

It’s called ‘the uncomfortable truth’ for a reason, and there is some responsibility for you to own.

Step #2: Take personal responsibility

Taking responsibility is not about saying, ‘Everything is my fault; I’m bad, I’m wrong’: if you’re doing this then you’re just blaming, shaming and persecuting yourself.

Instead, it is about putting your hands up and acknowledging that you have chosen to behave in a certain way, which may have been a mistake (whether conscious or unconscious) at the time, but now you are taking responsibility for that behaviour.

Saying it out loud, being honest and telling the truth to other people about that choice or action is part of taking responsibility, because it makes it real.

Step #3: Take action

Once something is real and out there, we can’t avoid it, so we have to choose how to deal with it. The answer is not always to make changes but can simply be to accept what is.

Accept that we don’t actually want to change, so we don’t have to keep pretending to want something that we don’t. Or, if we do want change, then we can take action – whether that is apologising, or changing your behaviour, or doing something new and different.

These three steps can be applied to almost any problem, so here are a few examples…

Are you sick of not losing weight?

Honestly, I adore food; I love chocolate and have a sweet tooth. The truth is, I am not willing to give them up. I take responsibility for my health by doing plenty of exercise and drinking lots of water, and I balance things out by eating plenty of greens and healthy food too, but I will never be a skinny size 6 – and that is my choice.

I choose to be healthy and fit. There is no point bitching and moaning if my weight increases, as no one else is to blame for my jeans getting tight. When they do, I sometimes choose to cut back on sugar-based food for a bit and increase the amount of exercise I do.

If you are not happy with your weight and you really want to lose some, it is simple: be honest with yourself about your food intake (how much and what kind) and weight. Take responsibility and take action by eating less crap, eating smaller portions and exercising more, so that you burn off more than you eat.

Are you fed up with your debts?

I struggled with debt for a long time and I still have some which I am paying off. I hate debt, but I am not in debt because I spend too much, as I struggle to spend money on myself.

Instead, for a long time I undervalued and undersold myself, as I didn’t want to accept my real value and so I settled for what I was given. Therefore, I was always struggling financially to survive.

Taking responsibility and action meant learning to respect myself more, and my value, so that I could demonstrate to other people how to do the same by charging more, asking for more, demanding more, and selling and promoting myself more to get a fair value in relation to my skills, knowledge and experience.

This meant I had to be honest with everyone about who I am and what I can bring to the table.

Many people who accept low-paid or non-challenging jobs are in the same situation; often they are really miserable, bored and scared of trying something new so they choose to undervalue themselves. Instead, they can choose to take responsibility and action by getting more qualifications, choosing to face their fear and trying something more challenging to increase their skills.

Of course, the opposite is true too – some people simply spend more than they earn and waste money on things they don’t actually need (food, rent/mortgage, and other basics don’t count) but things that they want. It is your choice to change that, or to accept that you don’t want to change things and spend less.

No more bitching and moaning: just accept that you choose to have debts like a noose around your neck: they are still your responsibility to pay off.

Are you unhappy in your relationship?

There must be trust and honesty in a loving relationship. Trust grows from honesty. All loving relationships develop and thrive, not because people don’t make mistakes, get cross and frustrated or hurt each other, but because they do.

When both people take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviour, and are honest with their feelings, apologising and making amends if they haven’t demonstrated love to themselves or the other person, then that is when relationships grow.

I struggled in relationships for a long time because I took responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes as well as my own, and became untrusting of the other party because it felt as if I was the only one who made mistakes and I was to blame.

By being honest with myself, I could take responsibility for the fact that I had chosen to play the role of the victim because I was afraid of standing up for myself and telling people how I felt.

Learning to voice my feelings calmly and clearly meant that the other person could take responsibility for their actions if they chose to, and I could choose to either forgive or move on.

The same can be said about not having relationships: some people may moan about the opposite sex and complain that they are single because they never meet any good men/woman – when, in truth, they don’t put themselves out there in places or ways to meet ‘good’ people, because deep down they actually want to be single; maybe because it’s safer, but don’t want to admit it.

Learning a new skill or achieving a goal

I started learning to play the piano two years ago; I had said for so long that I wished I had learned as a child. In honesty, that was because I wished I could do something I could enjoy – but I didn’t want to put in the hard work, time and practice to become good at it. I took lessons for a year and, even though I enjoyed parts of my lessons, I still didn’t really want to practice and do the homework.

