Good communication requires good listening, but good listening isn’t easy. No doubt you’ve been on the receiving end of a poor listener before. Have you ever poured out your heart to a friend, only to have her completely misunderstand you? Can you recall conversing with someone who only used the time that you were speaking to plan what he was going to say next? Have you ever felt like talking to your partner is like talking to a brick wall?

It’s hard to talk to people who don’t listen well, but to be honest, we’re all guilty of poor listening at times. This is a problem because poor listeners are more likely to end up in conflict. They are also less able to de-escalate a situation and more likely to feel undervalued in relationships.

Often, bad listeners are not even aware that they’re bad, in part because our communication habits are deeply ingrained in us from our childhood. Our habits are a mishmash absorbed from our own personalities, the people we are around, the conflict we witnessed and the ways of communicating we became habituated to. This makes it difficult to identify a bad habit and even harder to break one.

Eight Practices to Make You a Good Listener

It is possible, however, to make a few simple changes to your communication style. If you want to be a good listener and improve your conversations and relationships, you’ll need to intentionally adapt the way you interact with others.

1. Use “Peak Listening”

“Peak Listening,” according to Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson’s The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success, occurs when you have broken through your own defenses and can listen to someone under the assumption that they’re right. Often, poor listeners are quick to feel threatened by a speaker’s tone, words or attitude, and they become eager to defend themselves. Unfortunately, defensiveness stops a conversation from progressing, and both parties leave feeling frustrated and unheard. To achieve “peak listening,” you will have to ignore your feelings of being under attack, even if you are, and engage the other person with the intention that you will find some point on which you can agree. Not only can this technique be disarming to someone who is angry or hurt, but it ensures your own response is based on what the other person said rather than how you felt about it.

2. Don’t Think About Your Response While Listening

One bad listening habit that most people struggle with is planning what they will say while the other person is still talking. Thinking about how you will respond rather than concentrating on the other person’s words is a big problem. It trains your focus on your own thoughts and feelings rather than on the speaker’s. It might make you excellent at speaking your mind, but all the other person will hear in your response is what you missed.

Are you thinking about your next story? Or planning how to phrase your advice? Remind yourself that you’ll have plenty of time to respond once the other person finishes. You can even make space in your conversation for you to collect your thoughts by explaining to the speaker, “I want to think about what you just said before I respond.” This ensures you are giving enough consideration to your answer while assuring your friend that you are being thoughtful rather than zoning out.

3. Ignore Distractions

Distractions can come upon you without warning, and it is often those impromptu distractions that shift your intentional focus away from the speaker. Some people can be distracted by the way a person looks or speaks. Others struggle with distractions in the form of their cell phone going off or a notification scrolling by. Anytime you, as a listener, break eye contact to check your phone, you have just made yourself seem disinterested in the person talking.

If this is something you struggle with, plan to silence or put away your phone to have a conversation. And if something about the speaker is distracting you, focus instead on something neutral so you can continue to hear their words rather than your own inner commentary. Giving the other person your full attention is the basis for any productive and meaningful interaction.

4. “Listen” Nonverbally

As speakers, we naturally look for signs that our listeners are paying attention. Someone whose attention starts to wander or who begins fidgeting or who sits with arms crossed is sending clear signals of disinterest or disagreement. Be sure that these signals are not coming from you. Being a good listener with your nonverbal means making eye contact when necessary, having open body language with head, feet and torso pointed toward the other person and maintaining careful, neutral expressions.

Don’t roll your eyes, cross your arms, turn your head, pull up your nose or smirk while you listen. This negative behavior will make you seem judgmental, condescending or disinterested. If you catch yourself giving a negative nonverbal cue, counteract it with a positive one. Smile, nod your head, open your hands or lean forward. Maintaining your physical interest will also help you stay mentally engaged with the speaker.

5. A Good Listener Asks Clarifying Questions

Sometimes people have difficulty expressing themselves correctly. Other times we do lose focus on what is being said and may not remember well. It’s important to ask questions to clarify what was meant in these cases. The following are examples of good clarifying questions.

“When you said ___, I didn’t understand. Can you explain what you meant?”

“You said ___. Can you provide a specific example?”

“Will you repeat the part about ___ for me?”

Questions like these give the speaker a chance to address the gaps in their own communication while assuring them you want to understand their perspective.

6. Paraphrase What The Other Person Tells You

Repeating what the other person says is another great technique for avoiding misunderstandings. Similar to asking clarifying questions, paraphrasing is more focused on what was said rather than on what you didn’t understand. Sometimes, a person can be saying one thing while you are hearing something completely different. So if you fail to clarify what you hear, you risk a major miscommunication. Paraphrasing is an especially good practice in close relationships or in those that are prone to conflict. Examples include the following.

“I heard you say ___. Is that what you meant?”

