Have you been chasing money and success? If so, stop.

When I first started my entrepreneurial journey, I was very money-focused. The more I chased money, the more unfulfilled I became.

It took me a long time to realize that money was never going to make me happy.

Research shows that those who pursue wealth and material possessions tend to be less satisfied and experience fewer positive emotions each day.

Don't get me wrong…. having a lot of money is great, but it's only a byproduct of success.

Ready to discover how to create lasting happiness? Read on!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Are you ready to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Chasing money and success is a losing battle.

I truly believe that all of us want to be happy and experience a sense of joy, meaning, and purpose. However, a lot of people have bought into the illusion of happiness. They think that happiness is something that is found outside of themselves. This is a lie.

You can be happy at this moment, regardless of your external circumstances. There are people in this world who have nothing, whether they are broke, in debt, alone, sick, or even dying. Yet, regardless of their circumstances, they have decided to find joy in life. Conversely, there are people who have all the money in the world. However, they aren't fulfilled. It may appear that they have it all on the outside, but deep down, they are miserable.

Why are so many successful people still unhappy? One researcher believes that it's because they go about measuring mastery in the wrong way. They use social comparisons to determine their level of accomplishment instead of doing the work to create inner happiness. Once they ‘make it' in the eyes of their peers, they continue putting everything that they can into that one area of their life, but neglect other areas in the process.

In my work, I believe that if you want to succeed in life, you have to give equal weight to each area of your life. This is how you will ensure that you are making progress and living a life of balance. I refer to this as the Life Mastery Blueprint.

These are the 10 most important areas of my life:

1. Body (health and fitness)
2. Mindset
3. Emotions (psychology and beliefs)
4. Relationships (intimate)
5. Business/Career
6. Money/Finances
7. Family
8. Social/friends/fun
9. Contribution
10. Spirituality (religion, meditation practice)

Each area influences one another. If you have an imbalance in one area, it will negatively affect another area. As an example, if you have all the money in the world it won't matter if you aren't healthy. Your health is the most valuable thing that you have. No amount of money can buy back health. I think we can all agree that the goal should never be about being the richest man or woman in the graveyard.

Instead of achieving happiness, what if you happily achieved? The most effective way to do this is by creating a powerful morning ritual that nourishes your mind, body, and soul. When you make your happiness a top priority, you will naturally create success in your life.

Don't forget to focus on what matters.

I encourage you to make happiness one of your top values in life. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that money will make you happy because success without fulfillment is failure.

Choose to be happy, regardless of what your outside world looks like. Everything that you've ever wanted is already inside of you. In the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” When you master your mind, you master your life.

Are you ready to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Knowing how to set goals while keeping your life in balance can be tricky.

In today's fast-paced world, it can seem like a far-fetched goal of achieving the ever-elusive work-life balance.

At the end of the day, it comes down to understanding what balance means to you.

Work-life balance isn't about getting everything perfect. Do you want to know how to set goals while still maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

Yes, you can do both. Keep reading to discover how!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Ready to succeed faster and master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Keeping your life in balance can be tricky.

If you struggle with work-life balance, you're not alone. Many of us have competing priorities that need our attention. Finding time to do everything can be challenging. Oftentimes, it's our mental and emotional health that is the first to take a hit.

A Gallup Wellbeing Index study found that 45 percent of entrepreneurs reported being stressed about their job and company and another 34 percent said they “worried a lot.” Can you relate? As an entrepreneur, I know all too well how difficult achieving ‘balance' can be.

However, over the years I've learned that if I don't make my health top priority, my business suffers, as does every area of my life. Don't get me wrong… if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur you have to be willing to ‘hustle.' However, it's equally as important to take care of yourself.

You will not be able to effectively add value and show up in the world if you are constantly living on autopilot. When it comes to creating work-life balance, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The concept of balance means something different to everyone.

I had the opportunity to sit down with my good friend, Matt Clark and talk about how to set goals while keeping your life in balance. For those of you who don't know, Matt is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Amazing.com. This is a company that helps Amazon entrepreneurs build their own physical products business. Here are some questions that he asked me and my responses to them.

Let's dive in!

What does it take to get the most value out of a year? How do you structure things to make sure that you accomplish a lot?

