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Many of us grow up receiving all sorts of relationship advice.

Especially when we are getting married, well meaning aunties, uncles and married peers are ever ready to dish out their view of what we must to make our marriage work.

But how many of us go beyond this advice to explore what it takes to make a relationship work, especially in the 21st century?

Leo Buscaglia in his great book, Love writes: "If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she'd certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love."
Well, lucky for us, the science of relationships has grown up in the last couple of decades and we now have solid research to tell us exactly what makes or breaks a relationship. We can actually study...

Its that time of the year again. The time of the year when Hallmark and Facebook start talking about romantic love and force us to confront the reality of the state of our own unions.

So let's talk about love.

How do you think about love? Is love a noun or a verb for you?

The idea that we have in our heads about what love is, and what it takes to have a loving relationship greatly impacts our experience of it.

So, how do you think about love? Is love a noun? Something that happens to you, do you think people fall in and out of love?

Or is love a verb for you, it is love something that you practice, by acting in loving ways?

Through out the month of February, we will explore the idea of love in relationships and talk about simple but powerful ways to improve the relationships in our lives.

Although the focus in on romantic relationships, the principles of relationships are remarkably similar whether they be with our spouses, our children, our family of origin or our friends.

Some days no matter how hard we try we just cannot seem to get it together, live our purpose, be our best selves, be productive, get over a bad mood . . .

One option on days such as these is to simply accept it as an off day. Have some compassion for ourselves and recognize that this too shall pass.

Tomorrow is another day and another chance to get back on track. Inshallah.

I am often surprised that such phases end quicker than when I try to resist them and make myself wrong for having an off day.

So go on. Next time you are having a bad day, be kind to yourself and take it easy.

Just try and stay out of other people's way ;)

For the last couple of weeks, we have been talking about setting goals effectively so that you have the best chance of achieving these goals. (Here are the archives in case you missed one or more of the emails)

There is only thing left to do now.

Take action.

Start taking action towards your goals on a daily basis. You do NOT need to figure out all the steps necessary to achieve your goals before you start taking action.

You do NOT need to see the whole staircase in order to take the first step.

At this point, all you need to do is take the first step, the next action. That is all.

Quite simple really.

Magic starts happening when you get in motion.

The journey of a thousand miles, as they say, begins with the first step.

Here is your daily dose of Wisdom for Living Your Best Self!

For the last couple of weeks, we have been talking about setting goals effectively so that you have the best chance of achieving these goals. (Here are the archives in case you missed one or more of the emails)

There is only thing left to do now.

Take action.

Start taking action towards your goals on a daily basis. You do NOT need to figure out all the steps necessary to achieve your goals before you start taking action.

You do NOT need to see the whole staircase in order to take the first step.

At this point, all you need to do is take the first step, the next action. That is all.

Quite simple really.

Magic starts happening when you get in motion.

The journey of a thousand miles, as they say, begins with the first step.

Happy walking.

Now that you have visualized what success looks like in your chosen area, I have to warn you about a potential pitfall.

When we use visualization effectively, it releases all sorts of feel good chemicals in our brain and makes us quite happy.

Why is this a problem?

Because the brain has such great feelings thinking about our goals that it thinks that it has ALREADY achieved success! This is why day dreaming is so very lovely (and problematic!!)

When we have all these great feelings we end up doing LESS to achieve these goals!!

This can be hard to understand but think of it this way: we set goals and strive to accomplish them to feel we are living on purpose and to feel good about ourselves.

One of the pitfalls of visualization is that it creates these good feelings without actually working or achieving these goals.

What I am saying is that visualization is great but it is NOT enough on its own.

So, what should we do?

1) Visualize success and get clear on the goal BUT then take step...

Let's talk some more about discomfort. Aiming high and achieving our goals requires us to do some hard work. But it also requires us to become VERY used to living with uncomfortable feelings.

Let me explain.

• Fear 
• Uncertainty
• Doubt 
• Shame

These are some feelings that we encounter when we want to achieve something meaningful in our lives.

When we first begin on the journey to actualizing our potential, we think that if we are feelings these things, something's wrong. We may think that either we are on the wrong path or that we are ill equipped to take this journey.

What if I told you that EVERYONE (well, mostly everyone that various studies have followed!) feels fear, uncertainty and doubt when embarking on something ambitious and/or meaningful to them?

I remember that when I was writing my book last year, I became very familiar with what I began to call 'the demons' of fear, uncertainty, doubt and shame. These demons would make me want to give up on a daily basis.

I learnt...

Goals outside our comfort zone challenge us and encourage us to give it our very best. They create the right amount of stress to help us perform our best.

There is, however, a fine line between discomfort and delusion.

Delusion means that the goals are so unrealistic that they are highly unlikely to be realized. Delusional goals are not only outside our comfort level, they are wayyy outside our current skill set and available resources.

Goals in the delusional zone set us up for failure, leaving us feeling defeated, frustrated and discouraged.

Let us take health goals. Committing to a non-negotiable regimen of daily movement maybe outside our comfort zone if we do not have a regular program of movement and lead a sedentary lifestyle. Setting and achieving a goal of regular movement will require us to make commitments and develop habits which will very likely be uncomfortable in the short run.

Setting a goal of running 10K outside every morning in the winter at 6am in Eastern...

Let us talk about career and personal goals for a minute.

You may be tempted to play it safe when you are setting goals. You may want to set targets that you can easily reach to avoid feeling the emotions that come with failed attempts at reaching your goals.

While easy goals may cause some satisfaction and feeling of achievement in the short run, (it feels sooooo good to tick off something off that list, doesn't it?) they do not lead to major progress or growth in the long run.

Your goals need to be outside your comfort zone to cause you to stretch and grow.

In other words, aim high. Get over playing it safe. No one who achieved anything significant in life did it while playing it safe.

Let the adventure begin.

There are some changes that we desire to make in our lives are habit related, for example, to exercise "more", eat "healthy", go "less" on social media. These are mostly the kind of resolutions that we make.

We will refer to them as 'process goals' because these are permanent changes that we wish to implement in our lives. Things that we want to give up or new habits that we wish to adopt fall under this category.

Regular exercise is a great example of a process goal. This is something that ideally we would like to become part of our lifestyle.

There are other goals which are outcome related, such as "lose 20 lbs", "read 10 books", "make 1,000 sales" etc. Goals like these are accomplished when the target is reached.

Of course process and outcome goals can work really well together in many areas of our lives. In health for example, a process goal would be to exercise 6 times per week and an outcome goal might be to achieve a blood pressure reading of 120/80 or better. The outcome...