“I just want to be sure I understood you. You think that ___.”

“So what you’re saying is ___. Did I understand that correctly?”

7. Be Interested In The Other Person – Don’t Fake It

A good listener believes that others are worthy of their time. If you don’t actually believe this, even your best attempt at good listening will be betrayed by something involuntary. For example, a glance at the clock or an impatient eye roll. If you don’t feel interested in the speaker, find something about them that you like and focus on that. This will help you stay truly engaged as a listener instead of as someone who is faking it.

8. Do Not Judge – Keep An Open Mind

Being a good listener requires keeping an open mind. Now, having an open mind does not mean that you automatically agree with what the other person is saying. However, it does mean that you are willing to listen to everything they are saying and to consider the issue from their point of view.

A lot of times, we are unwilling to fully hear the other person out because we are afraid that they will perceive our listening as an endorsement of their behavior or response. The problem with this viewpoint is that unless a person feels heard or understood, they are not likely to listen to any advice or correction. When we start with an open mind and a determination to understand, even if we don’t agree with how someone might feel such a way, we are more likely to listen better. Judgment is the last thing we want to feel.

The above list is not comprehensive, but it can serve as a good beginning for improving anyone’s listening skills. You’ll need to start with an open mind and a willingness to fully understand another person’s perspective. This mindset will be a strong foundation for you to build on as you add other good listening behaviors into your communication skill set. Chances are, you’ll need to be very intentional about breaking poor listening habits as you work to establish good ones.

References & Further Reading

To become a better listener, make sure to read the following reference materials that inspired me to write this article:

• The excellent 3-part “Listen Up!” series on ArtofManliness.com: Part I, Part II, Part III
• 5 Tips for Becoming a Better Listener by Gretchen Rubin
• Farnam Street first introduced me to The Plateau Effect book via its Peak Listening article

A few weeks ago I had to give a keynote presentation to my local Rotary Club about the habits to create long term happiness. After almost 4 years from my last public speech, when I was at university, this experience brought back to mind my early public presentations of my life.

As a student I gave several presentations in front classmates and professors, but it wasn’t always easy; especially in the beginning I felt terrified.

For some people, being evaluated in social situations such as public speaking, making an appointment or sitting for an exam, is equivalent to experiencing an excruciating pain.

In my case I felt, in part at least, to be under constant evaluation by my audience. I would slowly put myself in defense mode, so that they could not discover my flaws and spot my weaknesses.

Because I saw my audience as the judge of my imperfections, I also believed that they would seize on any misstep and despise me for that.

From my experience, I noticed several factors that could intensify or mitigate the fear during this type of events, and they usually concern vulnerability-related attributes like:

• The status of the evaluator and her power within the society.
• Your skills in presenting an attractive and persuasive “facade”.
• The confidence in your own abilities.
• The evaluation of the degree of threat, of the potential damage and the likelihood of this happening.
• Some automatic defenses like verbal inhibition, memory block and spontaneity control can weaken someone’s performance.
• The anticipation of punishment from the evaluator for a given act that goes against the rules or for a below standard performance.

Self-Confidence

Knowing how to properly cope with certain adverse social events, requires a good degree of self-confidence in your abilities. Your confidence is related to the perceived magnitude of your expectations, your difficulties and the potential punishment derived from a scarce performance.

In certain circumstances your self-confidence can be threatened and weakened:

• When you feel inferior and not good enough to rightfully answer the evaluator’s requests.
• When you fear a negative consequence for a bad performance (job loss, suspension from school or the end of a relationship).

Physiological Reactions

Fear of judgment, not only triggers internal reactions, but external too. Blushing, sense of fatigue, muscular tension and palpitations are some of the most common symptoms.

When I was at university, even before the dreaded event took place, I used to get absorbed by my prophetic fears that soon after would lead me to physical and mental stiffening. That inhibition interfered with the natural expression of myself, my mind got confused and my words got jumbled.

In essence, I undervalued my skills and became more vulnerable.

Overcoming social anxiety, and in particular fear of negative evaluation, is not an easy thing to do; yet many other people, myself included have done it. Although I’m not a certified therapist, I want to show you what has worked for me.

While I was in the middle of this problem, I felt completely despaired – as if it could never get better – until I made these simple adjustments to my life.

Self-Love

When you try to impress someone, you are no longer real and authentic with that person. When you just express yourself, that opens up a whole new channel where you can authentically connect with another human being.

More self-love helped me achieve this result. When you don’t love yourself, the only thing you can use your time for is to worry about what other people think.

The more love you have for yourself, the more you’ll be able to authentically express yourself.

Life is Everywhere

As soon as I realised that it wasn’t only about me, and that there are millions of other people in the world, then it became clear that the world doesn’t have time to think about me.