Before I start planning for the year ahead, I like to reflect and debrief the previous year. I have a process for doing that. I look at all of my wins, successes, and accomplishments. If you just take that in, it will help you build momentum that you can carry forward.

I also look at the challenges and the struggles that I faced and what I learned from those experiences. If you don't learn from your failures, you will carry them with you into the next year. When it comes to planning ahead for the New Year, I first like to get clear on what my vision is.

I really believe that your goals are merely stepping stones to the ultimate vision that you have for your life. Your goals should bring you one step closer to where you want to be 10-20 years from now.

I think about the goals that I want to achieve in each area of my life – health, business, finances, relationship, spiritual, and contribution. Once I'm clear on my vision, I do a brainstorming process where I think about the different goals that I want to set in each of those areas.

I narrow down what I'm most excited to accomplish in each area.

Lastly, I make sure that I'm setting goals that are S.M.A.R.T., which is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. I have a system for following up to ensure that I'm on track with my goals. If I'm not making progress, I make the necessary adjustments. Setting goals is easy, but 98% of people who set New Years Resolutions don't follow through on them. I want to be one of the 2% of people who do follow through.

What strategies can people adopt to ensure that they stay motivated to achieve their goals?

Accountability is huge. Oftentimes when we set goals, we say, “Hey I'm going to achieve this”, but because we are only accountable to ourselves, we can easily back out. With my brand, Project Life Mastery, I publically share my goals every year. It's uncomfortable for me to do so because it creates a lot of pressure.

However, it ensures that I am more likely to follow through because I don't want to lose respect and credibility from my audience. Accountability can be found in the form of a Mastermind group, an accountability buddy, a coach or a mentor. You want to find someone who can help you stay on track.

Is it better to be balanced or it is better to be hyper-focused in one area of life?

It depends on what you want in your life and what that looks like. A lot of people want to build an online business so that they can create more freedom and spend more time with their family and friends. I have always valued balance. From the beginning, I knew that spending all of my time and energy on my business wasn't going to fulfill me.

I believe that there are areas of life that are much more important than making money.

For me, that's my health, emotions, relationship, and spirituality. At times, you will have to go out of balance and make sacrifices, especially if you are building a business. Fully being in balance doesn't exist. There are times in my life where I fully immerse myself in a project, to the point where I may be neglecting other areas of my life.

However, it's only for a short period of time. I always return back to the balanced state.  You've got to have a purpose for your day. Being proactive and strategic with your time will ensure that you are present in everything that you do. When you know what the outcome is for each task that you carry out, you will get so much more out of the experience.

This is how to set goals while keeping your life in balance.

Get clear on what work-life balance means to you and then set goals that align with the vision that you have for your life. If you push yourself too hard you will only end up suffering.

However, when you make it a priority to engage in healthy habits every day, you will set yourself up to win. Taking care of your mind, body and soul will give you the energy and motivation that you need to achieve your goals, especially on the days when you feel like giving up.

Are you ready for 2022 to be your best year yet?

Ready to succeed faster and master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Are you a people pleaser? Do you bend over backward to satisfy others, sacrificing your own needs and desires in the process? If so, you are at risk of being taken advantage of.

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be kind to people, but it's important that you develop healthy boundaries so that you are making your needs a priority as well.

According to Susan Newman, author of, The Book of No: 250 Ways to Say It—And Mean It and Stop People-Pleasing Forever, people-pleasers “want everyone around them to be happy and they will do whatever is asked of them to keep it that way.”

Are you ready to learn why being ‘too nice' can be dangerous, and how you can shift your people-pleasing patterns and set healthy boundaries for yourself?

Are you ready to learn how to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

People pleasers tend to confuse pleasing people with being kind. Satisfying their own needs is deemed as ‘selfish.' When they do say no, it sends them into a spiral of anxiety and guilt, for fear that they have let others down.

As psychologist Harriet Braiker says, ‘to please is a disease.' The need to please can become an addiction that results in the neglect of your personal needs.

Oftentimes, the desire to please others comes from a deep-seeded need for social acceptance and connection from others.

Unfortunately, saying yes to everything and everybody is not a recipe for happiness or success in life. It's all about striking a balance.

The act of setting boundaries with regards to how much you're willing to do for others isn't selfish. Rather, it's healthy, and it's one of the best ways to reduce your people-pleasing habits.

