Playing up Strengths and Avoiding Weaknesses

And when it comes to shoes, the formula is simple: the shorter the skirt, the lower the heel. If the sweater is a little shorter than the blouse, better yet. It's a more modern, very Y&H look. A snug pair of knee-high boots works like magic to slim calves and give legs a great long look. Even with long, thin legs, flats can look dowdy. A super-slim pencil skirt will look trashy with a skintight bustier or tube top, but classy with a tailored shirt or feminine blouse. It's a recipe for disaster -- and call girls. Caesar also knew there was no turning back after crossing the Rubicon. They were declared outlaws and had to fight to the death. They say that it was after his decision that he uttered the famous phrase alea iacta est, meaning, the die is cast. The phrase crossing the Rubicon has become an idiom referring to any person or group that commit to a risky or revolutionary course of action. It is similar to the phrase passing the point of no return. The decision Caesar made implied that he could not turn back on it. It was final and he had to follow through on it even in the face of death. This motivated and helped him to win the battle and become emperor in Rome. In Latin, the lingua franca in Caesar's time, the word decision is made up of the two words, namely de caedere. De meaning off while caedere means to cut. When mice are given a wooden peg to chew on after a frustrating, stressful event, this lowers stress levels. When the mice are given another mouse's leg to chew on instead of a wood post, this also reduces stress. Taking your frustrations out on others is not the goal here, although this happens far too much in society.

The goal is to vent your frustration in non-harming ways with a sympathetic ear. Not having such a spouse or friend increases anxiety. However, it's not just any kind of spouse or friend that helps. Those in a bad marriage show no such protection and die at the same rates as singles or isolated people. Toxic relationships of all kinds--angry, bullying, stress-producing, hostile, predatory, mocking--produce anxiety. To confer emotional resilience and an immune system boost, relationships need to be genuinely positive and supportive. Obviously, the role of early family experience is huge. Good News: Knowing your limits increases your flexibility as well as your ability to help. Catherine's husband often drank too much. Before she started with her CMC therapist, she wasn't sure why her reactions swung so much. Sometimes she raged and argued with him and took it as a sign they should divorce, sometimes she felt they would get through it. As she paid more attention to the limits of her temper and optimism, she discovered two major variables: 1) when she was already more stressed out than usual, typically from a combination of not exercising or sleeping well, and 2) when his drinking (and the related hurtful things he sometimes said to her) happened in front of their friends. Seeing these, she prioritized her efforts to protect herself from avoidable stress by focusing on her self-care. She also minimized her time with him when she anticipated that he would be drinking around their friends, by coming and leaving early from the gathering or planning ahead with one of the friends to spend time together in another part of the house. What's hard about this . It might occur to you that if he stopped behaving this way, your limits wouldn't get crossed. We're not excusing bad behavior or implying that your reactions are the problem; You both feel willing to carry it out and also to tell the other person if he or she goofs. Marvin nodded. But I'm wondering about something.

As you were developing these self-directed teams, what was the function of the managers? That leads into the second thing that helped pull us through a period of high dissatisfaction and discouragementtraining! Managers knew they should be behaving differently and so did their team members, but nobody had a clue what to do until Sandy required us all to go to training. Required you to go to training? Yes, said Luis. Sandy sees training not as an option but as a value. She made training a requirement for everybody. No, you don't. You have a problem when you think of the past, or when you think of the future. You might have a problem in one minute when you start thinking and worrying again, but right now at this moment, you don't have any problems. Do you constantly live with guilt for your past actions and with fear of an unknown future? Many people are constantly worrying about things in the past that they can't change, or things in the future that - even funnier - mostly never happen. Meanwhile, they are missing out on the NOW, and all you ever have is now. Be present and enjoy the journey. If most of your present moments are good, your future will automatically be brilliant. No matter what happened in your past, you are not your past. No matter what people - or yourself - might be telling you. Think of her as astrology's version of perfume. Her scent is unique to your own personal horoscope, and it's specifically designed to attract those astrological charts that align with yours. And that's the fundamental difference between the Sun and Venus in your astrological chart.

The Sun's main concern is you. It insists that you be true to yourself, realize your potential, and grow into the person you were always meant to be. Venus's focus is on everyone else. Her mission is to find those people you click with. People who love the same music, hate the same politicians, know what you're thinking before you say it, and have your best interests at heart. Venus knows that in order to flourish you need to surround yourself with the right people, because nobody makes it on their own in this world. Every successful life is a cooperative effort. Out looks fresher. Any that fall below your knees should get hiked up. Joseph takes dowdy A-lines and tailors them into Y&H straight skirts. This simple alteration tapers the ends to create a classic line that will never go out of style. If you have a skirt that rests too low on your hips, have a tailor cinch it in at the waist so that it sits just under your belly button and doesn't feel as if it's slipping off. A long suit jacket that falls at mid-thigh is so OL -- and so nineties. Joseph often crops jackets that don't have pockets in the way. A tighter fit makes for a tinier waist, so a couple of darts in the back may salvage a jacket you love. You know that those old linebacker-style shoulder pads have to go. A tailor can swap them out for smaller, softer, more natural-looking versions. The original meaning of making a decision was to cut yourself off from the possibility of going back on your word or what you decided to leave behind. Other phrases with the same meaning are to burn your bridges or to burn your boat. These phrases also have stories, but we'll leave it at that.

When you make a decision to do what is necessary in order to realize your dream, you can't turn back or have a plan B or C or D or a bridge which you can escape over or a boat to take you back to where you came from. Only once you make a very clear decision will you succeed in achieving your goal. When you make a life changing decision to achieve a goal, it is important that your motivation is strong enough to drive you till you reach it. The results of what your goal will create when you achieve it must fill you with such passion and life enhancing pleasure that nothing will keep you from pursuing it. Your goal must be something you want to own, become or do that will give you immense emotional satisfaction and pleasure. It must create a detailed picture in your mind which is so real that it conjures continuous and immense emotions of joy every time you think about it. Because making a decision is such a final action and puts you on a path of no return, make sure you have defined the necessary elements or steps that will drive you to success. In a study begun in the 1950s at Harvard University Medical School, the incoming class was sorted into two groups: Those who had a positive childhood and those who had a negative childhood characterized by some degree of psychological abandonment, neglect, lack of love and support. Forty years later researchers looked at their patterns of relationship and health. In pairing each participant with a warm, emotionally positive interviewer and tracking the brain waves of both, those with a positive childhood showed remarkable matching, coherent synchronization with the brain waves of their interviewer. Those with negative childhoods had weaker, slower-forming signs of synchronization, indicating unresponsiveness to close personal relations and reflecting the lifelong sense of isolation and emotional poverty with which they had begun. This group also had major health problems, with 89% suffering from the chronic diseases of age versus 25% in the other group. Isolation and loneliness create a fragile self that is not being shored up or strengthened by contact with others. Lack of this essential emotional nutrient leads to fragmentation and anxiety. Anxiety leads to avoiding contact with others and further isolation. The two reinforce each other in another vicious cycle of increasing isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. Bob felt right at home in the tech world. We've mentioned a variety of factors, including moods and past experiences, that can influence what any one person can handle without harm to his or her well-being. Some of these--moods, for example--fluctuate only partially under our control. Others, like childhood experiences, may have happened quite outside our control.