The majority of the time people are not thinking about you, instead they are thinking about them.

We have to stop being so egocentric and think that the whole world revolves around us.

Don’t Please Everyone

Many people beg to be liked by each and everyone, but we have to remind ourselves that we are not in this world to live up to other people’s expectations. We are here to be ourselves and authentic 100%.

Setting up your own unique value system is an incredible favor you can do yourself. When you allow someone else to give you value, you automatically lose self-confidence.

Give yourself your own definition of value. Do everything for yourself first, before doing it for anyone else.

Accept that you cannot control what other people think of you. You can’t control how people act, you can only control how you respond to their actions.

Leave a comment below if you are going through this process right now. Comment with the steps that you are taking to overcome fear of judgment. Comment if you, like me, overcame fear of judgment and want to share your personal story. Comment if you have questions you want me to answer. Comment also if you hated this post. I love hearing from you!

When this happens, we find ourselves on roads that someone else forced us to walk. We have to deal with life choices that probably don’t belong to us but to others. In essence, we are living someone else’s life.

At times we find ourselves giving up, when instead we should persevere; while other times we insist, when instead it would be better to let it go.

When no one teaches us how important is to recognize and value each aspect of ourselves, we risk to live life trying to be like others define us, or worse, trying to prove them wrong.

This focuses all our energy on our supposed “imperfections”, rather than asking ourselves the most important question:

Who am I?

Everyone, sooner or later, experiences some distressing moments where everything just doesn’t seem to make sense. When these moments present themselves, you start telling yourself: “I shouldn’t be here”, “Why am I still in this relationship?” or “I don’t like my job”.

Related Read: 8 Long-Held Misconceptions People Have About Life

These thoughts can be scary because, if materialized, they can subvert your equilibrium and your life as you know it. But those are also the exact intuitions you need to follow if you want to find your own path and live the life you desire.

To know yourself better every day, you don’t have to stop questioning why you do what you do.

What makes you feel alive?

Those are your interests, your passions and everything that makes you feel fulfilled and think about future projects you might undertake, both personal and professional.

Are there things you do with ease?

You probably haven’t noticed it, but you have a talent. There is something that you are good at more than anybody else. Work hard on your talent. Protect it and use it at your advantage.

Take a pen and paper

If there were no limits of time, money or fears, what are 30 things you would do right now? What are 30 things you want to have? Voilà! Now you have a list of things you are denying yourself.

Focus

You keep filling your time with short term objectives so that you don’t have to think. Try instead to spend some time with yourself. Give yourself the chance to question your life. Answer to your questions and build long-term life projects based on what you find.

Don’t stop being curious

Of yourself, of others and strangers. Without curiosity, there is no life.

What could you regret?

Imagine yourself in 40 years. Think about it and look back at your life. What are you disappointed about? For what would you say: “If only I could go back in time, I …”?

Now go back in time and start changing the life of your future you.

Remember that you are unique and that there’s no one and never will be anyone like you. Then, why not giving you the possibility to be who you should be?

What do you think? Who are you keeping locked up inside of you?

Here below, you find the “Awesome Random Acts of Kindness Guide” with 88 inspiring deeds on it.

What would be really cool is if you would print it out and when you’re done, you just pass it on to the people that you do the good deeds for.

Enjoy it!