After I finally decided to end the lessons, I only touched the keyboard once in the following year! The pleasure and achievement didn’t seem to outweigh the struggle of practicing.

So, in truth, I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Ever since I have been honest and accepted the truth, I have stopped feeling guilty about it. I may change my mind again in time and try again, and that’s OK too.

On the other hand, I acknowledge that (unlike playing the piano), I love to surf, but I didn’t practice for a while and so my surfing skills and fitness have deteriorated.

That really annoys me, so I cut back on the sweet foods and have been getting in the sea more to practice.

So is it time for you to uncover the uncomfortable truth that you’ve been avoiding, and find out what you can take responsibility for?

It’s your choice to act, make a change, make amends for any wrongdoing, or just plain accept the truth that you don’t want to change and that actually deep down you’re OK with that part of your life.

I don’t believe this is a bad thing, nor do I believe these thoughts to be completely under my control. I tried several techniques to change or stop my negative thoughts.

What didn't work

Replace a negative thought with a positive thought.

“I can’t study for another hour.”
“I can study for another hour!”

Five minutes of studying later...

“Nope I can’t. I’m too tired.”

Textbook closed and I’m looking up the latest NBA Power Rankings.

I also tried focusing cues, reframing, positive imagery and plenty more mental techniques, but nothing seemed to stick.

It just isn’t realistic to stop thinking negatively altogether. I eventually realized the issue was not my thoughts; it was my inability to separate my thoughts from my behavior. I needed to become an observer of my thoughts and an active participant in my behaviors.

Thoughts alone achieve nothing. It is the action we take that achieves everything. Thoughts are useful for solving math problems, analyzing scenarios, developing business plans, etc… But it is not until these thoughts are put to action that they become useful.

For example, I am walking down the street and I see someone getting mugged in an alley, and I say to myself, “Run over there and help this person out!” however, I just keep walking and don’t do a damn thing despite my “positive thought”.

I was thinking positively yet did nothing to help this person in need. My issue was not the content of my thoughts; it was a lack of commitment to my thoughts. This lack of commitment can be problematic in situations like this, and beneficial when the content of our thoughts are self-deprecating.

What are thoughts anyway? 

Thoughts are a bunch of letters, grouped together into words, grouped together into sentences, and these letters, words and sentences are given meaning by… us.

If we gave them their meaning, how do certain words, phrases or sentences supposedly affect our behavior? Because we allow them to!

This is the issue. 

There are times when we feel sad, think ‘negatively’ without much control of our own. Our behavior directly affects our lives. So why spend so much time attempting to change our thoughts, when they have zero direct impact on our lives?

Committing to our values consistently is essential to our mental health, and there are times when you will have to push yourself through some negative internal states.

In order to do this, it takes self-awareness of thoughts and commitment to valued action.

The 5 Step Process

Here is my 5-step process to act in a valued direction while experience negative thoughts and/or emotions:

1. “I can’t walk.” exercise.  Simply walk around wherever you are, and say, “I can’t walk”. Say it to yourself and then say it out loud while walking. Although this may seem silly, you are actually training your mind to distinguish between thoughts that are helpful and those that are not.
2. Separate thoughts from behavior in other simple tasks. For the next week or two choose 2 to 3 activities that you know you can do with no problem and say out loud or in your head “I can’t ________.” This could be “I can’t brush my teeth for 30 seconds.” “I can’t get out of this chair”. “I can’t walk up this stair.” It doesn’t matter what activity you choose as long as it is easy and you say, “I can’t _______” while performing the activity.
   
   Take note of how connected you are to your thoughts. Notice how it was the first time you did this exercise to the next. You will begin to see a difference in your feelings as you practice this activity. However the point is not to eliminate negative thoughts, it is to act how you want in the presence of these negative internal states. 
3. Increase the difficulty. As you notice the impact of your thoughts lessening, increase the difficulty of the activity slightly. VERY SLIGHTLY. If you were brushing your teeth for 30 seconds while saying that you can’t, increase it to 40 seconds. Or if you said, “I can’t walk for 1 minute straight”, try lightly jogging for 1 minute straight while saying you can’t. 
4. Observe ‘bad moods’ and 'negative thoughts.' Simply notice negative content that goes through your head as if you were reading it from a book. Pay attention to your thoughts and recognize that they are not in control of your behavior. 
5. Appreciate your experience. Lastly, appreciate these experiences and let them be a reminder that you’re human. Embrace the range of thoughts and emotions that you can experience. Accept them and move in your valued direction.

