Making mistakes means we are human—we all have our bad moments! But what about making the same mistakes over and over again? Why do we keep slipping up, even though we know what we are doing is wrong?

It is not unusual to feel nervous around strangers, or uneasiness in large groups of people. However, sometimes this nervousness can be downright panic-inducing and debilitating, causing you to avoid social situations, and miss out on opportunities and special moments. Social anxiety is painfully real, but there is a solution!

As I discuss in this week’s podcast, it is natural to want people to like us—no one wakes up wanting to be shunned or hated. But when does this natural longing turn us into people pleasers? When does our desire to be loved turn toxic, and make us do and say things that are not true to who we are, or who we want to be? 

Do you find yourself overthinking and overanalyzing every situation or something someone said? Perhaps you find yourself getting more and more angry and upset the more you think about it….You just keep replaying scenarios over and over again, whether you are thinking about something that just happened, about to happen or something that happened in the past.You think about all possible outcomes and scenarios, constantly ask yourself “what if…”, and ruminate on what should have happened, what could have happened or what will happen. 

We have all been there: we start a new diet, we are super excited to get our health back on track, and then, several days later, we find that one cheat meal has turned into a cheat week, and the diet has failed miserably.  Even if we do manage to stick with a diet for a while, and get those results that we have been looking for, it can be incredibly hard to keep the weight off, especially when life gets super busy. 

It seems like almost every day there is another wellness fad, whether it is a new diet that claims this is this “only” way to eat, a “natural” supplement that will help you lose 10 pounds in 5 days, or a new type of machine that will get rid of all your cellulite. Wellness fads may be extremely popular, but they can also be ineffective and extremely dangerous.

How many times have you heard someone say “I have an addictive personality”? What does this mean? Is it even scientific? Many people today believe that addiction is disease, something that you either inherit and are just unlucky enough to have hidden somewhere deep in the wiring of your brain. Yet addiction is not some biological illness that you have to live with for the rest of your life. It is not a label you have to carry with you till you leave this world. 

Life can be very challenging. We are constantly facing stressful situations at work, home, school, in the car...you name it. In many cases, our reactions to these situations can make things worse. If we let our thoughts and emotions get the best of us, we can negatively impact both our mental and physical wellbeing. As I discuss in my book Think, Learn, Succeed, uncontrolled thoughts and emotions run rampant through the brain, creating neurochemical chaos that can make us anxious, affecting our ability to think clearly and process information. This is one of the major roadblocks to success, and can allow other toxic thinking habits and mental health issues to take root.  

If we do not learn to manage stress correctly it can negatively impact both our mental and physical wellbeing. Prolonged periods of stress, for example, can affect our ability to digest food and sleep, while laying the foundation for mental issues such as anxiety and depression. It is therefore vital that we recognize when our body is in toxic stress so we can quickly move out of the "danger zone". 

As a society, we desperately need to re-examine how we understand and describe “mental health”. We have to reconsider the way we help people who are going through difficult times. We have to stop placing blame squarely on the shoulders of the individual who couldn’t escape the flames of their life, and start looking for sustainable, long-term solutions that help people deal with the vagaries of life. 

We all have those resolutions or goals that, whether we like to admit it or not, have fallen by the wayside. Goal-setting and achieving can be hard, especially when there are so many demands on our time. So why do we fail to achieve our goals?

Failure, as much as we hate to admit it, is part of life. But failure, like Winston Churchill said, does not have to be fatal. In fact, the way we perceive our failures can actually help us succeed in life!