Why I Started Drinking Water.

Let me start off by saying switching from constantly drinking pop to drinking water may just be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  Anyone who is reading this and ever tried or is trying to switch to drinking water knows exactly what I'm talking about.  At first water tastes boring and bland having no flavor compared to sugary pop, with lots of caffeine.
     I remember as a kid and early teenager I would drink pop everyday.  This obviously didn't carry any benefits.  The first problem is that every time I would go to the dentist I would have at least one cavity,  Which then at the time the worst part was the shot for numbing my mouth and not being able to eat for a couple hours after the filling, but as I see it now the cavities were never worth the flavor the pop had.  Now I may even need a root canal and crown on top of one of my teeth because the filling is so deep.  Although I used to eat candy back then, the pop was EVERYDAY, and from what I remember I wouldn't even drink water that much, and I don't know what got me to start drinking water all the time but I'm thankful I started when I did.  Ever since I stated drinking water only, and occasionally coffee or juice I haven't had one cavity.  We may over rate our teeth but they are the first step in our digestive system to break down food.
The switch
I can't quite remember what made me want to start drinking more water.  I do remember the struggle I had the first day I went without pop.  The best way to describe it is being used to having all the flavor of something taken out of it.  The same thing goes hand in hand with food,  But for the sake of the blog lets stick to water.  The first day without pop is complete suffering, you feel empty without it, and just want more flavor which on the first day the water doesn't give you.  I can't quite remember how long it took to form the habit but doesn't seem like it took too long, but lets fast forward to today.  
     The last time I even drank pop was on accident, my dads cup was right next to mine, I pick it up and take a drink and I noticed it was pop, the second I noticed, I spit it out.  I couldn't even swallow a mouth full of pop now.  I remember the taste of it leaving a wretched flavor and after taste in my mouth.  Which is funny how before I could barely stand water and how the tables have turned to where I HATE drinking pop.  Even with so called sports drinks you aren't told about the sugar in it.  I used to even drink Vitamin Water, and Gatorade, stuff like that because I was told thats supposed to give you more energy, how could it not?  All the athletes drink it in commercials.  The chances are the majority of them touch nothing but water, and only do the commercials for money.
The benefits
    As I talked about my first benefit was better teeth health.  But how else has it helped me to only drink water on a daily basis?  Lets imagine for a minute you are feeding your plants with not water but pop.  How do you think this is going to turn out?  You guessed it the plant will have trouble getting nutrients from the water the pop does have, because the sugar will retard the absorption of nutrients and water from the plant, making it harder to grow.  If you wouldn't feed your own plant pop why would you feed it to yourself?
     Since I've made the switch I've noticed much more healthy and clear skin.  Acne used to be a huge problem for me, I used to use the face washes that were supposed to get rid of acne but that never even helped it in anyway.  When I started drinking I water I never used the face washes but they mostly all went away, so this was a cheaper and healthier, better for the body option to a cleaner face.
     Drinking as much sugar in one day as I used to, or even if it was just one glass of pop a day, is enough to slow down metabolism.  This in turn will decrease fat loss.  Drinking water, from my experience, body weight in ounces a day or more has kept me at a low body fat (although Im striving to get rid of the fat that is left) while gaining muscle.  I am able to have more energy for the things I find important, instead of the time wasters, along with better focus, although I still easily get side tracked.
Closing thoughts
Based on my life experience with drinking water I have been able to live a happier, healthier life, and I wish for all my lovely readers to implement this into their life.  It really is a huge life changer, beyond describable, to have the feeling you get from drinking water on a daily basis!  I would love to hear from you guys and how switching to drinking water has changed your life!  It may not always be an easy journey, but the harder the ride the better the story.

Go out, live life to the fullest,
Brian

The One Thing that Changed my Life Forever.

Although there are many things that have taken a big part in changing and bettering my life this one thing alone is simple and anyone can implement this into their life right now!  This thing I haven't really started using until recently.  Many times we make decisions without even thinking of what we are doing until after we do it.  So what did I start doing?  I started asking myself before I eat something or do something in general, "is it gonna be good or bad for me?"  Now I'm going to be honest and admit that I don't do this every time because I even forget to ask myself this a lot.  But as I build this habit up more, I see myself making less stupid decisions that would just be a waste of time.

       Every morning as I'm having my smoothie for breakfast I write down my list for the day, and most of the time even if I accomplish the list I won't watch Netflix or play games, I'll usually want to keep learning.  When I complete all my tasks I'll start youtube, a channel that will help me improve myself.  The one thing that helps me create and form this new habit I'm making for myself and for you guys is to look into the future before everything you do.  We a bombarded with decisions almost every minute of everyday, and by looking into the future with my decisions it helps me see which ones are good and bad.