Use these tips and notice your life improve.

Now over to you. 

Have you tried these yourself? 

What have you found to be the most effective?

The silence made me feel alone, and — worst of all — it made me feel scared for the years to come.

I grew up in a loud and overly affectionate family. Hugs, jokes, and conversation bounced around the house in a constant state of interaction. The house was always full of banter and togetherness. My husband, on the other hand, grew up in a family that is loving in a different way, quiet and respectful of each other's space.

Silence and independence felt natural to him, but (after years of dates, movie nights, and dinners) I had never sat in a room with him in such silence.

I remember looking over at him and wondering why he wasn't speaking to me or if it meant that things between us had changed. I even remembering crying to my mother, telling her just how much I missed her and the rest of my family.

Little did I know that all I had to do to feel better was hold his hand.

Getting through that adjustment period took work and immense understanding. One year later, my marriage has been incredibly refreshing and wonderful.

The tools I used to combat the silence and adjust my habits to fit another person still serve me every single day in the relationships I have in all areas of my life.

They are incredibly simple tactics, and they probably aren't the ones you'd expect.

1. Hold on tight

This may be hard to believe, but much of what I achieved was by getting cuddly.

Studies actually show that physical contact slows down our heart rate.

That includes holding a person's hand, giving a warm hug, or a hand on the shoulder. Through physical touch, our bodies interpret that there is a meaningful connection around us, and our heart responds by slowing its rhythm a bit.

When I felt extremely upset or emotional, unable to communicate exactly what I felt was missing in our new home, I held my husband's hand, and the results were uncanny. I almost instantly felt more calm and closer to peace.

2. Watch anger dissipate

We've all experienced anger in our lives — sometimes it happens every day! It's a natural human reaction. But have you ever noticed that you are never usually angry with someone who is touching you at a certain moment? I've tried this, and getting angry while hugging someone just doesn't feel right.

In my personal relationships, I have learned to take matters into my own hands. If an argument is escalating to a place I don't feel comfortable with, I offer a hug.

The anger gurgling up inside almost always starts to dissipate, and the conversation usually takes a turn for the productive, instead of the destructive.

3. Create connection

Physical touch goes one step further than just calming our anger and slowing our heart rates. It also readies our minds and bodies for connection. When someone touches us on the shoulder, for example, it sparks our attention in a way that is non-intrusive.

It is welcoming, instead.

A few months ago, I remember feeling so stressed and worried, that it only took my husband's hand on my shoulder to break the floodgates and have tears start flowing down my face. I was tense and uptight, holding tears back with gumption, but physical touch signaled that being vulnerable is okay.

Our connection strengthened, and my tears flowed like a river.

Each and every day that we navigate personal relationships, work relationships, and romantic relationships, physical touch is a tool that we very rarely use to create connection and an atmosphere of peace.

Since I learned how to leverage physical touch to help my relationships grow, I feel more calm within myself and more connected to those around me.

I’d love to hear from you

Is there something about your personal relationships you want to hack?

Could giving a friend a high-five or holding your partner’s hand do the trick?

Are you fearful of hacking your relationships? What concerns you?

Leave your stories and ideas in the comments!

There's always novice internet users out there who don't know about Inside Search or who don't want to take the time to wade through an entire book. There's also experienced internet users around who want to quickly brush up on their search skills.

But there's a definite need in the Google how-to genre for more creative search tips, especially ones developed from everyday internet usage.

Here's a list of 5 search tips I have stumbled upon over the years and found to be very useful.

1. Find list articles

Pick up any book about "problogging" (blogging to make money), and if it's any good it'll spend a few pages or even an entire chapter identifying several kinds of tried-and-true blog articles. One that never fails to be mentioned is the "list article" (like this one.)

Lists are some of the best kinds of blog articles that can be written because they are perfectly formatted for online readers who tend to be impatient and easily bored.

They let readers quickly scan the article, which helps them decide if they're interested enough to read it in full or at least get the main points before moving on to something else.