Awesome Random Acts Of Kindness Guide

1. Tell a street performer how amazing he or she is

2. Bring flowers to a nursing home

3. Leave a letter in a library book

4. Leave happy note around town

5. Tell someone why they are special to you

6. Email or write a letter to an old teacher who made a difference in your life

7. Pray for a friend or family member

8. Compliment a stranger

9. Stand up for the underdog

10. Hold a “dog wash” to raise money for a good cause

11. Help someone carry their grocery bags

12. Donate blood

13. Give up your seat on a bus

14. Leave flowers on someone’s car

15. Praise the work of others

16. Befriend with a lonely person

17. Help someone whose car has broken down

18. Bring dog/cat food to a shelter

19. Forgive someone. Repeat as necessary.

20. Give away stuff you don’t use anymore for free

21. Do a chore for someone without them knowing

22. Do something nice for yourself

23. Greet everyone you see

24. Give an unexpected gift

25. Call your parents and tell them you love them

26. Lend your knowledge and expertise

27. Make two lunches and give one for free

28. Leave a colouring book and crayons in a hospital waiting room

29. Sit with someone who is eating alone

30. Buy dessert for someone at a restaurant anonymously

31. Clean someone’s windshield

32. Put sticky notes with positive words in public places

33. Smile at others

34. Give cold drinks to road workers in the summer months and hot drinks in the winter time

35. Help lost people in your city

36. Make someone laugh

37. Give your neighbour a treat

38. Give coupons for someone to use at the grocery store

39. Share your umbrella with someone who didn’t bring one

40. Hug random people

41. Write a thank you note

42. Let a car in front of you merge

43. Plant a tree

44. Surprise someone who lives far away by visiting them unexpectedly

45. Return someone’s cart at the store

46. Connect people to each other

47. Leave cookies for the mailman

48. Pay someone’s parking meter

49. Bring in your neighbour’s trash cans

50. Be empathetic

51. Let someone go in line in front of you

52. Let someone take your parking spot

53. Buy a dozen flowers and hand them out to random people

54. Walk dogs at the shelter

55. Donate used clothing

56. Hold the door open for someone

57. Be encouraging

58. Be understanding

59. If you’re just thinking nice things about a person, text them to let them know.

60. Be kind to someone you dislike

61. Tell a stranger in the dressing room who is shopping alone that something looks great on them.

62. Buy a coffee for the person behind you

63. Offer a ride to someone who is car-less

64. Donate used books to the library

65. Send a handmade card to someone

66. Make a donation in your name to a charity

67. Offer a meal to a homeless person

68. Be thoughtful

69. Wash someone’s car for free

70. Bake a treat for someone

71. Take the time to listen to someone’s story

72. Offer to fix something broken at your friend’s or parents’ house

73. Leave a generous tip

74. Be patient

75. Call a homeless shelter. Ask what they need. Bring it.

76. Pick up litter

77. Help someone with yard work

78. Be thankful

79. Bring donuts to work

80. Offer to take a picture for tourists

81. Say thank you to a janitor

82. Buy parking passes to give to parents of children in the hospital

83. Make a memory box for someone you are with little paper notes of all the things you did together over the years and give it to them

84. Drop off bus tickets to a shelter

85. Offer to walk your neighbor’s dog

86. Leave “Have a happy day” on the windshield of as many cars as possible

87. Help an elderly person or someone in need to cross the street

88. Share this list to encourage other to do Random Acts of Kindness

What are you waiting for? Let’s change the world together, and if you can’t print out the list, you can also help out by just sharing this post on Facebook and Twitter.

If we spread it across the internet enough, maybe this list will go around the whole world.

Until next time.

In Ancient Greece, for example, people thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that all the planets, stars and the Sun revolved around it. By the 16th Century, Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus proved the geocentric model wrong.

Beliefs can be found in anything related to how we live our life; being it a relationship with a person, a thing or an emotion. Whatever it is we go through in our life, our mind can make it believable. Beliefs are also the basis for action.

Our minds can make our life experiences real even when they aren’t, and until we question our beliefs we’ll never know whether what we do right or wrong.

While I was in the process of questioning my personal beliefs, I observed eight recurring ideas that people in our society still believe to be true.

1. Other people are more fortunate than me

“I’m getting left behind. What did I do wrong?” Those are the kind of things I would tell myself and I would start comparing my life to others.

Are you so caught up in looking over to your right or to your left? How many of us go on Instagram or Facebook and stalk people? Admit it. You look at people smiling and having fun in some exotic location and ask yourself: “Why them and not me?”

Instead, be original, create your own fortune. Don’t worry about living other people’s lives, know yourself, appreciate who you are, be confident in your abilities and work hard for what you want to accomplish.

2. Life is suffering

“Life is hard, painful, you have to struggle.”

Well, that’s what my parents told me, and their parents told them that, too.

When I realized that I didn’t have to live in the “conveyor belt” lifestyle that everyone else was living, I realized that life can be whatever I choose.

When you say that life is full of pain and suffering, that is what you attract. When you say that you have the power to mold life into whatever you want to make it, that’s when you tap into your greatness and can achieve whatever you dream.

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is always a choice and the pain is temporary.

Suffering is caused by not being able to let go of the temporary pain you’ve experienced.

3. Money is a right

Some people think, because they have a lot of money, they have the right to do whatever they want.

I used to think this way, my identity and self-worth were tied to my material possessions until I lost it all.

During the rebuilding process, I realized that even though we live in a material world, material possessions don’t make me who I am. They are just things I own.

When it’ll be all said and done, all you’ll have are the memories you shared with the people who mattered most in your life.

The experiences, not the things. That’s what you should be focusing on more and more every day. The relationships.

4. You should get married

Society tells us that we have to get married and have children by a certain age, and if we don’t do that we are clearly doing something wrong.

Where do all of these ideas come from? Who implanted them into our minds?

As we evolve in consciousness, we realize that none of us have to get married and none of us have to have children, but we do have to do what resonates with our heart.

I think it’s wonderful to be in divine union and to have children, but don’t feel guilty if you aren’t doing those things.

5. Degrees mean success

Growing up that’s all I wanted to do. Just study, because I thought the more I studied that was a guarantee I could live a successful life.

Studying is wonderful. It opens doors and your mind, but if you don’t go to university you can still make it.