Research proves that the more a person acts authentically, the more likely he or she is to be happy and experience subjective and psychological well-being.

Living from a place of authenticity is a form of self-respect. It's about listening to your gut and taking care of your needs first.

Are you a people pleaser? If so, here are 3 ways that you can break free from your people-pleasing patterns and build healthier boundaries.

1. Tune into your inner voice 

When someone asks you to do something, pay attention to how your body reacts. What does your inner voice tell you? Are you drowning it out? Why?

When you become more self-aware of the reasons why you feel the need to say yes all of the time, you will feel more empowered to make a change and stand up for yourself.

Practice taking action based on what your inner voice tells you. Just like a muscle, your inner voice becomes stronger the more that you use it.

2. Take care of yourself

People-pleasers tend to devote very little time to taking care of themselves. By putting yourself first and nourishing your higher self, it will give you the emotional energy that you need in order to be there for others.

When we treat ourselves with love and respect, others will do the same.

Sherry Pagoto, a psychologist and professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, says that, “The first step in achieving better boundaries is believing that self-care is a necessity, not a luxury.”

When you start acknowledging that your needs matter, you start making decisions from this place, and your boundaries become more clearly defined.

3. Re-evaluate Your Friendships

If the people in your life are constantly taking from you and not acknowledging your feelings, these people aren't your friends.

Oftentimes, people pleasers don't say no, for fear that they will lose friends or that people will think less of them.

Start recognizing when you are being taken advantage of. Every healthy relationship has a give-and-take dynamic. If you are always giving and someone is always taking, you need to re-evaluate that friendship or let it go entirely.

Are you a people pleaser? If so, I challenge you to build healthy boundaries so that you can break free from your people-pleasing patterns.

The result? A happier, healthier, and more balanced life where YOU are your #1 priority.

In the words of Mandy Hale, “It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It's necessary.”

Are you ready to learn how to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

My brand focuses on developing and committing to self-mastery.

The purpose of my work is to inspire people to master their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, so that they can have an extraordinary life.

That is why I wanted to invite Sheila C., the brand executive at PureScienceSupplements, to write a guest post about the 7 positive changes that you can make in order to improve your wellbeing.

Take it away Sheila!

Everyday life can be stressful and can take its toll on our general sense of wellbeing. We are often sleep-deprived and driven to work under extreme pressure, with limited opportunities for healthy food and exercise.

We hear the messages about balance and the importance of taking care of our mind and body. However, sometimes this is easier said than done. Here are 7 positive changes that you can make in order to improve your wellbeing:

Change 1: Work on your hormonal balance

Our body is a complex balance of hormones. When these hormones are in balance, they can help us feel mentally and physically fit. Every man and woman is a balance of testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, serotonin, GABA, adrenalin, and cortisol, to name but a few.

Then, there is inositol, the body's transport system for hormones. When these hormones and transporters work well, we feel awesome. When they go slightly out array, chaos ensues. Too much estrogen and testosterone become depleted. Cortisol levels rise with lower testosterone, meaning stress levels rise.

For women, too much estrogen increases the risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis, and it can also lead to a loss of sex drive. Women need testosterone for that too. For men, too much estrogen means aromatize, the process of lowering testosterone levels, meaning lower fertility, poor libido, erectile dysfunction, baldness, weight gain, etc.

Hormonal balance is crucial to many aspects of our lives. Therefore, supplementation with a testosterone booster, such as Tongkat Ali is beneficial, for both women and men.

Change 2: Consider how to improve your relationship

There are huge differences in the way that men and women show love for one another. For women, this might mean physical touching and holding, whereas, for men, this might mean active sex life. This is a generalization, and one only made to illustrate the importance of communicating with your partner.

This difference in viewpoint, if it exists, could be the most reason for the end of a relationship. As we age our body changes and it protects itself against the weakness that time delivers. Also, with age, the body assumes that reproduction becomes less relevant, so the processes of being fertile, irrelevant.

In broad terms, sex means babies in nature, so your body stops working to help you reproduce. Women feel this earlier than men.  Generally, men have more testosterone, and therefore, more sex-drive than women, which may mean that there is a time when men desire sex more than women.