The abundance of list articles on the web is a boon for searchers. Let's say you've developed an interest in blogging and want to find a blogging platform to use. Or let's say you're new to Twitter and you want to find some people to follow. Maybe you're visiting a new city and you want to find a good Mexican restaurant.

An uninspired Google search might involve querying [blogging platforms], [Twitter accounts to follow], or [Mexican restaurants Los Angeles]. You're sure to get results, but probably too many and too generic.

You'll be better off if you realize that someone else at some time not only probably has written about your topic but also has ranked it. So you could enter instead [5 best whatever], or [10 best whatever], or [top 5 whatever], or [top 10 whatever], and the odds are very good that you'll get a few list articles entitled something like "5 Best...." or "Top 10...."

These articles most likely will not only give you the information you seek but also the best of whatever it is you're looking for, along with succinct evaluations.

You could also use one of those basic Google search operators alluded to earlier to broaden your search and reduce your number of searches. Try searching for [5 OR 10 best OR top whatever] or [5 OR 10 best OR top whatever] (OR in caps returns results containing the keywords directly to its left or right.)

2. Find more list articles

Here's the thing about list articles. While they're typically 5 or 10 items long, some writers feel the need to be a little different and list 6, 7, 8, or 9 of the best or top things.

Or maybe they're incapable of whittling down their lists and write instead about 20, 30, 50, or 100 of the best or top things.

In either case, you can find even more list articles by using another basic Google search operator, the number range operator, in combination with the list article search strategy.

The number range operator is just two periods with numbers on each side to represent a range, as in [5..10 best OR top whatever] or [50..100 best OR top whatever].

3. Use similarity search features

For more internet surfing-type searches, as in discovering new and interesting websites rather than specific answers, there are a couple of search features that Google has created to make internet surfing more effective.

Most internet surfers already know about the related operator. Type [related:nameofwebsite.com], and Google will return a list of similar webpages, usually the homepages of websites. This tip is straight from Inside Search or a Google how-to book.

Many internet surfers, however, used to overlook the "Similar" link in Google's site preview feature. Site preview was a cached screenshot of a search result that was revealed by rolling a cursor over a search result then to the right over the double arrowhead that appeared. When the screenshot appeared, the "Similar" link would be in the upper right.

Just recently, however, Google changed its site preview feature. Now internet surfers see a solid, upside-down, triangle tab that when clicked typically reveals three text links, namely "cached," "similar," and "share" (sometimes there are less than three.) Clicking "similar" will produce a list of similar sites.

So rather than repeatedly typing the related operator, an internet surfer can use the browser back button to work from a main list of search results to check out a wide range of similar websites. Or he or she can surf from similar site to similar site, as if riding out the digital chop for as long as possible.

4. Use comparative keywords

Google and most Google evangelists generally recommend avoiding extraneous words (like "what is," "where is," "and," "the," and so forth.) Most of the time these extraneous words get ignored anyways, but sometimes they can be helpful, especially when they are comparative keywords.

Comparative keywords like "reminds me of," "similar to," and "sounds like" might seem extraneous, but they often return some revealing results. Most of the search results are going to be review articles that have the phrases in the body of the text and forum threads that have the phrases in the title and in the form of a question.

But the kinds of webpages that constitute your search results don't really matter as long as your inquiry is resolved, right? Another set of comparative keywords that tends to return informative results are "difference between" and "vs."

5. Use symbolic keywords

Symbolic keywords have meanings beyond their literal senses. By using them in a Google search, you'll find webpages that literally contain them, but in reality you'll be searching for something else.

Suppose you want to find an online training program to help prepare you for the many work-at-home online jobs you've been hearing so much about. Besides outright scams, there are probably several online programs that are so low-quality that they'll prove to be a waste of time and money.

What you should try is using the symbolic keywords "as featured in" or "as seen in" in your search along with the specific keywords describing your field of interest.

For example, if you're interested in virtual assistant jobs, your [how to become virtual assistant "as featured in" OR "as seen in"] search will uncover a virtual assistant training program called AssistU. This program has been featured in Time, Entrepreneur, Inc., The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Today Show.

Stories in these established and respected media outlets will reassure you, if not confirm, that the program is reputable and not some unworthy, fly-by-night operation. In other words, these particular symbolic keywords are great for avoiding scams and verifying reputations.

There are any number of other symbolic keywords that internet users have developed from experience. 

How about sharing them or even other unconventional search tips in the comments below?