If you don’t have a degree you can still live your dreams.

6. You have to look perfect

Many people fixate on having the perfect body, the perfect shape or being the perfect size.

I used to think that I needed the perfect body image. I had a program running in my head that was the be all and end all.

How many of us go on diets just to try and fit into an image which probably doesn’t even exist, because that person in the magazine has been digitally manipulated?

What I realized is that you have to have a body, shape and size that is truthful to you along your journey, not somebody else’s journey.

Whatever you do, do it for yourself. The more you do it, the more you realize that none of us is supposed to look exactly the same. We are supposed to look how we envision ourselves in our minds at our highest level.

7. Your greatness has a limit

How many of us say: “Ok I’ve done enough. I reached my limit. Let me stop now and take a break”.

The truth is there is no limit. Many people stunt their growth, they rest on their laurels and put their tools away.

You have to have your tools out every day because, you never know when you might need them to build something.

Sometimes you are building at night and other times you build as first thing in the morning; but the more you build and the more you create, the more you perfect your craft.

But if you stop working and you wait for the perfect moment, and continue living in your comfort zone, you will become stagnant.

8. You have to have it all figured out

Enlightenment is knowing how much you don’t know. When you embark on a voyage, you must let go of the old and embrace the new.

By doing so, you’ll start to realize how much more there is to know.

If you fail, try again, dust yourself off, get back on your feet and move on. The secret is to take action and not to try and have it all figured out.

Many of the things you believe to be true, are true only as long as you think they are. As soon as you disconnect from this idea and stop being confined by it, you’ll recognize that you can achieve, obtain and become whatever you want. Most of the times, something totally different than your original belief.

Anything you think and naturally consider to be true can be defined as a belief. None of your beliefs though have a higher chance of being true than all your other thoughts.

But as soon as you tag your thoughts as beliefs, then they fall into the “untouchable” category and you stop questioning them.

Ultimately, don’t think that because lots of people believe in something, that has to be true. The number of people believing in a particular thing doesn’t increases the chances of it to be right.

The lesson?

Question your beliefs, always.

This type of worth society puts on failures hinders us from either trying again in case something bad happened during our first attempt or worse, from taking the plunge towards our first step.

As much as we love hearing success stories, we also have to get comfortable to include failures in our thought process and recognize the benefits it triggers.

Benefit of Failure n.1: You Learn Precious and Unforgettable Lessons

More often than not, failure takes place when we make mistakes. Several are the reasons that lead us to make mistakes.

We make mistakes because we decide to take the road less-traveled and for this reason we find ourselves in unexplored territories.

In this scenario, all we have in mind is our final destination but we don’t really know how to get there except by continuously experimenting until we succeed.

Another reason why we make mistakes is because we tend to follow the exact same path traveled by others before us. unfortunately without taking into consideration the different external and internal factors such as timing, personal knowledge and

Unfortunately, if this is the case, we don’t take into consideration the different external and internal factors such as timing, personal knowledge and support network, that can easily have an influence on our ultimate goal.

All the mistakes we make and the failures that eventually follow, are able to shed light on the false steps we’ve taken and teach us how not to blunder if we’ll ever face a similar experience in the future.

Benefit of Failure n.2: You Become More Receptive To Advices

The more you experience failure the more you are willing to accept external help.

As showed in the previous point, a stable circle of friends, peers and mentors can sometimes be the ultimate success factor for whatever you are trying to accomplish.

What happens in reality, especially if we are at our first experience, is that we get caught up by the enthusiasm of the moment and become pretty much insensitive to the external world.

Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is an excellent way to easily bounce off ideas and get valuable feedback whether you are just starting out or you are well on your path towards success.

There are times when an external perspective can be immensely valuable and help you avoid mistakes that you would have otherwise made.

Benefit of Failure n.3: You Gain More Clarity

Sometimes failure comes from over-complicated processes or from us wanting to score too many points all at once.

We may lose sight of the reason why we started our journey, we may get distracted by other interesting opportunities that often enter into conflict with our initial goal.

Failure helps us refocus our energy on the important stuff.

Regularly questioning the “why” of what you are doing is necessary to reapprove or revise your end goal. A clear objective is required to identify what is of primary importance or unnecessary.

Benefit of Failure n.4: You’ll Find Out Who Is Your True Friend

When things go well, friends and peers seem to naturally want to stay at your side.

But as soon as the waters get a little rough and you need support, you’ll start seeing who is really willing to help you in this moment of temporary adversity and who instead decides to distance himself from the situation.

It’s important for you, at any moment of your journey, to talk and share your ideas with trusted people.

Talking about failure is as important as the failure itself; it helps you accept it and advance faster towards whatever goal you might have.

Benefit of Failure n.5: Failure Is The Catalyst For Change

By now you should see failure as a good thing.