        As I talked about above I usually focus on bettering myself for the way I spend my time.  If I catch myself scrolling through Instagram I like to stop myself the second I catch myself, although this may be 5 minutes into being on there, I cut it off as soon as I notice the bad habit.  As for looking into the future with each decision I make, I like to picture my dream house, dream cars, or a place that is a paradise to me like a beach or nature.  The second I look ahead to the things I want and that interest me, it makes it a lot easier to work on becoming my best self.  Try it for a minute, think of something you want that motivates you, close your eyes take a deep breathe and picture yourself there, and the experience your having.

        Many of us fall into the mindset of "this will feel good right now", its like eating a piece of cake  or ice cream everyday versus eating clean foods such as, avocados, healthy meats, veggies, and fruits things like that.  The processed sugar might feel good and taste better than the other foods right now,  but in the long run we will see this isn't true.  The picture to the left is something I eat very regularly, organic pinto beans, not only are they healthy but they taste amazing and are very cheap to purchase.
 Now if you do make a decision you see is bad after you make it don't beat yourself up, you can never take back what has already happened, but you can control what will happen.

Closing thoughts

I hope my strategy for decision making helps you to go out make the best decisions and live your best life each and everyday.  If this helps or works for you feel free to share to the comments below how it impacted your life, I would really love to hear your stories!

Go out, live life to the fullest,
Brian

What Needs to be Done to Live a Happier Life in 2016?

Let me start off by stating 2016 may have just been the toughest start to a year ever in my life.  I had it pretty easy up until about a month ago.  But something in my personal life happened and it hit me, I told myself "Brian, you need to work harder and smarter to live the good life, it isn't just handed to you."  And the truth is it isn't handed to any of us.  We all have to earn the life we want to live.  Over the last 5 or so days I started practicing drop shipping on eBay, for the first couple days I only posted one item a day as I was getting used to posting, yesterday I upped the ante and posted twice, today 3 times just to prove to myself I could do it.

I took a big step last year reading 37 books, this year I hope to read at least 40, but what have some of these books taught me since last year?  I've learned how to be happier even under stress in my life.  My favorite ways to cope with the stress or anxieties I do have are to let it out if I can but then to just relax and if its something I can't change then to not let it bug me as much, even though the stress is still there I try to focus my mind on developing myself and sharing my message to my lovely readers and those around me.  I know that no matter how much I complain it won't change the situation, so why not put some time toward myself?  One of my other favorites I've adopted is meditation, I talk about this a lot, but thats because its something that truly helps.  Sitting or laying down in one place for even just the 10 minutes I do right now can be hard for me especially if something is bothering me, but by taking deep breathes and listening to the voice or sounds on the video I become calm and present in the moment.

It really is easy now for me to be happy even if I am feeling down just for practicing abundance like I talked about in my last blog post.  We often take for granted everything we do have, like our arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouths ect.  Having this abundance and gratitude mindset is always something that has helped me, because I realize even if I'm having a bad day where everything goes wrong, theres always something I have that I may usually take for granted.
In 2015 I started making a list of daily things to accomplish and also a list of what I would eat everyday.  First off let me state how much the list of goals for the day helped me and how it can help you.  I would write down what I would need to do for the day and the time I would need to go to bed. Most days my goals would look something like (Go to work, Read 50 pages, Meditate for at least 10 minutes, Work on or post to blog, Go to gym and what area of the body I would work on that day and the exercises I would have to do, then go to bed at or before 11:30, as I wake up at 8:50 I am able to get over 8 hours of sleep.)  Making a daily goals list was a big motivator for me and would help me see my accomplishments.  If you would like to implement this in your life, which I highly recommend, I would start off with 3 goals for about a week until you gain momentum then add more goals throughout the weeks, if you are feeling ambitious start out with 5!  Some days I would write a reminder at the top of the page before I would even write down my daily goals, something like " make the best of today".  All I would need was something simple to read that motivated me before I tackled each goal some days. 
Final thoughts
To make 2016 the best year, even if you are going through challenges, which most of us are, take down at least one of these tips to start off the year.  I would recommend writing down the list of daily goals, because thats what really helped get me to the next level in my life and I know it'll help you as well.

Go out, live life to the fullest,
Brian

What I Learned About Having the Abundance Mindset.