This is not the end of your attraction for each other.  This is just the time when nature is not playing fair, in terms of libido. Therefore, the wellbeing of your relationship may mean that you want to bolster your body’s libido. Think about ways that you could connect with your partner on a deeper level.  Communicate your needs and make the effort to work at your relationship.

Change 3: Understand how to reduce your anxiety

Some anxiety is helpful. Sometimes we need to feel fear and pressure in order to take action. Our body produces cortisol and adrenalin for just such occasion, which gives us our fight, flight, or freeze response. It is how our ancestors managed to survive in a hostile world and explain how we when faced with an attacker, can run faster or fight stronger than we have done before.

The production of cortisol and adrenalin at inappropriate times produces inappropriate responses for a given situation. In other words, we can appear anxious or we can have a panic attack, which can become debilitating. Anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants come with high-risk side effects.

Some of these meds work for some and not for others, therefore there can be a period of trial and error that is physically and mentally challenging. Therefore, looking at your lifestyle and finding ways to balance work and life is crucial to improving your wellbeing. Our bodies are not designed to maintain stress for long periods of time, and the result can be an imbalance in our hormones.

This can bring about physical illness, as well as mental ill-health. Take a moment to consider your current lifestyle and whether you need to address this balance in order to avoid taking medication that might do more harm than good.

Change 4: Exercise effectively

Exercising can help to boost your self-esteem and help make you feel physically stronger. Too much exercise can lead to fatigue and injury. It is also difficult to fit a lot of gym time into a busy workweek. Therefore, it is important to make the most out of your workouts, so that you feel the full effect on your body and your overall sense of physical wellbeing.

An appropriate diet, balanced with carbs, proteins, and fats – all measured against the glycaemic index, as opposed to calories or nutritional make-up – should help your body to recover after a workout and boost its effectiveness. Some experts in nutrition and fitness prescribe intermittent fasting and a cycle of rest and intense workouts. This routine is meant to maximize the effect of the times you exercise.

The intermittent fasting also makes use of your body’s rhythms, so it no longer feels the need to store food as fat. Do some research on workout cycles and intermittent fasting in order to understand how to get fit, without suffering from workout fatigue!

Change 5: Get the right balance of vitamins and minerals in the food you eat

Your body needs a mix of calcium and magnesium, Vitamins A, B, C, D, K, along with iron and selenium, and many more elements to work effectively and optimally. These vitamins and minerals occur naturally in our food, but the more processed the food, the less likely that there are to be nutritious elements available.

This is why there has been an upsurge in interest in the paleo diet. To be honest, there is no need to go so extreme as the paleo diet but instead, understand the influence that processing can have. Buy raw foods, which you cook yourself, and you will find that your balanced diet is going to include all of the vitamins and minerals that your body and mind need in order to function well.

Change 6:  Take control of the aging process

Aging is a fact, but a decline in age doesn’t have to be. There is a lot of research now that suggests that the way we choose to live – how much stress we have, how many toxins we take in, and how much we exercise – all influence the actual age of our bodies and our minds.

You can take tests now that reveal how old you really are, that look at your cholesterol, the fat around your organs, your blood sugar levels, your hormonal balance, etc. It is these factors that really determine our age, not the number of years we have been alive. Being aware of your body’s age might help you to seek out better ways of living in order to keep yourself feeling and looking younger.

Change 7: Understand how to sleep well

Finally learning how to sleep well is going to make a massive difference to your wellbeing. It is not just the quantity of sleep that matters, but also the quality. Taking sleeping tablets is no way to make sure that you get the quality sleep that you need. It is likely that you still wake up feeling groggy.

Search for the term, ‘circadian rhythm’ and understand the routines that will help you to fall asleep naturally. A good routine of natural sleep will ensure that you maintain your mental and physical wellbeing. These changes that I have suggested are not going to give you immediate results, nor will they work without effort.

However, these changes will support your efforts to feel more balanced, especially if you consider each of these seven changes holistically. Together, reducing stress, improving your sleep, working on your relationship, eating well, and exercising effectively are the basic ingredients for a happy life.

Any process that can help improve and enhance your wellbeing is well-worth understanding and adopting!

About the Author

Sheila C. is the brand executive at PureScienceSupplements, a biotechnology research company specializing in the research and application of herbs found within the lush tropical rainforests and highlands in the Asia Pacific.  To learn more about their products, feel free to email her.