Failure gives you the chance to start anew, with more knowledge and certainly with more confidence.

You hopefully learned from your mistakes and now you have more tools that will propel you towards greater successes.

To Recap

Failure is by far the fastest and most effective way to learn new things.

If you think carefully, the greatest learnings of our lives don’t come when things just flow nice and easy, but rather when we struggle and have to learn how to stand up and find the balance, without falling too many times and getting hurt.

I end today’s article with a brilliant quote by Maya Angelou, which will certainly inspire you to take action and stop avoiding failure.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

There are some simple principles that make great relationships. In fact, we can name five important ones right now.

Communication

Appreciation

Passion

Trust

Fun

All we go through in life determines who we are today. Once you can express yourself freely, without a filter and just let go 100% by losing yourself with the one you love, this makes a world of difference.

So, if you are in a relationship right now, think about the five principles mentioned above and ask yourself: “Is my relationship based on communication, appreciation, passion, trust and fun?“.

With those five principles in mind, you can now apply the 9 utterly charming secrets of happy couples. Enjoy the video below.

How many of these 9 secrets do you apply daily in your love relationship? Does one of these secrets resonate more with you than the others? What kind of results do you see? What other things you do to maintain or create happiness with your love partner? Let me know in the comments below.

If a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist is doubtful about the potential for a good conversation, the rest of us is screwed, right? I mean, it’s crazy how difficult it is to hold a genuine conversation. On top of that, it’s really easy to stress out if the thoughts that you are having are really important.

What if there will be an awkward silence? What if you say something stupid?

I compiled a list of 101 questions that will help you break the ice in any type of circumstance and with any type of person. Are you ready to start talking?

