You are going to change and grow throughout your life, but that does not mean that your values have to change as well. Welcome new places, new faces and new loves, but never change those core parts of you unless you have strong reasons to believe you were wrong to believe them in the first place.
Arguments are a “you versus me” battle and almost always have the goal of one participant winning and the other losing. Relationships, however, are not built on opposition. Meaningful relationships consist of two players who are on the same team and should work toward a common goal. Try to make the goal be achieving resolution, rather than winning.
A role model is someone you look up to, where you aim to model yourself on their good example. They can be someone real, like a celebrity, teacher or grandparent, or a character from fiction. Imagine how they would act positively in a given situation, and copy their response – get a very vivid idea of what they say and do.
Never allow a person to get into your head and manipulate you. Your mood should never be influenced by anyone’s actions.
Picture a future you want. It can be next weekend or in ten years. Have a clear picture of what it is that you want – write it down or draw pictures. Make sure you have really clear images of the future you want and how you might obtain it.
Wasting time can be addictive; the more you do it, the more excuses you find to keep doing it. Being able to resist short-term pleasure creates time for you to work towards long-term goals.
Practising something over and over improves your skill at it in both your body and your mind. It can be applied to anything – playing music, an important speech, sports technique, creative writing, cooking, Geography homework or anything for an exam.
If you push someone too far, they will react to the pushing, not about what you are arguing for. Persuasiveness is more effective than force; gentleness does more than violence.
Instead of spending your time complaining about something, spend the time doing something positive to change it.
If something bad happens or you have an argument early in the day, don’t write the whole day off as a ‘bad’ day and expect that whatever else can go wrong, will. Situations later are often unrelated; treat each situation individually and find the good in each one.