I used to think many things were in scarcity that are really in abundance, lets start with working out and eating healthier.  My thoughts on this used to be that people who have muscles or eat good healthy foods are "genetically different" or had more will power than me.  This all changed when I learned about seeing things in abundance, I can't quite remember where I learned the abundance mindset from, but I remember hearing money is in abundance, and thought "how can I implement this into aspects of my life?" so I started noticing the cars I see daily (as I am a car nerd this was very easy and fun) and still do this exercise everyday.  I mainly payed attention to high end luxury cars (cars over $70,000)  Jaguars, Range Rovers, Mercedes S class's, Tesla's, Rolls Royce's, Bentley's even up to a Bugatti and many more.  The most common cars I noticed are Range Rovers, S class Mercedes, and brand new Escalades.  Seeing these as common cars triggered my abundance mindset, seeing these cars practically everywhere made me think of abundance in working out.  Although I am a hard gainer and still do have small muscles, myself I have noticed a difference in muscle growth.

It crazy how simple and easy it was for me to manifest something that I thought was only for people with good genetics.  If you are into muscle growth or losing fat just walk into a gym and see all the people where you want to be, chances are is there are many more people that are where you want to be right now than you knew about, you just have to take a closer look around you.  Being a hard gainer it takes me literally FOREVER to put on muscle, but practicing abundance really motivated me to push myself and work toward where I want to be and with everyday in the gym I get one step closer to the muscle size I want.  A bonus for hard gainers like me, you might have to train 5x as much as someone with better genetics than you, it might take someone else 3 years when it takes you 15 years of going consistently, but the change you see over time gives you even more motivation.  The will to see others have it easier than you, and you still don't give up is true dedication and strength.  

There are 2 things that are not in abundance, our time and energy.  I'm guilty of taking both of these for granted, whether its Instagram, Facebook, or youtube.  After all its fun, but what I like to tell myself when wasting time on here when I catch myself doing it is "is this going to better my life for a few minutes of enjoyment now?"  this can be applied to anything, eating, watching TV, video games ect. and is really effective.  How often do we take the time we are given for granted?  We often promise ourselves to do the important things in our lives tomorrow, when in all reality tomorrow is never promised.  The second any of us start to realize this truth, though it may be harsh, we learn to really live life and enjoy the time we have on this beautiful planet.  Time may be limited but that doesn't mean it limits our abilities to achieve what we want to achieve.

Final Thoughts.
Keeping the abundance mindset in my life has helped me tremendously.  If you implement what I have talked about today into your life I know it can help you at least as much as it has helped me.  Also you can use this as a form of being grateful by seeing how abundant things are around you.  Go out start noticing things that you may have never thought to be in abundance.

Go out, live life to the fullest,
Brian

What is it Like Dealing with Social Anxiety.

I never really brought this up in any of my blog posts at all, but I am one of the shyest people you could ever meet.  I've dealt with social anxiety pretty much all my life even having trouble saying "hello" to neighbors sometime without getting anxious.  If you are like me you know many people can mistake being shy for being rude.  Myself I even have trouble holding conversations with family members, which may seem very weird, it is even to me because I love and care for my family and it should be easy for me to talk to them.  This right now is what I would like to grow on and do more is practice holding better conversations with those around me.
Dealing with this just like anything that you fear is a challenge in life but that's what this blog is here for, for me to over come my fears and to help you guys by showing you the best way to better yourself from my experiences.  Since I believe making small consistant steps is necessary for big change over time I am starting to try talking a lot more with people I know, because like I said before, I'm even kinda shy around family sometimes, but family can be easy to talk to if you are like me and need to talk more and be more social, over christmas I went to 3 parties with my family and spent as much time with everyone I could and tried pushing my limits on talking and having fun.  Sure at first it was a little scary because of my social anxiety but I know it's family and they won't judge and just wanna have a good time just like I do so why not talk?  It brought me closer to them and also got to learn about more of what goals and dreams they are working towards.  It was a good experience for everyone.
Having a good social life can result in finding amazing friends who are always there for you, finding a business partner, or mentors.  You never really know who could be walking past you, it could be someone who will help you grow in life, so you can say "hi" or let them fade away as they walk past you.  I was walking in the park a couple weeks ago, and as I was walking to it an older man (probably around 70) walked by and said hi to me so I said hi back.  Then I enter the park and a gentleman is walking out with his dog and says hi and I talk to him for a minute and find out there was a buck (male deer) in the park that was injured across the pond, which then I got an idea, I told myself the next person I see in the park I'll say hi to, because I knew I needed to be more social and push my comfort zone.  So I'm walking for a minute or 2 and see a couple around 50 walking their dog, so I stop and say hi and pet the dog and they show me the male deer across the pond and about their day then walk through the trail more and take pictures.  Just the simple act of saying hi to the couple
I pushed my comfort zone and got to talk to very nice people, that if I didn't just say hi to I would've just walked right past them and never had that experience.
Could you do something today to break out of social anxiety or any other anxiety that you have that may be holding you back?  Feel free to comment below!  Always strive to do your best, its a new year, a new start.  Have a happy New Years!