1. What is something you hate but you wished you loved?

2. Where do you go and what do you do to wind down/relax?

3. If you were in a band, what kind of music would you play?

4. What TV show do you most identify with?

5. What is your favorite season of the year?

6. If a movie was made about your life, what actor/actress would play you?

7. If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?

8. If you woke up tomorrow as an animal, what animal would you choose to be?

9. If you could live anywhere on this planet, and take anything that you love with you, where would you choose to live?

10. Are you where you thought you’d be at this point in your life?

11. What is your most valuable skill?

12. What do you think about the organic food movement?

13. What do you think is the best age to get married?

14. If you had to pick an image to represent each member of your family, what would you pick?

15. What did you dream about last night?

16. Do you mind if I stay by your side?

17. What is your favorite chewing gum flavor?

18. What is your dream job?

19. What was the first thing you bought with your first paycheck?

20. What is one thing you wish you had known at 21?

21. What is one thing you thought existed but it actually doesn’t?

22. What is something you’ve always wanted, but couldn’t have due to social stigmas?

23. How’s life?

24. What is the best pizza place you have ever been to?

25. What song do you secretly like but won’t admit it elsewhere?

26. What’s the earliest memory you have of your life?

27. What is the one thing you can’t do, no matter how hard you try?

28. What is one thing that you would risk your life for?

29. What was the single, best realization you have ever had?

30. What are your three biggest life goals right now?

31. Your hair looks beautiful. How is it like to be extremely good looking?

32. I’m genuinely interested. What’s one song you will never skip on your playlist?

33. If you were guaranteed the correct answer to one question, what would you ask?

34. What product do you think the world could go on without?

35. If one animal was made the size of an elephant, which would be the scariest?

36. What is your most interesting hobby?

37. What is one thing you do to get motivated?

38. What is the worst song lyric you have ever heard?

39. Why are you burned out from your job?

40. What was your favorite toy as a child?

41. What are questions that you don’t like to answer?

42. What are you scared of?

43. What was your most irrational fear as a child?

44. What is something you get wrong almost every time you do it?

45. What is something beautiful you see every day?

46. What things do you do every day that you wish were automated?

47. What smells make you happy?

48. Where is the weirdest place you have seen someone you know?

49. What is your favorite word in the English language?

50. What is the social event you hate the most?

51. What is the best thing that you have done, just because you were told you can’t?

52. What is an obscure food that you have eaten that most people never tried?

53. If you could visit any fictional town, what would it be?

54. When did you realize people had accepted you as an adult?

55. What is the craziest thing you’ve seen somebody do at  the workplace?

56. What is your current desktop wallpaper?

57. What is the most cliché thing you have done in your life?

58. What is the word you absolutely hate people for using?

59. Give me your deepest, most profound quote you just made up.

60. Do you “genuinely” think you are attractive?

61. What is the most laid back job you have ever had?

62. When is the last time you cried?

63. What is your “I shouldn’t be here today” story?

64. What is the most famous person you have ever met?

65. What is your “happy” song?

66. Do you have something that you find strangely relaxing?

67. What short phrases should be on candy hearts but aren’t?

68. What made you smile today?

69. What is your “go-to” joke?

70. What is the worst thing your mom caught you doing as a kid?

71. What simple changes have made your life better?

72. Which cartoons have made you cry?

73. What incredibly common thing in life terrifies you?

74. If you had the opportunity to spend a year in another country, where would you go?

75. What would you do if you had a working time machine?

76. What are your three biggest life goals right now?

77. What do you think is the ultimate waste of your money?

78. What would you do if you had no money?

79. What is your favorite three-word sentence?

80. What is the funniest movie you have ever seen?

81. What is one thing you don’t understand about yourself?

82. What is something you just have to do every day?

83. What is something new you learned this week?

84. What impresses you most about kids these days?

85. What was your first kiss like?

86. What is a movie moment that completely transformed you?

87. What “impossible coincidence” stories do you know?

88. What is legal that you think should be illegal?

89. If you had to live a week without internet, what will you do to keep yourself busy?

90. What do you think is the best feeling in the world?

91. What is the worst advice you have ever been given?

92. What was your turning point to a more active life?

93. What is your best piece of advice?

94. What do you consider to be the highlight of your life?

95. What is the happiest you have ever been?

96. What is something that you seriously take for granted?

97. What is your favorite drink?

98. What is your worst experience in a foreign country?

99. What would you do if you could do anything for 8 hours a day for the rest of your life, assuming money were no object?

100. What is the biggest waste of time in your life?

101. What is the biggest change you want to make in your life?

Although there are situations and circumstances you want to get away from, there are also certain things which are worth holding onto and fighting for: our dreams.

I can give you at least five reasons why dreams are worth pursuing. Everyone nowadays seems to say: “Hey you should follow your dream”. But you don’t do much, you get caught up in life, you  go to a job that doesn’t satisfy you and remain stuck at the starting gate.

I Followed My Dreams

Although you can find countless excuses not to pursue your dreams, here’s what doing it helped me to achieve.

• I proved everybody wrong.
  After graduating from University, all of my friends entered the corporate world. I, instead, decided to pursue the entrepreneurial path and started my own digital marketing agency.
  Critics and doubtful pearls of wisdom were coming from any direction, but I didn’t get distracted, I didn’t quit and after almost five years I’m confident saying that I made the right choice.

• I am proud of myself
  Proving other people wrong is just the icing on the cake, but what makes following your dreams even more rewarding is that you can actually do something you really love every day and be recognized for that.

• I got more confident.
  In pursuing your dreams, you are the one running the show and the first who witnesses the successes, as well as the failures.Being at the forefront of it all, makes you feel invincible and it skyrockets your self-confidence.

• I learned to embrace failures.
  I see failure as a key part of the process of pursuing my dreams. Once you recover from failure, you realize it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.

• No one can pursue and accomplish my dreams if not me.
  Dreams are subjective and distinctive of each person. Also, the majority of people will never take action and go after their own dreams, so how can you expect them to pursue yours?

What do people like me, who follow their dreams and don’t quit, have in common?

1. Many Options

It all starts with allowing the possibility. People who never quit never take “no” for an answer.

They don’t believe in their own doubts even though they get them, they always persevere, they keep on going and they realize they live in a world of infinite possibilities. 

They don’t see only one way of doing things; they are always aware of other alternatives. When everyone else just sees one option they see many. 

2. Nobody Said it Was Easy

People who never quit, realize that simplicity takes great mastery.

That is why you have to gather the right tools that can help you get through the obstacles you encounter every single day. The more equipped you are, the easier life becomes.

Many people who live their dream, know that in the beginning it’s normal to have fear. This happens because you are not living your dream yet; you just have this crazy idea of following your life purpose.

There’s no guarantee and no security. You are literally diving in the deep end.

3. Power of Will

A lot of people don’t realize that if you want to move closer to what makes you happy, you have to make sacrifices. You have to leave everything behind.

And even if you think that holding on to something that makes you unhappy is better than jumping into the unknown, in reality the unknown can in fact set you free. 

With every step you take, you generate more momentum and experience. 

4. Power of Focus

If you sleep it, live it, breathe it and rise with it, then probably you really want it. 

That is all well and great, but a lot of people just want to talk about their dreams, without really doing anything about it.

If you want to achieve your dreams and live your life purpose, you have to take action or they won’t come to you.

People who follow their dreams, concentrate their focus on one area and stick with it. 

Effort will release its reward only after you refuse to quit. 

5. They  Become Healthier

People who follow their dreams become healthier, more vibrant and happier.

Once you start living your life purpose, you will start to notice that people want to be around you.

But when you are not living your life purpose, everybody around you becomes your problem, you start externalizing your power and start feeling like a victim.

You blame others, not realizing you are making a conscious decision to be around them.

6. They Know When to Ignore the People Around Them

Friends, family or the next door neighbor can influence your vision and your dreams.

Sometimes you need to ignore everyone to stay focused on not quitting. People who don’t quit, know who to listen to and who to ignore. 

When people see the results of your changes, then they want to know the secrets. If you can believe in yourself, everything becomes better and that moves you even more into your life purpose.

You don’t stop because of people’s ideas. This is a test with yourself.

Are you going to let criticism consume you or are you going to let it propel you?

7. They Create Their Own Crowd

People who follow their dreams realize that they have to make a very conscious decision of the people they surround themselves with. 

As long as you follow the crowd, you will only go as far as the crowd. You have to be extremely comfortable with yourself, and brave enough to find the right crowd.

Sometimes we say that we can do everything by ourselves, but people who never quit, realize they can’t and for that reason they surround themselves with people who remind them of who they are.

That support network helps them manifest their greatest dreams and desires.

8. Their Lives Become Adventurous

A lot of people are so used to just staying in their comfort zone.

The moment you start to live your dream, every day is new. It’s not easy, but at the same time you just embrace it more. You are not afraid to wake up early anymore.

And if you are living your life purpose right now, you never know what to expect, and that’s the best part.

9. Failure is Part Of It

People who don’t quit know that failure is just one of the possible outcomes of their trials. There is no failure if you try something new out. 

Keep in mind that your uniqueness can never be taken away from you. There is no failure when you realize this.

It’s all about changing how you perceive success and failure. When you do what you love, you can never fail.

We are all here to find meaning in our lives.

Your life purpose is all about meaning, how it makes you feel, the value it gives you and the integrity it gives you.

People living their dream acknowledge this.

The reason why it’s not good to answer “I am fine”, whenever you feel down and out, is because you are essentially suppressing your feelings and making it harder to get through the “down and out” state.

Once you begin to say “I’m not fine. I’m really angry. I feel sad. I feel confused”, who knows? The person in front of you could assist you or you could get into a great conversation and learn some tools to help you know yourself better and start feeling great.

Let’s face it, being human is not easy. There are so many distractions, obstacles and challenges every single day.

A lot of people want to project to the world that they are doing great. Sometimes I even do that. But I am here to remind you that I am not perfect and that at the same time I’m working, every day, on my personal development.

What happens when you place one emotion over another?

It’s clear that joy is better than sadness; but honestly who wants to be sad?

In fact, we are not afraid of feeling down and out, we are more afraid of the beliefs of feeling down and out, and that is why it becomes negative.

The great paradox about feeling down and out is that you have to feel every emotion without judgement to move past whatever discomforting feeling you have.

Embracing every discomforting feeling you have, will set you free

We live in a society of instant gratification; where if you feel down and out, you just go to a club and have a few drinks.

While this might seem like a great idea, you are essentially running away from your suppressed feelings.

You have to be able to sit and spend time with your feelings. You have to become very calm and aware of them, without judgment. That is what will free you.

I’ve identified three key aspects that can help you dominate your down and out moments. It’s essential that you act as soon as that feeling appears, you don’t want to wait until you feel depressed and miserable. The sooner you

It’s like any other issue. The sooner you catch a problem, the sooner you can act upon it and expect a greater potential for a better outcome. Here’s the three aspects:

1. Friends

One of the reasons why you might feel down and out is because you are afraid to ask for help. You don’t want to sound weird or scary.

You want to feel like you have everything under control. But that independent mindset can make you fall into the illusion of separation because everything is connected.

So to make the beauty come out of that “down and out” feeling is to gather friends who can support you. Go watch the sunset, go for a walk.

Find the unity, because that’s the truth of you are

2. Environment

Change your environment. By being in nature or walking around your town, will help you put things in perspective. When you feel down and out you have to put things in perspective.

A lot of people lock themselves into their rooms, but in that way they are simply creating their own prison.

Once you go out there into the world, you start to see that actually your problem is not that bad. And even if it is, you get a new perspective.

3. Food

Another beautiful thing you could do to leave the “down and out” feeling behind, is to look at your diet.

The food that you eat affects how you feel. How you feel affects how you act and who you interact with. So just by eating more healthy foods (I wrote about this here and here), you gain more confidence and you gradually stop feeling down and out.

Remember that it’s ok to feel down and out sometimes. But you have to constantly ask yourself how that feeling is serving you.

It all comes down to placing value on what you do. Only when you start placing value on what you do and acknowledging that you are irreplaceable, then you are able to get out of that “down and out” feeling and develop an abundance mentality.

You have to acknowledge your greatness. You have to be bold enough to live the life you are worthy of.

Once you start realizing that you are enough; you’ll stop feeling down and out. Don’t make “down and out” a permanent state but just a fleeting experience.